During the meeting that the Rwandan Minister for foreign affairs Dr Richard Sezibera, on Tuesday April 30, 2019, called on the Ambassadors and High Commissioners to help track down and handover to the repressive regime leaders of political organisations that form the Rwandan political opposition P5 allegedly for leading terrorist groups. He threatened that if their countries don’t do as requested, Rwanda will take the law in its own hands. The methods are known: assassination, i.e. Nairobi – South Africa – UK (3 assassinations attempts foiled by the Police), poisoning and kidnapping i.e. Uganda etc…, actions of a rogue state.
The Minister Sezibera did not have any qualm of conscience to tell journalists that they have extracted good information from the abducted people. Methods used to extract information are well documented by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Survivors of torture reported: “beatings, asphyxiations, electric shocks, mock executions”. They also reported other methods used which include also “having weights tied to their testicles, others being handcuffed with their hands behind their backs for days on end”. The Minister is pleading to the Ambassadors to ask their countries hand over the P5 political leaders, turned terrorists, to the repressive regime that excels in torture to get confessions.
The whole world knows and the Minister Sezibera knows very well that P5 has written 2 letters to President Kagame asking for dialogue with the opposition as the best way to avoid a temptation for some to want to use force to obtain change and best means to achieve durable peace and security for Rwanda. Going around and saying that P5 declared war on Rwanda is only possible if the highly learned Minister is reading a script from the top. We know that the Rwandan regime lost its last card when P5 called for dialogue. Arresting Sankara or arresting or killing leaders of P5 will not resolve the social economic and political problems of Rwanda that will push the country over the edge. It is a wrong prescription to a long diagnostic.
It is common knowledge that the term terrorist group is used by all dictatorial regimes on the verge of collapse and it was used by colonial powers against the African liberation wars for independence. The request of the Rwandan regime calls to mind the tantrums of a spoilt child trying to get the impossible hence the former darling of the West demands publicly help in its of critics across borders.
We call on the international community once again to rein on President Kagame to accept dialogue and to abandon violence as a mean to lead the country.
Ottawa, May 02, 2019
Etienne Masozera
P5 Chairperson
Email : [email protected]
Mobile : +18194312167
