Kiswahili becomes an official language in East Africa.

Kiswahili becomes an official language in East Africa

The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) has passed a resolution to make Kiswahili the official language of the East African community alongside English reports The Citizen.

Kiswahili was elevated to an official language from the current status of lingua franca after a heated debate by the lawmakers after three legislators from Tanzania and Kenya tabled the motion to recognize the language as one of the languages. Kiswahili will be used in all meetings, correspondences and discussions within the region.

“It is our conviction that the Heads of State of EAC will endorse this motion to enable amendment of the EAC Treaty which has only English as the official language,” said Ms Shy-Rose Bhanji from Tanzania

There is already lobbying for the issue to be brought up before the Extra-ordinary summit of the regional leaders early next month in Dar es Salaam.

According to the legislators who presented the motion, Kiswahili played a major role in bringing together the East African nations in the pre-independence days helping the nations to come together against the colonial administrators.

In Rwanda, only 50 percent of the population speaks in Kiswahili while in Burundi it is 70 percent.

“The Assembly also needs to be practical to acknowledge that there are some partner states like Uganda with large population that does not speak Kiswahili and in the Treaty there is the provision for development as a lingua franca,” Ms Bhanji said.

According to the Daily News there was a proposal for the establishment of Kiswahili Learning Centre to train, staff, members and all stakeholders involved in the integration process to fully comprehend the language. Kiswahili is the Bantu language and the first language of the Swahili people.
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CCTV-Africa

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Ubutumwa bugenewe Nyamwasa, Rudasingwa, Musonera, Ngarambe n’abo muri RNC bose

RNC Logo

Imana ifite umugambi wo kubaka u Rwanda rushya rutarangwamo amabi ayo ariyo yose kandi izawugeraho ntakabuza.

Kubera uwo mugambi w’Imana, niyo mpamvu RNC Imana yayihinduye nka wa munara w’i Babeli kubera ko yifuza ko mwiyeza ikabeza ikabagira bashya kandi beza mu buzima bushya mu Bwami bwayo. Ngo ibyakorewe mu ibanga byose bizamenyekana.

Imana irabasaba kwicuza no kwihana ibyaha byanyu kugirango ibababarire ibone kubaha igihugu cy’isezerano. Muve mu madini y’inzaduka mujye kwa Padiri mupfukame ku ntebe ya penetensiya musabe Yezu imbabazi cyane cyane ibyaha by’ubwicanyi n’ibindi byose, ndetse munirengere ibyaha bya benewanyu bose nabyo mubisabire imbabazi. Niba aribyo biboroheye mujye kumu Padiri w’umunyamahanga utazi i Kinyarwanda maze mubwire Yezu ibyaha byanyu mubimusabire imbabazi mu Kinyarwanda.

Maze ni murangiza gusaba Imana imbabazi muzisabe n’Abanyarwanda muri rusange.

Muvandimwe Kayumba, wisobanuye kenshi ku bwicanyi uregwa kuba warakoreye Abahutu ariko sinari nakumve narimwe ugira icyo uvuga ku bwicanyi bwakorewe abana b’Abatutsi bazaga kurugamba baturutse mu Rwanda, mu Burundi, no muri Congo. Numvse Musonera agushinja ko ari wowe wari ukuriye abakoraga ubwo bwicanyi; ikindi, uruhare rwawe wowe bwite waba waragize mugufasha Kagame kwikiza abasirikare bose bari bamubangamiye n’abataramushakaga, wigeze kutubwira ko ari wowe wagiye kumukura mu rutoki abandi bamutaye ndibwira ko aribwo yahise akugira umutoni? Ibyo aribyo byose ukuri kose kuruhare rwawe urakuzi mumutima wawe. Mperutse kumva usobanura ko FPR yapfuye muri 1998 no muri 2000 birantangaza nyoberwa niba ari ukwigiza nkana cyangwa waba ariko ubyumva koko kubera ko wenda aribwo wowe waba waratangiye kwigizwayo? Ikintera kwibaza ibyo, none se kuri wowe, Nyuma y’iyicwa rya Rwigema yicishijwe na Kagame akamukurikiza bagenzibe bose, n’abandi bose bicirwaga ku rugamba nka babana navugaga hejuru, burya kuri wowe FPR yari iriho ari nzima?

Muvandimwe Musonera, uti Kayumba niwe wayoboraga ubwicanyi, nonese wowe wakoraga iki; waba se wari uri mubahabwaga ayo mabwiriza yo kwicisha abantu b’inzirakarengane udufuni ukabikora? None se wowe wumva udakwiye gusaba Imana n’Abanyarwanda imbabazi?

Muvandimwe Rudasingwa, rwose politike n’irangamuntu y’amoko n’iringaniza uzi aho yagejeje u Rwanda ariko ukabirengaho ukavuga uti nimvuga iringaniza Abahutu barabyumva vuba imisanzu igwire! Imana irasaba Abanyarwanda kuva mu moko.

Muvandimwe Ngarambe, wowe numvise wibereye kwa Roza, iyo myaku ntayo nshaka...

Bavandimwe, mugarukire Imana ibahe umugisha.

Mbaye mbashimiye, Imana ibibafashemo.

Martin Ntiyamira

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Is the UN Security Council Resolution number 2303 - on deployment of a UN Police Force to Burundi - of July 29th, 2016 legally binding or Resolution 2303 is subject to the Government of Burundi's discretion ?

Rwandan American lawyer and former National University of Rwanda professor Dr. Charles Kambanda

France sponsored the UNC Resolution 2303. The Draft came to the UNSC under Chapter 6 Article 36 of the UN Charter.The Resolution passed with 11 countries voting in favor of sending 286 police officers to Burundi. Four ( 4) countries abstained; China, Angola, Venezuela and Egypt. Russia voted for Resolution 2303 after the UNSC agreed to include an explicit phrase; "... in cooperation with the government of Burundi". The government of Burundi is categorical; they will not allow more than 50 unarmed UN police officers.

Resolution 2303 has caused a lot of excitement among regime change campaign quarters. The thinking among Burundi regime change campaign quarters is that the UNSC sanctioned Police Force will probably "cooperate" in bringing down President Nkurunziza's government. The EU and the US, the major Burundi regime change campaign supporters, are expected to pick the bill for the UNS proposed police force. With Resolution 2303 on the table, the question is whather or not the government of Burundi is under legal obligation to let in the 286 UNSC police officers. I answer in the negative.

There is a big difference between UN Charter Chapters 6 and 7. Both UN Charter Chapters touch and concern Dispute Resolution. However, while Chapter 7 Resolutions are legally binding, Chapter 6 UNSC Resolutions are advisory and/or voluntary. Chapter 7 resolutions authorize forceful methods such as economic sanctions and humanitarian intervention ( military attacks) while Chapter 6 resolutions are UNSC proposals. Chapter 6 UN Resolutions/proposals are necessarily subject to the concerned government's consent. There is what is famously known as Chapter 6 and half resolutions. Chapter 6 and half UNSC Resolution cannot go beyond authorizing a UN Peacekeeping force, again subject to the concerned country's explicit consent.

The International Court of Justice ( ICJ), in Namibia case, made it clear that the only legally binding UNSC Resolutions are those taken under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. There is good policy reason for the ICJ's legal reasoning; the UNSC does not replace the Sovereign and, the UN or any organ thereof is not a Sovereign.

France sponsored Resolution 2303 under Chapter 6 Article 36 of the UN Charter. Because Resolution 2303 came to the UNSC under Chapter 6, Resolution 2303, Resolution 2303 explicit language notwithstanding, Burundi government consent to deployment of the 286 UN Police contingent is imperative. The government of Burundi is at liberty to accept the UN force with modification or object the entire UNSC Resolution Police Force deployment proposal.

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Sudan's War Criminal Bashir to attend African Union Summit in Rwanda

President Omer al-Bashir will travel to Rwanda on Saturday to attend the African Union summit in Kigali, Sudan Tribune learnt. The 27th African Union Summit will take place in the Rwandan capital Kigali from the 10th to the 18th of July 2016.

Al-Bashir attended the African Union summit in South Africa in June 2015 although South Africa is a member to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A local court ordered to prevent him form leaving the country, but Johannesburg government facilitated his return to Sudan.

In May of this year al-Bashir visited Uganda and Djibouti, which are ICC state members of Rome Statute.

As a host-country of the African summit, the Rwandan President Paul Kagame has announced that his country will not arrest President al-Bashir during his coming visit to participate in the African Union summit.

“President al-Bashir is welcomed in Kigali at any time. He will be free in his second home country. We will not respond to the ICC calls to arrest him. We will not take any action of such type against him”, Kagame said.

Rwanda is not a state party to the tribunal of war crimes but has the obligation as a member of the United Nations to cooperate with the court. However like many other African capitals, Kigali is critical to ICC and to its focus on Africa.

In April 2007, the judges at the Hague-based tribunal issued an arrest warrant for President al-Bashir, and for the governor of North Kordofan state Ahmed Haroun, who at the time served as state minister interior.

DJIBOUTI & UGANDA: On a related development, the ICC said Tuesday it had referred Djibouti and Uganda to the United Nation Security Council for failing to arrest al-Bashir while he was on their territory.

As ICC members, the two countries are obliged to arrest the Sudanese president. However, the African governments refuse to arrest him saying they are committed to an African Union decision calling to not cooperate with the Hague based court .

"On 11 July 2016, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided that the Republics of Uganda and Djibouti had failed to comply with the request for arrest and surrender of Omar Al Bashir to the ICC and referred the matter to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute and the United Nations Security Council,". said a statement released on Tuesday.

"It is now up to them to take the measures they deem necessary regarding this matter," the ICC further said.

Al Bashir is facing two ICC arrest warrants for five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes and three counts of genocide. (ST)

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Watch Kagame say he Never Wanted to Remain President

Blair and Buffett Crown Kagame King of Rwanda

Watch Kagame say he never wanted to remain president, but was forced to stay in power. Watch also his consultants Blair and Buffett crown him King. Howard says he would not have invested in Rwanda if Kagame was not the ruler.

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Arusha Needed to Avert a New Political Violence in Rwanda

Theogene Rudasingwa

The political opposition, composed of the following political organisations, namely AMAHORO PC; FDU-Inkingi; PDP Imanzi; PS Imberakuri and RNC (Rwanda National Congress), calls on peace loving people, governments and organisations and particularly friends of Rwanda to impress upon the Rwandan government the need to enter dialogue with the opposition on the basis of the Arusha Peace Agreement which was derailed by the resumption of war in 1994 that gave total victory to one protagonist, the RPF/RPA. We feel very strongly that the conditions that led to war in 1990 and subsequent social upheaval and genocide 1994 are more acute and explosive that they were at the time.

These included, authoritarian form of government, unresolved problem of refugees, regionalism, nepotism, favouritism, lack of a free press, freedom of expression and association. Economic disparities much lower than they are today. Disparities have doubled in the last 20 years and Rwanda is now among the top 15% of the most unequal countries in the world, in a country that is most aided in the region, and where 60% of the population live under poverty line.

The apparent stability masks deep seated tensions and unresolved grievances that are kept under check by the most repressive regime that Rwanda has ever had, which operates beyond borders to hunt down critics and assassinate them. Just to give a few examples, the former Home Affairs Minister Seth Sendashonga, and former member of Parliament Colonel Lizinde were gunned down in Nairobi; while the former Chief Spy, Colonel Patrick Karegeya, was strangled in South Africa. In August, a South African court convicted two Rwandans and two Tanzanians of the attempted murder of General Kayumba Nyamwasa—a former senior military official and leading RNC member—in South Africa in 2010, and sentenced them in September to eight years’ imprisonment. The judge stated that the attack was politically motivated and emanated from a group of people in Rwanda.
With regards to the problem of refugees, Rwanda has now the highest number of refugees of all time, and for the 1st time Rwandan refugees include people of all ethnic groups, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, of all social status and age, military, business men, young and old people.

The social capital i.e. relationship of trust and frank collaboration between a social grouping like a family, community values and social norms that glue members of a community together have been destroyed by the ruling party indoctrination programme that promotes loyalty to the party and its leader than to any other social network including family.

We are convinced that the cycle of brutal massacres that have bedevilled Rwanda are not a product of congenital brutal hatreds between Hutu and Tutsi but the failure of the political leadership to manage peacefully the naturally divergent interests of people and societal demands without resorting to violence or appealing to ethnic sentiments.
The long negotiations in Arusha in 1992- 1994 had tried to find a formula to end the cycle of violence but was derailed for opportunistic reasons.

The various stakeholders had done a lot of ground work that can be used as a foundation for a new dialogue taking into account the new environment. We feel that the arrogant and militarist attitude of the present Rwandan leadership might lead eventually to another violent change of regime.

We are calling for an all-inclusive national dialogue of all stakeholders in the Rwandan conflict to agree on legal and institutional mechanisms to end the cycle of violence in Rwanda and build a real reconciled, peaceful, prosperous and democratic society.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa.
Chair Platform
Washington DC June 24, 2016
E-mail: ngombwa@gmail.com
Tel: 001-240-477-9110

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