Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo has told Metro in an interview that Rwanda may pursue legal action against a United Nations-appointed Group of Experts that has accused the country of stoking a military rebellion in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mushikiwabo said yesterday that the expert panel has been “hijacked” by the political agenda of its coordinator, Steven Hege, who has a long history of opposition to Rwanda government.
Minister Mushikiwabo told Metro that Mr Hege used his extremist views to demolish Rwanda’s image.
“Of course, Mr. Hege is entitled to his views as a private citizen. But his extremist views are now well known in Africa because of the platform he has been given by the United Nations.
Referencing Hege’s call, in a 2010 issues paper, for ethnic minority groups to preference their economic and other interests in favor of the majority population, regardless of circumstance; according to perhaps the leading newspaper in East Africa, Hege’s writing that certain ethnic groups “must clear a higher bar of citizenship is central to racial ideology everywhere, whether in the form of anti-Semitism of the persecution of Japanese Americans in World War II.” Minister Mushikiwabo told Metro during an Interview.
Minister Mushikiwabo noted, “the time has now come for the international community to know about the treatment being meted out to powerless countries like Rwanda through unjust, outdated and punitive international mechanisms such as the U.N. Group of Experts when it falls into the hands of individuals with a personal political agenda”.
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