Ms. Louise Mushikiwabo, the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs has lashed out at the US Department of State, accusing  US Government officials of being out of touch with Rwandan political and social issues. In a communication with the media, Mushikiwabo said that the United States Government  has an "out-of-Rwanda reading"  and needs to appreciate the on going political crackdown and violence  within a "contextualized," environment.

    This rare open criticism of the US government by Rwandan officials came after a harsh assessment of the Rwandan poor human rights record by the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs in front of the US House of Representative committee. 

"Rwandans in Rwanda don't have any anxiety. They are at a very exciting time of their history," Mushikiwabo stated on May 28, 2010.

    However, according to independent observers of the Rwandan politics and the US State Department, Rwandans, instead of being excited, are anxious because of the repression by the current Tutsi minority government  ruling  Rwanda and the violence ahead of the presidential elections planned for August 2010.

    The incumbent President Kagame, likely to remain in power, has been quashing the media,  human rights organizations, and any political opposition. He has also kept the ethnic Hutu majority and Tutsis of lower classes under the yoke of an effective servitude to the profit of a tiny clique at the top of the power.

    Ms Mushikiwabo studied,  worked, and lived in the US for more than two decades and married an American before returning to Rwanda to become Minister of Communication, then Minister of Foreign Affairs.

©Copyright AfroAmerica Network, May 2010