{"id":154848,"date":"2020-02-24T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=154848"},"modified":"2020-02-22T08:35:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-22T08:35:33","slug":"the-shocking-death-of-rwandan-gospel-singer-and-dissident-kizito-mihigo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/02\/the-shocking-death-of-rwandan-gospel-singer-and-dissident-kizito-mihigo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shocking Death of Rwandan Gospel Singer and Dissident Kizito Mihigo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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19 Feb 2020 – <\/em>Rwandan gospel singer, organist and composer Kizito Mihigo has died in police custody. On Feb. 17, the Rwandan National Police reported that he had committed suicide in an isolation cell. He was 38 years old. A Tutsi genocide survivor, he grew from age 8 to 12 during the four years of the Rwandan war and massacres, which ended in 1994, when Gen. Paul Kagame seized power in Rwanda\u2019s capital, Kigali.<\/p>\n

Rwandan President Paul Kagame\u2019s newspaper, The New Times of Rwanda<\/em>, reported, \u201cSinger Kizito Mihigo commits suicide in police detention centre<\/a>.\u201d Other headlines, including those in The Guardian<\/a> and the BBC<\/a>, were far less conclusive. Most said that he died in a prison cell and noted that Rwandans are likely to be skeptical of the official story.<\/p>\n

Skeptical indeed. I know quite a few Rwandans, Hutu and Tutsi, but I don\u2019t know any who will believe that Kizito Mihigo committed suicide in a cell. I don\u2019t believe it either, but there will be no trial or evidence of what really happened because the totalitarian Rwandan government has spoken. They say Mihigo took his own life, and as is the case in all the many deaths of Rwandan dissidents, there will be no credible investigation, evidence or trial.<\/p>\n

This will give longtime Kagame ally Bill Clinton another chance to say, \u201cIt hasn\u2019t been adjudicated,\u201d which is what he says when questioned about Kagame\u2019s crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the UN report, \u201cDRC: Mapping human rights violations 1993-2003<\/a>,\u201d investigators said that Kagame\u2019s army massacred hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees in DRC, and that he could be rightly charged with genocide if ever brought to a court of law. Since Kagame first invaded and occupied DRC in 1996, millions of Congolese have died violently, or died of hardship while fleeing or sheltering in refugee camps.<\/p>\n

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Kizito Mihigo in Rwanda<\/p><\/div>\n

Joseph Bukeye, a Rwandan economics professor living and teaching in exile in Brussels, wrote to say:<\/p>\n

\u201cKizito Mihigo had been persecuted for advocating compassion for all the victims of the genocide, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. He refused to abandon that commitment and collude in Rwandan President Paul Kagame\u2019s policy of demonizing and blaming all Hutu people for the Rwandan Genocide. Kagame has become fiercely vengeful with dissident Tutsis because they are breaking up his constituency.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cKizito would not have committed suicide because he had many musical and reconciliation projects underway.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cUpon his re-arrest, on Rwanda\u2019s southern border, he was accused of attempting to join alleged rebel militias threatening Rwanda from Burundi. His death is a warning to any Rwandan contesting the RPF\u2019s official narratives:<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n