VZCZCXYZ0055
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHLGB #0790/01 2261141
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 141141Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY KIGALI
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3111

UNCLAS KIGALI 000790 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/C, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KDEM PGOV PHUM RW
SUBJECT: 'UMUCO' EDITOR BONAVENTURE BIZUMUREMYI REFUSES 
SUMMONS FOR QUESTIONING BY JUDICIAL POLICE 
 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY. More than one week after being served with a 
summons to be questioned by the criminal investigation 
division of the Rwandan National Police, Bonaventure 
Bizumuremyi, editor of the Kinyarwanda language fortnightly 
'Umuco,' remains unwilling to appear for questioning and is 
on the run from authorities.  The summons for questioning 
does not imply it would lead to arrest or the filing of 
charges.  The summons likely relates to articles published in 
the last three issues of Umuco, which included inflammatory 
(and potentially libelous) statements about GOR officials. 
Umuco's unsourced and unsubstantiated allegations ran afoul 
of the High Council of the Press (HCP), which concluded that 
the paper repeatedly violated Rwanda's media law.  This is a 
view shared by senior GOR officials, who, while accepting 
Umuco's right to criticize the government and its policies, 
believe they have the right to take court action if they 
consider themselves libeled.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) On Friday, August 4, Emboff received a call from 
Jean Bosco Gasasiba, a fellow newspaper editor and friend of 
Bizumuremyi,s, requesting an urgent appointment.  (Note. 
Gasasiba's paper is a sporadically published Kinyarwanda 
independent called 'Umuvugizi' or 'Advocate'. End note). 
During a meeting the following morning, Bizumuremyi and 
Gasasiba recounted efforts by law enforcement authorities to 
bring Bizumuremyi in for questioning.  Bizumuremyi showed 
Poloff a summons issued to him by two judicial police 
officers dated August 3 ordering his appearance at a Kigali 
court on that same date.  Bizumuremyi has been on the run 
since receiving the summons.  Bizumuremyi said he could not 
find a lawyer to represent him and he was afraid to go to the 
court alone. 
 
¶3. (U) Bizumuremyi's current troubles appear to have started 
with the release of Umuco Issue 24 at the end of May.  On 
June 12, the HCP issued a report citing several factual 
errors and identifying specific points where it felt Rwanda's 
media law had been violated.  This HCP report focuses on an 
article entitled "Those Who Are Not Corrupt Are Thieves." 
The HCP shared its findings with eleven individuals accused 
of wrongdoing in the article, including the President of the 
Supreme Court, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of 
Justice, the Minister of Local Government, the Commissioner 
of the National Police, and the Secretary General of the RPF. 
 
 
¶4. (SBU) That issue proved mild in comparison with Issue 26, 
which, among other things, carried a story comparing Kagame's 
government to that of former President Habyarimana.  This 
article was very similar to one that appeared in Umuco Issue 
19, which was confiscated by authorities in September 2005. 
(Comment There has been no effort this time to confiscate 
editions of Umoco.)  Issue 26 reportedly sold at three times 
the regular Umuco newsstand price--an indication that 
Bonaventure knew that the paper was likely to cause a stir. 
Issue 26 quickly generated another critical HCP report.  HCP 
Executive Secretary Patrice Maluma told Emboff that the 
Council asked Bizumuremyi to appear on August 2 to discuss 
its findings, but that Bizumuremyi failed to show (Note: this 
contradicts an August 8 statement of Reporters Without 
Borders that said Bizumuremyi had appeared before the HCP. 
End note).  The HCP report on Issue 26 takes issue with four 
articles.  In addition, one particularly inflammatory issue 
was a single reference to President Kagame in the Kinyarwanda 
text as 'ka Kagame.'  Roughly translated as 'little Kagame,' 
this use of the 'ka' is highly derogatory to Rwandans. 
Bizumuremyi claims the insertion of the extra 'ka' was a 
mistake resulting from faulty typesetting.  Given 
Bizumuremyi's penchant for pushing peoples' buttons, it seems 
just as likely that the slight was intentional. (Note. In its 
August 10 issue, Umuvugizi published an open letter from 
Bizumuremyi to Kagame in which he apologized for the 'ka', 
which he termed a mistake, and asked Kagame for protection. 
End note.) 
 
¶5. (U) The decision to summons Bizumuremyi was taken with the 
knowledge of at least some senior GOR individuals, who take 
exception to what they regard as a steady stream of 
personally libelous statements coming from the paper. 
Ambassador Richard Sezibera, who has headed up the GOR's 
human rights dialogue with the Embassy, told Ambassador that 
under Rwandan law individuals cannot themselves initiate 
libel cases. Rather, cases must be initiated by the 
prosecutor's office on behalf of the individual.  That being 
said, most of the individuals accused of misdeeds are GOR or 
RPF officials who would not request that a case be brought 
against Bizumuremyi without government sanction. 
 
¶6. (SBU) COMMENT. It is premature to predict how this 
incident will play out.  There has been a generally positive 
 
trend in Rwanda regarding respect for freedom of the press. 
More and more controversial topics have been discussed in 
both the print and radio media. GOR officials are aware of 
international criticism of past practices regarding the media 
and are unlikely to take extreme measures, such as 
confiscating a newspaper edition, lightly.  On the other hand 
senior officials believe they have the right to seek redress 
in the courts if they are libeled. Bizumuremyi is a 
well-known gadfly who has been taken in for questioning in 
the past without being mistreated and who would have expected 
that his recent series of articles would have prompted a 
government response. 
 
¶7. (SBU)  Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued an August 8 
statement under the headline 'One newspaper editor goes 
missing, another targeted by threats and smears.'  This 
statement reflects a general tendency of RSF to publish 
unsubstantiated and exaggerated statements about press 
freedom in Rwanda.  Among other inaccuracies, Bizumuremyi is 
not missing but has elected to go into hiding to avoid 
answering the judicial summons.  In a recent conversation 
with Emboff, Bizumuremyi himself said that while previous RSF 
statements about him generally accorded with his version of 
events, the language used by RSF was hyperbole.  RSF's 
director for Africa during an interview on Voice of America 
yesterday described Umuco as a paper of high quality and 
Bizumuremyi as a journalist who is serious about his craft. 
Even fellow independent journalists in Rwanda and other 
staunch critics of the GOR would not characterize Umuco as a 
quality paper.  It is generally accepted that Umuco peddles 
in rumors and sensationalized stories that often have no 
basis in fact.  END COMMENT. 
ARIETTI