In Rwanda, Anjan Sundaram finds what happens to a nation when free press and dissent are crushed

[jMali]

Author Anjan Sundaram found the experience of trying to report the news in Rwanda “chilling.” Freddy Bikumbi / Random House

Anjan Sundaram was at a football stadium in Kigali, waiting for President Paul Kagame to address a rally of supporters bused in by the hundreds, when a police officer approached and demanded to know why he was taking notes.

An Indian-born journalist who taught basic reporting skills to Rwandans through a European-funded aid program, he was only putting pen to paper as any member of his profession would have done, but the officer found it suspicious.

“I have seen you,” the policeman said. “Looking and writing, looking and writing.”

“Was it wrong to?”

“You can’t look and write,” he said. “It is not allowed.”

The uniformed cop said plainclothes officers had been observing him and he should stop, for his own good. His notes created a record. They were subversive because they might conflict with the official account the state would put forth.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesRwandan President Paul Kagame at Amahoro Stadium April 7, 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda.

“It was chilling,” Sundaram said in an interview this week during a stop in Toronto to promote his latest book, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, about the more than four years he spent teaching journalism to Rwandans as their government choked the life out of the press.

He had a similar experience following a grenade attack in the capital. Although he had heard it and went to the scene, the government would not confirm it and it went unreported. There were things you could not talk about because they were at odds with the official narrative of national unity and progress.

A Yale graduate raised in Dubai, Sundaram said he was only looking for a quiet place to write his first book, Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo, when he landed in Kigali in 2009. He took on the teaching job to get by. He was oblivious to what was going on around him until his students opened his eyes.

“Very quickly my students began to tell me that they weren’t free. They wanted to be free. They asked me how.” They told him about being beaten and imprisoned for reporting on taboo subjects. After one of his best students fled the country under threat, he began to explore the subtle repression at work.

Stephanie Aglietti / AFP, Getty ImagesMen stand against a wall at the Gikondo transit center in Kigali on September 24, 2015.

The Kigali that Sundaram discovered had the appearance of an advancing nation, one that had moved past the ethnic bloodletting of 1994, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed. There were newspapers and radio stations, opposition politicians and business suits. Foreign donors lined up to write cheques.

“Kigali is clean, Kigali is quiet. There are hotels, nice hotels, fancy hotels. And I think this is many people’s experience of the place,” Sundaram said. But once his eyes adjusted, he began to see that “the quiet in the country is not because the country is calm and harmonious but because people aren’t speaking, because dissent has been crushed.”

With his students as his guides, Sundaram learned to find the truth in what he did not see, in what people did not say. A brightly lit road, for example, seemed a measure of progress — until he realized nobody used it. “We the poor, we are like the insects, scared of the lights,” a student told him. “We hide from the government, which wants to see us all the time.”

One by one, he lost his students to threats, harassment, beatings and arrests for such crimes as “threatening state security.” Some were co-opted by the regime while others practiced self-censorship, fled into exile or committed journalistic suicide with over-the-top condemnations of the government. A mentor he recruited for his program was murdered.

Without the platform of a free press, public debate died. There was no way to air grievances about the government, challenge its dictates or bring issues to its attention. The people sunk into a state of compliance, knowing there was nothing they could say or do.

Sundaram writes about visiting a village where the people lived under trees, in simple shelters and among farm animals. The local authorities had told them the thatched-roof huts in which they had lived were too backwards for progressive Rwanda. The villagers had immediately destroyed their own homes.

“I wasn’t aware of the full impact of the destruction of a free press, of a silent media, until I saw things like that, when people were doing themselves harm on government orders because they knew it was futile to speak up. Who were they going to speak up to? There was no one to talk to. No one was going to report it even if people knew,” he said.

It’s no secret that press freedom is under attack in many places around the world. The Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index lists the worst offenders: Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Vietnam, China, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea and, scraping the bottom, Eritrea.

Rwanda ranked 161st out of 180 last year, the same position it held when Sundaram left in 2013. And it has continued. A 2014 BBC documentary that investigated allegations Kagame was involved in the incident that sparked the genocide was condemned by Rwanda for “inciting hatred and divisionism.” Rwanda responded by suspending the BBC radio service in that country.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Fred Muvunyi, the chair of the Rwanda Media Commission who had spoken against the government on the BBC dispute, fled the country in May after being warned of a plan to have him killed.

In Rwanda, Sundaram sees a universal question. Kagame, a former rebel commander who has effectively ruled since the genocide — first as vice president and defence minister and since 2000 as president — has leashed the press as a safeguard against ethnic violence, and foreign donors have largely supported him.

“I think so many people are oblivious to the role of a free press and to how their lives are shaped by the access to information and the freedom with which information circulates in places like Canada and America,” Sundaram said.

“I want to ask, are we willing to give up free speech or trade away free speech for a certain quantity of economic growth, for money? Because that’s what we’re doing in places like Rwanda. We’re supporting a government and we’re saying, for Rwandans this is an acceptable tradeoff.”

In Rwanda, Anjan Sundaram finds what happens to a nation when free press and dissent are crushed

 

[mchambawima1]

cc: MK254

Stewart Bell
Friday, Jan. 22, 2016

Author Anjan Sundaram found the experience of trying to report the news in Rwanda “chilling.” Freddy Bikumbi / Random House

TORONTO — Anjan Sundaram was at a football stadium in Kigali, waiting for President Paul Kagame to address a rally of supporters bused in by the hundreds, when a police officer approached and demanded to know why he was taking notes.

An Indian-born journalist who taught basic reporting skills to Rwandans through a European-funded aid program, he was only putting pen to paper as any member of his profession would have done, but the officer found it suspicious.

“I have seen you,” the policeman said. “Looking and writing, looking and writing.”

“Was it wrong to?”

“You can’t look and write,” he said. “It is not allowed.”

The uniformed cop said plainclothes officers had been observing him and he should stop, for his own good. His notes created a record. They were subversive because they might conflict with the official account the state would put forth.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesRwandan President Paul Kagame at Amahoro Stadium April 7, 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda.

“It was chilling,” Sundaram said in an interview this week during a stop in Toronto to promote his latest book, Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship, about the more than four years he spent teaching journalism to Rwandans as their government choked the life out of the press.

He had a similar experience following a grenade attack in the capital. Although he had heard it and went to the scene, the government would not confirm it and it went unreported. There were things you could not talk about because they were at odds with the official narrative of national unity and progress.

A Yale graduate raised in Dubai, Sundaram said he was only looking for a quiet place to write his first book, Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congo, when he landed in Kigali in 2009. He took on the teaching job to get by. He was oblivious to what was going on around him until his students opened his eyes.

“Very quickly my students began to tell me that they weren’t free. They wanted to be free. They asked me how.” They told him about being beaten and imprisoned for reporting on taboo subjects. After one of his best students fled the country under threat, he began to explore the subtle repression at work.

Stephanie Aglietti / AFP, Getty ImagesMen stand against a wall at the Gikondo transit center in Kigali on September 24, 2015.

The Kigali that Sundaram discovered had the appearance of an advancing nation, one that had moved past the ethnic bloodletting of 1994, when an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed. There were newspapers and radio stations, opposition politicians and business suits. Foreign donors lined up to write cheques.

“Kigali is clean, Kigali is quiet. There are hotels, nice hotels, fancy hotels. And I think this is many people’s experience of the place,” Sundaram said. But once his eyes adjusted, he began to see that “the quiet in the country is not because the country is calm and harmonious but because people aren’t speaking, because dissent has been crushed.”

With his students as his guides, Sundaram learned to find the truth in what he did not see, in what people did not say. A brightly lit road, for example, seemed a measure of progress — until he realized nobody used it. “We the poor, we are like the insects, scared of the lights,” a student told him. “We hide from the government, which wants to see us all the time.”

One by one, he lost his students to threats, harassment, beatings and arrests for such crimes as “threatening state security.” Some were co-opted by the regime while others practiced self-censorship, fled into exile or committed journalistic suicide with over-the-top condemnations of the government. A mentor he recruited for his program was murdered.

Without the platform of a free press, public debate died. There was no way to air grievances about the government, challenge its dictates or bring issues to its attention. The people sunk into a state of compliance, knowing there was nothing they could say or do.

Sundaram writes about visiting a village where the people lived under trees, in simple shelters and among farm animals. The local authorities had told them the thatched-roof huts in which they had lived were too backwards for progressive Rwanda. The villagers had immediately destroyed their own homes.

“I wasn’t aware of the full impact of the destruction of a free press, of a silent media, until I saw things like that, when people were doing themselves harm on government orders because they knew it was futile to speak up. Who were they going to speak up to? There was no one to talk to. No one was going to report it even if people knew,” he said.

It’s no secret that press freedom is under attack in many places around the world. The Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index lists the worst offenders: Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Vietnam, China, Syria, Turkmenistan, North Korea and, scraping the bottom, Eritrea.

Rwanda ranked 161st out of 180 last year, the same position it held when Sundaram left in 2013. And it has continued. A 2014 BBC documentary that investigated allegations Kagame was involved in the incident that sparked the genocide was condemned by Rwanda for “inciting hatred and divisionism.” Rwanda responded by suspending the BBC radio service in that country.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Fred Muvunyi, the chair of the Rwanda Media Commission who had spoken against the government on the BBC dispute, fled the country in May after being warned of a plan to have him killed.

In Rwanda, Sundaram sees a universal question. Kagame, a former rebel commander who has effectively ruled since the genocide — first as vice president and defence minister and since 2000 as president — has leashed the press as a safeguard against ethnic violence, and foreign donors have largely supported him.

“I think so many people are oblivious to the role of a free press and to how their lives are shaped by the access to information and the freedom with which information circulates in places like Canada and America,” Sundaram said.

“I want to ask, are we willing to give up free speech or trade away free speech for a certain quantity of economic growth, for money? Because that’s what we’re doing in places like Rwanda. We’re supporting a government and we’re saying, for Rwandans this is an acceptable tradeoff.”

source: In Rwanda, Anjan Sundaram finds what happens to a nation when free press and dissent are crushed

Anjan Sundaram has authored a book - Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship - that is full of things about Rwanda and its leadership which not only bear very little resemblance to facts on the ground, but are outright fictions and distortions. Sam Gody Nshimiyimana who is one of the supposedly harassed Rwandan journalists frequently mentioned in the book as 'Moses' and who knows Sundaram and his wife very well refutes the many allegations in "Bad News".

I worked with the author, Anjan Sundaram at Internews/EU Kigali for three years and was not surprised to learn he had published a book on Rwanda. He had told me about it. But what I didn't know was that I would feature heavily as a character in his book under the fictitious name, Moses. That's how I know that most of the events and dialogue in this book, at least those that concern me, are completely fabricated.

The Internews project was led by Sundaram's wife, Nathalie Blaquiere, who had made her hatred of Rwanda known. She manifested it against employees, where she would inexplicably want to set salaries based on your nationality. Rwandans received less. She would say she knew who was a Tutsi or Hutu, though Rwandans generally are not in the habit of advertising what ethnicities they belong to. She frequently moved around Kigali on motorcycle taxis, in a country she said was full of bad people.

When we had training for journalists, Anjan would come and assist as a trainer, since his wife was the boss. In the end she couldn't convince sponsors about budget implementation, because we didn't properly utilize the money they were allocating to us, instead we were always recycling projects. That is how grants from the European Union and DFID were stopped.

Coming back to Sundaram, he used to send articles on Rwanda to The New York Times and Associated Press. I noted that Anjan was intelligent and daring. He left the US after finishing his studies and went to DRC at a time when those who lived there were leaving the country due to insecurity. He later followed his wife to Rwanda where he concocted events that have no resemblance to what was happening.


In the book Anjan claims that some of the students we taught were so intimidated they didn't write, others are jailed, others exiled, and other are 'bought' for well-remunerating jobs."

Concerning those jailed, we always had chats with Sundaram on that subject. There were those who were jailed after extorting people, by threatening, "If you don't give money I will write a story about you!"

Another allegation is of a female journalist that was jailed. I remember that particular case prompted us to subscribe to all news outlets to help with analysis during the trainings. The conclusion of all the journalism students at the time was what that individual had done was not journalism, but defamation and insults.

I asked Sundaram what would happen where he comes from, if a journalist were to superimpose a swastika - the Nazi symbol - on an image of their president. He told me that would never happen. In developed countries newspapers avoid defaming to prevent fines or expensive lawsuits.

At that time, Bosco Gasasira of Umuvugizi had gone into self-imposed exile. I explained to Sundaram what Gasasira was in the habit of writing in his newspaper: violent lies that would never see the light of day in any professional newspaper or magazine.

I told Sundaram of other journalists like that, and the list was long. Most of these were people who when they sense an opportunity to reach Europe, which is their estimation of paradise on earth, they grab it! Once there they get welfare, which is superior to the life their poverty can afford them here. It is the sad reality of quite a few that have been joining journalism.

The book "Bad News"



Integrity has generally been low in Rwandan journalism. Any of these journalists upon being bribed for instance, would overlook their training of reporting well-investigated facts. I thought I had made Sundaram see that. I think he did, except that as his writings indicate he chooses to ignore it for some reason.


This disingenuousness is at its utmost in the way Sundaram treats the subject of Alphonse Nsabimana who turned up one day claiming he was being intimidated because he worked for Umuseso newspaper. Nsabimana - whom Sundaram disguises in his book as "Gibson" - was one of the trainees in our journalism program and had plans of setting up a newspaper. He thought Internews would give funds to people wanting to set up a newspaper or magazine. However the only support we were mandated to provide was offices and Internet.

So when the broke and badly off Nsabimana realized no money would be forthcoming from Internews he changed tactics, and invented a story to leave Rwanda. He secretly talked to Sundaram and Blaquiere telling them that he was "wanted" because he was a journalist of Umuseso; that he had just been released by the secret services; that he was held in a secret place by unknown people.

Apparently Sundaram and Blaquiere wanted to believe this story; they wanted to believe it badly enough that they offered a place in their house for the supposed wanted man to hide out. He spent a month there. It was only much later that Sundaram thought of cross checking his hero's story with me. It turned out Nsabimana had been in the hands of security forces alright, except it was for far different reasons than the yarn he had been spinning to his benefactors.

On the morning of his finding refuge in Sundaram's house he had been in custody for one night at Nyamirambo Police Station. A sex worker had gone to police alleging that Nsabimana had beaten her up because he thought she had infected him with HIV. Despite learning of this, Sundaram and Blaquiere made the decision to send Nsabimana to Uganda where, apparently with their recommendation Nsabimana was received by humanitarian organizations including Amnesty International.

This is one of the people that features prominently in Anjan Sundaram's book Bad News as "Gibson", one of the "endangered journalists" in Rwanda, as one of the "last journalists in a dictatorship"! The interesting thing is that even when this "endangered journalist" returned from Uganda after that too turned out to be a dead end, no one, no police or other security services touched a hair off his head.


Sundaram and Blaquiere would later tell me that those they had recommended to help Alphonse said they had investigated him and found out that he had lied to them.

What could they gain by sending Gibson aka Alphonse Nsabimana away even after they knew that his stories of persecution were dubious at the least? I can only conclude they wanted to have a journalist refugee to fill the need for such in the planned book. And all Nsabimana wanted was a one-way ticket to anywhere in Europe or beyond.

Sundaram who lived in Rwanda for three years and observed the journalism profession here knows that the main problem of journalists is not "state intimidation" or harassment. Journalists in Kigali regularly wrote really incendiary stuff; criticizing the president and other high-ranking officials every day and no harm came to them.

Rather he should have been asking, what were these people writing about and how come they would write it again and again even with their constant claims of harassment?

Maybe he knew the main problem was a life of poverty; of failing to make ends meet; failing to pay the rent, buy food, etc? That sad situation is brought about by factors, such as ours still being a young economy with a very small readership or audience, and an even smaller advertisement market that cannot support all aspiring journalists. Those are the main reasons why many who graduate from schools of journalism opt for careers in PR in government or other institutions where there is a salary for a living.

"Bad News" conveniently skips over such facts in its eager search for bad news.

 

[aminiusiamini]

i think democracy is not defined by saying,free election for instance,or freedom to say whatever you want to say.People in america are not free.

I support Kagame regime because he is in for his country and not individualism,self centered and ironic.
Our countries in Africa are pretty infant when you speak of freedom of speech. We have our own ways of doing things.Today,a kid from the usa can slap his mother or yell at her and nobody will stand against it because its America. In our lands,its taboo to speak while your elder is talking or even more blasphemy to slap your mother or your elderly because its wrong;these are our values.

Rwanda particularly is still very fragile yet strong country to what they have portrayed to us,what they can do.There are many people inside and outside rwanda wish to overturn what has been magnificently built for the last 20 years.
I think as Tanzanian I would not judge any political issues in the country because we have our own. Every country has its own issues. my advice is leave Rwanda alone!

 

[LebronWade]

Washaanza kimfatafata Kagame,lazima wamvurugie tu

 

[Hoshea]

Anjan Sundaram has authored a book - Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship - that is full of things about Rwanda and its leadership which not only bear very little resemblance to facts on the ground, but are outright fictions and distortions. Sam Gody Nshimiyimana who is one of the supposedly harassed Rwandan journalists frequently mentioned in the book as 'Moses' and who knows Sundaram and his wife very well refutes the many allegations in "Bad News".

I worked with the author, Anjan Sundaram at Internews/EU Kigali for three years and was not surprised to learn he had published a book on Rwanda. He had told me about it. But what I didn't know was that I would feature heavily as a character in his book under the fictitious name, Moses. That's how I know that most of the events and dialogue in this book, at least those that concern me, are completely fabricated.

The Internews project was led by Sundaram's wife, Nathalie Blaquiere, who had made her hatred of Rwanda known. She manifested it against employees, where she would inexplicably want to set salaries based on your nationality. Rwandans received less. She would say she knew who was a Tutsi or Hutu, though Rwandans generally are not in the habit of advertising what ethnicities they belong to. She frequently moved around Kigali on motorcycle taxis, in a country she said was full of bad people.

When we had training for journalists, Anjan would come and assist as a trainer, since his wife was the boss. In the end she couldn't convince sponsors about budget implementation, because we didn't properly utilize the money they were allocating to us, instead we were always recycling projects. That is how grants from the European Union and DFID were stopped.

Coming back to Sundaram, he used to send articles on Rwanda to The New York Times and Associated Press. I noted that Anjan was intelligent and daring. He left the US after finishing his studies and went to DRC at a time when those who lived there were leaving the country due to insecurity. He later followed his wife to Rwanda where he concocted events that have no resemblance to what was happening.


In the book Anjan claims that some of the students we taught were so intimidated they didn't write, others are jailed, others exiled, and other are 'bought' for well-remunerating jobs."

Concerning those jailed, we always had chats with Sundaram on that subject. There were those who were jailed after extorting people, by threatening, "If you don't give money I will write a story about you!"

Another allegation is of a female journalist that was jailed. I remember that particular case prompted us to subscribe to all news outlets to help with analysis during the trainings. The conclusion of all the journalism students at the time was what that individual had done was not journalism, but defamation and insults.

I asked Sundaram what would happen where he comes from, if a journalist were to superimpose a swastika - the Nazi symbol - on an image of their president. He told me that would never happen. In developed countries newspapers avoid defaming to prevent fines or expensive lawsuits.

At that time, Bosco Gasasira of Umuvugizi had gone into self-imposed exile. I explained to Sundaram what Gasasira was in the habit of writing in his newspaper: violent lies that would never see the light of day in any professional newspaper or magazine.

I told Sundaram of other journalists like that, and the list was long. Most of these were people who when they sense an opportunity to reach Europe, which is their estimation of paradise on earth, they grab it! Once there they get welfare, which is superior to the life their poverty can afford them here. It is the sad reality of quite a few that have been joining journalism.

The book "Bad News"



Integrity has generally been low in Rwandan journalism. Any of these journalists upon being bribed for instance, would overlook their training of reporting well-investigated facts. I thought I had made Sundaram see that. I think he did, except that as his writings indicate he chooses to ignore it for some reason.


This disingenuousness is at its utmost in the way Sundaram treats the subject of Alphonse Nsabimana who turned up one day claiming he was being intimidated because he worked for Umuseso newspaper. Nsabimana - whom Sundaram disguises in his book as "Gibson" - was one of the trainees in our journalism program and had plans of setting up a newspaper. He thought Internews would give funds to people wanting to set up a newspaper or magazine. However the only support we were mandated to provide was offices and Internet.

So when the broke and badly off Nsabimana realized no money would be forthcoming from Internews he changed tactics, and invented a story to leave Rwanda. He secretly talked to Sundaram and Blaquiere telling them that he was "wanted" because he was a journalist of Umuseso; that he had just been released by the secret services; that he was held in a secret place by unknown people.

Apparently Sundaram and Blaquiere wanted to believe this story; they wanted to believe it badly enough that they offered a place in their house for the supposed wanted man to hide out. He spent a month there. It was only much later that Sundaram thought of cross checking his hero's story with me. It turned out Nsabimana had been in the hands of security forces alright, except it was for far different reasons than the yarn he had been spinning to his benefactors.

On the morning of his finding refuge in Sundaram's house he had been in custody for one night at Nyamirambo Police Station. A sex worker had gone to police alleging that Nsabimana had beaten her up because he thought she had infected him with HIV. Despite learning of this, Sundaram and Blaquiere made the decision to send Nsabimana to Uganda where, apparently with their recommendation Nsabimana was received by humanitarian organizations including Amnesty International.

This is one of the people that features prominently in Anjan Sundaram's book Bad News as "Gibson", one of the "endangered journalists" in Rwanda, as one of the "last journalists in a dictatorship"! The interesting thing is that even when this "endangered journalist" returned from Uganda after that too turned out to be a dead end, no one, no police or other security services touched a hair off his head.


Sundaram and Blaquiere would later tell me that those they had recommended to help Alphonse said they had investigated him and found out that he had lied to them.

What could they gain by sending Gibson aka Alphonse Nsabimana away even after they knew that his stories of persecution were dubious at the least? I can only conclude they wanted to have a journalist refugee to fill the need for such in the planned book. And all Nsabimana wanted was a one-way ticket to anywhere in Europe or beyond.

Sundaram who lived in Rwanda for three years and observed the journalism profession here knows that the main problem of journalists is not "state intimidation" or harassment. Journalists in Kigali regularly wrote really incendiary stuff; criticizing the president and other high-ranking officials every day and no harm came to them.

Rather he should have been asking, what were these people writing about and how come they would write it again and again even with their constant claims of harassment?

Maybe he knew the main problem was a life of poverty; of failing to make ends meet; failing to pay the rent, buy food, etc? That sad situation is brought about by factors, such as ours still being a young economy with a very small readership or audience, and an even smaller advertisement market that cannot support all aspiring journalists. Those are the main reasons why many who graduate from schools of journalism opt for careers in PR in government or other institutions where there is a salary for a living.

"Bad News" conveniently skips over such facts in its eager search for bad news.

Mhindi Yale graduate, raised in Dubai, yeye na mkewe waisingizie Rwanda, ili nini.

 

[Koba]

Mhindi Yale graduate, raised in Dubai, yeye na mkewe waisingizie Rwanda, ili nini.

Kwenda Yale sio sababu ya kutokuwa muongo au mwizi,hata kina Chenge wezi wakubwa walienda Ivy league,lakini sishangai akili zilizojaa matope ya interahamwe kuja na upuuzi ulioandika

 

[Hoshea]

Kwenda Yale sio sababu ya kutokuwa muongo au mwizi,hata kina Chenge wezi wakubwa walienda Ivy league,lakini sishangai akili zilizojaa matope ya interahamwe kuja na upuuzi ulioandika

Me sio interahamwe, born and raised in Tz, have nothing against Rwanda, you've beautiful sis, kuna maendeleo mazuri. Lkn I have always felt there's something not right in your country.

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

Me sio interahamwe, born and raised in Tz, have nothing against Rwanda, you've beautiful sis, kuna maendeleo mazuri. Lkn I have always felt there's something not right in your country.

yeah.............I totally agree .something z not ryt there bro; hawa jamaa nilikwenda kwao kwa muda miezi kadhaa na project niliyokuwa nikiifanya ilikuwa na wanyarwanda wa background zote ...............kitu cha ajabu kabisa walikuwa hawasalimiani kwa bashasha (watanzania mtanielewa hapo maana sisi salamu hutoka moyoni. na salamu za mdomoni twazijua pia) .............na hiyo ni mbele yangu; wakibahatika kuwa peke yao au wasipogundua nipo jirani yao hawasalimiani na hata kuongea kabisa!...........hiyo harmony inayoongelewa pale ni highly cosmetic

 

[Konda wa bodaboda]

yeah.............I totally agree .something z not ryt there bro; hawa jamaa nilikwenda kwao kwa muda miezi kadhaa na project niliyokuwa nikiifanya ilikuwa na wanyarwanda wa background zote ...............kitu cha ajabu kabisa walikuwa hawasalimiani kwa bashasha (watanzania mtanielewa hapo maana sisi salamu hutoka moyoni. na salamu za mdomoni twazijua pia) .............na hiyo ni mbele yangu; wakibahatika kuwa peke yao au wasipogundua nipo jirani yao hawasalimiani na hata kuongea kabisa!...........hiyo harmony inayoongelewa pale ni highly cosmetic

Hao wasiosalimiana ni watutsi kwa watutsi au watutsi kwa wahutu?

 

[mchambawima1]

yeah.............I totally agree .something z not ryt there bro; hawa jamaa nilikwenda kwao kwa muda miezi kadhaa na project niliyokuwa nikiifanya ilikuwa na wanyarwanda wa background zote ...............kitu cha ajabu kabisa walikuwa hawasalimiani kwa bashasha (watanzania mtanielewa hapo maana sisi salamu hutoka moyoni. na salamu za mdomoni twazijua pia) .............na hiyo ni mbele yangu; wakibahatika kuwa peke yao au wasipogundua nipo jirani yao hawasalimiani na hata kuongea kabisa!...........hiyo harmony inayoongelewa pale ni highly cosmetic

what a joke! yaani watu walikuwa wakisalimiana kwa sababu yako? kwanza inategemea na kilicho kupeleka na ulicho taka kukiona! na kweli ni watanzania tu watakao kuelewa kwani dunia hii ya leo watu wapo busy na shughuli zao... mtu anakupa hi halafu huyoooo... kusalimiana kwa bashasha kumempa nani msosi? only in Tanzania my friend, where people have time even to fabricate stories... what a shame!

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

Hao wasiosalimiana ni watutsi kwa watutsi au watutsi kwa wahutu?

Mkuu nimetumia tasfida; nimesema ni Wa nyarwanda wa BACKGROUND zote! mie wote nikuwa nawaona Wanyarwanda tu!

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

what a joke! yaani watu walikuwa wakisalimiana kwa sababu yako? kwanza inategemea na kilicho kupeleka na ulicho taka kukiona! na kweli ni watanzania tu watakao kuelewa kwani dunia hii ya leo watu wapo busy na shughuli zao... mtu anakupa hi halafu huyoooo... kusalimiana kwa bashasha kumempa nani msosi? only in Tanzania my friend, where people have time even to fabricate stories... what a shame!

So sad mchambawima1 this is your perception! kabla sijakujibu declare interest kwanza wewe ni Mnyarwanda?

 

[mchambawima1]

Hao wasiosalimiana ni watutsi kwa watutsi au watutsi kwa wahutu?

ngoja expert wa "maziwa makuu atusaidie" jMali

 

[mchambawima1]

So sad mchambawima1 this is your perception! kabla sijakujibu declare interest kwanza wewe ni Mnyarwanda?

100% enhe, leta habari!

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

100% enhe, leta habari!

Kabla sijaendelea maneno tamaduni, mila na desturi yana maana yoyote kwako?

 

[mchambawima1]

Kabla sijaendelea maneno tamaduni, mila na desturi yana maana yoyote kwako?

ndio na tena sana tu! haya endelea...

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

Kisha nikusaide uelewa wa nilichokichagiza kule juu, maana naona ulikurupuka na kujitia hamaki za bure kabisa lakini pia that is expected niki refer kwenye jina lako; nilichokitanabahisha pale juu ni namna wao kwa wao walivyochukuliana nikifananisha na jinsi wote kwa nyakati tofauti walivyokuwa wakinichukulia mimi, elewa kuwa muwapo kazini ninyi sie maroboti , udugu na urafiki hujengeka baina yenu na hii si maana yake basi manaokuwa marafiki kuwa ni wavivu na hamana kazi za kufanya ...la hasha Mkuu Mchambawima1, ................nikirudi kwenye chagizo langu ni kuwa nduguzo wale walikuwa tayari kuenda an extra mile in extending courtesy to me a Tanzanian rather than doing the same to each others as brothers n sisters! sote watu wazima during my stay nilikuwa naiona hiyo mistrust na tension between them na hawa ni watu waliofanya kazi pamoja kwa zaidi ya 1 yr!.................to cut the story short ...........nilichokiona pale ni amani iliyofungwa ndani ya kasha la karatasi laini sana ......to use the phrase ......ncha ndogo tu ya chochote ikipitia pale .........kwishnei!

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

ndio na tena sana tu! haya endelea...

Desturi zetu Waafrika Salamu ni ishara ya amani, heshima, upendo na umoja wetu kitu amabcho ninyi ndugu zangu mlishakipoteza siku nyingi kufikia hatua ya kupimana pua zenu kutanabahisha jamii zenu! Mliitendea jamii dhambi mbaya sana ya kibaguzi bahati mbaya inawatafuneni mpaka sasa!

 

[mchambawima1]

Desturi zetu Waafrika Salamu ni ishara ya amani, heshima, upendo na umoja wetu kitu amabcho ninyi ndugu zangu mlishakipoteza siku nyingi kufikia hatua ya kupimana pua zenu kutanabahisha jamii zenu! Mliitendea jamii dhambi mbaya sana ya kibaguzi bahati mbaya inawatafuneni mpaka sasa!

kafie mbele ya safari wewe! unataka kujifanya kutujuwa wakati hata hautujuwi! huku kwanza tunakumbatiana hadi inakuwa kero sasa ni nini unachotaka kutufunza wewe?

 

[Masikini_Jeuri]

kafie mbele ya safari wewe! unataka kujifanya kutujuwa wakati hata hautujuwi! huku kwanza tunakumbatiana hadi inakuwa kero sasa ni nini unachotaka kutufunza wewe?

dooo Mkuu, mbona unatokwa povu? taratibu utalowanisha screen ya simu yako

Tena mwenyewe umesema mnakumbatiana, sasa wale ndugu zako walikuwa wananikumbatia mimi tu lakini wao kwa wao mmmmmmh!! labda aje mtu wa nasaba yake teh teh teh teh .............ila niliienjoy "ukarimu" wenu kwa wageni ...............teh teh teh teh!