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08/04/2004:

"Rwanda intimidates press critics with arbitary arrests"

Independent UK
The bar at the Hotel des Milles Collines in Rwanda's capital of Kigali is buzzing on a Tuesday night. Air-kisses flurry about, a singer pelts out pop ballads, and waitresses serve grilled fish and chilled wines.

The customers - expatriates and fashionable Rwandans - are cheerful and talkative, competing for an audience in the balmy air. This is the new Kigali - a vibrant town trying to rebuild itself, to cope with the horrors of 1994, when 800,000 people were killed in a genocide that engulfed the entire country.

But in this buzzing city, Charles Kabonero, editor of Rwanda's only independent newspaper, Umuseso, has just been released after yet another arbitary arrest - his fifth stint in jail since he took control of the newspaper six months ago. He is the fourth editor the newspaper has had since its creation in 2000. All three of his predecessors fled the country after being arrested several times and receiving death threats.

"After all the editors fled, I found myself the most senior person at the newspaper so I became editor," said 23-year-old Kabonero, who is still a journalism student at the National University in Rwanda. "Each time an edition comes out, we get three or four summons to report to the police station, the newspaper is seized, or I get arrested. I am getting used to it." full article