POLITICAL OPPOSITION PLATEFROM P5 MEMORANDUM ON THE SITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN RWANDA

Abstract

By this memorandum, the P5 PLATFORM, a coalition composed of 5 main political organizations of the Rwandan democratic opposition: Amahoro –  PC, FDU – Inkingi; PDP – Imanzi; PS –  Imberakuri and Rwanda National Congress (RNC), would like to share its concerns with the European Parliament in the face of an explosive human rights situation that is developing every day in Rwanda.

Rwanda is currently one of the 47 member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Rwanda has also put in place a lot of legal and institutional infrastructures to show the world that it is a country respectful of civil liberties and human rights. Thus, in international forums, Rwanda would be a model student to follow in respect of human rights. But in truth, the reality is quite different. Behind this scent of balm that constitutes the so-called respect for human rights, lies a false face characterized by hypocrisy, double talk and gross violations of the rights of citizens both inside and outside Rwanda. These violations are characterized more particularly by premeditated murders directed against the figures of the democratic opposition and the ordinary population, the complete closure of the political space, the spoliation of public property in favor of a small Elite in power; economic and social policies that are too segregated and legislation tailored to support and maintain the dictatorship that characterizes Rwandan governance.

The political violence that Rwanda knows, is not a fatality due to a congenital hatred between Hutu and Tutsi, but rather the result of the policy of political, economic and social exclusion of certain ethnic groups, that the political Elite has exploited to rise and keep itself to power. Rwanda has never experienced a social political situation as explosive as it is now. Faced with these planned and sustained violations by the Rwandan state, Rwanda presents a case study where conditions are ripe for a bloody popular revolt in the near future.

P5 launches an urgent appeal to all men, women, institutions and governments to support its efforts to prevent the possibility of a human catastrophe of the magnitude, and even magnitude more serious than the 1994 genocide. The PLATFORM hopes that the European Parliament will examine this memorandum with a view to contributing to the search for adequate solutions to prevent the humanitarian catastrophe that could result from inaction or silence.

The P5 Platform considers that the present analysis will allow the European Parliament to better understand the root causes that challenge the conscience of everyone to support and protect human rights in Rwanda against a tyrannical regime of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which exercises the power in Rwanda; and headed by President Paul Kagame. Read the full memorandum: click here