It’s hurray to RPF at 25, but what were Congolese bank robbers doing in Rwanda?

This is not funny. Either the Congolese have taken our hospitality too far or they are just a bunch of careless people. After months of blaming us for the war in their backyard, they agree to sit down and talk. In Kampala, they sit. But for some explicable reason, just as we are in high spirits ahead of the RPF silver jubilee fete, a gang of bank robbers, apparently, robbed a bullion van of millions of dollars and fled like drunks high on Changa’a, that infamous Kenya liquor that blinds its consumers; the robbers ended up in Rwanda.Police spokesman Theos Badege said the robbers used a porous border in Rubavu to escape into Rwanda and amalgamate with the residents of the area. Reports reaching this paper said three suspected robbers attacked a vehicle taking money to the bank in Goma and made away with £614,000 after a gun fight that claimed two lives. Well, you would be forgiven for having a wild thought that since they are daring robbers who can shoot at a bullion van, make a foolhardy decision to cross a border illegally, they were probably foolish enough to think that the silver jubilee fete at Amahoro Stadium had something to do with silvers and such gems. Kagame salutes gallant heroesBut the RPF fete was nothing of that sort. It was a day of paying tribute to the gallant men and women who helped liberate the country from the clutches of a genocidal regime. President Kagame, the host, thanked his guests that included President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Ethiopian Prime Minister Haile Mariam Desalegn, Mama Maria Nyerere, the widow of former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, and heads of delegations of political parties from around the world for joining Rwanda in saluting the RPF, a force he said has come of age “not just in years, but in terms of all that they have achieved together.”The President paid a special tribute to RPF founding chairman, Major General Fred Gisa Rwigema – martyred on the eve of the struggle – and Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, Major Peter Bayingana, Aloysia Inyumba and Modeste Rutabayiru.For his part, Uganda’s Museveni thanked the RPF for overcoming what he described as ideological disorientation. He said Rwanda was almost destroyed by the ideological bug before the Rwandese Patriotic Army overthrew the blood-thirsty genocidal regime, adding that the same ideological bug still affects some African countries like DR Congo and Somalia and “has made it impossible to form functioning states in those countries.” Ex-minister to wrinkle in jailTalking of genocide, that unfortunate event will haunt forever. And for Augustin Ngirabatware, it just can’t get any worse. The former Minister of Planning will live the next 35 years cursing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) after it deemed him liable for organising and carrying out the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The tribunal sentenced Ngirabatware to 35 years in jail.He was arrested in Germany in September 2007, but was transferred to the ICTR in Arusha, Tanzania, over a year later. The fate of the ex-minister comes on the heels of a report that France could be providing safe haven for fugitive genocide suspects. Other fugitives indicted by the ICTR and remain at large include alleged genocide moneybag Felicien Kabuga and other key fugitives like the former head of the notorious presidential guard, and Augustin Bizimana, the former defense minister. Ngirabatware’s trial was the last substantial case at the Tanzania-based tribunal, which has since been replaced by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, and the tribunal will now only hear appeal cases. Mugesera in ping-pong run. We said the genocide will haunt like forever. Leon Mugesera ought to reflect on that and end any feeble excuses that he still has up his sleeve in his attempt to render his trial over alleged role in the 1994 genocide. He claims that the court is discriminating him, demanding that trial be conducted within the provisions of the special law on the transfers from ICTR and other jurisdictions.Mugesera was charged with five counts, including incitement of the genocide, planning of the genocide, complicity in genocide, harassment of humanity, and spreading the hatred among the citizen on basis of region and tribes. The former lecturer in linguistic is accused of committing these crimes in 1992, roundly in an incendiary speech inciting the killing of Tutsis across the country, a speech he gave in western Rwanda.He was deported from Canada in January this year after losing an almost two-decade legal battle against deportation.