Rwandan presidential candidate plans to visit Dayton on Saturday
Many of the about 300 Rwandans living in the Dayton area are refugees.
By Hannah C. Bealer, Staff Writer12:38 AM Friday, June 26, 2009
Rwandan presidential candidate and United Democratic Front party member Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza will be at the Dayton North Holiday Inn at 3 p.m. Saturday, June 27.
Dayton has a Rwandan population of about 300, said Kristine Ward, chair of the board at the House of the People, a shelter for Rwandan refugees in Dayton .
Ward said 17 refugees are currently housed at the center, where they have the opportunity to seek employment and focus on education.
In September 2010, Umuhoza will run against President General Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
The Tutsi-formed RPF as well as Hutu extremists are widely believed to have played a part in the killings of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, who died when their plane was shot down in 1994. The assassinations caused controversy among the two groups, and led to the Rwandan genocide.
“Those who ignore all about Rwanda think that Kagame is a hero for his country whereas he is co-responsible for the Rwandanese tragedy,” Umuhoza said April 15 while giving a lecture at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands .
Ward said as an American citizen, she does not have a position in the Rwandan election. She believes that the local refugees, however, will “have a great deal to say about it. They were the ones who fortunately lived through the genocide.”
Renewal ceremony
“We gather not because we are all the same. We gather because we are all in this together,” Father John Krumm said at St. Mary’s Church on Saturday, June 20.
Krumm, who has been the priest of St. Mary’s for nine years, led a ceremony for the renewal of Isaie Sibomana’s and Sylvie Incuti’s marriage vows. The couple married in 1999 in Burkina Faso , a nation in West Africa . Their first child, Brice Sibomana, 8, was born in the country.
When the couple moved to Dayton , Incuti gave birth to their now 1-year-old twins, Bryan and Bright.
The family felt it was “important to renew their vows in a church for the community and their children,” Ward said. Brice’s first communion was included in the ceremony as well as the twins’ baptism.
Many Rwandan refugees who escaped the 1994 genocide were in attendance for the ceremony, and Krumm’s words must have hit home for many of them.Ward has only positive things to say about the refugees she assists at the House of the People. “They’re very forgiving,” she said. “That’s why it’s hard for them to understand the genocide.”
Ward also noted that many of the refugees held high-ranking jobs in Rwanda , ranging from university professors to doctors. However, when they arrive at the House of the People, “they take any job they can get.”
Many will agree to work the night shift so they can spend the daytime with their children, she said.
“If there’s a gift they can give, it’s the way they care for their children,” Ward said. “These men are the most dedicated fathers I have seen.”
Ward, who’s work at the House is voluntary, says it’s a miracle when a Rwandan family comes to live at the House with all members intact. Despite their misfortunes, “they never lost their dignity, their hope or their love,” said Ward.
Now, the refugees have a new hope for the country they fled.
That hope comes in the form of Umuhoza.
Umuhoza did not witness the genocide personally.
In an interview with Oliver Nyiruburgara, a journalist who focuses on African affairs, she explained she left Rwanda in 1994 to live in the Netherlands . She watched the genocide progress on television.
“It hurt me deep in my heart,” she told Nyiruburgara. “My political determination is based on that. We suffered a genocide and the first step should be reconciliation.”
Philippe Bizimana, the Rwandan community coordinator in Dayton , says that Umuhoza will be the first politician the community will see when she comes to speak in Dayton .
Bizimana came to live in the U.S. 10 years ago when he left a Kenyan refugee camp and arrived in Dayton . “This is my place,” he said of the city.
Bizimana said not many people know of Umuhoza, but “many people would support anyone who could bring peace in Rwanda .”
Dr. Joseph Twagilimana, another Rwandan refugee, feels similarly. He explained the name ‘Umuhoza’ means a person who cleans the tears off of a crying person’s cheeks.
If Umuhoza defeats the current president, she will be the country’s first female president.
“That would be great. I feel like everyone will be happy like they are in Liberia now,” said Bizimana, referring to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who won the 2005 Liberian presidential election and became its first elected female head of state.
“We don’t distinguish between male or female,” explained Twagilimana. “We distinguish who can do what and the way he or she can do it. A president is a president, not a male or a female.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-9370 or hbealer
@DaytonDailyNews. com.
http://www.daytonda ilynews.com/ news/dayton- news/rwandan- presidential- candidate- plans-to- visit-dayton- on-saturday- 178867.html
The dictator Kagame at UN
Dictators like Kagame who have changed their national constitutions to remain indefinitely on power should not be involved in UN high level and global activities including chairing UN meetings
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Thousands of Hutu murdered by Kagame inside Rwanda, e.g. Kibeho massacres
Kagame killed 200,000 Hutus from all regions of the country, the elderly and children who were left by their relatives, the disabled were burned alive. Other thousands of people were killed in several camps of displaced persons including Kibeho camp. All these war crimes remain unpunished.The British news reporters were accompanying Kagame’s fighters on day-by-day basis and witnessed these massacres, but they never reported on this.
25,000 Hutu bodies floated down River Akagera into Lake Victoria in Uganda.
The British irrational, extremist, partisan,biased, one-sided media and politicians have disregarded Kagame war crimes e.g. the Kibeho camp massacres, massacres of innocents Hutu refugees in DR. Congo. The British media have been supporting Kagame since he invaded Rwanda by organising the propaganda against the French over the Rwandan genocide, suppressing the truth about the genocide and promoting the impunity of Kagame and his cronies in the African Great Lakes Region. For the British, Rwanda does not need democracy, Rwanda is the African Israel; and Kagame and his guerilla fighters are heroes.The extremist British news reporters including Fergal Keane, Chris Simpson, Chris McGreal, Mark Doyle, etc. continue to hate the Hutus communities and to polarise the Rwandan society.
Kagame political ambitions triggered the genocide.
Kagame’s guerrilla war was aimed at accessing to power at any cost. He rejected all attempts and advice that could stop his military adventures including the cease-fire, political negotiations and cohabitation, and UN peacekeeping interventions. He ignored all warnings that could have helped him to manage the war without tragic consequences. Either you supported Kagame’ s wars and you are now his friend, or you were against his wars and you are his enemy. Therefore, Kagame as the Rwandan strong man now, you have to apologise to him for having been against his war and condemned his war crimes, or accept to be labelled as having been involved in the genocide. All key Kagame’s fighters who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity are the ones who hold key positions in Rwandan army and government for the last 15 years. They continue to be supported and advised by the British including Tony Blair, Andrew Mitchell MP, and the British army senior officials.
Aid that kills: The British Budget Support financed Museveni and Kagame’s wars in Rwanda and DRC.
Genocide propaganda and fabrications are used by the so-called British scholars, news reporters and investigative journalists to promote their CVs and to get income out of the genocide through the selling of their books, providing testimonies against the French, access to consultancy contracts from the UN and Kagame, and participation in conferences and lectures in Rwanda, UK and internationally about genocide. Genocide propaganda has become a lucrative business for Kagame and the British. Anyone who condemned or did not support Kagame’s war is now in jail in Rwanda under the gacaca courts system suuported by British tax payer's money, or his/she is on arrest warrant if he/she managed to flee the Kagame’s regime. Others have fled the country and are still fleeing now. Many others Rwandans are being persecuted in their own country. Kagame is waiting indefinitely for the apologies from other players who warn him or who wanted to help to ensure that political negotiations take place between Kagame and the former government he was fighting against. Britain continues to supply foreign aid to Kagame and his cronies with media reports highlighting economic successes of Rwanda. Such reports are flawed and are aimed at misleading the British public to justify the use of British taxpayers’ money. Kagame and his cronies continue to milk British taxpayers’ money under the British budget support. This started from 1986 through the British budget support to Uganda until now.
Dictator Kagame: No remorse for his unwise actions and ambitions that led to the Rwandan genocide.
No apologies yet to the Rwandan people. The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana by Kagame was the only gateway for Kagame to access power in Rwanda. The British media, politicians, and the so-called British scholars took the role of obstructing the search for the truth and justice; and of denying this assassination on behalf of General Kagame. General Paul Kagame has been obliging the whole world to apologise for his mistakes and war crimes. The UK’s way to apologise has been pumping massive aid into Rwanda's crony government and parliement; and supporting Kagame though media campaigns.
Fanatical, partisan, suspicious, childish and fawning relations between UK and Kagame
Kagame receives the British massive aid through the budget support, British excessive consultancy, sector wide programmes, the Tutsi-dominated parliament, British and Tutsi-owned NGOs; for political, economic and English language expansion to Rwanda. The British aid to Rwanda is not for all Rwandans. It is for Kagame himself and his Tutsi cronies.
Paul Kagame' actvities as former rebel
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