Rwanda President’s Lopsided Re-election Is Seen as a Sign of Oppression
Ida Sawyer, the central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said
that under Mr. Kagame, independent news media have been silenced and rights organizations are almost nonexistent "after years of intimidation and interference." Boniface Twagirimana, the vice president of the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, said his party had been forced to operate illegally after the government rejected its repeated registration applications.
The outcome of political repression in Rwanda, Mr. Twagirimana said, is
that Mr. Kagame "is competing against himself." Mr. Gasamagera, the spokesman for Mr. Kagame’s party, rejected such criticism as unwarranted.
If it were not democratic, he could even score 100 percent," said Wellers Gasamagera,
the spokesman for Mr. Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front political party.
Frank Habineza, founder of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, said before the vote that he had anticipated receiving 65 percent of the total.
He said Rwanda had a "free and open environment for freedom of expression." Nine of the
11 registered political parties in Rwanda endorsed Mr. Kagame in his presidential run.
" she said. that People get mistreated by the government, by people of power, and they choose to keep quiet,
Rwigara said that Plainclothes government security forces seized the co-founder
of her movement on Dec. 26 after he had given an interview in a local ne
