Kagame Is Laughing All The Way To The Bank

Kigali Convention Centre (KCC) is finally here! Congratulations to all those involved in building it since 2008. It has been a long journey.

But like everything else in Kagame's Kingdom there is a dark side - CASH!
While we were sleeping KCC mysteriously got new owners. Guess who are the owners:

The new owners include Prime Holdings and Crystal Ventures. This should come as a shock!
Back in 2006, the Kagame regime assured the IMF that Prime Holdings had ceased to manage public assets after it was caught stealing. Prime Holdings is a shadowy company that was unable to account for funds used to build the current Serena Hotel in Kigali and Gisenyi! Ten years later, the corrupt mafia-like Prime Holdings is back!

Evidently Kagame has rewarded Prime Holdings with an even bigger cake - big money from the US$400 million Eurobond the Kagame regime borrowed to build KCC among other things!
So why did Kagame bring back the thieving Prime Holdings? The same reason Crystal Ventures became a co-owner of KCC. To siphon off CASH!

We hope the IMF is observing this ugly drama that is hidden away by the celebrations around the KCC.




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David Himbara

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Rwanda in the top 10 countries that use child soldiers in the world.

(New York) – The Obama administration should require foreign governments receiving United States military aid to immediately end their use of child soldiers, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 30, 2016, the US State Department issued a new list of countries implicated in the use of child soldiers as part of its annual Trafficking in Persons report. The list of 10 countries includes Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Child soldiers put down their guns in a disarmament and release ceremony in Jonglei state, South Sudan, February 10, 2015. 

© 2015 Sebastian Rich/Corbis/AP Images

The 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act prohibits certain forms of US military assistance to countries that either use child soldiers in their national armed forces or support militias or paramilitaries that recruit and use child soldiers. The president can waive the prohibition for national security reasons. Since the law went into effect in 2010, the Obama administration has issued such waivers in 26 of 33 cases, allowing governments using child soldiers to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid.
“Many of the governments listed by the State Department receive US military aid year after year despite their continued use of children as soldiers,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “President Obama should make clear that countries using child soldiers are going to lose US military support.”

President Obama must decide by the end of September whether to waive the law’s military sanctions for any of the listed governments for fiscal year 2017.

Iraq was added to the list for the first time this year. The Popular Mobilization Forces, a government-recognized paramilitary force under the prime minister’s command, has recruited children as young as 11 to fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Human Rights Watch has documented that children as young as 15 have been killed while fighting with one of the militia forces making up the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Nigeria was included for the second year in a row, based on the use of child soldiers by the Civilian Joint Task Force, a government-allied force used to fight the armed group Boko Haram. Rwanda, which had been included in 2013 and 2014 but removed in 2015, reappeared after officials recruited child soldiers from a refugee camp. The other countries have been included for at least four years in a row. Several – Congo, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen – have been named every year since the list was first published in 2010.

Afghanistan was omitted from this year’s list, despite evidence that the Afghan Local Police, a government-backed militia engaged in combat operations against the Taliban and other insurgents, recruits and uses children as soldiers.

“The United States has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to support an Afghan militia that recruits and uses children to fight the Taliban,” Becker said. “Afghanistan should also be on this list and subject to military sanctions.”

Afghanistan was excluded because the State Department determined that the Afghan Local Police fell into a gray area not covered by the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. That decision appears contrary to the plain meaning of the law, Human Rights Watch said. The law covers “governmental armed forces or government-supported armed groups, including paramilitaries, militias, or civil defense forces, that recruit and use child soldiers.” The Afghan Local Police was established under the Afghan interior minister by presidential decree in August 2010, and according to the US Defense Department, is an “integral part” of the Afghanistan security forces.

“There’s no gray area concerning children and the Afghan Local Police,” Becker said. “The Afghan government has failed to rein in the militia’s recruitment of children while the US turns a blind eye.”

In 2015, President Obama gave full or partial waivers to four of the five countries listed that were scheduled recipients of US military aid. Withholding at least a portion of US military aid would provide foreign governments with an incentive to curb child recruitment, Human Rights Watch said.

“President Obama should take a much harder line, and insist that countries that receive US military aid end their use of child soldiers,” Becker said. “Unconditional military aid sends a terrible message that the US knowingly supports countries that use children to fight.”

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www.hrw.org

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