[The New Year started in distress for Congolese civilians as militia members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) butchered at least 39 people while 13 others were injured, between Monday and Wednesday, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).]
BURUNDI :
Au Burundi, le procès de 23 prévenus pour «terrorisme» encore au stade des questions de procédure
Par RFI /vendredi 06 janvier 2012
Nouvelle joute judiciaire dans le procès des 23 personnes poursuivies pour «actes de terrorisme» par le tribunal de grande instance de Cankuzo, à quelque 250 km à l’est de Bujumbura. Le débat, qui en est toujours au stade des questions de procédure, a porté cette fois sur la détention des détenus, qualifiée d’inhumaine et d’illégale par les avocats, alors que les juges ont tout fait pour aller au fond du dossier. Et ce sont les premiers qui ont obtenu gain de cause. Compte rendu d’audience avec notre correspondant.
Les avocats de la défense ont engagé le bras-de-fer dès les premières minutes de cette audience, en dénonçant la détention illégale de leurs 23 clients, encore incarcérés dans des cachots de police, alors qu’ils devraient être déjà dans une maison d’arrêt.
Le juge-président Albert Ndiwimana reconnaît la pertinence de l’argument, mais il invoque le fait que Cankuzo ne dispose pas d’un tel bâtiment. Au bout de deux heures de débats, le juge-président, visiblement excédé, annonce alors que la cour va entrer tout de suite dans le fond de l’affaire. Notre décision est «irrévocable», martèle le président Nduwimana. L’un des avocats de la défense, Maître Onésime Kabayabaya, raconte : «Comme ils ont refusé, nous avons dit que nous ne pouvons pas faire semblant d’assister des gens, lorsque le tribunal n’est pas prêt à nous écouter sur des questions aussi ordinaires que leur transfert dans la maison pénitentiaire».
Le juge-président du tribunal de Cankuzo veut malgré tout aller de l’avant ; il demande alors aux 23 prévenus s’ils veulent être entendus ou pas. La majorité refuse, ce qui l’oblige à mettre fin aux débats. Les prévenus regagnent alors leurs cellules en chantant : «Ceux qui disent que ce n’est pas vrai seront punis. Nous, nous avons entendu les paroles de Dieu».
Et trois plus tard, c’est le coup de théâtre : le tribunal de Cankuzo décidé de transférer les 23 prévenus vers la prison de la province voisine de Ruyigi, dès ce vendredi matin selon des sources judiciaires.
Burundi : un parti d’opposition fustige la politique de privatisation de la filière café
Xinhua/ Vendredi 6 janvier 2012
BUJUMBURA (Xinhua) – Le Parti pour les travailleurs et la démocratie (PTD), parti d’opposition au Burundi, estime que la privatisation de la filière café est une forme de “remise en cause de cette culture” qui rapportait à l’Etat plus de 80% de recettes d’exportation, a indiqué jeudi à Bujumbura le président du PTD, Paul Nkunzimana, au cours d’une conférence de presse.
Pour M. Nkunziman, “cette politique de privatisation” vise à mettre la richesse du pays entre les mains des multinationales et contribue à renforcer la misère et le chômage qui gangrènent actuellement le Burundi.
Avec la privatisation de la filière café, a déploré le président du PTD, la plupart des agriculteurs burundais ont commencé à “déserter” cette culture, car le prix à la production du café continue à baisser.
Se référant aux témoignages recueillis auprès des caféiculteurs, M. Nkunzimana a affirmé qu’une grande quantité de café récoltée dans les localités du Nord du pays, est vendue au Rwanda où le prix à la production est plus intéressant par rapport aux prix proposés au Burundi.
Pourtant, a-t-il dit, avant que la privatisation de la filière café ne soit entreprise, les caféiculteurs burundais recevaient en retour une rémunération plus élevé que ce dont ils bénéficient actuellement.
Selon M. Nkunziman, à la fin de 2011, l’Etat du Burundi a privatisé la dernière tranche des 120 sociétés de gestion des stations de lavage du café (sogestals) restantes.
Le président de la Confédération nationale des associations des caféiculteurs (CNAC), Joseph Ntirabampa, avait annoncé en décembre dernier que la CNAC rejetait définitivement le processus de privatisation de la filière café au motif que celui-ci n’aurait pas pris en compte les intérêts des caféiculteurs.
Pour sa part, Jean-Baptiste Gahimbare, ministre burundais de la Bonne Gouvernance et de la Privatisation, avait déclaré que le gouvernement n’est pas inquiet du retrait des caféiculteurs du processus de privatisation de la filière café.
Consultations entre les partenaires politiques sur la Commission pour la vérité et la réconciliation au Burundi
6 janvier 2012 /www.temoignages.re
Des consultations sur la mise en place d’une Commission nationale pour la vérité et la réconciliation (CVR) au Burundi ont eu lieu mercredi entre le deuxième vice-président de la République, Gervais Rufyikiri, et certains représentants des partis politiques agréés dans le pays, a appris la PANA de source officielle à Bujumbura.
La réunion intervient au lendemain du message de Nouvel An à la nation du chef de l’État burundais, Pierre Nkurunzia, qui promettait la mise en place rapide de la CVR, après des consultations tous azimuts.
L’opposition extraparlementaire n’a toutefois pas répondu présente à la rencontre du deuxième vice-président de la République pour des motifs inconnus.
On sait seulement que les relations entre le pouvoir et cette partie de la classe politique nationale peinent à revenir à la normale depuis les dernières élections générales controversées de 2010.
Une partie de l’opposition avait crié aux « fraudes électorales massives » des Municipales avant de se retirer du reste des consultations populaires dont les plus importantes portaient sur la Présidentielle et les Législatives.
La mise en place de la CVR au Burundi reste très attendue, dans un pays qui ignore aujourd’hui encore toute la vérité sur les différents crimes de sang qui ont endeuillé le Burundi depuis son accession à l’indépendance, en 1962.
La mise en place de cette commission a été convenue entre les signataires de l’accord d’août 2000, à Arusha, en Tanzanie, sur la paix et la réconciliation nationale. La commission doit recueillir des témoignages et proposer des sanctions à l’encontre des auteurs avérés des différents crimes de guerre, de génocide et contre l’humanité qui ont eu lieu à ce jour dans le pays.
Le pouvoir burundais doit encore consulter d’autres acteurs non-étatiques directement intéressés par les questions de justice transitionnelle avant la mise en place effective de la CVR, comme ceux de la Société civile et des confessions religieuses, avait promis le Président Nkurunziza dans son message à la nation.
RWANDA :
Rwanda: FDLR Rebels Kill 39 Congolese
James Karuhanga/The New Times/6 January 2012
The New Year started in distress for Congolese civilians as militia members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) butchered at least 39 people while 13 others were injured, between Monday and Wednesday, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The latest attacks took place in the villages of Luyuyu, Ngolombe and Kishenya in the locality of South Bamuguba in Shabunda, South Kivu Province.
The DRC Armed Forces, FARDC, are reportedly strengthening their presence in the areas as remote villages have been targeted by the militia since the beginning of January.
FARDC Spokesperson in South Kivu, Lt. Col. Vianney Kazalama, told The New Times yesterday that the militia killed many civilians and fled to the surrounding Shabunda forest .
“Shabunda is an enormous forest area and fighting the FDLR here is not easy at all. They come and attack and run back into the forest. They lay ambushes and run,” Kazalama said during the interview.
“We are gathering people into major trading centres from where we can ably protect them”.
Covering over 25,000 square kilometres, Shabunda is the largest territory in South Kivu Province. There is no telephone or radio communication but have few and scattered landing strips that keep the territory from being completely cut off from the rest of the vast country.
“The forest goes up to the Maniema and operations against FDLR there require specialised air operations and special commando forces. The population is really suffering!” Kazalama noted.
For the past 17 years, FDLR, which is composed of some elements responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, has a history of attacking civilians, killing, raping, pillaging and disintegrating families in the DRC.
It is also often accused of forcefully recruiting children and taking civilians hostage.
The continued slaughter of innocent civilians comes just days after the release of FDLR leader Callixte Mbarushimana by the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the Hague-based court refused to prefer charges against him.
Mbarushimana, who was freed towards the end of last year, is the Executive Secretary of the outfit and is a key mobiliser of funds to finance the insurgency.
The group’s other leaders, Ignace Murwanashyaka and Straton Musoni, the president and vice-president, respectively, remain in custody in Germany over similar charges.
Rwandan man will face death if deported, longtime lawyer argues
By Marianne White, Postmedia News /www.montrealgazette.com/ January 5, 2012
QUEBEC — The former lawyer of a Rwandan man accused of inciting to genocide said Thursday he is appalled by Ottawa’s decision to send him back to his home country next week.
Well-known Quebec jurist Guy Bertrand, who stopped representing Leon Mugesera in December when he received a notice of deportation, said Canada has made a “serious mistake”.
“The government has taken a very, very big risk in sending Mr. Mugesera back to Rwanda,” Bertrand said in an interview.
The high-profile lawyer, who defended Quebec City resident Mugesera for 17 years, noted this decision could seriously hurt the reputation of Canada’s legal system.
Bertrand had been asking for years that Mugesera be tried in Canada for the allegations against him that he gave a speech in Rwanda in 1992, which his critics allege was a defining moment in the buildup to the 1994 genocide.
“We have the best justice system in the world and yet instead of trying Mr. Mugesera here, we send him to a country where the justice system isn’t credible,” he said.
Bertrand noted even if the Rwandan justice system has made great strides in recent years, notably by instating independent judges, the country’s president Paul Kagame has “a long arm.”
He is convinced Mugesera will be killed as soon as he’ll step into Rwanda since he is an enemy of Kagame and is on the president’s “most wanted list”.
“I’m sure he won’t even make it to the prison. They’ll stage an accident or something,” Bertrand said.
But in the 80-page notice from the Citizenship and Immigration Department Mugesera received in December — parts of which Bertrand made available to reporters on Thursday — the Canadian government stresses it has received assurances from the Rwandan government Mugesera will be treated well and that his rights will be protected.
Ottawa also argues it is safe to deport him to Rwanda since the death penalty was abolished.
Mugesera’s new lawyer Johanne Doyon will be in Federal Court in Montreal Monday to try and quash this latest decision, but he could be deported as soon as Jan. 12.
Mugesera, now in his late 50s, has been fighting expulsion from Canada since 1995 for his alleged role in the Rwandan genocide — which saw as many as 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and some of the Hutu majority slaughtered.
Mugesera, a Hutu, allegedly called Rwandan Tutsis “cockroaches” and “scum” in the speech, encouraging his fellow Hutus to kill them. A warrant was issued against him in Rwanda shortly after he gave that speech but he fled to Canada, where he was granted permanent residence in 1993.
Deportation proceedings commenced in 1995, but the Federal Court of Appeal found in 2003 the allegations against Mugesera were without foundation. However, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned that decision on June 28, 2005, saying he should not be allowed to remain in Canada.
Since then, Mugesera has been in legal limbo.
The Canadian government had until now refused to deport Mugesera and others to Rwanda on the grounds they would be subject to mistreatment and questions have also been raised about the Rwandan courts’ ability to meet international standards.
The final decision, handed to Mugesera in December, was taken by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney but Bertrand said the department did a thorough analysis of jurisprudence and responded to all the points he raised in the thousand pages of documentation he filed.
“The minister has the discretionary power to make that decision and I was hoping for a different answer. I was very, very surprised,” Bertrand said.
Rwanda had been pressing Canada to deport Mugesera for quite some time.
Bertrand said the Canadian government justified its decision to deport Mugesera notably by citing decisions by other countries, such as Sweden, to deport genocide suspects.
Mugesera came to Canada with his wife and five children, now all grown up.
mwhite(at)postmedia.com
Twitter.com/whitma
Rwanda: Country Counts EAC Integration Benefits
Eric Kabeera/The New Times/6 January 2012
When Rwanda applied to join the East African Community (EAC) in 1996, skeptics argued that its emerging private sector would be no match for the bigger firms in the region.
However, they have since been proved wrong as the country has socially and economically benefited from the membership it assumed in 2007.
It has benefited tremendously from the effective implementation of the Common Market Protocol and Customs Union that have accelerated economic development and fostered social ties with the East African citizenry through the elimination of barriers to regional trade and movement of services, goods and people.
In an interview with The New Times, Claudine Uwera, a local trader at Nyabugogo market dealing in garments and bags, and who has been in business for the last eight years, narrates that since the country joined the EAC, her business had flourished.
“I had a few customers and since I had just started, business was not much. The business atmosphere however drastically changed in 2008 when I could receive customers from other countries especially, those from Uganda and Kenya,” she explains.
She further observes that though she previously imported her commodities from Kampala, she is now able to import from the rest of the region, particularly from Kenya where she says goods are cheaper.
Uwera, who claims her business has grown by 60 percent, however pleads to all EAC member states to remove trade barriers to enable traders in the region to do more business. She says she currently exports her merchandise to Burundi, which she labels as still a virgin market.
According to November 2011 statistics, Rwanda’s exports to other EAC states increased by 65.7 percent in the third quarter of the year to US$16.37m (Rwf9.7b) compared to US$9.88m (Rwf5.8b) during the same period in 2010.
According to Rwanda External Trade Statistics Report by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), Kenya was the main destination of Rwanda products with a share of 84.8 percent of total exports to the EAC region, followed by Burundi and Uganda with 9.3 and 5.1 per cent respectively.
The report further indicates that imports from EAC partner states increased by 17 percent from US$ 89.6m (Rwf53.3b) to US$104.8m (Rwf62.3b) in the third quarter of 2011.
EAC consists of five member countries; Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, with the population of 133.1 million, a combined GDP of US$79.2 billion and per capita income of US$ 685
Emmanuel Gakuba, a Forex bureau trader in Kigali, commends the government’s move to join the EAC, saying that due to free movement of people within the region, his business has also doubled.
“I used to receive an average of four to five customers per day, exchanging about Rfw100,000, but today, due to many people travelling in the region, I normally get over 25 customers and exchange over Rwf300,000 per day”. He said.
Gakuba further notes that previously, there was a scarcity of Kenyan currency, but today, as a result of the free movement of people and capital, he can easily access the Kenyan shillings in abundance.
However, despite the rapid gains, there are indications that economies like Kenya and Uganda continue to dominate the market due to their sheer size and history.
Professionals, especially teachers, as well as, traders from other East African countries, are attracted to Burundi and Rwanda in search of jobs and markets.
Recently, while in Kigali, Thaddee Siryuyumunsi, the Director General in Burundi’s Ministry of Information and Communication, pointed out that Kenyans and Ugandans have also made a foray into his country’s informal job market, arguing that such jobs can be done by uneducated nationals.
“In the northern part of Bujumbura, Kenyans and Ugandans are roasting meat; they are working in beauty salons and markets. Our people are just being pushed deep into villages,” the Burundian official laments.
The Dean of Faculty of Economics and Management at the National University of Rwanda, Prof. Rama B. Rao, notes that for the country to continue to effectively benefit from the community, there was a need to identify all the challenges affecting the business community.
“We need to address the challenges affecting Rwanda and sensitise the nationals to participate in all the business activities in the region,” he advises.
The don says that the country is on the right track in the implementation of the protocols, adding that this has provided a market for locally manufactured products and played a significant role in the economic development of the country.
Though the government recently embarked on a countrywide awareness campaign on the importance of the East African Community, some citizens, especially the semi-literate, certainly remain ignorant of the benefits of integration.
“I don’t know what the EAC is all about. I normally hear about it on the television but I don’t fully understand it,” Emmanuel Nizeyimana, 20, a waiter in a Kigali restaurant innocently says.
On the other hand, though the EAC has prospered in fostering economic partnership among member states, ills like corruption, existence of non tariff barriers, poor infrastructure and lack of adequate human resources, still hinder its progress.
RDC CONGO:
RDC: le député Laurent Louis en faveur d’un recomptage des voix
www.7sur7.be/2012/01/05
Le député fédéral Laurent Louis a joint jeudi sa voix à celle de l’opposition congolaise pour réclamer un recomptage des voix, voire l’organisation d’un second tour de l’élection présidentielle en République démocratique du Congo (RDC), dénonçant au passage l'”ingérence” dont la Belgique fait, selon lui, encore preuve dans son ancienne colonie.
“Nous avons décidé de soutenir pleinement l’opposition congolaise pour rétablir la légitimité” de la victoire de l’opposant Etienne Tshisekedi lors du scrutin du 28 novembre dernier, a affirmé le député et président du petit Mouvement libéral démocrate (MLD) – dont il est le seul élu – au cours d’une conférence de presse à Bruxelles.
M. Louis était flanqué d’opposants au président réélu Joseph Kabila, dont Félix Tshisekedi, le fils du président de l’Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès (UDPS), arrivé second de la présidentielle devant neuf autres candidats, dont plusieurs ont aussi contesté les résultats.
Il a précisé qu’il avait écrit jeudi matin aux Nations Unies pour demander que M. Kabila “fasse preuve d’ouverture en acceptant un recomptage des voix, voire un second tour” le confrontant à M. Tshisekedi.
Le député MLD a encore lancé un appel au “refus de l’ingérence” que la Belgique continue, selon lui, à pratiquer en s'”immisçant dans les affaires congolaises”.
“Nos dirigeants ont placé à la tête du Congo des dirigeants fantoches”, a-t-il dit en substance. (belga)
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