Olivier Nyirubugara (The Hague, 20 April 2012) – Women in the village of Gomboussougou, some 160 km south east of Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou, have decided to attend municipal meetings when they wish, a situation that was until recently unthinkable even among councillors themselves.

Villagers’ eyes were opened after a 25-minute played on 13 [...]]]>

Olivier Nyirubugara (The Hague, 20 April 2012) – Women in the village of Gomboussougou, some 160 km south east of Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou, have decided to attend municipal meetings when they wish, a situation that was until recently unthinkable even among councillors themselves.

Villagers’ eyes were opened after a 25-minute played on 13 April on civic participation during a Listeners’ club session in the village. The programme had previously been aired by community radio Pag La Yiri, the first the area, and will be replayed in eleven other villages.

“Before, when we wanted to attend important meetings, our husbands would think that we want to engage in politics”, said Mrs Dabre Habiba, a Gomboussougou resident. For her, things are now clear that she can attend whenever the meetings’ agenda are interesting to her.

“Having had no training, we, too, had no information about that”, Mrs Dabre Assitou, one of Gomboussougou municipal councillors, said.

The debates and exchanges that follow are facilitated by citizen journalists who received training in facilitating and reporting skills. They record all the exchenges so that they can be broadcast on Radio Pag la Yiri. The radio broadcasts in five local languages and French and has five journalists, four of whom are citizen journalists. The radio also has freelance contributors, mainly local primary and secondary school teachers.

“we realized that men have long managed public affairs the way they pleased and in a dictatorial fashion, so to speak, whereas society comprises both women and men. That’s why we chose that topic in an attempt to bring about some balance”, said Jean-Pierre Boussim, the radio’s director

With the support of the Hague-based International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), women’s association Pag La Yiri started this community radio project in 2009 combining both the radio and new media technologies. In 2011, PSO, a Dutch charity focusing on capacity-building in developing countries, provided support to the radio for programmes promoting gender equality.

This experience leads to one interesting conclusion: the fact that villagers are following radio programmes in their languages for the first time, combined with the opportunity they’re given to have their views broadcast, is likely to bring substantial transformations within society. One such transformation is making deeply rooted beliefs and taboos, such as women’s participation in public affairs debatable. This approach seems more efficient than the often-used top-down, expert-to-non-expert model.

Olivier Nyirubugara, The Hague, 8 March 2012 -With her son-in-law, grandchildren, friends and colleagues of her daughter, Thérèse Dusabe, comes to the Dutch Parliament dressed in pink to urge Dutch politicians to use their influence to bring democracy and political freedom in Rwanda.

‘This uniform is what prisoners wear in Rwanda. I am wearing [...]]]>

Olivier Nyirubugara, The Hague, 8 March 2012 -With her son-in-law, grandchildren, friends and colleagues of her daughter, Thérèse Dusabe, comes to the Dutch Parliament dressed in pink to urge Dutch politicians to use their influence to bring democracy and political freedom in Rwanda.

‘This uniform is what prisoners wear in Rwanda. I am wearing it to show that I am in jail myself, that my heart is in jail. My heart is broken by the fact that my daught is in jail, wearing this uniform’, Dusabe told me in The Hague.

Dusabe’s daughter, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, returned in early 2010 back to Rwanda with political ambitions: she wanted to challenge the seating president, a former rebel leader who seized power after a 4-year war and a genocide against the Tutsi minority. But she could not contest. Instead, she got in trouble: she was first accused of spreading divisionism and denying the genocide, crimes to which terrorism and other charges were later added.

Part of the petition handed to some Dutch ministers and MPs reads: ‘Because of her political ideas, Victoire Ingabire is in jail since October 2010. She risks life imprisonment. Her trial is far from fair’.

While Dusabe dedicates Thursdays to the sit-in, she spends her Wednesdays in her local church: ‘Every Wednesday a mass is organised to pray for peace in Rwanda’, she said. In front of the Parliament, she brings a box containing candles, statues  of the Virgin with some prayers written on paper.

The Netherlands has offered both diplomatic and financial support to post-genocide Rwanda. Despite the recent cancellation of budgetary aid, the country maintained its support to the judiciary system, among other sectors, the very system that is accused of maintaining behind the bars the political adversaries of the ruling Rwandese Patriotic Front. With considerable economic and financial power demonstrated during the current Euro crisis, the voice of the Netherlands has become louder within the European Union and can make a difference.

AlJazeera showed yesterday an amazing documentary on one of the ICTR trials, namely the case of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana. I had personally not followed the details of that case. I knew the priest had been arrested and that he stood no chance to get out of his cell free. In [...]]]>

AlJazeera showed yesterday an amazing documentary on one of the ICTR trials, namely the case of Father Hormisdas Nsengimana. I had personally not followed the details of that case. I knew the priest had been arrested and that he stood no chance to get out of his cell free. In the first place, he was a Catholic Priest, and this alone seems to be a “crime”.  I thought the least he would get was 10 or 15 years. It’s amazing to see how the priest is portrayed (by combination of images and comments) as a killer and how he ends up drinking a glass of champagne after being cleared of any wrong-doing.

“My work was doing what the [...]]]> Amsterdam, 31 January 2012 – Olivier Nyirubugara- 91-year-old Marcel Pochet, a senior colonial official before independence has started publishing his unique 1952-1962 archives from and about Rwanda. He served in Rwanda from 1948 as Territorial Administrator, among other things, and became in  1958 King Mutara III Rudahigwa’s adviser.

“My work was doing what the King asked me to do for him, advising him and ensuring smooth functioning of his cabinet”, Pochet told me on Sunday 29 January in Brussels. A day earlier, the first volume dedicated to ‘The Rwandan Problem” had been presented in public. This short report is about that volume.

Also watch: Interview: ‘J’ai publié mes archives pour donner la parole aux autres’-Pochet