Rwanda sends opposition leader to 8 years in jail

Rwanda sends opposition leader to 8 years in jail
By Reuters
Thu 01 Nov. 2012, 12:20 CAT

A Rwandan court on Tuesday sentenced the country's top opposition political leader to eight years in prison for treason and on a charge stemming from this central African nation's murderous ethnic attacks 18 years ago - genocide denial.

The opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire, returned to Rwanda in 2010 after living abroad for 16 years and quickly visited the country's genocide memorial, where she asked why Hutus killed in the violence were not recognised like the minority Tutsis were. She had planned to run for president but instead was arrested.

More than 500,000 Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, were killed in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. In the wake of that violence, the government set out to de-emphasise ethnicity. Many in the country now identify themselves simply as a Rwandan, not a Hutu or Tutsi.

The government accused Ingabire - who has had contacts with the FDLR, a group of Hutu fighters in Congo - of trying to raise an armed group, a charge Ingabire denied. The court on Tuesday acquitted her on charges of promoting ethnic division, genocide ideology, creating an armed group, and complicity in terrorist acts.

Ingabire's lawyer, Iain Edwards, said Ingabire will appeal the court's ruling.
"That's the problem I have with this government. If you talk about ethnicity, they say you are a divisionist," Ingabire said in a 2010 interview after she was put under house arrest. "I think the better solution is you talk about it and find a solution."

The government's chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, responded that Ingabire's statements were not simply a free-speech issue because she could incite Rwanda "to once more explode" as it did in 1994.

President Paul Kagame has been lauded by the international community for leading Rwanda through nearly two decades of peace, for advancing women's rights and for leading the country to strong economic growth. But the court's sentence reinforces the view by political analysts that opponents of Kagame have little space to operate in post-genocide Rwanda.

Human Rights Watch criticised the guilty verdict as the culmination of a "flawed trial that included politically motivated charges."

"The prosecution of Ingabire for 'genocide ideology' and divisionism illustrates the Rwandan government's unwillingness to tolerate criticism and to accept the role of opposition parties in a democratic society," said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"The courts should not be used for such political purposes." - Reuters