Focus Media (Kigali)
Shyaka Kanuma
16 June 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Kabonero perpetrates unpalatable things as easily as most people gulp down a bottle of fanta.
One case we know of well is that between him, a woman friend of his called Mutesi Gasana and an NGO called Amani Africa headed by an American called Elizabeth Davis.
Mutesi was an employee of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda when she got friendly with Kabonero. At the time she was married to another man, a Burundi national by the names of Charles Nkazamyampi. Later she left NISR and was offered a job by Davis as the Representative of Amani in Rwanda.
The NGO's work in Rwanda was to give assistance to vulnerable homeless children and within a short while Mutesi was flown to the United States to join Davis in raising funds to build something called Amani village for homeless, parentless children.
But last year Mutesi Gasana was in jail on suspicion of embezzling US$ 60,000 (Frw 32,400,000) - the funds they raised in the US to set up the village. This case file is at the Criminal Investigation Department. Elizabeth Davis is the one who took the case to the Police when she came to Rwanda only to realize that not a single foundation had been dug to raise a single house at the site of the Amani Village in Bugesera.
What Davis did not know was that Mutesi and Kabonero had been using that money in the following ways: to publish issues of Umuseso and pay off some of the paper's debts, and to cavort around in hotels, mostly in Uganda.
Mutesi in mysterious circumstances however escaped from police custody and a week later surfaced at the Nairobi UNHCR claiming the "Kigali regime" wanted to imprison and torture her. Kabonero - who by then had a child with Mutesi, a boy they've christened Gisa - wrote letters to human rights bodies confirming that indeed what Mutesi said about the "dangers facing her" was right.
One of the groups Kabonero wrote is none other than East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders (the same organization where he is now, with their help working out ways to go to a European country).
Kabonero leaves with no hindrance
When Kabonero left, he crossed into Uganda at the Kagitumba border post. Immigration officials at the border did not attempt to stop him from proceeding to Uganda. Some people are of the view that if the journalist, who has been very frequent in his attacks on senior government officials including the President, ever tried to leave the country he would only do so through the informal bush paths known as panya. But Kabonero crosses the borders, and is at airports frequently and freely.
At Kagitumba, after a few minutes verifying whether there were no issues such as court cases, pending against Kabonero, the officials stamped in his passport and he was on his way.
According to people familiar with the Rwandan media, Kabonero's departure is bound to be another club with which international media and human rights pressure groups will bludgeon Rwanda, accusing the state of running a campaign of repression against independent media.
"Definitely we are going to witness all these organizations criticizing Rwanda that it is a place where journalists have a very hard time," said Gaspard Safari, president of the Rwanda Journalists Association. "For their reasons of course they choose not to mention the fact that people like Kabonero have been absolutely free to write anything about the government for the past several years and their safety never was in question," Safari added.
The organizations Safari talks about are ones like Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists and others who have for long turned Kabonero into their cause célèbre.
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