Swifter, Higher, Stronger - such is the Olympic motto. Rwandan Olympic boss Ignace Beraho indeed made a strong fall from a high cloud, but it surely did not come swift.

Last week, the time bomb that has been ticking under the National Olympic Committee (RNOC) finally exploded when Sports Minister Joseph Habineza suspended its executive committee. He also appointed five sport federations - football, volleyball, basketball, Rwanda automobile club and cycling - to appoint one member each who will serve as the interim committee until a new one is elected.

On reflection, the decision wasn't that much of a surprise. Indeed, Ignace Beraho and his team should have left office back in April. Having served two 4-year terms, the last one which ended in 2008, a new executive committee (EC) was supposed to be elected within three months after expiration of the mandate.

Yet Beraho refused to call for RNOC general elections, saying that the federations that constitute it should first be legally recognized. What is perplexing, though, is that during his eight-year reign he never even bothered about the legal status of federations, not even during the elections for his second term.

According to a source close to RNOC, the process is tiresome. It requires applying for legal documents, notarizing them, and taking them to the ministry of justice before ferrying them to the Prime Minister's office accompanied by Frw 300,000 for notification in the Official Gazette.

"It should take around one month, but the process can go on for ages," the source told The Rwanda Focus, adding that especially the publication in the Official Gazette delayed the whole procedure.

So as federations raced against time to get the required legal documents, it was found that many clubs constituting them were not in order. And the process started from scratch.

In the end, the Federations gave up and approached Minister Habineza to explain setbacks in the registration process. By then three months had elapsed.

After cajoles from the Ministry, Beraho accepted to drop the issue. And then he came up with other excuses to further delay RNOC elections.

Getting protégés elected

He now argued that elections could not go ahead until all federations submit annual programs, reports on their activities, championships, organized general assemblies, and made all their contributions.

Beraho together with his ethics committee on August 15 dictated that all reports should be submitted by December 19, 2009, a day when campaigning would begin for the elections to take place on December 27.

It was already August and federations feared that if the delay tactics continued, there would be no RNOC general assembly this year. According to a source familiar with Beraho's machinations, the delay in elections was to eliminate his enemies, ensure his protégés get elected - especially on the post of president - so that he could run the show from behind the curtain and run again in 2012, which the International Olympics Committee (IOC) allows.

Meanwhile, the rift between Beraho and Sports Minister Habineza was widening. That conflict dates back at least to September last year, when on their return from the Olympic Games in Beijing, the Minister had made it clear that he was not satisfied with the results, nor with the behavior of some athletes and officials - as we reported in Focus, the poor preparation of athletes resulted in under-par performances and during the games RNOC officials at times went missing, busy shopping around Beijing and enjoying prerequisites bestowed to them by the IOC.

Yet Beraho was not impressed by the Minister's comments. In a letter to Habineza N/Ref CNOSR/107L/08 dated September 18th, 2008, copied to the President, Prime Minister and the Ombudsman, Beraho accused Habineza of employing rumor mongering politics and using the media to embarrass RNOC. He further claimed that Habineza has covered a lot of mistakes, alleging for instance that the invitation letter for the Olympics, sent to President Kagame through the ministry of sports and culture, had gone missing.

"Losing the presidents invitation letter shows stupidity, lack of orientation and being unpatriotic which is different from what you say in the media," Beraho's letter reads in part.

You don't need a crystal ball to know that Habineza was all but pleased by being addressed in such a way. And Beraho continued to write in the same amicable way in the following months.

Apologies

So in a meeting convened on September 10, between Habineza and RNOC, Habineza asked Beraho to withdraw his statements or apologize for insulting the Minister in his letters. In reply, Beraho went public with the contents of the letters.

According to a source that was at the meeting, Beraho had been given a September 30 deadline to apologize and retract abusive statements in his letters, which he never met.

Yet in what he termed as an apology, Beraho addressed Habineza in a letter N/Ref CNOSR/89L/09, dated October 7, 2009, where he asked Habineza to clearly differentiate between Beraho and RNOC. He also put forward reasons as to why, according to him, RNOC has failed to perform namely: lack of a sports vision 2020, lack of a sports policy, absence of a revised law governing sports in the country and lack of differentiation between sport bodies as per international requirements.

Habineza then called for a meeting with the entire RNOC executive committee to discuss the issue as well as the delay of the elections. A few hours later, a similar meeting was planned with the Federations.

This time, Beraho (and the rest of the EC) failed to show up for the first meeting, but he did walk in on the second one. The Minister, however, clearly fed up, pointed out that the RNOC boss had not been invited to the meeting with the Federations, and threw him out. Having done that, he told the Federations bossed that he intended to fire Beraho. However, a source in the meeting revealed to The Rwanda Focus that federations in attendance begged the minister to hold his decision so that some truce could be negotiated between Beraho and the Minister.

During the same meeting, however, it was also proposed to convene a RNOC general assembly on October 16, 2009. According to the rules of RNOC, if two-thirds of the federations are in attendance, then a date can be scheduled. That assembly could then set the date for the elections.

Frustration

The GA was held but, not surprisingly, Beraho once again managed to turn the spotlight on himself. He came in late, only to announce that among the federations who made the required two- thirds, some were not affiliated to RNOC - so it was not a proper two-third majority. Moreover, he said, according to procedures a majority of the Federations can demand for a GA, but it is the executive committee that is supposed to convene it. To keep the peace, participants accepted the objections and a new, proper GA was scheduled for October 24.

It turned out to be much ado about nothing. Beraho stage-managed the meeting to deflect any negative comments at his address, and maintained the election date of December 27.

The next Monday, in another meeting between the Minister and the Federations, the latter expressed their frustration, and some even apologized for having talked the Minister out of sacking Beraho two weeks earlier. As a result, the next day, October 27, the executive committee was suspended.

In the letter dated October 27 2009 informing Beraho of the decision, of which The Rwanda Focus has a copy, Habineza put forward three reasons. a) His term of office had expired since April 2008 but until now he was making it impossible for elections to take place; b) Lack of discipline, respect, arrogance and insubordination evident in Beraho's letter to the Minister; and c) failure of RNOC to submit annual administrative and financial reports since he assumed office.

Beraho, however, still did not relent. "Habineza has no authority to fire me, it's against the rules unless he thinks he is above the law," he responded angrily in a phone interview with this reporter.

Amiable Bayingana, the chairman of the Cycling Federation, told The Rwanda Focus that the decision was overdue. "It's a good decision because the minister had been subjected to lots of abuse," Bayingana said.

Asked whether IOC could ban Rwanda due to the Minister involvement in RNOC wrangles, Bayingana said that the sports ministry had the authority to intervene in case an issue is out of control. Another source added that, if it is clear to the IOC that the intervention is justified and supported by Federations, it would not object; and the fact that Habineza had immediately started preparations for new elections (to be organized by the Federations, not the ministry), would also be convincing.

It is expected that the interim committee preparing the elections will shortly announce a new date.

Efforts to contact Habineza for a comment were futile.