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Totally unexpected, the Rwandan government has decided that, among other things, the two main political prisoners of the country will be released early: the opposing and presidential candidate in 2010 Victoire Ingabire and the popular singer and songmaker Kizito Mihigo. This morning they left the prison (see the pictures above), together with more than 2,000 other prisoners spread all over Rwanda.
The politician and presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire has been in prison since 2010 and was sentenced in 2013 to 15 years for negationism of the genocide against the Tutsis, sedition and conspiracy to commit a coup. The very popular musician and songwriter Kizito Mihigo was arrested in 2014 when he released a particularly popular song in which he indirectly also indicted the murders of the current powers in the past quarter century. He was sentenced to 10 years in 2015 and was promised this spring that he would be released on condition that he withdrew the appeal against his conviction. He finally did that last Monday.
Heavy criticism
For years now, the Rwandan judiciary has received strong criticism from various international human rights organizations and academics. And that was also the case for the trials against Victoire Ingabire and Kizito Mihigo. For example, the genocide law of Rwanda is seen by human rights researchers as a law that has come mainly to suppress any criticism of the regime. This law makes it possible to confine someone to vague accusations of ‘negationism’ of the genocide on the Tutsis in 1994, where very severe sentences are imposed. Most opponents in Rwanda have been silenced for years. Rwanda called to review the process.
But neither the Rwandan justice nor the almighty president Kagame, who visited King Filip last July, responded to that ruling by the highest African court. More than that: Rwanda had withdrawn from the African Court of Human Rights shortly before the Ingabire case was handled. Paul Kagame and his direct entourage have been saying for almost a quarter of a century that there is nothing wrong with human rights in Rwanda. The picking up of opponents is always justified by referring to the genocide on the Tutsis of 1994: a repetition of that tragedy must be prevented and therefore politicians and media can be restricted. Whatever happens, with a hard hand, disappearances and sham processes included.
Behind the scenes
The Rwandan opponents abroad and the international observers are now looking for an explanation for these totally unexpected decisions by President Kagame and his government. In recent years he had shown himself immensely to anyone who dared to criticize his regime for the least. Certainly Victoire Ingabire was called a ‘terrorist’ by the rulers in Rwanda and by the pro-government press (in Rwanda there is hardly any other press), which cooperates with the armed opponents in neighboring Congo and is therefore dangerous to the state. The release of Kizito Mihigo would be somewhat less sensitive, because the regime was counting on it to regain control.
The official communication from the Rwandan government refers to the ‘leniency’ (forgiveness) that they would both have asked for in the month of June. The decision of President Kagame is therefore presented by his supporters as an act of forgiveness and thus good governance.
The Rwandan Minister of Justice calls the releases a purely judicial and not a political issue, even though the president is the only one with the power to release prisoners early. Yet something rages about that reasoning. According to the Rwandan legislation, cited in the official statement , a sentenced person who has been imprisoned for more than five years can only be released after two thirds of that sentence. Neither Victoire Ingabire nor Kizito Mihigo have served two thirds of their sentence …
Busy
So there must be more to Rwanda to explain these unexpected political steps. Perhaps not immediately the protests of Rwandan opponents abroad for many years, but the European and American pressures on President Kagame may have played a role in his unexpected decision. Possibly, his remaining foreign allies insisted on ‘doing something’ to keep his credibility on the international stage more or less intact. After all, the criticism of his harsh dictatorial policy was repeated only last week in the annual statement of the US State Department(Ministry of Foreign Affairs) on the human rights situation in Rwanda. Behind the scenes, some African countries and possibly some European ones have been trying to persuade Kagame to be more lenient towards his critics, if only to put the much-needed stability in the region at risk.
Perhaps it will only become clear in the coming days, weeks or months why the Rwandan regime unexpectedly releases its most famous political prisoners and what is opposed to it. Incidentally, many thousands of others remain without any form of trial or after a questionable conviction. Immediately after her release, Victoire Ingabire already addressed President Kagame with the request to let other political prisoners go now.
And then there are the many thousands of opponents, small and large, who have been killed coldly in the last 24 years. And the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Rwandan civilians who have been murdered since 1990 (the start of the war) by the Rwandan Patriotic Front of Paul Kagame. But they are much less known than Victoire Ingabire or Kizito Mihigo.
Source: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2018/09/15/onverwachte-vrijlating-van-politieke-gevangenen-in-rwanda/