Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
23 July 2008
Kigali — Former VOA reporter in Kigali Ms Lucie Umukundwa left Rwanda in 2006 claiming her life was in danger - and puts some blame on the High Council of the Press (HCP). The Council says it has nothing to do with her, RNA reports.
Ms Umukundwa - who also doubled as the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) contact point in Kigali told RNA recently that she informed the government media regulatory body of her ordeal and it indeed promised to help her.
"I fled in August 2006. If you ask the Media High Council, U.S. Embassy and DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence) they know why I fled" she said in an email message.
"When I left the HMC promised to investigate about my case and they never did it."
Now the Council that she calls by another name says she is simply using it as a "scapegoat".
The Executive Secretary of the Council Mr. Patrice Mulama said "Lucie had never complained to the HCP be it formally or informally about anything relating to her functioning here in Rwanda".
"Moreover, she left Rwanda all by herself for another job in Uganda with a certain NGO which she did for some months before leaving for Europe", he said.
For her part, she says she was working in Uganda as an 'independent journalist' but had to relocate to France where she is "still waiting (for) asylum from France because it was very difficult to have it from Uganda".
"I returned in France because my resident card as a student was not expired not because I have the French government assistance. I know that there are many rumors about me" she told RNA.
On World Refugee Day June 20, Ms Lucie Umukundwa and five others from Burma, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria and Cuba were the focus of RSF as it called on EU countries to adopt measures to protect journalists.
"We are extremely disturbed to see reprisals by governments and by criminal, religious and political groups having their way with so many journalists," the press freedom organisation said. "Countries such as Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka are being emptied of their journalists, seen by their governments as annoying witnesses who are best removed.
"Most of them leave their country hastily and in dangerous circumstances, travelling by night and often crossing the border on foot or hidden in a vehicle. They usually seek refuge in neighbouring countries in the often illusory hope of being safe from persecution there."
The Rwanda press Council says though Ms Umukundwa was the RSF contact in Rwanda "she had given it up for a better paying job and perhaps with fewer professional risks in Uganda".
"Of course it seems to be in the interest of RSF and her own to claim that she fled the country for a reason or another because the former must find a reason for being and the latter must find asylum", said Mr. Patrice Mulama.
"Once she finds out the difference between being home and being in a self-imposed asylum she will come back like many others have done before."
But Ms Umukundwa said her "plan is not to come back in Rwanda because of the situation of independent journalists now". But if I have asylum and I will move and return in Africa, she said.
Meanwhile, in Bordeaux on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Umukundwa is scheduled to feature in a debate on Rwanda after the viewing of a documentary 'Kigali, des images contre un massacre' by Jean-Christophe Klotz.
The presence of Rwanda journalist exiled in France, Lucie Umukundwa, will permit students (of University of Montesquieu) to listen to contrary point of view from the events highlighted by J. C. Klotz", reads statement inviting the public to the event.
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