Since her return home to Britain from the Rwandan prison in which she at one point feared she would die, Violette Uwamahoro has been plagued by nightmares. Describing her dreams, she said: “It is always 2am and I hear my cell door being opened. I know I am in danger but I don’t know where I am going. It’s only then that I wake up.”
For two weeks, the youth worker from Leeds was held incommunicado following her arrest on St Valentine’s Day by plain-clothed police officers who accused her of raising an “irregular armed group” to overthrow the African state’s government.
The British mother-of-two, who is expecting her third child and was five months pregnant at the time of her arrest, described how she was kept chained at the ankles and handcuffed as she was interrogated about her husband – an opposition activist based in the UK – and advised to “apologise” for her actions. At one point she suffered bleeding and feared she would lose her unborn child.
Unconditional bail
Mrs Uwamahoro, whose case was first highlighted by i, was unexpectedly released last week after international media coverage and a Rwandan judge ruled there was no evidence to justify her detention. She flew home last Wednesday after being granted unconditional bail.
But despite her ordeal, the 39-year-old said she felt so strongly about the allegations against her that she would still consider returning to her native country to prove her innocence despite the risk of fresh arrest.
In her first full interview since her return home, she told i: “There were times during my detention when I believed I would not see my children or my husband again, that the end could be my death. For those two weeks, I was very alone. “
But I knew that they had no evidence, that what they were saying was lies and I was being held only because of my husband. That is why my wish is still to clear my name – I would consider going back to dismiss these claims because Rwanda is still where I came from and where my family is.”
Funeral
Mrs Uwamahoro had returned to her village in northern Rwanda at short notice in February to attend her father’s funeral and was arrested in the country’s capital, Kigali, as she got off a bus on her way to catch a plane back to Britain.
She said: “Suddenly, there were two men blocking my way off the bus. I thought they were guys trying to offer me a taxi or another bus so I told them I needed no help. They had no uniform and no identification but said they were security policemen. “
They pushed me into the car they had parked behind the bus. I didn’t know if they were thugs targeting tourists. They covered my face and handcuffed me and told me to lie forward so I couldn’t be seen. When I told them couldn’t I see that I was pregnant they relented and let me lie back. I was terrified, I had no idea what was going on.”
The Briton, who arrived in the UK with her husband Faustin Rukundo in 2004, said she was eventually taken to a “safe house” by her interrogators where she was kept in grim conditions in a room with a bare mattress and with her ankles bound.
Disappearances
Human rights groups have highlighted a spate of disappearances and politically motivated arrests in Rwanda as the country heads towards its presidential elections later this year.
President Paul Kagame, who secured a change to the constitution in order to stand for re-election, has been accused of leading Rwanda down an increasingly authoritarian path after previously winning admiration from western backers for stabilising the country in the wake of its ruinous genocide in 1994.
Mrs Uwamahoro insisted that she had had no involvement with the political activity of her husband, who is a member of the Rwandan National Congress, an opposition group founded by former members of Mr Kagame’s inner circle and based abroad.
She said: “Straight away they asked me about my husband and his activities. It was clear to me that was why I had been arrested. They wanted to be an informant. But I have no interest in or involvement in politics. That is why when they told me they had all this evidence against me I knew they must be lying. It was fabrication. “
That did not stop me being fearful. I had chains around my ankles and handcuffs. I started bleeding after my arrest and thought I was losing my baby. I asked for a senior doctor but the doctor they sent only examined my eyes. There were no women guarding me in the safe house, it was just men. It is hard to be a woman, on your own and pregnant, surrounded only by men. You are concerned for your safety, very concerned.”
Diplomats
The first glimmer of hope for the Briton came when she was brought to an official police station and told she was being charged with offences including “revealing state secrets” and raising a secret army against the Kagame government. It was at this point that British diplomats were given access to Mrs Uwamahoro, who lobbied successfully for her to be given appropriate medical care and access to legal advice.
After two months in detention, a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to hold the mother-of-two. She had been jointly charged along with a distant cousin who is a police officer and with whom she said she had exchanged only perfunctory messages over WhatsApp.
Clarification
At home in the family’s neat semi in suburban Leeds, her sons – Sam, 8, and 10-year-old David – waited for news along with Faustin, 37, a laboratory technician. After an agonising two days in which British officials secured clarification that she could leave the country, Mrs Uwamahoro boarded a flight to Manchester last week.
She said: “The boys and my husband met me at the airport. It was emotional – they could not understand that I was home. The youngest told me ‘mum, I can’t believe you are here’. I must have looked like an apparition to them after so much time and worry. I am so glad to be home.”
Her husband, who is perhaps unsurprisingly less enthusiastic about his wife returning to Rwanda, said he was convinced the high profile given to his wife’s case had ensured her survival. He said: “I am certain that without the i and subsequent stories across Africa, and the intervention of the British diplomats, we would not have seen Violette again.”
By Cahal Milmo
inews.co.uk
