Rwanda.Unease in Kigali as opposition parties unite

Former members of FDLR at the Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Centre in Nyabihu District, Northern Province after a training in civic education. Photo/Cyril Ndegeya  Nation Media Group

By EDMUND KAGIRE The East African

Posted  Saturday, January 18   2014 at  16:45

IN SUMMARY

• The Kigali government has dismissed the coalition, saying it will not recognise anybody associated with a terrorist organisation. 
• FDLR, which the US blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in 2005, has vowed to use any other means at its disposal including violence to achieve its political ambitions.
• The government has responded by issuing a warning that whoever is working with FDLR is likely to face major consequences.
• United Nations independent investigator Maina Kiai, a Kenyan human rights activist, is scheduled to visit Rwanda this week to carry out an assessment of the government’s respect for the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

In their latest attempt to seek official recognition, two Rwandan opposition parties — RDR-Rwanda Rwiza founded by exiled former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, and a faction of Parti Sociale (PS) Imberakuri loyal to jailed opposition member Bernard Ntaganda — have formed a coalition with Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the remnant Rwandan Hutu rebel group accused of committing the 1994 genocide. 

The Kigali government has dismissed the coalition, saying it will not recognise anybody associated with a terrorist organisation. However, FDLR, which the US blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in 2005, has vowed to use any other means at its disposal including violence to achieve its political ambitions.

The militia has recently come under fire from the United Nations Intervention Brigade which is mandated with the task of rooting out all armed groups in Eastern DRC.

READ: FDLR remains a hard nut to crack for UN’s Congo force

“The FDLR have decided to disarm. But, if the international community continues to ignore this suffering, it will have no choice but to use all means at its disposal,” the new coalition warned in a lengthy joint statement issued early this week.

In the statement, the First Vice President of the PS Imberakuri, Alexis Bakunzibake and FDLR President Maj Gen Victor Byiringiro agreed to “work together” to engage the Rwandan government to reach a political consensus under a new coalition dubbed the Common Front for the Liberation of Rwanda and the Rwandese-FCLR Ubumwe.

The group said that FDLR was ready to disarm if the international community puts “pressure on the government in Kigali so that it accepts without condition to open the political space and guarantee the freedoms of association and expression in Rwanda.”

United Nations independent investigator Maina Kiai, a Kenyan human rights activist, is scheduled to visit Rwanda this week to carry out an assessment of the government’s respect for the right to freedom of peaceful assembly.

Mr Kiai plans to meet with Rwandan government officials, civil society leaders and representatives of the national human rights commission during the eight-day visit starting January 20, the UN announced last week.

Suggestions of talks with FDLR by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete in May last year sparked off a diplomatic spat with Rwanda. President Kikwete raised the issue of dialogue with the FDLR and the other armed groups during a special meeting of Heads of State from the Great Lakes Region in Addis Ababa.

READ: Unease in Kigali over Kikwete’s call for talks with FDLR

“Rwanda cannot negotiate with terrorists,” Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo said, adding that the FDLR which is crammed in the jungles of Eastern DRC since 1994 still harbours the genocide ideology and that their plan remains to exterminate the Tutsi. 

The government has responded by issuing a warning that whoever is working with FDLR is likely to face major consequences.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the Minister of Internal Security Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana and the Commissioner of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) ACP Theos Badege said that investigations were underway to identify those with links to rebel movement.

In an apparent warning to members the minister said that the government cannot sit back and watch when people are “openly advertising their relationship with a terror organisation."

The east African