News about arrest warrants issued for Kayumba Nyamwasa heading RNC rebel group and Paul Rusesabagina among others went viral in different media houses recently.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dan Munyuza unveiled that Rwanda police is collaborating with Interpol to arrest suspects involved in destabilizing Rwanda’s security.
In an exclusive interview with IGIHE yesterday, Rwanda’s Prosecutor General Jean Bosco Mutangana said they have already issued arrest warrants for seven suspects noting that investigations about more suspects are underway but didn’t mention names on the current list.
He said that arrest warrants for the seven were issued following thorough investigations.
“We are working with concerned organs from different countries (which I can’t reveal for investigation purposes) in which suspects might be hiding to be brought to court,” he said.
Commenting on Kayumba Nyamwasa who was convicted in 2011 he said: “Kayumba Nyamwasa was convicted by military courts but he committed other crimes related to the creation of rebel a group, connivance in murders and supporting terror acts.”
Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former General in the Rwandan Army, was in 2011 convicted and sentenced by court to 24 years of imprisonment in absentia.
He faced charges including war crimes, terrorism, genocide denial and crimes against humanity.
Mutangana explained that there are more suspects in conspiracy to threaten Rwanda’s security.
The report of UN experts released towards the end of last year revealed the establishment of a rebel group based in DRC specifically in Bijombo, Southern Kivu region chaired by Kayumba.
The report indicates that the group collaborates with the union of political parties against the government of Rwanda known as P5 including People’s Congress (AMAHORO-PC), Forces Démocratiques Unifées-Inkingi (FDU INKINGI), People’s Defence Pact-Imanzi (PDP-IMANZI), Socialist Party-Imberakuri (PS IMBERAKURI) and Rwanda National Congress (RNC) chaired by Kayumba.
Paul Rusesabagina who became popular in ‘Hotel Rwanda’ film is accused of working with RNC along with Nsabimana Callixte Sankara.
Sankara is the spokesperson of FLN rebel group working closely with Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD).
The incident took around 9:30 pm yesterday when two men in Rusagara cell engaged in a fight after involving in heated arguments.
According to witnesses from residents in the area; the duo fought until one identified as Jean Marie Vianney Bizimana died.
The executive secretary of Mbazi sector, Clemence Uwimabera said residents alerted security personnel leading to their arrest and detained.
“We held culprits and notified security. So far, four suspects have been arrested,” she said.
Uwimabera explained that one of the suspects had conflicts with the deceased while the three others are from the suspect’s family.
She said a meeting is planned today morning to warn residents against crimes.
Huye is among areas with the presence of illicit drinks and drugs leading into clashes.
The police in collaboration with local leaders in the area destroyed drugs worth over Rwf 1 million including illicit gins and narcotic drugs on alert of residents on Friday last week.
The minister revealed this yesterday in a press conference on the launch of the judicial week to run from 18th until 22nd March 2019.
Minister Busingye was responding to a question concerning the support granted to Rwandans expelled from Uganda leaving their properties.
He explained that Rwanda hopes to reach a solution that shall consider properties of expelled Rwandans in the process of restoring bilateral relations.
“We hope to find a solution for all those problems (including the one concerning properties) because people have right to properties they sweated for,” he said.
Busingye explained since properties are listed and registered to each owner with all details including where he/she lived, It will be easy to follow up and recover.
Rwanda accuses Uganda of supporting rebel groups intending to destabilize its security, torturing Rwandans and tampering their businesses. Rwanda advised Rwandans to suspend travels to Uganda until the situation gets back to normal.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Dr. Richard Sezibera recently told IGIHE that there is no established number of Rwandans killed in Uganda noting however that over 40 were arrested in the country while 986 have been expelled.
They planted avocado and mango fruit trees for households in Nyange Sector which beneficiaries said will help improve malnutrition among their children.
“Avocado and mango trees are not common in our area. We will add fruits on the food we serve children to have a balanced diet and improve nutrition,” Pelagie Bazubagira, 67, a resident of Nyange Sector, said.
The Executive Secretary of Nyange Sector, Gaudence Mukasano commended the Ministry of Youth that organized the activity and said this will help accelerate strategies to fight child malnutrition in the sector.
“Households in this sector have no fruits. The trees planted will contribute to enhancing the provision of a balanced diet and fight stunting among children which is due to malnutrition,” Mukasano said.
According to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) in 2015, child stunting rates stood at 48% in Ngororero District.
The In charge of Youth Development in the Ministry of Youth, Benoît Ngabonziza said since the youth make the largest part of the Rwandan population, they have been mobilized to get involved in planting fruit trees.
The trees planting exercise which was organized by the Ministry of the Youth in partnership with World Vision will be scaled to other districts to intensify the fight against malnutrition and stunting among children.
The DHS 2015 indicated that child stunting rated at 38% in Rwanda down from 51% in 2005 and 44% in 2010 while 9 percent were underweight in 2015.
Focus areas included food and beverage service, hotel front office operations, improving the customer experience, the role of information technology in the hospitality industry, and industry-specific communication skills. In addition to this, emphasis were placed on the growing importance of the role of women in hospitality and how their inclusion will enable Rwanda to meet its tourism development goals.
This training is made possible through international cooperation between the United Arab Emirates and Rwanda, via a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Rwanda Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on 8 March 2018 on International Women’s Day. The UAE Embassy in Kigali and Rwanda Development Board coordinated technical and logistical support for the programme.
The three-day training will be delivered by experts from the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management, an educational institution situated in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and internationally recognized for its Hospitality Management degree programmes and for its Educational Consultancy and Training and Development Services.
The UAE Ambassador to Rwanda, HE Hazza Mohammed Falah Kharsan Al Qahtani, indicated that “the United Arab Emirates is impressed by the Rwandan Government’s Policy of promoting gender equality and empowering women across all sectors”.
He reiterated that “the UAE will support this endeavor in the tourism and hospitality industry, which is a major potential growth area for both job-creation and income-generation for a number of countries across the world, especially Rwanda. Rwanda has demonstrated its world-class ability to promote women’s empowerment by achieving the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide. We believe that Rwanda will be able to apply this ability to empower women to the hospitality industry with similar levels of success. The UAE is honored to play a role in helping Rwanda further develop this capacity, through sharing our own experience in this area, which will ultimately help to increase both the quantity and the quality of tourism to Rwanda.
The Rwanda Development Board’s Chief Tourism Officer, Ms. Belise Kariza said, “Rwanda has made tremendous strides in the tourism industry over the years, but there are areas that require more improvement, such as increasing the quality of service delivery. This training will go the extra mile in improving Rwanda’s tourism and hospitality industry in terms of delivering exceptional services. Thanks to our partnership with the UAE, the training will bridge skill gaps in the industry, helping us to reach our national annual target of US$ 800 million by 2024.” She noted,
“The figures of women in the Rwandan business world are increasing. If Rwanda is to achieve its tourism development goals, then women will need to play a greater role. Historically, there have been negative perceptions of women working in the hospitality industry, the time is right for women to be empowered so that they can move into positions as industry leaders.” Kariza said
The Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management indicated that it is an honor and a privilege that the Academy is able to be invited to participate in the three-day training programme in Rwanda “Empowering 100 Women Future Leaders in Hospitality Excellence”.
The Emirates Academy of Hospitality is known for its knowledge and excellence within the field of Hospitality Management education. With the significant development of Tourism and Hospitality in Rwanda, it is important to develop the necessary hospitality skills that are required to deliver excellence within this sector. In addition, through further training initiatives to continuously develop, support and empower women in this sector, it will increase and promote women leaders entering this exciting hospitality industry.
The training can and should play a strategic role in increasing awareness of key roles available to women and future leaders. The trainers, Helen Morris, Executive Chef / Senior Lecturer and Marina Rizzi, Director of Industry Relations and International Office, have extensive experience in the field of global hospitality and look forward to sharing their knowledge and experience at this important training programme to inspire women, future leaders.
The Rwandan constitution states that women should be represented in a minimum of 30% of all government occupations. The current Rwandan parliament is composed of 60% of women representatives, positioning Rwanda as the country with the highest number of women parliamentarians worldwide.
“We inform all citizens especially families of victims of the 1994 Genocide Against Tutsi who might have lost lives in Rusororo and Masaka sectors that remains exhumed from these sectors will be accorded decent burial on 29th March 2019 from 9 am at Nyanza genocide memorial in Kicukiro,” reads the statement signed by Kigali City mayor Marie Chantal Rwakazina.
24 393 of the remains were from Masaka and the rest, 11,363 were found in Rusororo at the beginning of February.
The event took place in Musanze district yesterday and coincided with awarding girls that demonstrated the best performance during previous national examinations, girl rights clubs, cooperatives fighting against malnutrition, stunted growth among children and unexpected pregnancies among teens.
It was organized in collaboration with Imbuto Foundation.
The 3-year long campaign will feature messages transmitted through artistic expressions depicting the potential of girls, social media platforms, media, opinion leaders, youth organizations and different clubs at schools.
Throughout the campaign girls will be capacitated in five pillars including building capacity and confidence in decision making, rights to work, live and respect.
It was launched on 10th November 2018 at International level.
Awardees have told IGIHE that the recognition encouraged them to do more ensuring girls rights to all.
“We communicate girls’ rights through songs and dances. We have received clothes among other items empowering us to work better. We worked with Plan International and brought some girls back to school and integrated others into families,” said Naomi Mukantaganda representing one of the girls’ rights clubs.
Delphine Mukaneza representing the group of women involved in fighting malnutrition and unexpected pregnancies said “We have so far received training from Plan International to fight against malnutrition, stunted growth, and unexpected pregnancies. We did it and bore fruits. The Rwf 500,000 award we have received will help us to buy sewing machines, increase savings and advance livelihoods.”
Country Director of Plan International Rwanda, William Mutero said they target to expose girls to unrestrained rights.
“Our objective is to strive for unrestrained girl’s equality increasing presence in all decision making positions and execute similar tasks to boys,” he said.
“We train them on job creation and want girls to inch out of bad history connected to them through exposing their excellent performance. We are confident to attain it in cooperation with the government of Rwanda,” added Mutero.
The Minister of Trade and Industry, Soraya Hakuziyaremye requested participants of the event to resist whatever comes up to tamper girl’s progress.
“It is good that we strive for girl ’s equal rights for all but there are still obstacles hindering their rights that I want to collaboratively eradicate. These include seeking the solution to teen’s pregnancy, fighting against stunted growth among children, increased hygiene in families, solving domestic conflicts and improving girl’s performance at school. Girl’s rights will be possible if these issues are fixed,” she said.
A total of Rwf 500 million will be spent on implementing the campaign.
Plan International operates within 77 countries worldwide including Rwanda. It has so far awarded 1.2 million girls with outstanding performance in national examinations.
It also supports over 1000 cooperatives involved in fighting against malnutrition and stunted growth and girls rights’ clubs in different schools. It has activities in 12 districts in Rwanda.
Talking to RBA, Ndayisaba explained that concerned institutions have raised an alarm against genocide ideology crimes and requested people with such negative behaviors to abandon them as Rwanda prepares for the 25th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.
“We observed that people are more implicated in such crimes during the commemoration period. We call upon people to be cautious and disengage from any connections to divisionism, genocide ideology and be aware that they will be punished,” he said.
Genocide ideology crimes are manifested in forms of undermining genocide and denial, abusive acts and words, destroying properties of genocide survivors and inflaming discrimination among others.
The NURC report on respecting unity and reconciliation principles during commemoration activities indicates that genocide ideology cases reduced by 27% over the past two years from 193 in 2017 to 141 cases in 2018.
225 suspects were implicated in 2017 genocide ideology cases of whom 65 have been convicted while 17 have been proved innocent.
A total of 45 files were closed temporarily, 18 files were transferred to courts while 13 files were definitively closed.
Ibuka president, Dr. Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu has said that the problem of people declining to provide information lingers despite efforts of the judiciary side.
Emmanuel Ndayambaje is one of deportees from Nyagatare district after detention in Uganda.
He went to Uganda in June last year where he has been working as a cow keeper of Uganda’s parliamentarian called Wilberforce Yaguma in Mbarara.
On 10th January 2019 people in Uganda’s army uniform picked him from the farm and took him at the prison of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) in Makindye and were moved to Mbuya in Kampala later.
Ndayambaje has told IGIHE that he was tortured accused of being on espionage mission for Rwanda.
“I was seriously beaten, on feet and knees accusing me of being Rwanda’s spy. They told me a Rwandan is cunning even when he might be quiet to the extent that an ant from Rwanda is also intelligent,” he narrated.
Ndayambaje who rejected accusations was released and advised to remain in Uganda that he would be killed upon return to Rwanda on allegations of treason. He however refused to stay.
Patrick Shingiro from Nyamagabe district was also detained in Uganda in Wakiso in February this year.
He was a taxi motorcycle rider in Rwanda but left for businesses in Uganda. He was arrested at a place where he was renting and taken to CMI barracks before he was transferred to Kireka.
Mukankusi has engaged in Diplomatic works since 2004 when she was deputy to Kayumba Nyamwasa who was Rwanda’s Ambassador to India. She had been issued a diplomatic passport by Rwanda which she couldn’t get renewed when it expired as she had already joined the Rwanda National Alliance, a terrorist group she co-founded with Kayumba Nyamwasa.
News of Uganda issuing the passport to Mukankusi went out after her visit in Kampala where she met with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni whom she presented RNC’s plans to overthrow the Rwandan Government.
Mukankusi’s previous passport indicates that she is a Rwandan who was born on August 10, 1970, in Mbarara, Uganda. She had been issued the diplomatic passport no. PD000223, Service Passport PS009269, and ordinary Passport No. PC061537 and National ID No. 1197070004061075.
Effective from February 11, this year, Mukankusi had been offered the Ugandan official travel documents with the help of Uganda’s President Museveni whom they met during her recent visit to Kampala.
That Mukankusi had no valid passport after the one she was issued by Rwanda was expired impeded her from carrying out her RNC’s diplomatic affairs effectively.
During her visit to Kampala, Charlotte Mukankusi met Museveni twice with whom they held bilateral talks aimed at emphasizing relations between the two sides.
Mukankusi asked Museveni for help in denouncing the report released by UN experts on December 31, last year that revealed the partnership between the Ugandan Government and RNC.
The report highlighted the help RNC gets from Uganda in members recruitment and new recruits who cross from Uganda to Minembwe, DRC where they hold training.
Museveni told Mukankusi he would ‘offer all the possible help’ and told her ‘we are together’. It is said while talking to Museveni, Mukankusi looked self-confident while presenting RNC’s plans which made Museveni happy and promised to keep supporting the group.
It is reported that Museveni showed her the support and asked her to keep looking for new members and said it is necessary to look for ways to divide the Rwandan army.
Museveni’s will to divide the Rwandan army dates back in times when Maj. Alphonse, Patrick Karegeya and Kayumba Nyamwasa fled Rwanda.
Uganda’s supporting groups and people hostile to the Rwandan Government is one of the three problems keeping the countries’ relations stumbling. Uganda has not yet reacted on complaints Rwanda has raised seeking explanations over the issue.
