MEDIA-RWANDA: Journalist Detained For Probing Graft In The Army

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jean Baptiste Kayigamba

KIGALI, Mar 3 1999 (IPS) - Rwandan journalist, John Mugabi, has been detained in the capital Kigali, on charges of defamation against the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defence, Colonel Frank Rusagara.

“Mugabi was summoned by our office to explain allegations of corruption against Rusagara,” state prosecutor, Emmanuel Rukangira, confirmed to IPS this week.

Mugabi, who was detained on Feb 26, is editor of ‘The Newsline’, an independent English language weekly published in Kigali.

His editor-in-chief, Casimir Kayumba, was also summoned to the prosecutor’s office, on Feb 26, and interrogated for over four hours, before he was released.

Mugabi was interrogated, but not allowed to return home. He was taken to Remera prison in Kigali where has has been remanded.

“His summons followed a complaint filed to our office by one Colonel Frank Rusagara,” Rukangira explained.

The arrest was sparked by a story carried in the Feb 3 – Mar 4 issue of ‘The Newsline’ in which Mugabi claimed Rwanda had lost over 3 million US Dollars in a deal with a Ugandan businessman, Emma Katto, who was to provide two Russian Mi-24 helicopters.

The story was first published by Uganda’s semi-official newspaper, the ‘New Vision’, before it was quoted by ‘The Newsline’.

According to the story, the dispute between Rwanda and the Consolidated Sales Corporation, to which Katto is a director, erupted over the delivery in 1997 of “fake spares” for the MI- 24 helicopters.

According to Mugabi, the dispute intensified with the delivery of two fuel tanks and a ground handling truck for 102,000 US Dollars, both of which were rejected by Rwanda because they were secondhand.

Mugabi claimed the money was paid in two installments in March and May 1997, and was transferred to Katto’s bank account in London by the Central Bank of Rwanda, through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

He said Rwanda has been trying to recover the money, to no avail. According to Mugabi, Rusagara, who was involved in the deal, was supposed to receive his cut, a 10-percent commission, from Katto, an allegation which has been denied by Rusagara.

“I gather he (Rusagara) has had several meetings, with Emma in hotels in Uganda, which were in essence not official,” Mugabi had written.

The allegation angered senior army officer who decided to take the case to court. Rukangira told IPS that Mugabi will appear in court soon, and that if found guilty, will be sentenced up to five years in prison and pay damages to Rusagara.

The paper may also be prosecuted.

Rukangira said Mugabi refused to disclose his sources. “He refused to do so in total defiance of the law,” he said. “We then took him to prison, pending his trial.”

The Newsline and its sister publication, the ‘Ukuri’, also a weekly, are regarded as anti-government for their critical reporting of issues related to corruption, privatisation, and the involvement of Rwanda in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

It was ‘The Newsline’ which broke the news about the rift between Rwandan and Ugandan troops in the DRC which resulted in shoot-outs between the two armies. Both countries support the rebels in the DRC.

Since the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) seized power in July 1994, relations between Rwanda’s 50 journalists and the government have been cool, despite the latter’s assurance that it is committed to the principle of freedom of speech.

Since 1995, at least three journalists of both public and private media, have been murdered under mysterious circumstances.

Others, like Edouard Mutsinzi of the independent ‘Le Messager’ was attacked and beaten almost to death in 1995. He was flown to France where he is still undergoing medical treatment.

Two others have fled the country. Jean Pierre Mugabe, editor of “Le Tribun du Peuple”, went to the United States in February 1998. Unconfirmed reports say he had complained about continued harassment by anonymous telephone callers.

Mugabe, an outspoken reporter, had exposed a series of corruption scandals involving top government officials and businessmen.

Another journalist, Manasse Mugabo, who was working for a UN radio in Kigali, went missing in August 1995, and efforts to trace his whereabouts have failed.

“There is no evidence that security forces are behind these acts, but suspicions have grown high that people acting on their own intent are the ones to blame for attacks on journalists,” a member of the Rwandese Association of Journalists (ARJ) told IPS this week.

Three other journalists are also in detention for their role in the 1994 genocide in which up to one million people, most of them Tutsis, were slaughtered by Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe (those who fight together in the Kinyarwanda language).

The two include Joseph Ruyenzi who allegedly raped and mutilated a woman’s private parts in central Rwanda.