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DECLARATION/PETITION : The Rwanda Bridge Builders (RBB) designate the Rwandan Patriotic Front as a terrorist organisation and urges the Rwandan citizens to resist
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The Rwanda Bridge Builders (RBB) designate the Rwandan Patriotic Front as a terrorist organisation and urges the Rwandan citizens to resist
- We, the RBB members participating in the Fourth General Assembly, Gathered on 1st and 2nd April 2023
- Having carefully and thoroughly examined all the reliable information and facts on the scale, intention and severity of RPF ‘s crimes, violent activities and threats of violence in order to create fear, panic, and disruption within Rwandan communities,
- Noting that the RPF’s regime violent activities including assassination, kidnapping or abduction, disappearance, tortures and threats acts go beyond Rwanda to neighboring countries and far-away in Africa, Europe, and America, thus posing a threat to regional and global security and stability,
- Noting that those violent activities are committed by a State in violation of The Universal Declaration of human rights and other human rights instruments including the International covenant on civil and political rights, the Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments or punishments, the International convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance,
- Recognizing that the RPF’s terrorist acts are carried out by state-sponsored groups and institutions such as RDF, the RPF’s military wing, Rwandan Investigation Bureau (RIB), Local Defense, Death squads operating in various Rwandan Embassies and Intore militia proliferating in refugee communities and diaspora organisation,
- Having considered the authoritative definition of act of terrorism in the proscription context as the use or threat of action which:
- involves serious violence against a person;
- involves serious damage to property;
- endangers a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the act);
- creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.
- Noting from the available information and facts that RPF’s uses or threat to use the above stated violent activities are designed to maintain the current Rwandan dictatorial regime of President Kagame and to advance its ethnic discriminatory and supremacist ideology,
- Considering that the ongoing RDF’s invasion of DR Congo and the continued support to a proscribed organisation M23 in direct contravention of international laws namely the UN Charter and et the AU Constitutive Act, and international community’s call to withdraw, destabilize the great lakes region’s long-term stability,
- Considering the last report of UN group of Experts and the reports of HRW on crimes and other human rights violations by RDF and M23 in DRC,
- Recalling that RDF regularly uses terrorist tactics and works together with armed groups they have created to carry out attacks against civilian targets both in Rwanda and outside Rwanda including assassinations and kidnappings.
- Noting that RPF claimed responsibilities for assassinating two sitting heads of state, for killing a score of journalists, political and human right activists inside and outside Rwanda, and for kidnapping many more living in exile,
- Recalling that RPF’s propagandists and leaders’ speeches disseminated via social media, frequently feature extremely violent language and threats of violence against innocent civilians and frequently condone and glorify those who have killed or used extreme violence for political or ideological ends,
- Conclude that the RPF, being a parent organization that owns and controls many groups that commit and participate in terrorism, is a terrorist organization and thus becomes proscribed (or untrustworthy) to run the country affairs.
- Believe that this Declaration is a further important step forward for the recognition, promotion and protection of the rights and freedoms of oppressed Rwandan people as we struggle for freedoms.
- Condemn the invasions of RDF and the support of M23 by the Rwandan State,
- Recommend to the States and institutions that support the Rwandan State financially or by other means to freeze their aid,
- Recommend States that support the Rwandan State to condemn those acts against Rwandan people and adopt measures that force the government of Rwanda to open the democratic and civic space and to stop their invasion and support to M23; to ask for and sanction Rwandan authorities implicated in those acts.
- Having classified RPF as a terrorist organization due to its actions, ideologies and impact on Rwandan society, RBB invokes the Rwandan citizens’ right to resist and to free themselves by any means recognized by the international community and international laws.
Paris, July 18, 2023
RBB Coordination committee
rbbnew2021@gmail.com