Right to Respond.
From: Felicien Kanyamibwa, PhD
To: New Times Editors
Dear Editors of New Times,
As this year 2008 touches its end, I take the opportunity to address you this note: a right to
respond. I challenge you to publish this brief commentary, if not out of fairness, at least to show that in your profession you strive for accepting opinions from various quarters, uncomfortable as these opinions may make you. My intention is not to sway you in your own opinions, rather to persuade you that the role of a journalist comes with the obligation of “gathering and dissemination of information while striving for non-bias viewpoint.”
Over 2008, your reporting on “select” events, trends, issues, and people should make you proud of your journal. Unfortunately, your reporting on anything related to the RPF regime and its opposition, especially your articles on the Rally for Unity and Democracy (RUD-Urunana) and Rally of the Rwandan People (RPR), appears not to have met the challenges and professional standards of you mission.
Earlier this year, in the article “The drama of Fdlr/rud-urunana disarmament in Lubero, DR Congo” you wondered how “Kanyamibwa, an extremist who controls FDLR/RUD who had recently objected to voluntary disarmament after the May, 2008 Kisangani meeting, would freely come to the FDLR/RUD combat zone”. A few things to point out from article:
First, New Times knows too well the difference between FDLR and RUD-Urunana. I assume,
and hope, the amalgam is the result of a lapse of attention in New Times editorial process than the product of ill feelings of the journalist who wrote the article or of a despicable propaganda inserted into the work of a reputed journal. In any case, let New Times make necessary corrections: RUD-Urunana is not associated with FDLR in anyway, shape, or form.
Second, I, Felicien Kanyamibwa, could not object to Kisangani process, for I am the signatory to the Kisangani roadmap, as the representative of National Democratic Congress (NDC), a
coalition of Rwandan armed groups of RUD and RPR engaged in the peace process. The
roadmap, a copy of which you must have, was agreed upon in Rome, between the NDC and the RDC government, with the facilitation of San’Egidio Community, and published in Kisangani in front of an overwhelming number of congolese people and leaders, members of the International Community, and representatives of all the permanent members of the UN Security Council.
Third, in Kasiki, I was invited by both the DRC government and the International Community, which includes the Rwandan Government as well. As a matter of fact, representatives of the Rwandan government were present, along with representatives of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. I, personally, had a pleasant chat with the representatives of the Rwandan government. Some members of the Rwandan delegation were equally happy to see, hug, and talk to their former RPA comrades, now RPR members based in Kasiki.
Forth, New Times rightfully notes than Major Gerard Ntashamaje, a Tutsi, former high-ranking member of the RPA and RPF and President of RPR, is engaged in the process and was in Kasiki.
Most of the RPR troops, based in Kasiki are Tutsis and have been living and conducting other
activities with RUD-Urunana troops of Armee-Nationale Imboneza since 2006. How can then
the term extremist be applied in these circumstances? Our cause would be as just and legitimate, regardless of the ethnic background of those, with legitimate aspirations, who would be pursuing it. However, the presence of all the components of the Rwandan social and historical fabric reinforces the confidence of the Rwandan people in the legitimacy of our struggle, the positive goals of our purposes, and the visionary path set by the leaders.
Regarding our aspirations, they may be resumed in one simple and short sentence: Rwanda
belongs to all Rwandans. In January 2008, after I visited the DRC, I challenged General Paul
Kagame, in our 24 January 2008 statement in Kinshasa on peace in the Great Lakes Region,
“for reconstructing the Rwandan nation on a model [not] based on the failed past, but a future
Rwanda where our descendants will rise above what has until now divided Rwandans; a
Rwanda where our children and our descendants will not live in the confrontation but rather
would spend their time exploring and putting into practice solutions for the development of
Rwanda.”
Yet again, in Kasiki, on July 31, 2008, I invited General Paul Kagame to open the doors for the Rwandan refugees to go home. I invited him, first as a man, second as a former refugee, and third as a leader. The challenge has been the constance of our calls and we are willing to meet General Paul Kagame anytime with the facilitation of genuine mediators. New Times may choose to call our offer “a heap of insults,” but this will not change the reality and the urgency of acting now, before it is too late. I equally summon the leaders of Rwanda, most of whom were former refugees, and call on the rwandan media, in which New Times plays a predominant role.
As I recently posted on one internet group, General Paul Kagame has two choices: either he is a leader, then he will have to move beyond bitterness and retribution, or he remains a man
whose tragic life would only be remembered as the untamed source of a river of blood. Yes, he spent 30 years in exile. Mandela spent close to those years in jail, with daily forced labor. Even before his liberation from prison, Mandela, a great leader, chose to free himself from the venom of hatred. As soon as Mandela came to the decision, he became a free man. If he had not made that decision, no one can fathom what would have become of South Africa after he became president.
Kagame failed to become a leader when he took power in 1994, and chose to remain the
prisoner of his hatred and resulting vices, and mounted on the back of a baby tiger. For 14 years he has been sitting on the back of a growing tiger. He should not wait until the tiger becomes a beast. New Times needs to help General Kagame and his regime not to fall prey to absolute power and radicalism. Past experiences show that journals that heaped praises on misguided leaders and overlooked the plight of the people, ended up doing a disservice to the entire nation.
The choice is New Times’ : a reputed journal or an instrument of propaganda.
Regards,
Felicien Kanyamibwa, PhD.
New York, USA
Tel: 201-794-6542
December 23, 2008
