On the morning of July 15, I spoke to William Mitchell Law Professor and international criminal defense attorney Peter Erlinder about the grisly assassination of Democratic Green Party of Rwanda Vice President Andre Kagwa Kwisereka. Kwisereka was found beheaded, with a machete left nearby, near Butare, Rwanda, on July 13, 26 days after Professor Erlinders release in Rwanda, where Rwandan President Paul Kagames regime had arrested and incarcerated him for three weeks. Erlinder had traveled to Rwanda to defend Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Rwandas FDU-Inkingi party leader and presidential candidate, only to be arrested and accused of genocide ideology,
which means disagreeing with Rwandas official history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide and/or with the regime of Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Professor Jwani Mwaikusa headed the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Dar Es Salaam.
When I told Professor Erlinder about Andre Kagwa Kwiserekas assassination, he said, Yes, and an ICTR [International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda] defense attorney, Professor Jwani Mwaikusa, was just assassinated, too, in Dar es Salaam.
He also said:
No one knows for sure whether he was assassinated by Rwandan Patriotic Front operatives, but we do know that lawyers put themselves in danger by defending people whom the RPF have identified as their enemies.
Professor Erlinder put
himself in great danger by traveling to Rwanda, and says that he would have been disappeared had he not sat down, started hollering, demanded to speak to the U.S. Embassy, and made the sort of scene that white Americans feel empowered to make, in the Kigali hotel where he had been arrested.
Professor Mwaikusa, however, put himself in far more danger and paid the ultimate price, along with a nephew and neighbor who attempted to come to home.
Law Professors Peter Erlinder and Jwani Mwaikusa both served as defense attorneys for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR).
Professor Erlinder and Professor Mwaikusa were both towering, world renowned legal scholars, teachers and human rights defenders, but Professor Erlinder was an American who survived,
Professor Mukwaisa an African who paid with his life. His assassins no doubt knew that, though their stature and accomplishments were similar, the international outcry and consequence would not compare.
U.S. citizens, we are complicit in Professor Mwaikusas death because President Paul.
Source:
http://sfbayview.com