Rwanda’s President Kagame faces hostility in Spain
Posted by Ann Garisson, Colored Opinions
Crowds have hit the streets of Madrid, Spain protesting against the visit of Rwandan strongman, President Paul Kagame. 256news.com has been informed by our sources in Spain that the protesters include Spanish nationals who accuse Kagame of gross violation of the rights of his people and even questionably accuse him of genocide. Kagame’s country Rwanda has been beleaguered mysterious deaths of opposition politicians, critical journalists, arrests and an obnoxious human rights scenario.
We were still unable to get an official reaction to the protests in Spain from the Rwanda government.
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Spains’ PM snubs Rwanda’s Kagame
By Sapa-AFP
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has refused to meet Rwandan President Paul Kagame at a U.N. meeting here following protests against the African leader.
Zapatero was to meet Kagame and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at government headquarters Friday for a first session of the Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group.
Ban chose Zapatero and Kagame to preside over the group as part of preparations for a September U.N summit on reducing poverty.
But complaints by human rights groups and opposition parties led the government to move the meeting to a Madrid hotel and Zapatero sent his foreign minister in his place.
A U.S. lawsuit accuses Kagame of ordering the downing of a plane carrying Rwanda’s president in 1994.
Kagame’s Greatest achievement
Spain’s prime minister shunned Friday a UN-backed meeting with Rwandan leader Paul Kagame after protests that his regime was linked to the 1994 genocide as the UN chief called for a probe into recent deaths in the central African nation, AFP reported.
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Zapatero had received a request from several other Spanish political parties that he not meet Kagame because of Spanish legal proceedings against 40 Rwandan officers linked to the genocide.
President Kagame Proud of his crimes
a) JOAQUIM Vallmajó SALA, a missionary in Africa, kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the RPF in Byumba (Rwanda) on 26 April 1994.
b) Servando Mayor García, JULIO JORGE RODRIGUEZ, MIGUEL ANGEL ISLA FERNANDO LUCIO and DE LA FUENTE DE LA FUENTE, Marist Brothers, who were murdered by the RPF Bugobe (DRC) October 31, 1996.
c) M ª FLORS Sirera FORTUNY, MANUEL OSUNA Madrazo and Valtueña LUIS GALLEGO, members of the NGO Médecins du Monde, murdered by the RPF in Ruhengeri (Rwanda) January 18, 1997.
d) ISIDRO Uzcudun POUSO missionary diocese of Donostia, assassinated by the RPF Mugina (Rwanda) June 10, 2000.
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The Canadian fathers killed by the RPF’s Father Claude Simard was killed on 10.17.1994 Parish Priest Ruyenzi in Butare and Father Guy Pinard, Kampanga parish priest, who was killed in the middle of Mass to February 2, 1997 Ruhengeri
The Croatian father Curic VIJEKO killed in Kigali on 31/01/1998 by a military RPF. He was economical general of the diocese of Kabgayi in Gitarama.
For the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the African Great Lakes
Loverdos Jordi Palou-, attorney at law, legal representative, spokesperson for the victims and the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the African Great Lakes.
France24.com : Zapatero renonce à s’afficher aux côtés du président rwandais Paul Kagame
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was “sensitive to that and responded” by deciding not to attend the meeting which was attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega told public television TVE.
A man with a gag stands in front of a ‘Wanted Poster’ of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame during a protest in Madrid on Friday, July 16, 2010. Kagame will co-chair the Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Group meeting in Madrid Friday. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez).
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Spain was represented instead by Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos at the first meeting of the MDG Advocacy Group set up last month by the United Nations to advance the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty by 2015.
Kagame and Zapatero are the co-chairs of the group.
The meeting had also been moved from government headquarters to a Madrid hotel while Zapatero met separately with Ban.
“It is not a big deal for us. It is Spain’s internal politics,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told reporters on the sidelines of the gathering.
“We would like the Spanish people to get to know Rwanda’s President Kagame better. He is not what we see him portrayed as.”
In 2008 Spain’s High Court announced its intention to prosecute 40 Rwandan army officers for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism related to events that took place between 1994 and 2000, including under Kagame’s rule.
But the Spanish judiciary accuses Kagame of fomenting the ethnic clashes in a bid to seize power.
The Rwandan officers are accused, among other things, of murdering nine Spanish missionaries and expatriates allegedly witnesses to massacres.
But Kagame is immune from prosecution because of his status as head of state. His government has vehemently rejected the accusations.
During an interview with Spanish news radio Cadena Ser, Ban refused comment on the Spanish legal proceedings against Rwandan officials.
He stressed that Rwanda was one of the “rare” African nations that have made “significant” progress in the fight against infant mortality.
The meeting in Madrid comes ahead of a high-level MDG Advocacy Group summit that will take place at the UN’s headquarters in New York in September which Ban said Friday would be attended by 150 heads of state.
“This is an unprecedented number,” he said, adding the Millennium Development Goals “can not be changed” despite the global economic downturn.
During talks with Rwandan leader Paul Kagame in Madrid, Ban “expressed his concerns” that the recent murder of opposition official Andre Kagwa Rwisereka and journalist Jean Leonard Rugambage has “caused political tensions” in Rwanda ahead of August 9 presidential elections, his spokeswoman said.
“He encouraged the Rwandan authorities to carry out a full investigation into these incidents,” Ban’s his spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci told AFP.
Rwisereka was the deputy president of the Rwandan Democratic Green Party. His nearly decapitated body was found dumped by a river on Wednesday.
Rugambage, who was critical of Kagame’s government, was shot dead near his home on June 24.
The Rwandan Democratic Green Party is unregistered and has no candidate for next month’s presidential elections. It has accused Kagame of blocking it from taking part in the polls.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Friday urged the Rwandan authorities to “clarify the exact circumstances” of Rwisereka’s “horrific killing and bring the perpetrators rapidly to justice.”
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- Kagame boycotté par le Premier ministre Espagnol José Luis Zapatero
- UN calls for Rwanda violence inquiry
- RFI : Protests force Spanish PM to skip date with Rwanda’s Kagame
- Canada East : Spain’s Zapatero snubs UN meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame over war crime protests
- Guardian : Paul Kagame: A tarnished African hero
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a “time”, yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
