My job has not been to create an opposition

Posted by Ann Garisson

Kagame has legitimated : Murder and imprisonment of journalists, Murder and imprisonment of opposition leaders, Press muzzlement, mounting Fear among Rwandans, etc

 The international community should carefully listen to the way Paul Kagame expresses himself in public, it gives important information on his political method. He often speaks in riddles which need solving.

On the day (words gain their specific meaning through context and timing) that the assassinated vice-president of Rwandan Greens, André Kagwa Rwisereka, was burried, Paul Kagame did not express his regret or extended his condolences as did Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. No, he made this widely published and ambiguous statement:

“My job has not been to create an opposition, my job is to create the environment where legitimate things can happen.”

The ambiguity of this statement is intentional. The statement can be interpreted in a lot of ways and can mean a lot of things. We have seen this same strategy employed when he talked about “those leaving the country are like human waste” a couple of months ago. He made a statement in public that could mean that he intended to kill Kayumba Nyamwasa (and the former General’s wife clearly understood it that way) but it could also mean something else. The third example where Paul Kagame talks in riddles is from the interview where Stephen Sackur grills him on the attack in april 1994 against the former Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi:

“Stephen Sackur: But you didn’t have a right to shoot down his plane and to assassinate him

President Paul Kagame: Well I had a right to fight for my rights!
Stephen Sackur: But do you believe you had a right to assassinate him?



President Paul Kagame: No, but first Habyarimana, having been on the other side that I was fighting, it was possible that he could easily die. Imagine if I had died myself in the same process? Would the same judge be asking about my death or who killed me?”

The reason he uses these riddles is simple: Paul Kagame is speaking to two audiences at the same time. His friends in the UK and the US who want to portray him as a “beacon of hope for Africa”, but also his own RPF.
On the one hand, in the US and UK people like Hillary Clinton and Frederick Kempe can claim that indeed Kagame never said he killed opponents and that this statement only means that Rwandan civil society is still fragile after the genocide, that democracy is more then just opposition parties.
On the other hand, in Rwanda the RPF can claim, based on this statement, that it’s proud leader doesn’t care what the international community thinks. That the definition of what is “legitimate” is made by one man: Paul Kagame. And that in that context he is proud to have given orders to kill André Kagwa Rwisereka, and that he won’t hesitate for one second to do it again if deemed necessary.

State Department Lacks Consistency

Dutch ambassador to Suriname, Aart Jacobi, reminded reporters Monday that Bouterse (who will head the newly formed coalition government) , who was convicted in absentia in 1999 and later sentenced to 11 years in prison, would not be welcome in the Netherlands.
Yesterday the US State Department put out a statement concerning the new coaltion Government in Suriname, headed by Desi Bouterse, which reads:


“We will be clear with the incoming Suriname government that, for good relations with the United States and the international community, we expect this new government to stand firm against corruption and respect democratic principles, human rights, and the rule of law,” the State Department said.”


It’s a preposterous statement for two reasons. Firstly, wether you like Desi Bouterse or not, he has certainly not rigged these elections. In Suriname free and fair elections took place and also: Desi Bouterse will head a coalition government.
Secondly, it’s a preposterous statement considering the State Department’s active support and propaganda for a man who has total disdain for democratic principles: Paul Kagame. A criminal who would be in exactedly the same situation (“convicted in absentia” in Spain for much graver crimes then those which Desi Bouterse is convicted of), were it not for his Presidential immunity.

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