‘RWANDA police probing Diane Rwigara, a fierce critic of President Kagame, for suspected tax evasion and forgery.’ – This is what The East African newspaper tweeted this morning. I am not a journalist, but I keep wondering why they do this…
– For one, Diane has no known individual business, or even a know carrier. She lived at her parents’ house.
Western media refers to her, at times as, ‘Rwandan women’s rights activist’ – she has done nothing of the sort.
– Two, she is not CEO of her family business and the business audit does not concern her.
– Three, she is being investigated for forging signatures supporting her bid to the presidency – which is unrelated to business;
– Four, every business anywhere is routinely audited by the Revenue Authority and that doesn’t make news; that the daughter of a business owner decides to do politics does not grant automatic tax-exemption to the entire family (If that’s the case, let’s all go into politics);
-Five: Diane and her family have not been detained; I asked the police this morning and they confirmed it to me. – Updated: Diane, sister and her mother were later discovered hiding in the boys-quarters of their family home, from where she tweeted to the world that she was in police custody. On the link below is a video of the police searching their home and ‘discovering’ them. Diane can be seen abusing her own mother and the police officer who ‘found’ her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrdHcRgJtmk
Diane and her mother were later convicted of plotting to overthrow the government and imprisoned. On the following links are audios of Diane, her mother and her sister conversing with unknown individuals and openly expressing wishes to overthrow government. While in court, they never denied the allegations or the audios: 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMb4z8-hTYc and 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR4SYhh6rUk
Conclusion: Everyone who goes into politics should, in principle, declare their wealth, and subsequently be audited to ensure that they are under no clout of any business cronies. That is what transparency is, and in Rwanda we try to uphold transparency. This is not America, where politicians represent business interests.
That is not even what is asked of Diane, no one audited her, or her personal business. Yet, articles in the media seem to purport that from now on, Diane’s family business should no longer pay taxes or be audited; Or, that everyone who criticizes the president has a free pass to evade tax or violate the law.
People know this by now, as a result those who are caught in tax evasion or corruption, immediately declare their intentions to go into politics, or call our president a dictator, and become western media’s overnight sensations.
Rwandan women rights activist are baffled now. ‘What has Diane done for us, apart from insulting the man who has emancipated us? Calling her a women’s right activist is an insult to us!’ they are all saying.
Politics is no game of alter boys and choir girls. Diane did what she had to do to make it to the ballot, she got caught. Some of the things happening to her are unfair. For instance, I got publicly angry at the man who admitted to have taken her nude pictures, and removed him from my discussion group.
In my opinion she shouldn’t have gone into politics in the first place. Or she should have gone in the right way; Learn about our economy, our social problems, our human rights issues; do comparative studies with other countries, learn best practices, go on a country tour, meet women’s associations, vulnerable groups, understand Rwandan history, maybe start a blog, advance her ideas, then one day, run for district mayor, member of parliament, etc. Not turn up one month to elections, out of nowhere, abuse everyone, create all sorts of scandals, etc.
We are eleven million respectable people; Even those already in power respect us – which is why we elect them! No one will sign for you like that!
Western media and experts like Diane for racist reasons – she doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know that and she doesn’t know us. She should have stayed in the comfort of her family wealth and stop creating troubles to herself…