RWANDA -- MONTHLY POLITICAL ROUNDUP

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000454

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/22/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM PINR RW
SUBJECT: RWANDA -- MONTHLY POLITICAL ROUNDUP

REF: A. KIGALI 335

B. KIGALI 78

C. 08 KIGALI 872

Classified By: CDA Casper for reasons 1.4 (b) (d)


1. (U) In this edition:

- Minister of Education Sacked

- Ombudsman Report on Corruption Raises Hackles in Justice
Sector

- New Political Parties -- One Nearing Registration?

- Nkunda Tries A Letter Writing Campaign


Hard-Charging Minister Falls Hard on Corruption Charges
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2. (C) On July 21, Rwandan national radio and television
announced that President Kagame had fired Minister of State
for Education Theoneste Mutsindashyaka. The announcement
gave no reasons for the dismissal. Local press organs
repeated long-running rumors of the Minister's involvement in
various corruption scandals linked to his previous tenure as
Governor of the Eastern Province. As noted reftel A,
Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga has pursued Mutsindashayaka
for some time on corruption charges stemming from
construction projects in the Eastern Province. Ngoga told us
two weeks ago that he had recommended to President Kagame
that Mutsindashyaka be relieved of his duties and
subsequently prosecuted.


3. (C) Comment. As Minister of State for Education, and in
his earlier positions as Governor of the Eastern Province and
Mayor of Kigali, Mutsindashyaka built a reputation as a
hard-charging and sometime belligerent official, intolerant
of those who disagreed with him. The tiny Jehovah's Witness
(JW) community in Rwanda must be breathing a quiet sigh of
relief, as Mutsindashyaka as Mayor of Kigali forbid them
construction permits for their Kingdom Halls. As Minister of
State for Education, he fired several hundred JW teachers for
refusing to participate in "ngando" training for secondary
school instructors, training which included
paramilitary-style marching in fatigues -- which they
considered to violate their pacific religious practices. End
comment.

Ombudsman Report Rejected by Justice Sector Institutions
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4. (SBU) On July 8, Ombudsman Tito Rutaremara presented his
yearly report on "Injustice, Corruption and Related Offenses
in Public Institutions" to Parliament A generally mild
review of the lapses and poor practices of various government
offices, the report noted poor tendering procedures, faulty
management of assets, the absence of internal audits, and
occasional embezzlement of state funds. The report
particularly criticized corrupt tendencies among four
categories of local officials -- sector level "service
delivery" officials, gacaca judges, local mediators, and
Local Defense Force personnel. On one page, the report
comprehensively lists the various forms of corrupt payments
made in Rwanda's 30 districts, such as "ink for the pen,"
"beer for the mediators," "fuel for the leaders," and "foot
massage for officials."


5. (SBU) Toward the end of the report, a "corruption
perceptions" chart lists in rank order the levels of
corruption among various categories of public and private
institutions. Traffic police fared worst. Local media,
churches and NGOs ranked as the three least corrupt
institutions. The justice sector came in as the second-most
corrupt institution, igniting a hail of indignant public
reaction from government officials in the courts, the
Ministry of Justice and the prosecution service. Senior
officials from the three institutions complained (rightly
enough) that the body of the report listed generally minor
offenses for each of them, and they demanded to know the
"scientific basis" for the chart. Other government offices
did not challenge the rankings, and some members of
Parliament cautioned that justice sector officials should not
overreact.


6. (C) Comment. The Ombudsman has shared with us on
several occasions his office's clear-eyed assessment of
corruption in various offices (Ref B). He has made the same
sort of assessments in public, most notably at the previous
National Dialogue last December (ref C). Those institutions
who are supposedly in the vanguard of the anti-corruption
struggle do not appear to enjoy the spotlight when it is
turned on them. End comment.

Political Parties Continue Seeking Recognition - One
Recognized?
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7. (SBU) Two groups have pursued registration as new
political parties the last few months: PS-Imberakuti (the
Social Party of Truth-Tellers) and ADRUIUA (Republican
Democratic Alliance/Legacy of Agathe Uwilingiyimana) (Ref A).
PS-I had a June press conference halted by local officials
and the police, with the party leadership briefly detained.
After denying many applications for permission, local
officials finally allowed PS-I to hold its second congress.
PS-I recently submitted its revised documentation to the
Ministry of Local Government (which rejected its first
application). A Ministry official telephoned pol/econ
counselor July 22 to say that the Ministry had accepted its
revised application and would grant registration to PS-I in
the near future. Government radio announced that evening
that the weekly cabinet meeting had approved the party's
registration. ADRUIUA has equally attempted several times to
hold its initial party congress, only to find district
officials canceling scheduled meetings and requiring the
party to seek additional authorization for new meetings.


8. (C) PS-I leadership has on several occasions publicly
declared that it will criticize the government as it sees
fit. It will act as a real political party, it says, unlike
what it terms the "comedy" of weak parties today in Rwanda,
and work for the betterment of the mass of the population.
PS-I leader Bernard Ntaganda at the party congress used a
phrase similar to "rubanda nyamwinshi," a notorious term for
"masses" from the Habyarimana era, when "masses" meant "the
Hutu masses," excluding Tutsi citizens from social and
political life. He has thus opened himself to charges of
divisionism, something a local journalist accused him of in a
recent presidential press conference. Issuance of party
registration by the Ministry of Local Government would mean
this indiscretion on his part (which he tells us was
inadvertent) has, for the moment, been overlooked.

Nkunda Tries a Letter-Writing Campaign
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9. (C) Following his legal team's last unsuccessful effort
to secure his release by a court in Gisenyi (ref A),Laurent
Nkunda's lawyers have embarked upon a letter-writing
campaign. They have sent several letters to President Kagame
requesting his release, with copies to the Ministries of
Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Defense. So far, say his
lawyers, no responses have been received. They have also
contemplated filing a petition before the military high court
in Kigali, something they tried unsuccessfully to do several
months ago. His team now believes Nkunda to be located in or
near Kigali, and to be in the custody of military
authorities. They have still not been allowed to meet with
him, although family members have been granted some form of
contact, perhaps by telephone. A contact in the National
Security Services subsequently confirmed to us that Nkunda
had in fact been moved to the Kigali area recently, his
detention in Gisenyi having been deemed to close to the
border with DRC.


10. (C) Comment. When all else fails (and Rwandan courts
continue to deny the legal team's petitions for habeas
corpus),try heartfelt appeals to the Head of State -- that
appears to be the Nkunda legal strategy for now. End
comment.
CASPER