Open Letter To The Right Honourable Prime Ministers, Theresa May and Justin Trudeau
Dear Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Canada, the Right Honourable Theresa May and Justin Trudeau, respectively. I wish to point out your apparent double standard.
When the Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in Wiltshire city, the British government rightly condemned the act.
The British government determined that the person who unleashed this violence was no other than the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Britain immediately gave Putin’s administration a deadline to explain how a former spy was poisoned in the UK. In the words of Prime Minister May, Britain would not tolerate such a “brazen attempt to murder innocent civilians on our soil”. Britain has since expelled several Russian diplomats in retaliation.
In solidarity with Britain, Prime Minister Trudeau was quick to condemn the act, too. As he put it,
“The attack is despicable and it is unacceptable that there would be chemical weapons used against citizens of the United Kingdom…Russia’s likely involvement is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be condemned in the strongest terms. That’s what I told Teresa May and that is what I’m glad to repeat here today.”
Meanwhile, British police were warning a Rwandan exile, Noble Marara, that his life was in danger.
Rwanda’s strongman, Paul Kagame’s death squads, were on a mission to wipe out Marara, who is a former soldier in the Rwandan military, and now a critic of the regime. And as the world knows, this is not the first time Scotland Yard has issued alerts on Kagame’s violence in Britain. In Canada, at least half a dozen Canadians routinely face Kagame’s death threats.
The British government has issued no statement about Kagame’s behaviour. In Canada, the Trudeau administration is moving in the opposite direction – befriending Kagame. Rwanda’s defence minister who cannot set foot in any Western Democratic country was recently given the red carpet on the Canadian soil. Rwanda’s environment minister was recently hosted in Canada and informed by his Canadian counterpart that the two governments are the best of friends.
Dear Prime Ministers May and Trudeau, African lives matter, too. As the Timesof London put it, “Rwanda deserves to be condemned as much as Russia.”
Prime Ministers May And Trudeau, your silence on Rwanda while condemning Russia is a manifestation of a double standard of the worst kind – racism. Please end this unbecoming behaviour by unequivocal condemnation of Kagame’s violence.
By David Himbara
