Diane Rwigara, a prominent Rwandan critic and 2017 presidential hopeful, accuses the Rwandan government’s security forces of murdering dozens of genocide survivors including Jean-Paul Mwiseneza who was brutally killed last month.
The government has not commented on these allegations yet.
In an open letter addressed to President Paul Kagame today, Ms. Rwigara, a genocide survivor herself, makes several disturbing allegations, accusing the government of killing many survivors, mostly educated ones, for politically motivated reasons.
“Jean-Paul Mwiseneza was a friend of mine,” said Rwigara. He was killed shortly after talking to her about unrest among inmates at the Kigali prison, where he worked as a guard, she continued.
Jean-Paul Mwiseneza, whose murder we documented here, miraculously survived the genocide only to be beheaded last month, allegedly by government agents, because of his ties to the opposition. No suspect has been arrested so far.
The open letter lists nearly 50 survivors murdered for the same reasons since the 2000s.
‘ Government concerned more with the dead than the living survivors’
The letter goes on to ask why the government cares more about the memory of those killed in 1994 than about living survivors who are killed because they are suspected of criticizing the current government:
‘’ …Excellency, your government rightly seems committed to retaining the searing memory of our loved ones killed during the genocide. But why isn’t the same level of respect shown to the living? Why isn’t the same level of concern and care shown to the survivors of those atrocities? Honoring the deceased, yes. But why not starting with preserving the living?’…The open letter reads.
Click here to read the entire open letter as it was published on Rwigara’s website, dianerwigara.com
Reports of genocide survivors and others being killed for their political views in Rwanda are not unusual. But Diane Rwigara is the first politician inside the country to break the silence and indifference that have always surrounded this issue.
Whether the survivors listed in the letter were targeted for being survivors or for criticizing the government remains an open question. Ends.
By Albert Gasake
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