By Chaste Gahunde
Rwandan governance, or, in other words, the Rwandan dictatorship, is becoming more and more extremely troublesome. Persecuting all those who speak out against injustices, or silencing them at all costs, are methods that are hard to imagine in democratically advanced countries. That these methods are implemented in the Dutch embassy, one can only be concerned.
It all starts with tweeting from human rights activist Denise Zaneza, briefing the embassy on cases of human rights violations. Usually, this is the best way to ask for the intervention of the diplomatic authorities, a simple reaction of which would suffice, if only to signal that “we are aware of”, or even, “we are following closely”…, words. which, as we have seen, often deter rights violators.
Except this time around, the activist’s Twitter account is blocked by embassy workers, just as Rwandan state agents are doing. Or, could we infer that the Dutch embassy in Rwanda is under the control of the Rwandan secret services?
The activist, stubborn in his passion, does not give up. She asks for explanations from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
“So, this is what embassy employees do now when you inform them about injustice in Rwanda !? This is very disappointing and shameful for a democratic country like the Kingdom of the Netherlands. YYour job is not to turn a blind eye on human rights violations. The Foreign affairs Ministry can’t support this behavior!,”: the activist said in his tweet, tagging the Netherlands Foreign Affairs Ministry.
The foreign Affairs ministry responds to the activist, and promises to investigate what really happened.
A day later, the ministry returned to this scandalous affair. ” thank you for bearing with us. This matter was discussed internally. We were unable to identify the time and reason of the Twitter-block of your account, but we’d like to inform you that your account should be unblocked as of this moment., “the ministry said.
From what we see, the employee who had blocked the account in question would have realized the seriousness of his act, and would have proceeded to unblock it before his superiors fell on him. Surely, something escapes him. With the technology up to date, such a thing ends up being unveiled. It is a matter of time.
With the apartheid policy in place in Kigali, employees of Rwandan origin in all embassies in Kigali are carefully selected without informing the senior diplomatic authorities. Some of these employees are at the same time agents of the Rwandan secret services.
