GOVT ALLOWING OPPOSITION BREATHING SPACE, SAYS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIGALI 000699 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS RW SUBJECT: GOVT ALLOWING OPPOSITION BREATHING SPACE, SAYS MINISTER KIGALI 00000699 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Ambassador W. Stuart Symington for reasons 1.4 (b) (d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: On October 20, Internal Security Minister Harerimana told Emboffs the Rwandan government was purposely not applying the law to the full extent and was allowing new opposition parties some latitude to form and operate. He cautioned that politicians could easily manipulate many Rwandans because they were illiterate, and said the government was monitoring closely the Muslim community in Rwanda. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) On October 20, CDA and polcouns met with Internal Security Minister Sheikh Musa Fazil Harerimana, in his office. There were no other participants. The tone of the meeting was cordial. SECURITY -------------- ¶3. (C) Describing the security situation, by way of background Harerimana explained that by the time of the 1994 state-orchestrated genocide, Rwanda was riven by ethnic divisions and discrimination between Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, as well as deep geographic divisions between northerners and southerners. The Government of Rwanda's (GOR) goal was to break down these divisions--"a slow process, that could take years." Security was the basis for development and democracy; some humans will inevitably commit crimes, but Rwanda's goal was to ensure that any such acts were "normal" crimes, not political in nature. He added that many Rwandans were illiterate, and therefore easily manipulated by politicians. A key component of Rwanda's policing/security policy was its emphasis on what he described as "community policing:" holding local leaders and communities responsible for local-level security. MUSLIM COMMUNITY -------------- ¶4. (C) Harerimana, a practicing Muslim, said that in 1994, only one or two percent of Rwandans were Muslim, whereas today it was closer to seven to ten percent. The pre-1994 government, he said, discriminated against Muslims. This, together with Muslims' strong sense of community and high rates of Hutu-Tutsi intermarriage among Muslims, explained why--in contrast to Catholic and Protestants--relatively few participated in the genocide. He noted that the GOR watches closely the foreign Muslim community in Rwanda, and that whenever the Mufti has concerns about a foreigner, he calls the ministry and they investigate them. In 2007, a Rwandan from Uganda came and tried to impose stricter religious tenets on the Muslim population, such as telling men they had to wear pants down to their ankles and not to shave. After authorities told the man there was only one Mufti, and that he could not issue independent fatwas, he left Rwanda. Harerimana said the GOR has also watched Pakistanis, including members of the Tablighi group (NFI). OPPOSITION POLITICAL PARTIES -------------- ¶5. (C) When asked about the emergence of new political parties and the Political Party Forum, Harerimana pointed out that the Parti Social Imberakuri (PS-Imberakuri) was technically still unregistered; once it paid a fee to the GOR's official gazette, announcing its status, it would become fully legal. Still, the GOR had decided to allow PS-Imberakuri to participate in the Forum and to continue its activities unmolested. "We need to give them time and space to organize and elect representatives," he said; "We are not going to automatically shut them down." When asked how the Qgoing to automatically shut them down." When asked how the GOR would deal with individuals such as former Green party secretary-general Andrew Muganwa (who recently declared he was forming his own party and did not need to register because the process was unfair),the Minister replied by asking whether or not the USG required parents to register newborn babies. He emphasized that the law required all parties to register. ¶6. (C) As for the Forum, Harerimana allowed that he did not know of any other country that had such an institution; Rwanda created it due to its own historical experience with multi-party politics. The Forum's role, he explained, was to serve as a neutral arbiter, help build consensus, and act as a means of allowing those parties not in power to participate in the political process. For example, the GOR often referred legislation to the Forum before sending it to parliament, to give Forum members a chance to comment. In KIGALI 00000699 002.2 OF 002 addition, the Forum was the mechanism through which the state provided constitutionally-mandated funding to parties. If it did so through a ministry, particularly one controlled by the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF),"that would not be democratic." Harerimana, himself the leader of the Parti Democratique Ideale (PDI),said that he was about to finish his term as spokesman of the Forum, a position that rotated among Forum members every six months. BIO NOTES -------------- ¶7. (C) Born in 1962 in Rwanda, Harerimana is married with four sons. Because the pre-1994 government did not enroll Tutsis or Muslims in secondary school, he attended a Libyan-sponsored Muslim school in Nyamirambo, a Kigali neighborhood where many Muslims still live. In 1990, at age 25, he was one of seven Rwandans who passed a test and won a scholarship to study law in Saudi Arabia. He and two or three colleagues finished the program; the rest dropped out. He graduated in 1994 with a B.A. in comparative law (Shariah, Germanic and common) and returned to Rwanda. He served as legal adviser in the ministry of gender, 1997-2000; legal advisor in the gacaca chamber of the supreme court, 2000-2003; member of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, 2002-2005; vice-chairman of the National Election Commission during the 2001 legislative elections and the 2003 presidential contest; prefect of the former Cyangugu province, 2003-2005; and Minister of Internal Security since ¶2005. He speaks fluent Arabic, French, Kinyarwanda and Swahili; he is studying and speaks passable English. He has a sister in New York and another sibling in Boston. During the meeting, he said he knows Muslims in the United States are able to practice their religion freely, spoke favorably of Rwanda's "very close" relationship with the United States, and granted without question Emboffs' request to visit an Amcit prisoner. He last visited the United States in 2003, traveling to New York. He is keen to do so again in order to improve his English. ¶8. (C) COMMENT: Harerimana is one of the sharper ministers in the GOR cabinet, and his record of service in sensitive positions indicates that President Kagame and other leaders consider him reliable and competent. His statements that the GOR had purposely adopted a relatively tolerant stance towards new and unregistered opposition political parties are in line with the modest shift that we and others on the ground have sensed. This has not translated into clear sailing for opposition figures, who continue to face multiple bureaucratic hurdles and legal restrictions--authorities detained one PS-Imberakuri member in August--and should be seen in the light of increased international scrutiny due to Rwanda's upcoming 2010 presidential elections. If and when he declares, Kagame is likely to soundly beat all comers, but it appears that for now, he wants to do so more cleanly than he did in 2003. END COMMENT. SYMINGTON