OPEN LETTER TO MR. PAUL KAGAME

Dear Mr. Kagame,

I recently watched on YouTube, a speech you gave where you said, we should not allow western powers to dictate what happens in Rwanda. That sounds wonderful except that you have no moral standing to say that: you have been pushed down our throat by the West; they have ignored your serious criminal offenses before and after you come to power; they closed their eyes when you rigged elections twice and twenty years later, your government still relies extensively on aid from United Kingdom and other Western donors.

Now, that you are asked by those same donors to abide by the constitution and leave after your second term, you are demonizing them, depicting them as people we shouldn’t listen to. Really? You must be a terrible student of history.

Dear Mr. Kagame, you have lost your mind! Your ethical degeneracy is complete, and your shamelessness has become even more emboldened. You are blaming the West for your misfortunes. Now, tell me, who made you the president of Rwanda? Did you not come to power by military siege sponsored by the same West you denounce today? You make me spit! You have been used to murder your own people, selfishly enriched your masters and yourself at expense of Rwandan and Congolese people and now you are being dropped like a hot potato when times are tough. Didn’t you lean from Mobutu, Saddam Hussein, Charles Taylor, Kaddafi and other dictators? Welcome to life on earth, Mr. President! You are definitely a terrible student of history.

Dear Mr. Kagame, in the same speech you talked about history… How dare you! How dare you suggest Rwandans not think about their history in terms of dictatorship and democracy, in terms of prosperity and hardship? And in terms of extra-judicial killings and peace? The reign of dictators like yourself, will not be written with the denial of history in mind, as you may wish. In as such, Rwandans will always remember your term as a ruler as a period of high level suppression of freedoms and extra-judicial killings. History will remember you as a tyrant who destroyed himself and his own people. History will remember your state sponsored assassination of political opponents like Col. Patrick Karegeya in South Africa, and history will remember the killing of innocent Rwandans and Congolese civilians. These are absolutes! Absolutes affirmed by the courts of law if several countries, human rights organizations and the ultimate UN Mapping Report. You are a bad student of history.

Dear Mr. Kagame, few weeks ago, I read another article from your mouthpiece newspaper, in which your asked one of your cronies Sheikh Musa Fazil Harerimana to state that you will change the constitution and contest in the election for a third term under the banner of the Rwandan people! You really like to impress yourself by saying rubbish, don’t you? What is wrong with you? First, you are far from bearer of the banner of the Rwandan people. Outside of like-minded usurpers and those who fear you, your political constituency in Rwanda is zero! You are politically finished before the people! You are not fit! You are not fit to carry any banner of any Rwandan people! Furthermore, you will never be able to govern the Rwandan people again. The spiral of your Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) divisiveness began when you imposed yourself as its president, when you annulled democracy and chased away or incarcerated your former confidants. You sew the seed of discord, you damaged the country. And if Rwanda must be whole again, it must happen with your exclusion from the political process. Even if you win a fraudulent election, by changing the constitution and designing some election malpractices, Rwandans will not allow themselves to be governable by you. Chaos will reign! Rwanda will become more of a failed state! You certainly don’t believe this, you think that your mighty Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) killers will do the job for you, but let’s wait and see. You are definitely a bad student of history.

Dear Mr.Kagame, you ought to shut up! Each time you give a political speech, you rubbish yourself plenty. In the same speech, I heard again what you said…. You said that you will make it “expensive” for anyone to remove you from power. How delusional! Why do you insist on making a fool of yourself to the world media? Your arrogance is beyond bearing. Mr. President, un-scrupulousness has eaten deep into your being. I see the pain of dashed hopes, the agony of thwarted dreams and the regrets of expectations not met. Rwandans do not need to be smart to understand that your police and DMI has no right to slap them, arrest them or kill them. They do not need to be smart to know that they are actually more powerful than even you and that they have a right to proper legal redress in a properly functional legal system, not one infested with crowds of mercenary judges, magistrates and prosecutors whose loyalty is entirely to you and your coterie of corrupt sycophants in RPF. There is simply no justification for the continued political ignorance of any other political party or independent think-tank on the excuse that they are “terrorists” or that they belong to your fabricated “genocide ideology”.

It is a well-known fact Mr. President, that you hate the very idea of political enlightenment and freedom of speech. This is most clearly demonstrated in your bitter hatred of the private media and especially in your shameful attempt to silence BBC-Gahuzamiryango. In your severely parochial understanding, our national society is divided into two distinct groups of citizens: patriotic (intore) and unpatriotic (terrorists/ibigarasha) – patriotic citizens being those who support you and the unpatriotic/terrorists citizens being everyone else. You are divider, not a uniter and Mr. President, you are a poor student of history.

Dear Mr. Kagame, Rwandans do not need to be smart to know that if you overtax them, deny them passports or other public services because they do not like you or your leadership, you are denying them their rights! They do not need to be smart to know that all monies spent by you and your government do not come from your personal pocket, but from their own pockets, and from loans contracted in their names, which they and their progeny have to repay. Have you explained this clearly to Rwandans? But of course, Mr. President, you and your government are utterly incapable of such potentially self-subverting honesty. You would rather feed the lie that you actually own both the government and the country and that you own your money and can spend it how and where you want. And so you go about hiring expensive western lobbyists and raising skyscrapers for yourself through fake private companies; expecting the people to show their eternal gratitude by heaping lavish praises on you and begging you for money and development projects which actually matter to them. This unhealthy misconception of state by society needs to be eradicated from our national mentality and can be so eradicated with the right kind of leadership capable of bringing all Rwandans together. The money you are currently wasting on bogus prestige projects, the purchase of luxury private jets, armored vehicles, and surface-to-air missiles, corrupting scholars and politicians from foreign countries need to be invested in developing rural area and improving education in Rwanda

In conclusion, I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to you Mr. President, to please stop blaming the West and anybody else for your own failures. We need to resort to the rule of law, allowing the constitution to be supreme, not RPF or yourself, and allowing for real political parties to exist and elections to take place freely. You can start by releasing Ingabire Victore, whom you incarcerated for just trying to run for president. You know that evidence against her was fabricated and that some of the charges were actually against Rwanda’s Constitution. Mr. President, we need a transparent and an inclusive Rwandan government that is totally devoted to meeting socio-economic developmental needs of our country. We need a government that respects the rights of its citizens, and most of all, we need peace to prevail. Peace within Rwanda, and with our neighbors. If you do this Mr. President, you might still be remembered in years to come, for saving, rather than completely destroying Rwanda. It is not yet too late to act.

Yours respectfully,

Maxime Pasi,

CREDIT SOURCE: http://www.therwandan.com/blog/open-letter-to-mr-paul-kagame/