[Community-Discuss] Ernest Byaruhanga

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

AFRINIC Communication <comms at afrinic.net> wrote:


>The moderation period of Mr. Ronald Guilmette is now over.


Good!  Because now I may perhaps be able to finish making the point
that I tried to make during the recent Zoom meeting... before my mic
was improperly and uncerimoniously muted.

That point was just that I personally find it highly disingenuous that
the management of AFRINIC has taken the time to manufacture a great
fuss over my rather modest and most probably PERFECTLY LEGAL exercise
of free speech...  an exercise of free speech of a kind that is only
sporadically and inconsistantly criminalized in a few remaining rather
backwards national jurisdictions... even while AFRINIC management has
apparently NOT found the time or energy to even make any inquiry, over
the past entire year, about the status of the vastly more real, vastly
more serious, and vastly more impactful case against Ernest Byaruhanga.

It seems that when a poster to these mailing lists even vaguely hints
at some incapacity in the Mauritian administration of justice, then
*that* becomes a REALLY BIG DEAL warranting a swift, immediate, and
forceful response from AFRINIC.  On the other hand however, if one is
a former AFRINIC official, such as Mr. Byaruhanga, who has provably
stolen tens of millions of dollars worth of valuable AFRINIC inventory,
then THAT matter is of such little concern to AFRINIC magagement that
management will only make a perfunctory report to local police and then
promptly forget about the whole thing, forever.

The contrast here could not be more stark.  I got publically flogged
for simply having the audacity to speak the truth, even while Ernest
is, as we speak, most probably sipping a vintage chardonnay on the
veranda of his Ugandan mountaintop retreat without a care in the world.

In addition to vast gobs of IPv4 address space, Ernest Byaruhanga also
stole from AFRINIC most of the remaining threads of its already badly
tattered global reputation.  What has either maganement or the board
done in the way of seeking justice with respect to Ernest Byaruhanga
over the past year and a half, since his massive thefts were discovered
and made public?  Anything?  Anything at all?


>From where I am sitting it appears that both management and the board 

most probably have spent more time and cycles and bandwidth insuring
that I would not speak ill of the Mauritian judiciary that they have
spent on even inquiring about the (alleged) Mauritian police "investigation"
of Ernest.

As I have said, I don't mind that I have been chastized for possibly
straying slightly outside of the local legal limits on free speech,
such as they are, there in Mauritius, but given the entirely petty
nature of this supposed offense, and the great mountain that has been
made out of this molehill, is it really too much to ask that AFRINIC
management should show at least proportional or equal concern about
Ernest's massive thefts?  Is it really too much to ask or expect
management to spare a few moments to at least inquire about the status
of criminal case against Ernest, or to ask why the Mauritian police
have seen fit to do absolutely nothing about this huge set of thefts
for well more than a year now?  (I will refrain from any comment regarding
the competence, or lack thereof, of the Mauritian police, since anything
that I might have to say on that score might conceivably be locally illegal
within Mauritius also.)


Regards,
rfg


P.S.  Most shockingly, even to this day Ernest Byaruhanga has not been
charged with any crime in any country.  Thus, no international Red Notice
has been issued for his arrest, his passport is fully functional and
unblemished, and he is thus free to spend his weekends lazing on the
beaches in the south of France if he so chooses, coming and going from
Uganda to any other part of the world as may suit his fancy.

I ask the community to consider whether or not this is as it should be,
and if not, why it seems that nobody except me even gives a damn, one way
or another.


P.P.S.  I hope that everyone will properly appreciate the humor and the
delicious irony of my treatment versus that of Ernest.  Management has
asserted that it was essential for AFRINIC to stiffle my free speech on
this list, lest it somehow prejudice AFRINIC's position in the ongoing
legal case brought by Mr. Cohen.  And yet even as management was doing so,
it was utterly failing to lift a finger to bring to the bar of justice
the one man whose arrest and compelled testimony would most certainly
sink Mr. Cohen's case once and for all, i.e. Ernest Byaruhanga.

If management is seriously concerned about the outcome of the still-
pending civil action, then shouldn't its first order of business be to
make at least some effort to see to it that Ernest Byaruhanga is brought
to the court in Mauritius, ideally in handcuffs, so that he may be examined?