Newspaper Editor killed

Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of a major newspaper in Rwanda, the Umuvugizi was shot outside his home on Thursday evening.
Claims made by the paper’s Editor in exile, Jean Bosco Gasasira said his acting editor was shot and killed late Thursday night in the Rwanda capital, Kigali.
He said Rwandan security forces killed acting editor Rugambage because the paper was investigating the shooting of Rwandan General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa.
“I’m 100 percent sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead. This happened after publishing a story on the Umuvugizi website which cited Rwanda’s chief spy of being involved in the shooting of General Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa,” he said.
Police spokesman Eric Kayiranga has told the press that the police do not know who was behind the attack or what the motive was.
He said they were investigating. Gasasira said the article on the Umuvugizi website quoted information which showed that there was communication between Rwanda’s chief spy and his driver.

Lessons from Rwanda

By Fatuma Noor

Rwanda, a Spectacular sight to behold, settlement that radiates from a winding succession of steep terrace slopes and with beautiful hills and valleys.
A flame that burns at the Kigali memorial center for a 100 days in remembrance of the 1994 genocide dies the memory of turbulent ethnic rivalry in which countries social fabric was deeply affected.
The country which is still fighting to get out of the shadows of genocide is in many ways an African success story. Towards this the youths are deliberately given tasks to improve the country for their future.
With the large percentage being the youths, the Rwandan government has now signed a contract with different youth’s groups and association to contribute to the development of the country.
“The youths do things like cleaning the streets of Kigali, planting palm trees along the medians road to make sure that the country is green and attractive” said Charles Osidi who is the Director of Youths Associations at the Ministry of Youths.
A poster at the airport warns arriving visitors that the country has outlawed plastic bags, it is better for the environment and helps keep the streets clean. Indeed it does - there is little of the trash on the streets of Kigali that is ubiquitous in other poor cities

These Rwandan youth do all this purely on voluntarily basis get stipends from the council and in return they get to host the gardens.
“If someone is in the Association and maybe wants to have a party or wedding at one of the parks of Kigali, they are provided for free” said Charles.
With a large percentage being the youths, the country In a bid to promote youths self employment and development, a youth Fund was established.
Kojad a youth Fund was established 3 years ago and has been operational since then and its been used by the youths to generate income and more than Ksh. 600M has been loaned to the youths.
“The youth fund is meant to be loaned to either individuals or groups to generate income and provide employment for the youths” said Uwingeneye Moolestine the Manager of the Kojad youth fund.
Moolestine says that this is one of the Rwandan youth recovery plant and it has worked as more youths keep benefiting from the progress.
“The people who use the motorbikes are all the beneficiaries of the youth fund, some businesses here are all beneficial of this youth fund, we have less of idol youths” said Moolestine.
But inlike the Kenyan youths, The Rwandese youths most of them being the witnesses and survivors of the genocide are on their way to recovery and making the country a better place to live.
Unlike the Rwandan government which is doing much to promote the leasers of tomorrow, Kenya could borrow a leaf from the Rwandan government.
“ al of a sudden we have a huge number of young people who are unemployed and the Kenyan government has no prospects for them, this makes them idol and act up” said Raphael Tuju the Director Kenya Hope Foundation and an advisor to the president.
Tuju added that despite the many initiatives started in Kenya for the youths, little or no effort is being seen to helping them.
“Kenyans could learn a lot from the Rwandan govermet, the country has prospered like this because of the youths” said Tuju.
Ethnic tension in Rwanda is nothing new but they are on the recovery process, Kenya mirrors a same history of ethnic tension, a good example what happened in the 2007 disputed elections.
In 1994, the ethnic tensions started in Rwanda and Military and militia groups began rounding up and killing Tutsis in masses which spread all over the country.
However, now The Hutu-Tutsi relations in Rwanda today is that of a brother to another. “the ethnic differences is all behind us we are all Rwandans” said Gilbert Mucharama, our tour guide in the trip.
He adds that there is no more mention of the Hutus and Tutsi’s in Rwandans and even its risky calling one by which ethnic group that they belong to.
“Even calling one a Tutsi or a Hutu is a risk as you can face to 3 years in prison just for that identification” he tells me.
The only identification that one would know one is a Tutsi is they are tallerr, slender while the Hutus are a bit plumpy and shorter as compared to the Tutsis.
“The ethnic differences is what caused this country to crumble down into peaces, we have learnti don’t think we want to go back to where we were 16 years ago” said Gilbert.
Ethnic tensions in Kenya mirrors a similar situation but if we could learn from Rwanda after the genocide this is one such lesson
Also as Kenya is in the process of trying the perpetrators of the 2007 post election violence, we could follow suit and form a local tribunal to try out some of the perpetrators.
In Kenya who have opted for the ICC as compared to local tribunal has generated lots of debate, however the Rwandese believe that they could have opted for that much earlier.
With debates as Kenya doubts its own judicial system, it could follow suit and form a system which will try the perpetrators
As a result, the Rwandan government has turned to a traditional system of justice known as "gacaca" to relieve the burden on prisons and courts. Gacaca hearings are traditionally held outdoors (the word loosely translates as "justice on the grass"), with household heads serving as judges in the resolution of community disputes. The system is based on voluntary confessions and apologies by wrongdoers.
With Over 250,000 community members trained to serve in panels of 19 judges in gacaca courts all over Rwanda. The tribunals will operate in several stages, first identifying victims, then suspects - and finally holding trials.
According to denis Wahawayo, teh Director of the Gacaca court said taht it has been a process and more people have been tried with this court.
“ here the local residents will give testimony for and against the suspects, who will be tried in the communities where they are accused of committing crimes.” Said Dennis

RWANDANS SPEAK ABOUT SURVIVING THE UNIMAGINABLE
By Fatuma Noor


Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days.Most of the dead were Tutsis - and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.Even for a country with such a turbulent history as Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left its people reeling. Sixteen years later the country has made great strides in its reconciliation process but despite the passing of time the memories of the 100 days are still very clear to many survivor victims.



Sixteen years ago Redempta Jaramba,27, witnessed as her family of 15 burned to death in the western part of Rwanda, although she was too young then to understand, the memory of what happened is still very clear in her mind.
She was only 11 years of age when the Rwandan genocide happened which left more than 850,000 Tutsis massacred including her family.
Now as she sits at the Kigali Memorial centre where more than 250,000 people, including her entire family are buried in a mass grave, she recalls the events of that fateful day.
With tears rolling down her cheeks she tells me that it was too late for anyone else in her house to run as the men who were surrounding her house had locked the house from both sides and already doused the house with petrol.
“It all started with gunshots and the next thing we had men surrounding our house, my father threw me out using the back window as all doors were closed, but no one else could fit” she recalls.



Redempta, who was the youngest in the family, recalls that her father tried to break down the door but in vain and in no time the house was up in flames and as much as she cried for help no one could come to rescue her or the family.
“I stayed there watching, too young to understand why people would kill each other, trying to understand what people had done to each other to attract the awful attacks against one another, against neighbours, friends and even family” she says.
Weeks later with nothing to eat and surviving by the grace of God, the 11 year old just sat alone and lonely among the burned bodies of her father, sick mother, sisters and other family members "The killers had set fire to everyone and everything that was left," she says quietly. "So, I sat among their teeth and bones, the only thing that was left of my family before Red Cross who came to pick the remains of those that survived rescued me."
Redempta was then taken to a children’s centre where she found other hundreds of children and widows who were provided rescue by the centre.
A decade and a half later, she still cannot believe that her family's Hutu neighbour, the owner of a local shop they sometimes visited and whose children she played with one day without provocation just burned her family alive.
“Jonah’s father was someone who knew us well, we bought milk from him, went to school with his son and even ate at his house, he was the only one I recognized among the four whom I watched torch my house from my hiding place” she says.
She remembers the dates only too well. “It was on a Wednesday April 27, we had spent the entire week in the house as it wasn’t safe for us, at least that’s what my father said” she says. “I just wouldn't die," she adds.
“Some nights I can’t sleep and I have no one to call family, I replay the incident over and over I my head and 16 years later, my memory is still clear and it doesn’t seem ready to go away anytime soon,” said Redempta.
Even visits to counsellors providing help to the children at the centre did not ease the pain that she still feels or make her forget the trauma she witnessed.
Her scars have grown no less livid with time, she is yet to forgive Jonah’s father.
“To this moment I don’t understand why he did it, if only I could meet him now that am a grown woman. I don’t know what I would do to him.” She tells me. After she left the orphanage the Red Cross placed her in, Redempta wanted to go back and just look at the man who killed her family but her aunt whom she now lives with refused and said it wasn’t still safe for a Tutsi” she tells me.
Her understanding of the genocide came to her at the orphanage because the older children and the widows were always talking about the whole sorry event. “They were saying things, my father never told me about the hatred that existed between the Hutus and the Tutsi’s, it’s here that I understood,” she says.
Redempta wishes that she could have given her family a proper burial but since she cannot she visits the mass grave once every month and tries to go back just so to remember the loved ones she lost every time she gets a chance.
“I come here twice every month to place flowers at the memorial and say prayers for the people buried here with my family,” she said.
She is yet to forgive the murderers of her family and she says that for her life can never be the same again because of the genocide. “ I cannot trust anyone, be they a neighbour or even family. I believe they could all turn on you like my neighbour did, which proves how cruel the world is” she says.
“This is not what I had planned for, I wanted to have children and they would have people they would call family, but now even if I start my own family, I have no one to call my family, my children will not have grandparents who could spoil them with love” she laments.

Man succumbs to jigger infection in Kenya

BY FATUMA NOOR
A jigger-infested man died in Kandara district over the weekend. Officials of Ahadi Kenya, an anti-jigger organisation, had gone to Kagira village to help victims register as voters when news of the man's death arrived.
"The family of the victim is at pains explaining how they have tried all manner of treatment to save their loved one," said Ahadi Kenya ambassador Cecilia Mwangi. Most of the victims could not be able to hold a pen or use the thump print as their hands were badly infested. Ahadi Kenya had hired vehicles to take them to registration centres in Kandara.
The team moved from house to house picking the victims. Ahadi Kenya executive director Stanley Kamau appealed to the government to allow victims with old generation IDs to register and take the exercise door to door.
He added that the 45 days given by IIEC for the registration are not enough for people who cannot even get out of their homes to renew their IDs and register as voters. More than 300 people have so far died due to jigger-related complications in the last three years according to Ahadi Kenya.

BY FATUMA NOOR
THE US has asked Kenya to expand the Daadab refugee camp to ease congestion in one of the largest refugee camp in the world.

Reuben Brigety, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration said the US has been in talks with the" Kenyan government to expand the camp and increase screening services for refugees.

Brigety raised concerns over recruitment of young refugees by Somalia's al Shabaab militants and urged the Kenyan' government to protect refugees from these insurgents. "We are aware of the threats that refugees face and we are reaffirming that they must remain neutral," he said.

Brigety also said Kenya has the right to close its borders if there are security concerns but it needs' to adhere to the international law on refugees.

"Kenya closed its borders with Somalia in 2007 but more Somalis continue to pour into the country to escape fighting in their country.

Bold Refugee newspaper-KANERE close shop

KAKUMA NEWS REFLECTOR (KANERE)

BY FATUMA NOOR

I recently decided to fly to the Kakuma refugee camp to do a story for The Star, Kenya’s newest independent daily. The overcrowded camp is in Turkana, about 290kms northwest of Kenya’s capital Nairobi. I have been to several refugee camps in the Great Lakes region. But to be honest, I have never seen resilient refugees as the ones at Kakuma refugee camp.
I have been here several times, highlighting the plight of the refugees. But my goal this time round is to meet some refugee journalists whom I learnt operate from this particular camp. I am eager to learn how these journalists run a publication, with nothing to call a tangible newsroom like the one I am used to in Nairobi.
Here, they have turned the sufferings of a refugee camp into a powerful reported narrative.


In a 30 page newsletter, these journalists tell the stories of the challenges at the camp. They have established a monthly system of news reporting, pooling their skills for the investigation and reporting on events around the camp.
KANERE is the name they have given their monthly newsletter.

I met journalist Atem Deng, a 27 year old Sudanese from the Dinka ethnic group. From afar, Deng is just another young man in this refugee camp. But from the looks of how he is dressed - clean blue formal shirt and black official trousers-he gives me a picture of an educated man.



His small manyatta or thatch shelter does not, however, speak much of him. “I was pursuing a Diploma in Community health. But one day, I got back from my normal day in school only to find my home raided and my parents killed, I had to run,” Deng recalls. He explains that he had to walk for months coming to Kenya. He has been at the Kakuma Refugee camp since 2005.

He was introduced to the KANERE family –his education was an asset. The group takes pride in its diverse background – made up of refugees from all over the region –which helps keep the stories varied and balanced.
“I had not written anything before for publication. But my friend taught me of how to be a journalist. I accompanied him to the field to gather news,” he explains. But the friend soon left to the US through a resettlement programme. Deng was left to fill the shoe of the gone friend, who was also from Sudan.
He explains that the best brains of the newsletter will always be picked to be resettled in third countries hence negatively affecting the publication in terms of manpower.
After my conversation with Deng, he refers me to25 year old Ajirah Abdirahman from Somalia. She has been pursuing adult education at one of the Kakuma schools. She is dressed in a maroon burqa and a black buibui. With her she is carrying a paper bag with books. Talking to her, I realize she is struggling with English. But this is a young woman who has decided to beat all odds facing a Somali woman to pursue a career and possibly a better life.



Ajirah left her war torn country after it was raided by militias. She came to one of the biggest refugee camps in the world, Daadab Camp, in Kenya. She was among the first Somali refugees to be transferred to Kakuma after Daadab became overcrowded.
“Once I got here, I took the opportunity to learn some English and enrolled in the adult education classes,” she says. Her teacher then mentioned about KANERE as there was no Somali writer on their staff. She decided this would be her opportunity to put what she has learnt to practice and so she took up the challenge as a Somali writer for KANERE.
Ajirah explains that the lack of resources inhibited the groups from getting the best stories. “When you want a good story, you have to understand the background of it but we didn’t have that option,” she says.

In addition to the lack of training, the team copes with only one camera was available along with one “temperamental” computer with a lousy internet connection, Deng added. After struggling with limited resources and training the KANERE voluntary team would seek UNHCR’s help to print the publication.
However, the publication today is no more.
“The last publication of the paper was last year in December, the sponsors did not give tangible reason as to why they cannot support us anymore but I get the feeling it’s from highlighting the real issues in the camp,” Deng explains to me. The newspaper grew into a source of hope for many of the journalists involved, through the passion of the writers and the possibility that their work could create real change and reach a global community of humanitarians.
“The first few times we did real stories of real people, there was no problem with the humanitarian organizations, but later they decided to monitor our stories and they would only publish the ones that would give them mileage,” says Deng. “We are beggars here, we depend on the food rations from the organization, once you portray them badly then you could kiss the rations --or at least better treatment goodbye, this caused most writers to be careful on what to write about,” he adds.
According to the UNHCR officials the paper stopped because of the unprofessionalism of writers and some of the writers being repatriated to other countries or transferred to other refugee camps.
”Most of the writers are not professional journalists, every time we have to repatriated refuges to other places and most of the Kanere writers have left and we are also working on ways where Kanere would be recognized by the Kenyan Government,” said Emmanuel Nyabera UNHCR spokesperson.
But this unusual but fascinating venture of refugees-turned-journalists, confronting issues they face everyday in Kenyas wilderness, did not live to see many days as the paper closed down. Ajirah and the rest of the crew still investigate cases in hopes of reviving the publication one day. On top of the many problems faced by the refugees such as lack of food and health risks, they now face being denied the right of speech.
UNHCR however refutes the claim and KANERE was shut down for lack of funds and not because of the threat that the KANERE posed.

Trouble in Daadab refugee camp

NCCK Distributes Condoms in refugee camps.

By Fatuma Noor


The Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM) are at loggerheads with National Council of churches for distributing Condoms in Daadab refugee camps.

Supkem exerted a strong pressure towards the United Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to ban the National Council of Churches of Kenya from operating in Daadab refugee camp.

In a letter to UNHCR, SUPKEM urged the immediate cessation of NCCK’s activities and its subsequent departure from Daadab.

Local religious leaders led by Garissa Branch Chairman, Mr. Sheikh Abdullahi Salat, had since asked the UNHCR to ban NCCK from operating in the camps that is now teeming with about 300,000 Somali refugees.

“ NCCK should not be dishing out condoms like food toan area where majority of people living there are of Somali community, something that’s against our culture” said Sheikh Salat.

Over the past few months, SUPKEM’s reports have surfaced of hard-line Christian evangelical groups using their charity work to spread the word of Jesus.





"They are like vultures, swooping in to take advantage of the poor and those injured by the wars in Somalia” Sheikh Salat added.


An email response to SUPKEM Garissa branch, the head of UNHCR in Dadaab, Richard Flower, said the agency is working in accordance with the international laws of human rights.

“It is difficult to comprehend the reason for this kind of reaction and why now” read part of the email.

The NCCK head office in Nairobi is yet to respond to the allegations.
Ends.