{"id":116048,"date":"2018-08-06T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116048"},"modified":"2018-08-03T16:55:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T15:55:48","slug":"rwandan-dictator-paul-kagames-paranoia-strikes-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/rwandan-dictator-paul-kagames-paranoia-strikes-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame\u2019s Paranoia Strikes Deep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cDissidents say Kagame shuttered houses of worship because they were the last spaces in Rwanda where people felt safe from his totalitarian grip.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Aug 2018 – <\/em>He\u2019s the President of Rwanda and the current President of the African Union, feted by the Brookings Institute <\/a>, one of the most venerable ideological pillars of US capital interests. So why is Paul Kagame<\/strong> manifesting more and more signs of paranoia? Let\u2019s consider just a few possibilities:<\/p>\n

Assassination rumors<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Indian Ocean<\/em>\u00a0Newsletter\u00a0<\/em>reports that French intelligence warned Yoweri Museveni<\/strong> that Kagame was plotting to have his plane shot down over Rwanda, causing him to cancel a flight from Uganda to Burundi for a summit. If said plot had come to fruition, it would have been Kagame\u2019s second presidential assassination by plane shoot-down over Rwanda. In 1994, his men shot down the plane carrying Rwandan Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana<\/strong> and Burundian Hutu President Cyprien Ntaryamira<\/strong> from Arusha, Tanzania, to Kigali, Rwanda. That shoot-down triggered the infamous hundred days of ethnic massacres known as the Rwandan Genocide.<\/p>\n

Is the claim credible? No hard evidence has been proffered. The Indian Ocean Newsletter\u00a0<\/em>is one of several regional reports included in Africa Intelligence Report<\/em>, an online journal that describes itself as \u201cthe first information site on Africa for a professional audience\u201d and charges substantial fees for all site access or per-article access. Credible or no, Kagame has his online attack dogs busy denying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cKagame has been kidnapping or assassinating Rwandan refugees in Uganda.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Are relations between Kagame and Museveni tense? No doubt about that. The two have been both partners and competitors in crime for many years, with recent emphasis on the competition. The most notorious moment of this partnership occurred in 2000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where invading Rwandan and Ugandan forces fought each other over the gold and diamond smuggling trade.<\/p>\n

More recently Kagame has been in the habit of kidnapping or assassinating Rwandan refugees in Uganda whom he considers his political enemies, triggering Museveni\u2019s recent crackdown <\/a>\u00a0on Rwandan spies. He\u2019s also been trying to force Rwandans who\u2019ve crossed into Uganda fleeing famine to return home. He knows from firsthand experience that significant numbers of refugees outside Rwanda may return as an insurgency, maybe even an insurgency backed by Uganda, like his own.<\/p>\n

Speaking of insurgencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

An armed insurgency against Kagame has been reported. All the Rwandan exiles that I know seem to believe this, but no one knows or wants to say how serious it might be. My own guess is that an insurgency could succeed only if significant numbers of Kagame\u2019s own troops turned against him. He has been seen wearing a bulletproof vest in Rwanda. A video<\/a>\u00a0identified as Rwandan insurgents in training appeared on Facebook, where it was shared 237 [263 NOW] times.<\/p>\n

Political prisoner Victoire Ingabire in peril<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to her political party, the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, internationally celebrated Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire<\/strong> was moved into a cell with a former military officer whom she feared would kill her. The party said that the threatening cellmate has been removed for now. Ingabire attempted to run against Kagame in the 2010 presidential election but went to prison instead. The African Union\u2019s highest court, the African Court on Human and Peoples\u2019 Rights, ruled <\/a>\u00a0that Ingabire should be freed because Rwanda denied her the rights guaranteed by the Rwandan Constitution, but the current President of the African Union scorns its highest court. In 2010, Victoire Ingabire\u2019s courage radically changed international perception of the Kagame regime, exposing him as a totalitarian military ruler and war criminal. Congolese historian and activist B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte Kumbi Njoko<\/strong> calls her African sister \u201ca force of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

7000 Rwandan churches and mosques shut down<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kagame has shut down 7000 Rwandan churches and mosques during the first six months of this year.This is not a matter of rumor or speculation; it\u2019s reported by Reuters, AP, the BBC, and Christian journals including Christianity Today <\/a>, Baptist Press <\/a>, Religion News Service <\/a>, World Watch Monitor<\/a>, and Christian Persecution News <\/a>.<\/p>\n

One hundred twenty-three religious leaders have gone missing, pastors have been imprisoned, and Human Rights Watch has been expelled from the country\u2014again. Rwanda\u2019s population of 12 million is roughly 60% Roman Catholic, 26% Protestant, 11% Seventh-day Adventist, and 3% Muslim, so it\u2019s safe to say that the vast majority of those targeted are Christians of one sort or another.<\/p>\n

This has caused shock around the world, and in the US Senate and State Department, making it one of Kagame\u2019s most puzzling paranoid expressions yet.<\/p>\n

Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo<\/strong> appeared in the Senate, where Arizona Senator Jeff Flake <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>asked him,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe country of Rwanda, right now, and you may be familiar with this because of this week\u2019s focus on religious freedom, has indicated a move towards severe restrictions on religious freedom, particularly from outside groups. What are the plans of the State Department to let them know that that is not in their interest or ours?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pompeo responded,<\/p>\n

\u201cSenator, I share your concerns. I\u2019ll need to get back to you in terms of what actions we think will fit. I know we\u2019ll call it out. I know we\u2019ll label it for what it is. We do need to see. It is tragic and anyway, I share your concerns. It\u2019s a huge challenge for us.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. Rwanda has been a longstanding US ally, military proxy, and geostrategic lynchpin in East Africa, Central Africa, and the rest of the African continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t Kagame know that even his staunchest defenders couldn\u2019t give this a positive spin?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

How will Christians and Christian Zionists react to this? Paul Kagame\u2019s Rwanda has been hand in glove with Israel ever since he seized power in 1994.<\/strong>Both claim victim\u2019s license to invade their neighbors\u2014Congo and Palestine\u2014and the US has staunchly supported that license politically, militarily, and financially. The US is Rwanda\u2019s top bilateral donor <\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mike Pompeo attended last week\u2019s Christian persecution exhibition in Washington, DC, which prominently featured the case of Rwanda, alongside those of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Libya, Sudan, Nigeria, and Pakistan. So did Sam Brownback, the Trump Administration official assigned to look after the interests of Christians around the world, although his actual title is \u201cAmbassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.\u201d The Kansas Republican extremist is the first Catholic to hold the position. He is also a prominent member of \u201cThe Fellowship,\u201d aka \u201cThe Family,\u201d which was the subject of Jeff Sharlet\u2019s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power<\/em> <\/a>. Sharlet characterized Brownback himself as \u201cGod\u2019s Senator\u201d in a frightening 2006 Rolling Stone<\/em> profile.<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul Kagame\u2019s Rwanda has been hand in glove with Israel ever since he seized power in 1994.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

David Himbara<\/strong>, former economic advisor to Paul Kagame, and Justin Bahunga,<\/strong> Spokesman for the Rwandan Democratic Forces, and others say that Kagame shut down the churches, using building code violations as an excuse, because they were the last spaces in Rwanda where people felt safe from his totalitarian grip.<\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t this an extraordinarily stupid move, especially given the theocratic tendencies of the Trump Administration? Didn\u2019t Kagame know that even his staunchest defenders, Bill Clinton<\/strong> and Tony Blair<\/strong>, couldn\u2019t give this a positive spin? I asked David Himbara, who responded,<\/p>\n

\u201cTotalitarian regimes aren\u2019t always smart. They tend to shoot first and ask questions after.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine the State Department and the Pentagon cutting Kagame loose while he\u2019s still of greater use than not, but how much longer will that be? And what will it take to tip the balance?<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She <\/em>attended Stanford University and is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at <\/em>@AnnGarrison<\/em> or <\/em>ann@kpfa.org<\/em> <\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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