IGIHE

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  • Ingabire, Erlinder due in court soon

    Cases involving opposition politician Victoire Ingabire and American lawyer Peter Erlinder will soon be reviewed.

     Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga says that files of Genocide deniers like Erlinder and Ingabire and 29 suspects of grenade attacks in the country are to be handed in to the courts soon.

     Mr. Ngoga said that Ingabire will be summoned in court on May 16.

     Ingabire is accused of committing various crimes including genocide denial, collaborating with terror groups to distort national security and ethnic divisionism. 

     He said prosecution some countries, including the Netherlands and Switzerland responded to formal requests.

    Rwanda had filed several legal requests to a number of European countries and the US to furnish it with evidence where Ingabire’s conducted illegal activities, particularly financing rebel outfits to cause instability in the country.

    Other evidence had been gathered from Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) while more is expected from Belgium.

    Rwanda’s prosecutor- general Martin Ngoga said that prosecution is ready to re-launch charges against Erlinder.

    Files of the 29 suspects of grade attacks are also being transferred to the high court for the law to take its course.

    Ingabire is facing terrorism charges with the prosecution alleging that she was working with senior FDLR militiamen to form a military wing known as Coalition of Defence Forces (CDF) aimed at destabilising Rwanda.

    She is also accused of promoting ethnic divisions, propagating the genocide ideology and trivialising the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

    On the other hand, Peter Erlinder is accused of genocide denial, genocide ideology and of being a threat to national security.

  • Witness identifies Kobayaga as taking part in genocide attack

    A
    woman whose husband and three young children were slaughtered during the 1994
    Rwandan genocide cried Thursday as she identified from the witness stand the
    Kansas man she contends led a mob attack up a mountain where she and many
    others had sought refuge from the ethnic carnage that was sweeping Rwanda.

    Her
    account was the most emotional yet as the trial of Lazare Kobagaya entered its
    fifth day of testimony in a federal courtroom in Wichita in the U.S. The government is
    seeking to revoke his U.S. citizenship for allegedly lying to immigration
    authorities about his involvement in the genocide.

    The
    84-year-old Topeka man is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in
    2006 with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card in a case prosecutors
    have said is the first in the United States requiring proof of genocide.
    Kobagaya contends he is innocent.

    Valerie
    Niyitegeka, a Tutsi woman whose family farmed near Kobagaya’s village,
    recounted for jurors the events of April 15, 1994, when she, her husband,
    Appolloni, and their six children fled as mobs of Hutu men burned Tutsi houses.

    “I
    was OK for my house to be burned — as long as I am not dead,” she
    testified through a translator.

    Niyitegeka
    detailed how she climbed — and at times crawled — up the steep, rocky mountainside
    of Mount Nyakizu with her youngest son strapped to her back. She described how
    the women and children gathered piles of stones for their men to throw as mobs
    of Hutus attacked.

    She
    told jurors she was able to identify the elderly Kobagaya as the leader of the
    attacking mob because she recognized the way he walked and the cane he carried
    that day. She pointed at him in the courtroom : “He is there. He is the
    one.”

    The
    defense tried to cast doubt on that identification by noting trees and other
    obstructions on the mountain that day.

    During
    the melee as the family fled the mountain in the ensuing days, Niyitegeka was
    separated from her husband and three of her children. She testified she would
    never see them alive again. Their slain children’s ages were 12, 10 and 8.

    Joseph
    Yandagiye, a 76-year-old Hutu farmer, testified about what happened to the
    children and their father, who sought refuge at Yandagiye’s house. After taking
    them in, Yandagiye went to run some errands. When he returned, he said he found
    a crowd of Hutus had already surrounded his house.

    Yandagiye
    testified that when the crowd threatened him in an attempt to get into the
    house, Appolloni came out and told the mob : “Take me instead.”

    Yandagiye
    also told jurors he initially followed the mob that had taken Appolloni and his
    children, but turned back after they told him they would make him kill them
    himself if he continued to follow.

    Later
    that day, a group of Hutu men came to get him too, Yandagiye testified. It was
    then that he learned that Appolloni and his children had been killed.

    Yandagiye
    testified that Kobagaya told the mob that they should kill him too because he
    had sheltered Tutsis in his house during a 1959 conflict. Yandagiye said
    another community leader, Francois Bazaramba, urged the crowd not to kill him
    but to punish Yandagiye by making him buy beer, which he did.

    Bazaramba
    is a former Rwandan pastor who was sentenced last year to life imprisonment by
    a Finnish court for committing genocide.

  • Private healthcare firms meet in Kigali

    Private regional healthcare providers will meet with policy makers in Kigali during the third edition of the East Africa healthcare conference next month.

    Spokesman Kizito Mokua said delegates will discuss private health matters including access to capital, regulatory frameworks and tax incentives. “Healthcare leadership and professionals will use this conference to engage with experts and create regional private sector driven partnerships that are expected to translate to high quality affordable healthcare for East Africa,” he said.

    Medics are also expected to discuss how they can acquire expensive medical devices jointly, which continues to be a major headache for healthcare providers.

    Mokua said private sector players will engage with experts and develop a regional strategy to overcome challenges affecting the growth of private healthcare in Africa.

    This is the third round of the conferences after the first two successfully took place in Uganda and Tanzania last year. Mokua revealed that investors from the US and Europe will use the session to identify private health opportunities in East Africa. “’We have delegations from America and Europe who will use the conference as a source of market intelligence” he said .

    The conference, slated for June 11, will also serve as a basis for the private sector in the five member states to establish mutually beneficial business relationships anchored on patients’ interest. “Delegates have expressed interest in developing efficient referral systems which can be used to exploit competencies and skills available in the region instead of having to travel outside the region for medical attention,” said Mokua. This is the third round of the conference delegates are drawn from from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania.

  • Number of AIDS patients on ARV treatment rises

    Additional 4,187 AIDs patients in Rwanda have registered for Anti-Retroviral treatment since 2009.

     This has increased the number of patients on ARVs by 5.8% to 76,726, this year, from 72,539 in 2009, according a recent report released by the National AIDS Commission (CNLS).

     CNLS officials attribute the increase to the nationwide sensitisation programs aimed at creating more awareness on HIV/AIDS.

    Rwandans living with HIV are estimated at 3 percent or 300,000 in a population of 10 million plus, the report says.

     Currently, the number of sites that offer ARVs is estimated at 517 countrywide.

     The report further shows that out of 1,393,081 people who took HIV test, 34,239 were positive.

     The report says that women aged between 30-44 years are increasingly taking the lead in accessing treatment.

     The report says that the ABC strategy, which means Abstinence, Faithfulness and Condom, is bearing fruits in educating Rwandans about the HIV spread.

  • No need for mistrust in legalising marijuana for medical purposes

    June last year laid the groundwork for The drafting of a law seeking to establish the rules and regulations in the use of narcotics in our healthcare system. This provoked a lot of controversy due to the implications behind using marijuana for medical purposes, a substance that is illegal in many countries around the world.

    The use of the drug in the medical sense proposed the possibility of it having inadvertent consequences in its regulation and control, perhaps promoting the use of recreational marijuana.

    This move undoubtedly raised a couple of eyebrows with claims of Rwanda being the only nation in Africa to do so. However, the draft law is nothing out of the ordinary. This would be because of the very well known and widespread use of narcotics in the medical world. Morphin and Opium, which are both illegal substances are drugs whose properties are used occasionally to relieve pain or anesthetise.

    Such drugs have resultantly made a substantial contribution to the pharmaceutical industry. Despite its negative reputation, marijuana has been proven to have medical properties that are used in the treatment of many diseases and conditions such as cancer or AIDS.

    “Marijuana is classified as a psyhoctropic drug and the healthcare system in Rwanda, which is under the convention with the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in Vienna, simply drafted a law in the parliament that would help in the regulation and control in the use of this drug,” says Alex Ruzindana, the officer in charge of Pharmaceutical Information Pharmacy Task Force within the Ministry of Health.

    “It has completely nothing to do with the legalisation of marijuana. It is strictly for medicinal and research purposes. In fact, it is not even administered as a herbal drug , but rather its components are used and integrated into other substances making its administration come in other forms. ”

    According to Ruzindana, the law is in concord with the INCB, and its infringement would therefore go beyond the realm of the medicine thus leaving the issue to be dealt with by the authorities. He adds that medical Marijuana would only be prescribed by a specialised physician and its use would be significantly limited.

    “Other countries across the world have taken a further step by establishing pharmacies that specialise only in the sale of medical marijuana that come in various forms. But we have not implemented that at all. The use of this drug is only exclusive to the prescription given out by the doctor according to the patients needs,” says Ruzindana.

     He advises that due to the strictness in the prescription of the medicine, misconceptions should not arise when it comes to the consummation of this drug. Marijuana remains highly illegal outside the medical world and its distribution in limited dosages will continue to remain exclusive to the medical domain.

  • Rwanda seeks second credit rating- Rwangombwa

    Rwanda will seek a second credit rating this year as it prepares to sell its first global bond, Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said.

    The government is in talks with Standard & Poors on a sovereign rating expected in 2011 and “we expect to be really ready for the market in the next two to three years,” Rwangombwa said in an interview in Cape Town yesterday.

    “We have investment banks that are willing to go to the market right now,” Rwangombwa said in the interview, conducted while he was attending the World Economic Forum on Africa. “But we are putting our house in order to ensure that we are getting the right cost of our financing. There is appetite outside there.”

    Rwanda joins African countries such as Nigeria and Zambia that are turning to global capital markets to fund infrastructure projects. Rwanda has a sovereign credit rating of B by Fitch Ratings, lower than Zambia’s B+ and in the same category as Uganda, Mozambique and Seychelles.

    The World Bank has praised economic progress in Rwanda, where it takes just three days to register a company, compared with an average of 45 days in sub-Saharan Africa and 13.8 days in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, according to the lender.

    Renaissance Capital said in a report on April 12 that Rwanda is succeeding in reaching its goal of becoming a “Singapore of Africa” due to political stability, low corruption and a shift to a service economy.

    Investor demand in the recent sale of the state’s 25 percent stake in beverages manufacturer Bralirwa, a unit of Heineken NV, indicates appetite for Rwandan assets, Rwangombwa said. The government plans to hold an initial public offering for Bank of Kigali this year and “already the indications are that appetite is very high in the market,” he said.

    Rwangombwa has lowered his target for economic growth this year to 7 percent from 8 percent as rising food and energy costs push up inflation and boost import costs. The government may consider lowering fuel taxes to ease costs if its outlook for inflation worsens, he said. Inflation reached 4.1 percent in March from 2.3 percent in the previous month, the statistics office said on April 15.

    The finance minister presented a budget of Rwf 1.12 trillion francs ($1.86 billion) to parliament on May 2 for the fiscal year ending June 2012, with revenue expected to jump 14 percent to Rwf 538 million francs. The budget deficit is forecast to narrow to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product next year from 4.1 percent in the year through June. International donors fund about 41 percent of state spending, Rwangombwa said.

    Stronger tax revenue is mainly due to increased spending as the economy expands, the minister said.

    “People have more money and there’ll be more revenues,” Rwangombwa said. “Also there’s an increase in the efficiency of revenue collection.”

  • Witness: Kobayaga threatened him if he did not kill Tutsis

    A Rwandan farmer showed jurors the scar left on his leg by a U.S. resident he alleges threatened to kill him if he did not kill ethnic Tutsis during the African nation’s 1994 genocide.

    Emmanuel Nzabandora testified Wednesday in the trial of 84-year-old Lazare Kobagaya, of Topeka, on charges of lying to U.S. immigration officials about his involvement in the ethnic slaughter.

    Nzabandora testified two other men had beaten him because he refused to kill. He said Kobagaya then stabbed him with a knife concealed in a cane. He says he later clubbed a Tutsi man to death while Kobagaya and others watched.

    He also alleged Kobagaya had earlier offered a man beer to kill a Hutu who refused to his Tutsi relatives’ homes. He said that man immediately killed the Hutu.

    Meanwhile, Kobayaga’s lawyers want to bar testimony by a Rwandan woman about the killings of her husband and children.

    Defense lawyers contend the testimony of Valerie Niyitegeka is irrelevant because she wasn’t present when her husband and children were killed. The defense argues the only purpose of her testimony would be to present her heartbreak so the jury will decide the case on emotion.

    U.S. District Judge Monti Belot planned to listen to her testimony today outside the jury’s presence before deciding if the jury will hear it.

  • FDLR rebels face charges over mass rapes

    The official spearheading United Nations efforts to combat the
    scourge of sexual violence committed during war yesterday welcomed the start of a
    trial in Germany of two Rwandans accused of ordering massacres and mass rape in
    the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

    Ignace
    Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni each face 39 charges of war crimes and 26
    counts of crimes against humanity over their alleged actions in the eastern DRC
    in 2008-09.

    Prosecutors
    in the German city of Stuttgart say the two men served as leaders in the
    Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (known by its French acronym of
    FDLR), a notorious militia accused of numerous atrocities in the eastern DRC in
    recent years.

    Margot
    Wallström, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in
    Conflict, issued a statement in which she applauded German authorities for
    “having apprehended these alleged perpetrators and for bringing them to
    justice.”

    German
    law allows the prosecution of foreigners for crimes against humanity and war
    crimes committed elsewhere.

    Ms.
    Wallström said the trial is “a clear sign that there is no safe haven for
    suspected criminals and that impunity for conflict-related sexual violence is
    not an option.”

    She said
    her office would continue to monitor the trial and all incidents of
    conflict-related sexual violence closely.

    The envoy
    has spoken out repeatedly about the widespread sexual violence taking place in
    the DRC, particularly in the far east, where many militia groups still clash
    with Congolese armed forces and attack civilians.

  • Methane gas to boost economy and eliminate fear of explosion.

    Rwanda is targeting to reap US$ 25 billion in the next 50 years in the ongoing methane gas project in Lake Kivu if all the 60bn cubic metres of methane in the lake is extracted.

    Dr. Natacha Tofield Pasche, an expert in limnology said the extraction of methane is a double achievement for the government as it would reduce the methane threats and also provide energy for economic growth.

    Dr. Pasche who led a Franco-Swiss team of scientists studying the physicochemical characteristics of the lake observed that this would not only contribute to the development of the country but would also reduce the risk of cataclysmic explosion that would affect the people around the area.

    “The extraction will reduce methane gas threats and also contribute to the economy of the country,” Dr. Natasha Tofield Pasche, a Limnology Expert at Kivu Power Generation Pilot Project said during the press visit at the site recently.

    She illuminated that the main reasons for extracting methane gas in this lake are to ensure safety through removing methane and carbon dioxide, and protect the ecosystem by avoiding nutrient increase in the bio-zone as well as the economic gains of the country through generation of electricity among others.

    Pasche said that the accumulation of the methane gas in the lake has lasted over 800 years. “This proves that there is enough methane to be extracted because if not extracted, it would destroy the stability of the lake and also explode which will affect the surrounding areas,” he disclosed.

    At a moment ; Pasche, who also does the assessment of the methane project, said that the lake cannot explode since the gas pressure now stands at 55 percent of the saturation. She added that it would be dangerous if this was at the rate of 100 percent.

    The Engineer Operator at Kivu Pilot Plant Project 1, Hodari Muhire, said that the Kivu Power Generation Pilot Project, which is 100 percent owned by the government of Rwanda was estimated to produce 4.5megawatts per hour but since it is the first time the project has been undertaken in the whole world, there were miscalculations by experts. He noted that the project currently produces only 2megawatts per hour which contributes 2.6 percent to the national grid.

  • German parliamentarians extol Gacaca trials

    Visiting members of the German Parliament have warded off previous reservations about Gacaca Genocide trials and will return home prepared to share their experiences with their compatriots and across Europe.

    Christoph Straesser, the head of the delegation, acknowledged this on May 3 after discussions with the Minister of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama.

    “We came here to get some information about the ongoing work on the genocide trials especially the Gacaca courts in Rwanda. It is not a case of politics. It is the case of improving our justice system in Germany,” said Strasser,

    “We had a lot of debates about the work of the Gacacas and now we got an impressive speech from the minister and we are very impressed. I think it was a good delegation and we can [now] go home and discuss these things”.

    The legislators were drawn from three political parties ; the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

    They are members of the German Bundestag’s Committee for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid.

    Karugarama told reporters that, during their closed-door meeting, the group said that they learnt a lot.

    “There are so many things that they can go back home and explain to their people, especially, the strides this country has made in Genocide-related trials,” said Karugarama.

    “They had a lot of reservations on Gacaca. We went through the whole process, from 1994 – the intervention this country had to make, and why. And the challenges at the time, and now.”

    The minister said the Germans now appreciate the context and circumstances in which it was delivered, as well as the achievements.

    The delegation held talks with their Rwandan counterparts and government officials and visited the Gencoide memorial site in Gisozi before heading to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).