Rwanda: passeports des politiciens FDU-Inkingi pour bientôt?!!!

Kigali: The new Rwandan diplomat in Brussels has started work but already critics are reminding him that several vocal opposition politicians are still waiting for their passports as elections get closer, RNA reports.

Senior figures of Dutch-based Unified Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) headed by hard-talking Ms. Victoire Ingabire applied for passports but are yet to have them. The group is scheduled to take part in the September 2010 presidential poll with Ms. Ingabire as flag bear, but the group is yet to register their party.  

In online postings, the figures are urging ambassador Gérard Ntwari to accord them the right to have the travel documents. Some of them left the country as it descended into a bitter conflict and have never returned.

Mr. Ntwari takes over from Mr. Joseph Bonesha who is said to have kept pending several passport applications for politicians in Belgium and the Netherlands. The two countries are the hotbed of Kigali’s critics.

However, Brussels is not the only place with long waiting passports. RNA was contacted by one Hakizimana Jean de Dieu claiming the he applied for the passport at the embassy in Canada, but has never been given any response.

Mr. Hakizimana was in the news in 2007 when he alleged in interviews that he had evidence against some of the 40 top officials indicted by a Spanish judge. RNA later published a lengthy dossier on him detailing how he may not have been in Rwanda at the time he claims to have acquired the contested evidence.

Source: ARI/RNA