Sunday, February 26, 2006

Le major Bernard Ntuyahaga devant ses juges

Un procès pour les paras belges tués au Rwanda
Anne-Marie Mouradian

Depuis mars 2004, date à laquelle il s’est rendu à la justice belge et a été incarcéré, on ne parlait plus beaucoup de Bernard Ntuyahaga. L’ancien major rwandais est le principal suspect pour le massacre à Kigali en 1994, au début du génocide, de dix casques bleus belges chargés de protéger le Premier ministre Agathe Uwilingiyimana. Le 7 avril 1994, au lendemain de l’attentat contre l’avion du président Juvénal Habyarimana, des gendarmes rwandais encerclent la résidence du Premier ministre qui tente alors de fuir. Il est assassiné. Les dix paras commandos belges sont désarmés et emmenés au camp militaire de Kigali, dont Bernard Ntuyahaga est responsable de la logistique. Ils y seront massacrés. Suite à ces meurtres, la Belgique décide de retirer toutes ses troupes de la force des Nations unies au Rwanda (Minuar). Depuis deux ans, l’instruction judiciaire, qui a compris l’envoi de commissions rogatoires au Rwanda, suivait discrètement son cours. Elle est aujourd’hui terminée. La semaine prochaine, le procureur Philippe Meire devrait déposer son réquisitoire qui au-delà des circonstances de l’assassinat des dix casques bleus belges et du Premier ministre rwandais, visera les pratiques du major Ntuyahaga durant le génocide de 1994.

Le réquisitoire demandera probablement le renvoi de l’inculpé devant la cour d’assises de Bruxelles comme ce fut le cas, en 2001 et en 2005, lors des deux précédents procès en Belgique qui ont abouti à la condamnation de six génocidaires rwandais. Ces procès ont lieu en vertu de la loi belge de compétence universelle en matière de crimes contre l’humanité. C’est au nom de cette même compétence universelle que Bruxelles a demandé au Sénégal l’extradition de l’ancien président tchadien Hissène Habré, suite aux plaintes déposées par des victimes de nationalité belge. Une demande rejetée par l’Union africaine qui a choisi de confier le dossier à une commission de juristes africains. Même si sa portée sera plus limitée, le procès du major Ntuyahaga devrait avoir un retentissement médiatique important en Belgique où les familles des dix paras assassinés l’attendent depuis douze ans.

par Anne-Marie Mouradian

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Mathieu Kerekou du Benin: Un dictateur converti en démocrate



Jusqu'à ce jour Mathieu Kerekou est le seul dictateur africain qui soit parvenu à se convertir en démocrate, contrairement aux putschistes invétérés et multirécidivistes que sont Denis Sassou Nguesso et Pierre Buyoya. Quel autre dictateur africain pourra-t-il emboîter le pas à Mathieu Kerekou? Ne pensez surtout pas à cet autre dont le nom commence par un K.! Il en est incapable, puisqu'il est déterminé à s'accrocher au pouvoir jusqu'au jour de sa mort. "Mieux vaudrait pour cet homme qu'il ne fût pas né!" (Matthieu 26:24 ). "It would be better for him if he had not been born!" (Matthew 26:24). "Ingalikuwa nafuu kwake kama hakuzaliwa!'' (Matayo 26:24). "Ibyajyaga kumubera byiza ni uko aba ataravutse!" (Matayo 26:24). "Es wäre jenem Menschen gut, wenn er nicht geboren wäre!" ( Matthaeus 26:24). " Het zou beter voor hem zijn als hij nooit geboren was!" (Mattheüs 26:24). "那 人 不 生 在 世 上 倒 好 。" (馬 太 福 音 26:24).
Bénin: la campagne présidentielle lancée en fanfare

Cotonou le 17 février 2006

COTONOU (AFP) - 18/02/2006 13h03 - La campagne électorale pour le scrutin présidentiel du 5 mars prochain au Bénin, qui opposera vingt-six candidats à la succession de Mathieu Kérékou, a débuté en fanfare dans les ruelles et sur les places du pays.

Samedi matin, la capitale économique Cotonou avait retrouvé en partie son calme. Les habitants s'étaient couchés tard la veille pour assister aux concerts organisés pour le soutien aux différents candidats. Dans les ruelles, quelques attardés surpris par le levé du soleil, traînaient encore, des posters de leur candidat à la main.

"Tout au long de la nuit nous avons fait le chaud! Il le faut, on doit gagner!", explique la voix cassée Paul Awéya, 26 ans militant du Parti du renouveau démocratique (PRD) d'Adrien Houngbèdji. Dans les QG de campagne, on s’affère pour préparer les meetings qui doivent se tenir sur les places publiques cet après midi.

Au stade de l’Amitié, où le candidat Yayi Boni organise une rencontre, les techniciens font les derniers réglages de son. "Ca va vibrer ce soir, nous allons faire une compétition d’idées, que ceux qui pensent qu’ils peuvent tenir devant le Docteur Boni s’annoncent", lance Jeanne, la trentaine.

Vendredi déjà, les habitants de la métropole béninoise avaient découvert aux carrefours les affiches des différents candidats ainsi que les banderoles de soutien. Dans les quartiers de la capitale, quelques attroupements de militants et des réunions se tenaient au QG de campagne des différents candidats. Au coeur de Cotonou, certains militants ont chanté et dansé toute la journée et parfois toute la nuit au son du "Couper-décaler", un rythme venu de Côte d'Ivoire, et du "Soyoyo" (mélange de rythmes traditionnel et moderne béninois) pour fêter leur formation politique ou leur candidat.

La campagne pour la présidentielle a officiellement commencé vendredi à 00h01 (locale et GMT) et se terminera le 3 mars à minuit. Selon le président de la Commission électorale nationale autonome (CENA) du Bénin, Sylvain Nouwatin, "3.942.000 millions d'électeurs sont inscrits sur les listes électorales" pour départager les 26 candidats à la sucession du président Mathieu Kérékou. M. Kérékou, âgé de 72 ans et frappé par la limite d'âge constitutionnelle, ne se représente pas et s'est refusé à changer la Constitution comme l'on fait nombre de ses pairs sur le continent.

Son rival historique, l'ancien président Nicéphore Soglo est lui aussi frappé par la limite d'âge. Au quartier Abattoir, à l'est de Cotonou, dans un bureau de liaison du candidat Houngbédji, 64 ans, habitué de la course présidentielle, les jeunes reçoivent une formation sur le projet de société de leur candidat. "Nous faisons un briefing aux jeunes sur le projet de société de notre candidat, ils iront ensuite dans leurs quartiers pour transmettre ces informations, c'est surtout un débat d'idée", explique Claude Dégila, membre du bureau politique du PRD.

Au cours d'une intervention devant ses militants vendredi soir, Idji Kolawolé, président du parlement et candidat à l'élection s'est engagé à "faire passer l'éducation au dessus de toutes priorités", estimant que "l'éducation est la clé de toute réussite et de tout développement". "Le Bénin a besoin d'un président plus actif, une personnalité encline à aider le pays à sortir de cette crise économique, à nous diriger tout en endiguant le mode de gestion d'Etat par la corruption", espère Claudine Koudanou, 23 ans étudiante.

Sunday February 19, 2006
--
« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).
"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Rwanda ex-president Pasteur Bizimungu jailed for 15 years loses appeal

An ethnic Hutu, Pasteur Bizimungu became president when the ruling Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power after the genocide in which extremists from the Hutu majority butchered 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

Current President Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Army ended the hundred days of slaughter, was then vice-president.

Cooperation between Bizimungu, a French-speaking Hutu, and Kagame, an English-speaking Tutsi, was intended to symbolise post-genocide reconciliation. But their relationship soured, and in March 2000, Bizimungu resigned after falling out with top RPF members over the make-up of a new cabinet.

Throughout his presidency, Bizimungu remained in the shadow of Kagame, his more powerful vice-president, who was also minister of defence at the time.
--
« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).

"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."

"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)
-----------------------------
After his resignation, Bizimungu became a vocal government criticFormer Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu has lost his appeal against a 15-year jail term imposed in 2004.

During the appeal, the country's first post-genocide president had told the Supreme Court his arrest and conviction were "politically motivated".

He was arrested in 2002 after trying to form a political party and convicted for embezzling state funds, inciting violence and criminal association.

A BBC correspondent in Kigali said the courtroom was packed for the ruling.

The Supreme Court also rejected the appeal of former Transport Minister Charles Ntakirutinka, but acquitted six other co-accused colleagues.

'Not surprised'

The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma says Mr Bizimungu was in court wearing a black suit.

The courtroom was so full it was difficult to see his reaction as the court upheld the convictions, our reporter says.

Mr Ntakirutinka's wife said afterwards she was not surprised by the decision.

After his arrest in 2002, the authorities accused the former president of stirring up divisions between Tutsis and the majority Hutus.

During the appeal he said it was unfair for him to be convicted on charges different to those for which he was arrested.

Mr Bizimungu was one of only a handful of Hutus to join the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the rebel movement formed among Tutsi exiles in Uganda.

The RPF took control of Rwanda in July 1994, putting an end to the genocide organised by extremist Hutu leaders that left about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead.

But after his resignation in 2000, Mr Bizimungu became a vocal critic of the RPF-led government.

While the RPF says it has introduced stability and multiparty democracy, its critics claim it has centralised power within a Tutsi elite and crushed potential opponents - by accusing them of promoting ethnic divisions.
Rwanda ex-president jailed for 15 years loses appeal

18 Feb 2006 07:41:07 GMT
Source: Reuters


KIGALI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Rwanda's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the country's first post-genocide president to quash a 15-year jail term against him for offences including inciting ethnic violence.

In a packed courtroom on Friday, it upheld a lower court's verdict against former President Pasteur Bizimungu, who was accused of committing the crimes after he resigned in 2000.

The lower court imprisoned him in mid-2004 for creating a militia, embezzling state funds and inciting ethnic violence in the central African country still scarred by the 1994 genocide.

Bizimungu was appealing against his conviction on the three charges, which he has denied and said are politically motivated, and wanted the Supreme Court to set him free.

But Chief Justice Aloysia Cyanzayire said Bizimungu and one of his co-accused were guilty of "treason, spreading malicious rumours aimed at inciting the public against the government and creation of a criminal gang."

She said that Bizimungu was also separately found guilty of embezzlement of public funds.

Former Transport Minister Charles Ntakirutinka, one of his co-accused, also failed to have the court overturn a ten-year jail term against him.

However, the court acquitted six others, who were being tried jointly with Bizimungu and Ntakirutinka, and ordered their immediate release.

An ethnic Hutu, Bizimungu became president when the ruling Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power after the genocide in which extremists from the Hutu majority butchered 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

Current President Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Army ended the hundred days of slaughter, was then vice-president.

Cooperation between Bizimungu, a French-speaking Hutu, and Kagame, an English-speaking Tutsi, was intended to symbolise post-genocide reconciliation. But their relationship soured, and in March 2000, Bizimungu resigned after falling out with top RPF members over the make-up of a new cabinet.

Throughout his presidency, Bizimungu remained in the shadow of Kagame, his more powerful vice-president, who was also minister of defence at the time.
Reuters AlertNet, UK - 1 hour agoKIGALI, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Rwanda's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the country's first post-genocide president to quash a 15-year jail term against ...

Rwanda's ex-leader loses appeal
BBC News, UK - 18 hours agoFormer Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu has lost his appeal against a 15-year jail term imposed in 2004. During the appeal, the ...
JURIST - 12 hours ago[JURIST] The Rwandan Supreme Court on Friday rejected the appeal [JURIST report] of former Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu [BBC profile], who had asked the ...
AllAfrica.com, Washington - 12 hours agoFormer Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu has lost his appeal against a 15-year jail term imposed in 2004. Bizimungu was seeking ...
China Post, Taiwan - Feb 17, 2006Rwanda's Supreme Court is expected to rule Friday on separate appeals in the case of former President Pasteur Bizimungu, who was convicted of threatening ...
Reuters South Africa, South Africa - 1 hour agoKIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by the country's first post-genocide president to quash a 15-year jail term against him for ...
African News Dimension, South Africa - 5 hours agoBy ANDnetwork Journalist. Rwanda's Supreme Court reversed a lower court's acquittal of former President Pasteur Bizimungu on a treason ...
Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, Kenya - 15 hours agoBy Jinaro Mburu/BBC ( Saturday, February 18, 2006). Former Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu has lost his appeal against a 15-year jail term imposed in 2004. ...
Rwanda's ex-leader loses appeal
BBC Afrique, UK - 18 hours agoFormer Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu has lost his appeal against a 15-year jail term imposed in 2004. During the appeal, the ...
--
« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).

"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."

"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)

In Rwanda, Suicides Haunt Search for Justice and Closure


By Craig Timberg
Washington Post
Foreign Service
Friday, February 17, 2006;
Page A01
Jeanviere Nzamwitakuze, 31, was widowed by one of 69 suspected perpetrators of genocide who have killed themselves rather than face the public in traditional courts.

SHYORONGI, Rwanda -- In the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Innocent Mulinda, 39, started a family, tended to his red-earth farm and won a local election for a government job. Rumors that he had participated in a murderous militia in this hillside town seemed behind him.

But that changed with sudden vengeance last April, witnesses said, when a confessed militia member told a traditional, open-air court that Mulinda was not merely a fellow militiaman but a leader who carried an AK-47, manned roadblocks and exhorted others to kill.

Hours after the testimony, when darkness had fallen across his neighborhood of mud-walled homes, Mulinda drank a bottle of pesticide. He would leave behind a wife, two young sons and oddly conflicted feelings among Rwandans longing for tidy justice with a full confession and a punishment befitting his crimes.

Mulinda's agonizing death, which his wife said took more than two days, was among a rash of suicides and attempted suicides that Rwandan officials have recorded in the past year among genocide suspects as traditional courts have begun to hear cases. Between March and the end of December, 69 suspects killed themselves and 44 others tried to. Many others attempted or committed suicide, officials say, in the months before record-keeping began.

It is not clear what motivated the suicides -- belated guilt, shame, fear of prison or fear of exposing friends who also participated in the 100-day ethnic slaughter, in which most of the 800,000 victims were hacked to death with machetes or beaten to death with clubs.

And though survivors express little sympathy for participants who killed themselves more than a decade later, some say their hopes for closure -- a full public accounting of crimes and accomplices, as well as details about the victims' final hours -- have been dashed by the suicides.

"No person has the right to punish themselves," said Benoit Kaboyi, executive secretary of Rwanda's largest association of genocide survivors. "They have to suffer for what they have done."

Rwanda's 8 million people are jammed into a country smaller than Maryland, making it one of the world's most densely settled agrarian societies. In many places, nearly every patch of reddish earth is cultivated in a patchwork of fields that stretch up, and often over, Rwanda's countless hills.

Many of the killings happened as ethnic Hutu militias rampaged through steep hillside villages in search of Tutsis, a minority ethnic group, or those who sought to defend them. In Shyorongi, a roadside market town about 12 miles north of the capital, Kigali, militias killed an estimated 6,000 people -- more people than there are residents today.

Those accused of organizing and inciting the genocide are being tried at an international tribunal in neighboring Tanzania. Rwanda's overburdened criminal justice system is handling allegations of murder and rape.

Mulinda's case was handled by one of the more than 12,000 traditional courts, called g acaca for "under the tree," where ordinary citizens are trying, convicting and setting punishments for those accused of such lesser crimes as looting and being indirectly involved in deaths.

These courts cannot hand down the death penalty but can sentence perpetrators to lengthy prison sentences or community service, and order that restitution be paid to victims. They also can refer cases of rape and murder to the criminal justice system if clear evidence emerges.

The gacaca courts are expected to hear at least 100,000 cases. But officials say that number could reach 500,000 as the first round of defendants -- many of them former prisoners freed in exchange for pleading guilty -- implicate others in their testimony.

Gacaca officials, who began tracking the suicides in March after an initial round of cases in January and February last year, have documented the horrors: An elderly man drowned himself in Lake Kivu, on Rwanda's western border, on the day he was accused of killing several of his grandchildren. A 28-year-old man, the last surviving member of his family, killed himself after being accused of raping his Tutsi mother, according to gacaca officials.

"Sometimes we discover a situation we cannot understand ourselves," said the court's executive secretary, Domitilla Mukantaganzwa. "We are praying for our nation."

In Gashora, about 30 miles east of Kigali, Sylvester Ngiriyambonye, 56, returned home in 2003 after spending years in Rwanda's notoriously grim, crowded prisons for his role in the death of a Tutsi woman and her teenage daughter.

Two years later, a government official visited Gashora to begin organizing the gacaca court where, under the rules of Ngiriyambonye's guilty plea, he would have been forced to testify against other militia members. Instead, his widow said, he hanged himself from a tree.

In nearby Lirima, Charles Rubuga, 67, was accused last April of killing a man at a roadblock. He denied the charges over three days of gacaca hearings, family members said.

"He came back a changed man," said his widow, Angelina Ntibanoga, 65, who had been married to Rubuga for 45 years.

"All these years we've lived together, I have never assaulted anybody," she recalled him saying despondently. "I have never killed anybody. And now they have accused me of killing."

The next morning, she said, Rubuga walked several miles to the crocodile-infested Nyabarongo River, removed his clothes, laid down his machete and hurled himself in.

Whatever their alleged crimes during the genocide, those who have committed suicide have ripped an unexpected hole in the lives of the friends and family members left behind.

In Shyorongi, Jeanviere Nzamwitakuze, 31, married Mulinda the year after the genocide. She had heard rumors of his involvement but said she believed his account of being only a low-ranking militia member who never killed anybody.

Now she must tend to the family's crop of beans, corn and peas by herself, as well as raise their sons. His decision to leave them behind has caused her great sadness and turmoil, she said, though she maintained it was the pain of a boil on his leg that caused him to kill himself, not anguish over the accusations.

"There are so many people accused of the same thing, and they are still living," she said, averting her teary eyes.

The man who accused Mulinda of participating in the genocide, Canisous Munyeraraba, 36, a fellow militia member, implicated more than a dozen others. For confessing to illegal possession of a gun and looting, Munyeraraba was released from jail, at least temporarily, and will eventually receive a reduced sentence.

Munyeraraba said the torment of confronting their own horrendous crimes is more than some men can bear. He said Mulinda had been a gentle, honorable man, both before and after his alleged crimes.

"Many people changed during the genocide," Munyeraraba said. Mulinda "was not a violent person. He just found himself in the atrocities, like many others."

Others were less ready to excuse what Mulinda had apparently done. Beatrice Mukamusoni, 41, a tall, lean Tutsi, did not see Mulinda commit any crimes because she fled Shyorongi in the early days of the killing, she said. But Mukamusoni, whose husband, parents, sister and eldest child were killed in the genocide, said she had long heard rumors that he was a leader within his neighborhood militia.

"All these people who had a role, they should resolve their cases by committing suicide," she said, without a trace of remorse.

But her emotions about Mulinda's death were more complex. She had respected his work as a government official in recent years, and she said they enjoyed an amicable relationship. Such things are not uncommon in post-genocide Rwanda, where killers and survivors have returned home to the same villages, often living side by side.

On hearing the news of Mulinda's suicide, she said, she felt only sadness.

"If he's not innocent, that means many other people around us are not innocent," she said. "So shall we live in this country alone?"

Special correspondent Silver Bugingo contributed to this report.
Washington Post, United States - Feb 16, 2006SHYORONGI, Rwanda -- In the years since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Innocent Mulinda, 39, started a family, tended to his red-earthen farm and won a local ...
Houston Chronicle, United States - 2 hours agoBy CRAIG TIMBERG. SHYORONGI, RWANDA - In the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Innocent Mulinda, 39, started a family, tended ...
MSNBC - Feb 16, 2006By Craig Timberg. SHYORONGI, Rwanda - In the years since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Innocent Mulinda, 39, started a family, tended ...
--
« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).
"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Thabo Mbeki Says He Will Not Seek 3rd Term

South African President Says He Will Not Seek 3rd Term
By VOA News 05 February 2006

Thabo Mbeki

South African President Thabo Mbeki has ruled out changing the country's constitution to allow him to stay in office when his term ends in 2009.

Mr. Mbeki told the South African Broadcasting Corporation Sunday that he will not seek a third term.

There had been speculation that he would use the huge majority in parliament of his African National Congress party to alter the current two term limit.

Mr. Mbeki said that by 2009, he will have held a senior government position for 15 years and that it is time "to step aside".

He is South Africa's second elected president after Nelson Mandela, winning re-election by a huge majority in 2004.

Political analysts say the race to succeed Mr. Mbeki remains wide open. Former deputy president Jacob Zuma, once regarded as the favorite, was fired by the president last year because of a corruption scandal.

South African President Says He Will Not Seek 3rd Term

Thabo Mbeki rules out changing country's constitution to allow him to stay in office when his term ends in 2009UN Cites Slow Progress in Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation
UNICEF calls for stronger action to end practice, which is inflicted on an estimated three million girls each year

South African President Rules Out A Third Term
By Ashenafi Abedje Washington, DC06 February 2006

South African President Thabo Mbeki has ruled out changing the constitution to allow him to stay in office when his term ends in 2009. During an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Mbeki said by 2009 he will have held a senior government position for 15 years and that it will be time "to step aside." He said he will not use his African National Congress party's huge majority in parliament to alter the current two-term limit. Mr. Mbeki is South Africa's second elected president after Nelson Mandela, winning re-election by a huge majority in 2004.

Professor Adam Habib is the director of the Democracy and Governance Research Program at South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council. He told English to Africa reporter Ashenafi Abedje President Mbeki's stand on the third-term issue is consistent with his previous statements. Professor Habib attributes Mr. Mbeki's decision not to pursue a third-term to two factors. He says the first relates to the "significant separation of powers in South African society that doesn't lend itself to a single individual dominating society – as is the case in many African countries." The other, he says, pertains to Mr. Mbeki's personality. Professor Habib describes the South African leader as "a grand old nationalist who wants to prove to the world it's possible to be both African and modern. That a third term run by him will give ammunition to those in the right in both Europe and the United States who have a caricatured version of African leaders, all wanting to stand for a third term."

The South African analyst commented on speculation about a possible third-term bid by Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo. He says if such a scenario came to pass, "democracy will be weakened, not so much by the third term bid itself, but by the act of changing the constitution" to achieve that end. Professor Habib says President Mbeki's disavowal of a third term sends a strong signal to the continent's other leaders. It says to those contemplating third term bids that "it's not politically kosher to run for a third term, or to change constitutions toward that end." He says, "Such a message will be good for democratic consolidation on the continent as a whole."

South African President Rules Out A Third Term
Mr. Mbeki's stance seen as sending signal to other African leaders

South African President Says He Will Not Seek 3rd Term
Thabo Mbeki rules out changing country's constitution to allow him to stay in office when his term ends in 2009

UN Cites Slow Progress in Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation
UNICEF calls for stronger action to end practice, which is inflicted on an estimated three million girls each year

--

« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).

"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."

"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)

Mu Rwanda Nkuko Byari Biteganyijwe Amatora y'Inzego z'Ibanze Yaratangiye

07/02/2006
Ku wa mbere tariki ya 06 Gashyantare 2006 mu Rwanda hose hakozwe amatora y'inzego z'ibanze ku wego rw'Akagari. Ayo matora yakozwe k'uburyo butaziguye. Nta cyakozwe kugira ngo yitabirwe neza.

Abari mu matora y'inzego z'ibanze i KigaliMu Murenge wa Kimironko, mu kagari ka Kibagabaga na Kimironko ya mbere aho twabashije kugera, inkoko yari yo ngoma. I saa moya za mu gitondo Abanyarwanda bujuje ibyangombwa byo gutora no gutorwa bari bitabiriye ari benshi amatora y'abazabahagararira mu kagari kabo.

Uwiyamamazaga yabikoreye aho, avuga imigabo n'imigambi ateganya gukora ku mwanya yifuzaga gutorerwaho. Nyuma abiyamamazaga bajyaga ku murongo bareba imbere, abamutoye bagatonda umurongo inyuma ye.

Izuba ryinshi ryabyutse ricanye ntiryabujije abashyigikiraga umuntu kumujya inyuma batonze umurongo k'uburyo byorohera ababaraga amajwi. Ku murongo ushaka gutorwa ntiyahindukiraga kugira ngo uwo witoresha atagira uwo yishyiramo ko atamutoye. Abatowe bahise bamenyekana.

Ubu buryo bwo gutora nta banga n'ubwo bwihuta bamwe mu bari bitabiriye amatora basanga ngo atari bwiza kubera ko umuntu ashobora guhitamo kujya ku murongo uriho abantu benshi.
Muri ayo matora yo mu kagari, ikarita y'itora ntiyari ngombwa. Ikimenyetso « YATOYE » gisanzwe giterwa mu ikarita y'itora ntacyashyizwemo, k'uburyo nta wamenyaga uwatoye n'utatoye.

Amatora yatangiye ku nzego z'ibanze azakomeza ku matariki ya 9 Gashyantare ku Murenge k'uburyo buziguye, 20Gashyantare ku Karere k'uburyo butaziguye, 24 Gasyantare ku Karere ku buryo buziguye, azarangire tariki ya 2 Werurwe.

Amatora y'inzego zibanze ni yo azarangiza inzibacyuho mu nzego z'ibanze mu Rwanda. Yatangiye kuva tariki ya 1 Mutarama 2006.

Central Africa News Summary - VOAnews.com/centralafrica
Ejo Amatora y'Inzego z'Ibanze Yaratangiye mu Rwanda
Nta banga muri ayo matora; kumenya uwatoye n'utatoye byari intambara
Abantu Bambaye nk'Abapolisi Bagandaguye Patiri Eliya Koma na Major Ruguraguza
Abo bantu ngo bashobora kuba bari aba Palipehutu FNL.
Amatagisi Yaciwe m'Umujyi Wa Kigali
Abagenzi bamwe ngo bahitamo kugenda n'amaguru

--
« Mbwire gito canje, gito c'uwundi cumvireho» ("Conseils à mon sot, de sorte que le sot d'autrui en profite", Paul MIREREKANO, janvier 1961).

"The greatest thing in this world," said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."

"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." (Confucius)

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Ministre Christophe BAZIVAMO Ushinzwe Umutekano Mu Y'Abagabo.

Abasenateri Ntibishimiye Ibisobanuro bya Minisitiri w'Umutekano
Jeanne D'Arc Umwana Kigali03/02/2006

Inteko ishinga amategeko, umutwe wa Sena, muri gahunda yo kugenzura imikorere ya guverinoma, kuri uyu wa kane tariki ya 2 Gashyantare 2006 yahamagaje Minisitiri w’Umutekano, Bazivamo Christophe, gutanga ibisobanuro ku bijyanye n’iraswa ry’imfungwa za gisirikari zo ku Mulindi, ndetse no kuri gereza bavuga ko ziba mu gihugu zikora mu buryo butazwi.

Abagize umutwe wa Sena ntibumva ukuntu raporo z’imiryango mpuzamahanga zihora zitunga agatoki u Rwanda zivuga ko mu Rwanda hari gereza zifunga abantu ziba ahantu hatazwi, mu buryo butazwi, kandi butubahiriza uburenganzira bw’ikiremwa cya muntu.

Ku bijyanjye n’iraswa ry’imfungwa za gisirikare zo ku Mulindi ryabaye tariki ya 21 Ukuboza 2005 bazira gukora imyigaragambyo mu buryo butemewe n’amategeko, Minisitiri Bazivamo yavuze ko nta cyo abiziho, ko byabazwa Minisitiri w’Ingabo.

Gereza na zo imiryango mpuzamahanga ivuga ko ziba mu gihugu mu buryo butazwi, Bazivamo yatangarije aba Senateri ko izo gereza ntazibaho.

Inteko Ishinga Amategeko, umutwe wa Sena, ntiyanyuzwe n’ibisobanuro Minisitiri w’Umutekano mu gihugu yabahaye , akaba azongera gutumizwa gutanga ibindi.

Gutumiza Minisitiri kwisobanura mu Nteko, yaba mu mutwe w’Abadepite cyangwa wa Sena, biri mu nshingano z’inteko ishinga amategeko ku bijyanye no kugenzura imikorere ya guverinoma.