US Politician Concerned Over Rwanda Attacks - ABC News
NAIROBI, Kenya March 13, 2014 (AP)
By JASON STRAZIUSO Associated Press
 A powerful member of the U.S. Congress says he's concerned over
attacks against and killings of Rwandan dissidents, and he's urging
the State Department to re-evaluate its relations with the country
that next month will observe the 20th anniversary of its devastating
genocide.
Rep. Edward Royce, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry
this week and recounted how one Rwandan dissident was killed in South
Africa earlier this year and how another was attacked this month,
leading South Africa to expel Rwandan diplomats.
Royce said Rwandan President Paul Kagame has fallen just short of
taking credit for the attacks, and he noted that the U.N. rapporteur
for country rights on freedom of assembly and association recently
found that peaceful public disagreement with Rwanda's government is
seen as the "equivalent to criminality."
Attention on Rwanda will increase in coming weeks as the country marks
the 20th anniversary of the 1994 genocide next month. World leaders
acknowledge that Europe and the U.S. did not do enough to stop the
killing spree that took more than 500,000 lives, mostly Tutsis and
moderate Hutus. That has led to a long period of generous financial
aid and favorable diplomacy with Rwanda.
Critics of Kagame's leadership say his government snuffs out all
dissent both opposition politicians and critical journalists.
"Allowing president Kagame's violent rhetoric and the slaying of
dissidents abroad to go unchecked will only embolden the regime,"
Royce wrote in his letter, which was posted on the House website. He
added later: "I encourage you to closely reevaluate U.S. engagements
with Rwanda and take into account those troubling actions when
considering future assistance."
Kagame's remarks about "consequences" for anyone who betrays Rwanda
"are a deep concern" to the U.S., a State Department spokeswoman said
in January.
Royce's letter sends an "unequivocal message" that is a "long time
coming," said J. Peter Pham, the director of the Africa Center at the
Washington-based Atlantic Council.
"While no one ignores the extraordinary achievements of Rwanda in the
two decades since the genocide and, even granting the necessity for
some tough discipline in the period immediately after that horror to
pull the nation together and rebuild, it is impossible to overlook
what is happening both inside the country and outside," Pham said by
email Thursday.
Pham said it was significant that both a Republican leader in Congress
and the Democratic-led State Department are expressing concerns.
Though South Africa has not officially confirmed the action, many
reports indicate Pretoria, the capital, expelled three Rwandan
diplomats this month for their alleged role in an attempted hit on a
former Rwandan army chief of staff, Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa. The
former top aide to Rwanda's president, who is now a critic, survived
two other attempts in 2010.
Former Rwandan spymaster Col. Patrick Karegeya was assassinated in a
plush Johannesburg hotel in December.
Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's foreign minister, said on Twitter last
week that Rwanda expelled six South African diplomats in what she
called reciprocal action and concern at South Africa's "harboring
dissidents responsible for terrorist attacks in Rwanda," a reference
to grenade blasts in Kigali, Rwanda's capital.
"Rwandan fugitives continue to engage in terrorist acts back home.
Despite repeated promises from Pretoria, the problem is unresolved,"
Mushikiwabo wrote.
Royce, the U.S. House leader, said he is aware that Rwanda plays a
vital role in international peacekeeping operations, but those
contributions should not blind the U.S. to "the regime's attempts to
violently close the political space for opposition voices ... The
friends of Rwanda must ensure that we do not, once again, miss the
warning signs of political dysfunction and repression."
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SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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