Updated April 19, 2013
The Rwandan opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, leader of Rwanda’s FDU-Ingiki remain in prison. She is accused of genocide denial, divisionism and terrorism by President Paul Kagame’s regime. In 2010, she returned from the Netherlands in order to run against Kagame, but she was put under house arrest and soon after she was imprisoned.
The international community continues to ignore the Rwandan government’s human rights violations, killing and imprisonment of opposition leaders, media censorship, and assassination plots within Rwanda and abroad.
After the 2010 elections, a coalition of Washington D.C. advocacy groups asked: “Why should the Obama White House continue to support the heavy handed leader that Kagame has become?”
In reality, the Obama administration, although it has expressed concerns over the direction Kagame has taken Rwanda, has continued to support and strengthen Kagame’s oppresive regime by, among other things, training and equipping the Rwandan army which committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and possibly a genocide in the RDC, according to the October 1, 2010 UN mapping report.
We advocate for development, democracy, justice, peace, reconciliation and lasting stability. We believes that the U.S. should refuse to finance a regime that is not fully committed to these values. Therefore, we urge Congress to withhold all financial support intended to be given to Rwanda that does not go directly to the people.
Today, tell your representative in Congress to Cut the Deficit by Stopping Aid to the Rwandan Government.
Click here to listen to Radio KPFA’s Ann Garrison report on Victore Ingabire’s trial.