Paul Kagame Makes Hitler Look like Mother Theresa

The African genocide Profiteer

“I have been through Hell, have known horror, and now that I have escaped, I want to testify in the name of all the men and women who did not have my luck and who died in Hell.” – Marie Béatrice Umutesi.

(“Surviving the Slaughter.” Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. 2004.)

Paul Kagame is a cold blooded killer

On the night of 27 June 2006, it was warm and dry in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. A typical day since it wasn’t rainy season. It was nearly 18:30 and the sun had already settled down below the horizon. Gratefully, the temperature would soon cool down a bit. I rolled out of the bed in my hotel room and trudged up the long winding staircase to the dining room, where Hotel Okapi serves a famous (and delicious) breakfast buffet every morning beginning at 06:30. On this particular evening, I went outside to make a phone call on my portable (cell) phone because the reception emitting from the Mobile Telephone Networks’ (MTN) tower was very difficult to pick up from inside my room. I strolled casually past the front desk and the internet café connected to the hotel. Behind the front desk on the bleach white wall hung a framed official presidential picture of Paul Kagame. Sometimes, I got a strange and irrational sensation the picture itself was watching me as I would walk by. I later learned every business in Rwanda was required to have a framed picture of President Kagame on display. I was also told those who were less enthusiastic about his regime would often put the picture back in the manager’s office instead of in a public place. In contrast, one of the primary schools run by Ibuka1 that I visited in Kigali proudly displayed a very large and regal portrait painting of him over the headmaster’s desk. As I stepped outside the hotel, I immediately turned around to face the hotel, which was opposite the street. Hotel Okapi is a relatively small hotel near the city center next to a plot of land that was boarded off by wooden planks because it was designated to be the site of a new housing complex, one of many already under construction all over the city. Behind the wooden planks was a labyrinth maze of mud homes with aluminum foil roofs where the poorest people that I encountered in the city lived. They all resided on the bottom of the hills that slope away from the city. I made my call and began talking, oblivious to the environment around me. The streets of Kigali were virtually barren after dark every day.

One night, I ventured out after dark and walked south of the hotel down the hill. I only encountered two people along the way. Both of them gave me a nervous glance as they swiftly walked past me in the opposite direction. I later learned that this behavior has been the norm since the Arusha Accords were signed in 1993. As I spoke on the phone, I casually noticed a small red dot appear on the wooden posts. It wasn’t long before it began moving around erratically. It reminded me of those low-power laser pens and key-chains I have seen in the United States (U.S.). Sometimes, young kids use them to drive their teachers crazy in school (but not me of course). Some university professors in the U.S. use them to point things out on overhead projectors during a lecture or presentation. It seemed so grossly out of place that I initially ignored it as an oddity caused by my state of being overly tired. After about ten seconds or so, it disappeared. “See,” I thought, “It was just my imagination.” I continued conversing for a few minutes before I finally turned around to face the street. After I finished turning around, I lifted my gaze and stiffened instantly. Directly across the street in front of me was a black Toyota Landcruiser without any license plates. All its windows were tinted black. I knew instantly it was a government vehicle from the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI). I quickly shifted my eyes to glance from left to right without turning my head to see if there was anybody else around. A quick survey revealed the street was completely vacant. No one came running out of the shadows to ambush me. I was alone in a standoff with the vehicle’s occupants. Then, from the passenger-side window facing me (the left-hand side of the vehicle facing the front of the jeep), the same red laser beam shined out brightly and quickly swept across my eyes, blinding me very briefly. It was in that moment I realized it wasn’t my imagination after all. The laser rotated back around and settled squarely on my sternum right where my heart is. It held there steadily in position for several long seconds, and then it blinked out of existence. Suspecting the situation might escalate dramatically if I tried to run away; I kept talking in a normal tone of voice on the phone and did not alert the caller for the time being. I paced back and forth outside the front of the hotel for a few more minutes while keeping a watchful eye on the vehicle. The laser did not appear again and the vehicle had both its engine and headlights turned off. The vehicle’s occupants did not make any moves. I hung up the phone and walked back into the hotel at a normal pace past the front desk and sat down in the dining room at the back of the hotel for several minutes to try and absorb what had just happened. Meanwhile, nobody working at the front desk, in the restaurant, or the internet café said a single word to me the entire time. It was like nothing ever happened. I did not see anyone particularly suspicious in the hotel at the time nor did I hear the vehicle drive off quickly with screeching tires. I slowly went back by the front door and peered outside. The vehicle was gone. It slipped off quietly into the night and I did not see it again that night. Afterwards, I refused to flee the country.

Roughly a week after this incident, I attended the Liberation Day ceremony at Amahoro Stadium on 4 July 2006, where President Kagame came and made his annual speech to the crowd. As was to be expected, the Presidential Guard was stationed at the stadium’s entrances to screen everybody before allowing them passage inside. Their weapons reminded me of the CAR-15s some U.S. Special Forces units used to use. Unmistakably mounted on each Presidential Guard’s rifle was a laser-sighted scope. Though I was only in Rwanda for a very short time, I was able to catch a glimpse of daily life under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and its leader Paul Kagame.

I experienced a portion of the same oppressive environment described by Jean-Christophe? Nizeyimana (or “Chris” as he is known to his friends), who lived in this climate of oppression for several years. Chris is a proud umuhutu who is not an active politician, ex-soldier, or former militia member. Instead, he is a self-proclaimed “free thinker” who rejects the RPF’s authority and refuses to accept Paul Kagame’s genocide dogma and the “official” version of what happened in 1994. He is also what the RPF would call a “Hutu intellectual.” That is to say, he is a multilingual Hutu who attended a university overseas, where he earned a master’s degree in economics at Moscow University.

Chris is a survivor in every sense of the word. Not only did he survive several RPF massacres carried out in the north of his country in 1993-1994, he also survived the Zairian2 refugee camps near Goma and in Mugunga and is an eyewitness to the horrendous crimes committed in the RPF-controlled zone. Though he is originally from the Jenda (Nyabihu District) of the Ruhengeri Prefecture,3 one of the areas hit hardest by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA),4 he lived in Gisenyi during 1993-1994, where he was a professor at the High Institute of Management and Computing. This town, across the border from Goma, Zaire, was an area journalists and United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) peacekeepers did not go during the genocide.5 Today, he lives exiled from his homeland. He was once called to testify at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) but decided to refuse the summons. Now, for the first time ever, he is going public with his testimony. Chris has two general themes in this interview. One is a harrowing personal account of the things he experienced and witnessed in Rwanda and Zaire. The other is a unique insight into the broader issues affecting Rwandans and the Diaspora community as a whole. In providing this testimony, Chris aspires to dispel the many widely disseminated lies and disinformation surrounding his country’s genocide and the RPF’s admonishment of innocent Hutu for their own political gains.

He implores the international community to uphold the standards of law and prosecute all those who have committed grave criminal acts against humanity in Rwanda. It is only through this act that he feels all the traumatized people of Rwanda can truly begin a national reconciliation and healing process. Chris rejects the RPF’s one-sided version of events and wants the international community to facilitate an independent, rational, and impartial investigation of the Rwandan genocide. Lastly, Chris wants this interview to serve as a memorial to all the forgotten victims of the RPF’s crimes and dedicates this testimony in their beloved memory, particularly the many members of his family that were lost. Contrary to popular media depictions, it was not just the Tutsi who lost everything in the genocide. Untold thousands of innocent Hutu and Tutsi were victims of the horrendous violence that engulfed Rwanda beginning in 1990. I would like to dedicate my efforts in this endeavor not only to all the innocent Rwandan, Congolese, Burundian, Ugandan, and Tanzanian victims, but also to Chris for his bravery in coming forward with his story and his humbleness in sharing such trauma openly with me.

A special thank you also goes out to A.F. and T.H. Hopefully I will be able to thank you properly someday. The following interview is a transcript of a four-hour interview recorded in early May 2007. It was supplemented with clarification questions delivered through several subsequent correspondences with Mr. Nizeyimana. Since English is not Mr. Nizeyimana’s first language, I changed some verb tenses and the plurality of certain words to make the manuscript more readable. Therefore, the transcript is not verbatim. Mr. Nizeyimana reviewed and approved the final draft to ensure the intended meaning of all his words was intact and the native Kinyarwandan words and names were spelled correctly. It is also important for the reader to understand the RPF changed the names of the prefectures, communes, cells, districts, and streets across most of the country. Chris has deliberately chosen to use the old names so as not to confuse anyone who decides to investigate his claims.

2.

David Barouski (DB) : I’m going start from the beginning and try to progress chronologically. I’d like to start at the beginning of the Rwandan War (1990-1993). In 1990, when the RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda, what was it like in your country? Did the Rwandans know the RPF were going to invade?

Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana (JCN): Tutsi first fled the country in 1959 to Uganda mostly, but also to other neighboring countries like Burundi and Zaire. This was during the so-called “Hutu Revolution” after the Tutsi monarchy was removed. It wasn’t because they (Tutsi) didn’t accept the country. No. The Tutsi left because they didn’t accept living under a republic regime where the people who were their slaves during the monarchy (Hutu) are now free to choose their own destiny and hold political office. So, in 1979, a political party was formed by the Tutsi in exile.6 Most of the members were in (Yoweri) Museveni’s administration in Uganda because they helped the NRM (National Resistance Movement)7 take power in Uganda. They were fighting in Mozambique with Museveni, where cruelties, vandalism, torture, and rape became their daily job.8 Those people who made up the RPF leadership: General Fred Rwigema, (Chris) Bunyenyezi, and (Peter) Bayingana…all of them were there and when they came back to Uganda and took power, Museveni appointed them into his administration. That’s where Paul Kagame started his career as the Chief of the Ugandan Internal Security and Intelligence Service where he interrogated, tortured, and killed Ugandans who were real or imagined opponents of the NRM. After Museveni took power, he promised he would help the Tutsis take back Rwanda. That’s why, in the late 1980s, they (RPF) started spreading propaganda against President Habyarimana to prepare for war. The RPF created a radio station called Radio Muhabura that they used for propaganda and spreading rumors. They also printed newspapers in Kampala and used RPF infiltrators to sell the papers in Kigali to spread these lies and rumors with the intent of inciting riots against Habyarimana so that later, lynching would take place throughout the country. The aggression officially started on October 1st, 1990, in the north of my country near the region I was born, where Rwanda has its border with Uganda. The aggression was aided by the same pro-RPF press and radio stations I mentioned that were sponsored by RPF backers, including the U.S., U.K. (United Kingdom) and Belgium. They told the world at the beginning of the war that the RPF was only fifteen kilometers from the Kigali to create panic and confusion. Their propaganda aimed to hammer the international community with lies. The propaganda also spread the idea that it was not an aggression from an outside country, but a civil war.

DB: So it was covering up the illegality of the war, the fact members of the Ugandan army had defected and were invading a sovereign nation.

JCN: Exactly. Exactly. What was important, the RPF had to plan something like this carefully. It had to be labeled a civil war. If it was about foreign countries, a war between foreign aggressors and Rwandans, it was going to be really difficult to say Hutu extremists planned the genocide in advance. That’s why, for the RPF, the genocide was planned at the beginning the war. They started by admonishing and prejudicing Hutus through their propaganda. They used all kinds of harsh words to create a rift between Hutu and Tutsi while also dividing the north and south of the country as part of their main strategy.

DB: Are you saying you believe the RPF planned to incite genocide and began to do so back when they invaded in 1990?

JCN: Yes, because the final aggression that started on April 6th was the final attack, but since the beginning, they had planned to seize power and in order to seize power it was not in their interest to join a transitional government because they would eventually lose the elections anyway. Imagine any country, anywhere you go, the United States or any country from Europe, Asia…you can’t find a minority ruling the country. The only way for the RPF to do this, they had to find a shortcut that could help them seize and retain power and they have to use force and fear to maintain it. They also had to get support from all the countries that had their own interests in the region. When the aggression started, the RPF told the world they wanted to bring back democracy to Rwanda. This was a smokescreen to hide their real agenda: minority rule. They got financial aid, advising, and military training from the U.K. and the United States through Uganda.

DB: Do you know who specifically was financing the RPF in the beginning, regardless of if they are foreign nationals or Rwandans?

JCN: U.S. and U.K. multinationals supported the RPF so that they could get access to loot Central Africa’s mineral resources, particularly in Zaire. To reach this goal, the RPF had to be connected to the Clinton Administration because they were the most influential in the U.N. There were also organizations that supported the Tutsi refugees based in the United States. Can you imagine the shameful attitude of the U.S. administration’s representative Herman Cohen against the Rwandan nation? He said that President Habyarimana’s body, the state symbol of Rwanda, would be dragged through the streets of Kigali and his government would be tried by a special tribunal.9

DB: When did he say this?

JCN: Before the 6th of April. It was incredible to hear that. As a U.S. representative, you know, he had to justify what was going to happen within one month, two months, three months, and so on. Also, the aggression was an opportunity for U.S. multinationals linked to the Bush (George Herbert Walker) administration to get access to Congolese and Rwandan mineral resources. For more information, just refer to my website10 and you will find out who those multinationals were that kept busy by looting in both countries during RPF aggressions in Rwanda and the Congo as well. To get an idea of the scope of the war, it is very easy to get information and details in Addis Ababa, where you will find people who were hired to fight for the RPF. They will tell you that the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia recruited foreign fighters for the RPF.11 These soldiers came from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and South Sudan to fight against the Rwandan Government. Obviously, there is no need to say that the 1990-1994 war was a civil war as it was described before and after the RPF seized power. Even today there are Somalis living in Rwanda with full Rwandan citizenship and still others who were disappointed and left for Europe. That is why, at the end of the day, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) said Paul Kagame was linked to Al-Qaeda? without giving more detailed information.12 Many of those guys fighting with the RPF were actually terrorists, but that label was not used with those countries at that time because it was before September the eleventh, 2001!

DB: So they fought along with the RPF? What year did this happen?

JCN: Just after the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, on April 6th, 1994, when the final aggression was launched. There were Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, South Sudanese, you know, and also there were soldiers from the Burundian Army under the command of Colonel Bikomagu attacking from the south of Rwanda and Tanzanian soldiers were occupying part of the eastern region of Rwanda.13 You remember that the Tanzanians fought with Museveni to get rid of Idi Amin.14 Yet, the campaign was still to talk about civil war in Rwanda, which was not true.

DB: So Somali fighters were helping the RPF?

JCN: Yes, and as I said before, many of them are still there. Also, some are back in Ethiopia today and if you ask them, they will openly tell you they have been fighting in Rwanda.15

DB: Let me ask you this. Now, as you probably know, the United States military was in Somalia, in Mogadishu and in October 1993, 18 U.S. military members were killed and the U.S. withdrew. Later, while the genocide was already underway and the Clinton Administration knew about it because of reports from the State Department and satellite photographs,16 President Clinton created PDD-25 (Presidential Decision Directive),17 which essentially said the United States could not participate in any peacekeeping operations unless there was a geostrategic interest. When the U.S. failed to reinforce the United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping mission and eventually reduced its size, PDD-25 was later used as an excuse because the U.S. supposedly had no strategic interests in Rwanda.18

JCN: That’s not true.

DB: You don’t believe that at all?

JCN: No, I don’t believe that because the people who said that are the same people who supported the RPF through financial aid and military support, the same ones who said they had no interest in the region. When President Clinton decided not to send help to Rwanda…you know you can browse on the Internet or ask people who were linked to the U.S. administration and you will find out that Bill Clinton knew exactly what was happening in Rwanda but decided not to intervene due to a hidden agenda. A U.N. intervention would have stopped the fighting and cut off the RPF’s main objective: to seize power and keep it by force.

DB: Do you believe they (Clinton Administration) purposefully decided not to intervene in Rwanda and not to allow the U.N. to have a meaningful intervention?

JCN: Yes, but not because it was like you explained to me. A peacekeeping force meant an end to hostilities against Tutsi civilians and thus the RPF rebels could not seize power by force because they told the world they were fighting to stop Hutus from killing Tutsis. There is no denying that after they (Americans) refused to intervene, they aided the RPF by using mass media committed to copying and pasting the same chosen images and the same information to support Paul Kagame as he was fighting “to stop the genocide” perpetrated by Hutu militias or “extremists” as the press called them.

DB: When the genocide broke out, there were people in the Security Council who said, you know, we need… General Dallaire was asking for five thousand five hundred troops, I believe. After a number of delays by the U.S., the RPF, and the U.K., it was proposed to create a safe zone in the north of Gikongoro, I believe. It was going to be an operation similar in planning to Operation Turquoise, which was created later by the French. The U.N. was wanted to let all civilians to gather in a neutral zone where the U.N. soldiers would protect them and let the Rwandan Government negotiate a ceasefire with the RPF while the civilians were out of the way and could not be harmed. Now what happened was, first of all, General Kagame told General Dallaire that any U.N. force deployed in Rwanda would be taken as aggressors and therefore would be attacked by the RPF. He told Dallaire that too his face during a meeting, the same meeting he said the RPF would not cooperate with the U.N. if Booh-Booh? remained in the country.19

JCN: That’s what Kagame said.

DB: And Rwanda had a seat in the Security Council at the time.

JCN: I remember. But also remember that, at that time, we had the so-called “La Baule” meeting where French President François Mitterrand asked African nations to accept democratic values. This demand also went to President Habyarimana and Rwanda. The opposition parties in Rwanda that formed were used by the RPF to divide the country and they used the opportunity to talk about democracy while the RPF and its allies were busy planning regime change. They had to create an impractical situation so that the parameters to urge the war to resume would be available. In this context, the U.N Special Representative, the guy you just mentioned…

DB: Jacques-Roger? Booh-Booh?.

JCN: Yes, Jacques Roger Booh-Booh? tried to be neutral in the conflict. He tried to get a ceasefire, but at the same time, General Romeo Dallaire did whatever he could to hide RPF operations during the calm period right after the Arusha Accords were signed. Ongoing killings and awful massacres committed by the RPF in the north were not reported to the international community and no investigation ever started by UNAMIR was finished. The RPF continued its preparations for war in the demilitarized zone whereas strict controls were enforced in the government zone.

DB: If I can back up a bit, you mentioned the propaganda war the RPF started in the late 1980s. Can you provide details on how this worked?

JCN: Well, the radio broadcast into Rwandan territory while the newspapers and magazines were printed in Uganda and sent by infiltrators to Kigali and other parts of the country.20 How this was done was actually very easy. After the Arusha Accords, it was agreed that an RPF division of six hundred soldiers would be stationed in Kigali at the parliament building. Instead of having six hundred, they eventually had-as people will tell you-thousands of RPF infiltrators in Kigali. They were escorted by UNAMIR forces in Kigali and other parts of the country, especially in the Kibuye Province. General Romeo Dallaire told the Rwandan Government that RPF transports from Kigali to Mulindi21 and from Mulindi to Kigali were for water provisions! This claim has nothing to do with reality. They were delivering ammunition and supplies. Once the troops and infiltrators were in place, they organized the RPF fronts and supply lines in Kigali, from Mulindi to the CND (Conseil National de Développement) parliament building, and from the CND to different districts of Kigali.

DB: Were they were in civilian clothes?

JCN: Yes and other infiltrators were, of course, hiding inside the Parliament building where nobody else was allowed to go in. There was no control at all; no mechanisms in place to allow both parties equal rights to check each other’s positions. What is very dramatic is that only the Rwandan Government was checked for violations of the Accords. We can’t forget that the U.N. was supposed to come to Rwanda as a neutral party, a party to help Rwandans reach and enforce a peace agreement. Unfortunately, the U.N. commander, Mr. Dallaire was totally under RPF sway, control and command.

DB: That’s quite a claim. How could you say that?

JCN: The Bangladeshi and Ghanaian representatives who were there can always testify to what I say.

DB: The UNAMIR soldiers?

JCN: Yes. They described how RPF military officers always held meetings with Mr. Dallaire.

DB: Were they private meetings?

JCN: They were at UNAMIR headquarters and the RPF used the HQs for their own military means.

DB: What was said at these meetings?

JCN: They shared maps so the RPF would know exactly where Rwandan Government soldiers were positioned in the country. It was to keep track of their movements. Always after such meetings, there were attacks on the Rwandan Government’s side of the demilitarized zone by the RPF attachment, the one inside the FAR (Armed Forces of Rwanda) zone. It was very easy for the RPF because there were different units-including UNAMIR-that had to go and check both sides for violations of the Arusha Accords. However, instead of doing their job, they gathered information to give to the RPF.

DB: Let me be clear, you’re saying that General Dallaire frequently shared military intelligence with RPF officers?

JCN: Precisely.

DB: Which RPF officers did he meet with?

JCN: There were many different people, but I can mention Charles Kayonga. That one I know for sure because he commanded the RPF Advance Military Division stationed at the Kimihurura Parliament Building. French journalist and investigator Pierre Pean gave more details on this issue.

DB: Why would General Dallaire do such a thing?

JCN: Because it was his commitment. His reasons are known by those who financially and militarily supported the RPF. He was committed to this because he was sent by the French-Canadian? Government, the U.K., and the U.S. He had to cover up RPF crimes and do whatever he could to let the RPF seize power in Rwanda. He was committed to help the RPF rebels by all means including the sharing of details about the Rwandan Government policies and the FAR positions. He also allowed RPF ammunition and fighters to infiltrate Kigali.

DB: Did General Dallaire know the genocide was going to happen?

JCN: As part of a pre-arranged agenda, he knew he had to talk about plans for mass killings of Tutsis before the genocide started so that the RPF could seize power in Rwanda. This could also be used by the U.S. and U.K. as an explanation for their support of the RPF because if they tell the public the RPF stopped the genocide, everybody thinks their country gave military aid to the good guys. As I told you before, without such a massive crime committed by the other side in the conflict, the RPF would have been unable to seize power through democratic elections where both ethnic groups would have representatives to supervise the elections. Dallaire himself even said that he cannot believe a genocide against the Tutsi were planned.22 Many people remember General Dallaire said he had information a genocide was being planned according to a controversial fax he said he sent to U.N. headquarters. Later, that fax could not be found anywhere. It was a lie when he said he sent a fax to the U.N, he knew there was no fax. The Canadian Government adopted a strategy of protecting him from prosecution when he became a Canadian senator. If you need more information about that, please read the findings of Cameroonian journalist Charles Onana. Let me say again, Romeo Dallaire never sent that fax to the U.N.

DB: That fax, they called it “The Genocide Fax,” and a copy of it was later sent over to a reporter at the New Yorker named Phillip Gourevitch. He wrote a number of articles on it and it really launched his career. He got a book deal out of it.

JCN: Yeah, I remember the name. He was the only public person at the time to have the information on the fax!23

DB: The person who gave the information contained the fax, which talked about Hutu militias’ plans to kill Tutsis and Belgian peacekeepers, was an acquaintance of Faustin Twagiramungu,24 correct?

JCN: He was an RPF infiltrator by the name of Jean-Pierre? Turatsinze.25

DB: Yea, that’s the name I have too. What can you tell me about him?

JCN: The guy was Twagiramungu’s informant. Faustin Twagiramungu had no idea the guy was working for the RPF. The informant told him Interahamwe26 are going to kill Tutsi. He said that he was one of the core members of the Interahamwe youth organization of the MRND (National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development),27 so he knew about everything they were planning. He said he knew the ruling government was going to kill Tutsis and I believe, according to Twagiramungu´s statement, the reality was that this wasn’t true. He was being manipulated by the RPF. After that, people found out Dallaire did not send that fax. It was actually sent by a military officer from the U.K. The fax that Dallaire did send to the U.N. was never found as I said before. Later, they did find a fax at U.N. headquarters, but the fax said the sender’s name was a U.K. military officer and not General Dallaire.

DB: Do you know his name?

JCN: I cannot tell you right now, but I will find it.

DB: So was Mr. Turatsinze an Interahamwe or was he an RPF infiltrator?

JCN: Obviously, he was an infiltrator. He was not working for the MRND. He tried to convince Twagiramungu that he was not just an ordinary militia member, but a well-informed and high-ranking member. Twagiramungu himself said he was manipulated by this man. Why did the informant come forward at a time the country was talking about adopting democratic values and ending the war? Once the fax was sent, nobody was talking about the peace process. It was about the preparations for genocide now. The information in the fax changed the focus of the international community, it disrupted the peace process. Since Mr. Turatsinze was an infiltrator, he was killed by the RPF after he talked to Twagiramungu because he knew too much information and his job was finished. As you yourself know, the RPF kills people who know too much information when they are done using them. This is Paul Kagame’s policy.

DB: Sorry, but I have to back up a bit. We were talking about those people from the Horn of Africa.

JCN: The Ethiopians, Somalis, Eritreans…

DB: Yea. How did that relationship come about with the RPF? Is there a cultural or ethnic link to the Tutsi refugees in Uganda?

JCN: People say all of them, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Tutsi came from the same Hamitic race. However, pro-RPF philosophers argue that there are no Bantu, Hamitic, or Nilotic races. The point of this philosophy is to say there are no ethnic groups in Rwanda, only Rwandans. The president, err, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia…Meles? Zenawi, and the other one, the President of Eritrea…President? Afwerki, together with President Kagame were all hailed to the world as the new leaders of Africa by Prime Minister Tony Blair at the U.N. The reality is that these guys were chosen because there was political conflict between western countries and France in Africa at the time. These three were backed by western powers against France. These so-called `leaders`, in reality, are criminals that are ready to serve their backers’ interests at any cost. The only way they can stay in power is to have a U.S.-backing, so they do whatever is necessary for the U.S. administration even if their own people die.

DB: Now, I have to back up even farther now, to 1990. In 1990, Paul Kagame was not leading the RPF when they first came into your country. It was General Fred Rwigema. Did Rwandans know Paul Kagame was in the United States and if so, what did they think of that?28 How did that make Rwandans view him? Did it change anything?

JCN: Ok. At the beginning of the war in 1990, Rwandans heard on the radio that the RPF was headed by Rwigema. After about the 4th of October, he was killed and they said that he was replaced by Paul Kagame, who was in the U.S. Kagame came back to Uganda to replace him and supervise all RPF military operations, but ordinary RPF soldiers did not want him to lead.

DB: Why was that?

JCN: Because they knew him as a criminal. Referring to his background as the chief of Uganda’s Security and Intelligence Division before the invasion of Rwanda, he was the one who tortured and killed many Ugandans, as I said before. Also as I said before, when Kagame returned to Uganda and brought the RPF back into Rwanda, the aggression was not shown as a Ugandan invasion, not as an outside aggressor, though these men were all from the Ugandan Army. There is no way you can talk about that as a civil war because those Tutsis fought for the Ugandan Army for many years. What is also difficult is the fact that the ICTR has, up-to-now, never shown any real proof that Habyarimana planned a genocide. I believe the definition of the word “genocide” was negotiated to support the RPF leadership because the U.N. Security Council said that deciding on the definition of genocide was the ICTR’s decision even before the trials began. This meant the U.N. said there was a genocide, but it was a genocide that had yet to be defined by the ICTR! In my understanding, the conclusion made on the definition had to be given after the chief judge declared that a genocide was committed in Rwanda. One or two years ago, RPF backers asked the ICTR to decide, without sufficient evidence, that the genocide was committed only by Hutus against Tutsis! I totally disagree.

DB: Do you personally believe there was a genocide?

JCN: I believe, I still believe that the RPF planned for mass killings of civilians and they also planned to kill many Hutu in Rwanda. I believe the RPF planned the genocide one hundred percent. I’m not talking about the Rwandan Tutsi genocide; I’m talking about the Rwandan genocide that includes both Tutsi and Hutu, the real definition of the Rwandan genocide. Tutsis were killed as planned by the RPF leadership and these killings were supposed to be a bridge for Paul Kagame to seize power in Rwanda, a sine qua non condition to seize power in Rwanda.

DB: With respect, let me ask you this. Do you believe or do you deny the Rwandan Armed Forces, militia like the Interahamwe, and members of the gendarmes killed thousands of Tutsi?

JCN: I believe Interahamwe were involved in the killing of many innocent Tutsi and also some Hutu for political reasons. At the same time, like I told you, and everybody knows, the numbers of Tutsi killed does not correspond with the numbers given by the RPF Government. This is Kagame’s scenario. After the U.N. gave their figures on the number of people killed, the RPF said they would have their own investigation and then they gave their own numbers. First of all, I should tell you that very few estimates were given. The U.N. said from 100,000 to 500,000 total were killed and independent organizations like some NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) said 250,000 were killed. Then the RPF gave its own number and said about 800,000 Tutsis were killed, a number that was widely broadcasted in the U.S., U.K., and Belgian press. At the same time, I want to know… if you know about Rwanda, you know that many people were killed and according to the RPF version, all of them were either Tutsis or politically moderate Hutu. How many Tutsis were living in Kigali according to the 1993 census that was done? The real truth is that Hutu were the majority living in Kigali. At the same time, where are my brothers and sisters!? Where are my friends!? All of them were…they talk about moderates. Why this confusion? Why are they saying all these people were Tutsis or `moderate` Hutus? What I have just said, I am very confident in. The RPF will never investigate. The RPF will never accept an independent investigation and they want us to take this as an axiom. I know this one hundred percent. If anyone believes what I am saying is not true, let’s go and open an investigation! Let’s use DNA to find out what really happened to my people, to other people, to my fellow citizens! DNA was used in Bosnia and Croatia. Why not in Rwanda? We all want to know who really got killed. Who killed who? In Kigali and Kigali´s neighborhoods, in the northwestern region where I am from, where most of the people died, you had a Hutu majority. Where I am from, in Ruhengeri, there weren’t many Tutsi living there and nobody ever talks about how many Hutu were killed there from 1990 up to today. We need to know the whole truth. Against conventional wisdom, I believe that the victims of this violence were fairly evenly distributed between Hutu and Tutsi, taking into account the total percentage of each ethnic group. According to some estimates, the majority of the victims may even have been Hutu. There is widely accepted demographic data showing that there simply wasn’t a large enough number of Tutsi living in Rwanda at the time to account for all the reported deaths.29 Definitive numbers aren’t possible because the death tolls vary so much. The world has not yet confronted the true scale of Hutu deaths from 1990 to1994, and from 1995 up to now beginning with the Kibeho massacre in 1995, and including the 1996, 1997 and 1998 massacres of returning refugees, which totaled about three and a half million deaths.

Kagame Planting the genocide ideology in his RPF Terrorists

DB: Where were you in 1993?

JCN: In 1993, I was in Rwanda.

DB: Where in Rwanda?

JCN: Gisenyi, because I was teaching at the Gisenyi High Institute of Management and Computing, called the Institut Saint Fidele in French. I was working as the chief academic officer.

DB: Can you describe the February offensive of 1993 by the RPF?

JCN: Oh, yes, I will never forget that. I was in Gisenyi at that time. I heard that the RPF were attacking Ruhengeri. That’s my town, my hometown. People said many people were gathered into houses. Then RPF rebels used grenades and threw them inside the houses. You had women and kids in those houses that were blown up into pieces. Nevertheless, I was lucky because, at that time, I had to attend a marriage in Ruhengeri. A friend of mine, ok? Laurent Uwimana.

DB: Ok.

JCN: I was in Ruhengeri the day before the attack, on February 7th, that is why, I cannot forget it.

DB: I see.

JCN: The family I was celebrating with, all of them got killed. Laurent’s girlfriend, parents, and relatives were all killed.

DB: You lost so many friends there…..

JCN: If you want, I can tell you names, ok? I don’t want to hide anything, it´s about the truth; it’s about Paul Kagame´s cruelties. Many of my friends and classmates were killed over there. I knew one friend, Jotham Dusabimana, who graduated at Moscow University where I attended. He went to see his girlfriend in Ruhengeri on February 8th and he never came back. Ok. I went back to Gisenyi the day before because I had to work in the office at the College the next day, but I know how they got killed. Some of them were even crucified like Jesus Christ. They killed ordinary people to make everyone afraid so they would flee the region. The RPF needed people to flee so infiltrators could blend in with the displaced people and gather information.

DB: So the RPF put people in different camps around the country and then they hid spys with the refugees?

JCN: Yes, the displaced people.

DB: I see.

JCN: There were thousands who were displaced and killed and there is no report on what happened in the Ruhengeri and Byumba prefectures. Workers sent to investigate were killed by the RPF. Unfortunately, there is also no report about that incident. Thousands were killed there. The RPF separated men from women and put them in separate houses before burning them all down using grenades and high artillery. Thousands fled to Nyacyonga Camp. Shortly after the displaced Rwandans gathered there, Paul Kagame himself arrived at the camp and took a machine gun and shot the kids and women in the neighboring market. Other RPF soldiers killed hundreds of displaced people from Byumba and Kibungo prefectures. People were crucified and pregnant women had their stomach cut open. The fetuses were given to their supposed fathers before they were killed by akandoya.1 Many were killed with an agafuni.2

DB: Are you saying Paul Kagame did this personally? He killed those people?

JCN: Yes. Personally…and when I see him getting a visa, going to the U.S…. it’s shameful! When I see Americans…..I understand they don’t get the right information from institutions and universities, but, you know… it’s shameful. I cannot believe that such a criminal would be granted a Doctorate of Law degree by a U.S. university….it’s not possible. People who were killed that day in February…who knows about that? Who knows about them? Nobody. Americans know nothing about that. I would like to let Americans know about the extreme cruelty of Paul Kagame. He killed willingly and tortured people…he is more a criminal than a statesman. If I can give a kind of a…. it’s serious. It’s very serious. If someone doesn’t believe me, let’s go have an independent investigation right now. It’s very easy to get information. Have it not be under RPF supervision and then go and tell people that you are part of a team investigating what happened in Rwanda. Right now, investigators only get information from one source, from one side, from RPF leaders and RPF party members.

DB: What was Ruhengeri like after the attack?

JCN: After the attack…well, there was only wreckage. People said the town was destroyed one hundred percent. The prison was destroyed and, ah, the hospitals were also destroyed. The hospital was run by a group of French doctors and it was a modern hospital as far as I remember, with modern equipment, experienced workers, you know, and after that everything was destroyed. Many people fled from the hospital to the university, were many students were killed. Others fled to Kigali and Butare. That’s why the university in Ruhengeri shut down. Then, Paul Kagame announced on Radio Muhabura, “Those who are now displaced, I’m going to find them and all of them are going to be dumped into Lake Kivu.”

DB: He announced this on the radio personally?

JCN: Yes, he did. I remember it well. Many others can confirm what I say because they also heard the broadcast. He wanted to kill them all.

DB: Now, you were still in Gisenyi at the time, correct?

JCN: Yes.

DB: You left Ruhengeri the day before the RPF came?

JCN: You mean Ruhengeri? I left the evening they attacked! 4:00 P.M…ok. I went back to Gisenyi because I had to work at the university the next day. That evening at 9:00, the same night I left to go home, the Byumba Prefecture was attacked by the RPF. The next day, they arrived in Ruhengeri Prefecture.

DB: Can you describe what happened to you after the attack on Ruhengeri?

JCN: After the attack, I was really shaken up and I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t go there and my people, my friend who I mentioned, Jotham and his girlfriend were reported killed. Laurent’s girlfriend told me that her parents were killed that same night. I could not believe I was there. I knew that Jotham would never be back. Those images still cause me to hallucinate sometimes.

DB: He was from Gisenyi also?

JCN: No. He was from Ruhengeri, from Jenda, from the countryside just like me. The RPF also killed Philippe Gakwerere, the Inspector of Mining along with his family during these attacks. They killed a classroom full of students in Musanze School. Women and children were killed in Nyamagumba. In Nyarutovu Commune, over several days, hundreds were killed. They even killed patients at the hospital in Kinigi Commune. Many died in Ngarama in Byumba Prefecture. There was another guy, Barengayabo, President of the Appeals Court; he was killed with his wife and children on February 8th. One time before that, he escaped death because he spent the night in another town. That’s why he was able to survive. Then he went back home, I don’t exactly know the details, but I had information from Seth Sendashonga about it because he was a friend of mine after he fled to Kenya. He called me and asked me to work with him. The day he was killed by the RPF, when I learned he was killed by RPF in Nairobi, I had told him that I was not comfortable to go out of the country. After that, when he got killed, I couldn’t sleep. I learned so much from him. I still have some of his documents here.

DB: Why did Mr. Sendashonga leave the RPF? I mean, he had been with them for quite some time….

JCN: First of all, Seth Sendashonga was a Hutu who was believed to be one of the main RPF figures before and after the RPF seized power. I asked him the same question.

DB: Right. He was a Hutu.

JCN: Yes, and it was very difficult for me to trust him. When he first called me, I told him, “I heard about what you said all the time when I was in the refugee camps near Goma, so I don’t want to get involved with you. I cannot trust you.” He told me, “Jean-Christophe, I understand your position, but you cannot say that what I said and what I have done was really wrong. I really believed we (RPF) were bringing democracy to Rwanda, but I found out that it’s not possible under Kagame’s rule. That’s why I left and I tried to save myself after I found out I was tricked. It is not possible to implement democratic objectives so I decided to find another way to liberate our country.” That’s what he told me. He was a brilliant mind. He prefaced the RPF membership’s Umuryango. Before he died, we met every day in Nairobi in different places and worked on ways to bring democratic values to Rwanda. To reach this goal, we have to first inform the international community about what happened. He even told me he was originally supposed to be the president of Rwanda. That’s what he wanted me to understand.

DB: Did you believe him at the time?

JCN: (Pauses) Yes. According to the job he did for RPF and after I realized his determination to tell the whole truth, yes, I did believe him.

DB: Do you think they promised him the presidency to get him to work for them?

JCN: Yes. They promised him, but once his job was finished, he became disposable to Kagame. Paul Kagame did not want him to be president. Paul Kagame said, “I will use those Hutu to reach my goal.” After that, Paul Kagame publicly announced that everybody is nothing, but he meant Hutu are nothing. Once his Hutu allies are useless to him, they are thrown into prison or killed. He knew too much information. Seth was killed on May 14th around 4:00 pm at the Nairobi round-a-bout from the Gigili U.N. headquarters. I was not there with him, but we were supposed to meet that very same evening. If I was with him…I don’t know what would have happened to me.

DB: One of the more memorable things to me was when the ICTR witnesses like Mr. Sendashonga starting getting killed outside of Rwanda, even in Europe and the international community did nothing publicly to investigate the murders. Specifically, I’m actually referring to Mr. Juvenal Uwillingiyimana, who was killed in Brussels.3 Later, they found his naked body in a canal.

JCN: Oh yea, I remember, yes, a tragic story.

DB: He was executed differently in that his hands were cut off. What was the significance of that? Was it a message?

JCN: Ok, yes. I don’t know if you have details on Kagame’s strategy… I told you that the genocide was negotiated. Since the genocide was negotiated, it had to be labeled. You must have a label, a definition. You have to maintain it, you have to prepare, and you have to do whatever you can to reinforce that label, that definition among the targeted people. Ok. In that context, the RPF and Paul Kagame asked Rwandans to testify against their own relatives and against the former government so that every single testimony refers to the genocide as the definition the RPF wanted the world to see; that only Hutu extremists killed Tutsis. Paul Kagame’s strategy has always been to recreate what happened to fit into his scenario, to have people testify and say that these people on trial at the ICTR are guilty and thus they have to be thrown in prison for life or be killed. Most importantly, genocide must be recognized as a terrible crime and the perpetrators must only be Hutus. The prisoners had to accept they were guilty and some of them were even released after they gave false testimonies against other, more well-known prisoners, political and government officials. If a prisoner refuses to accept their guilt, especially a well-known prisoner, the RPF sometimes paid people to give false testimony against those who refused to cooperate. Some prisoners who said nothing or refused to declare their guilt were tortured until they admitted their guilt. Also, they were threatened by ICTR investigators, “If you don’t do this, your wife and your kids will be killed, and then you will be killed too.” This is just what happened to Uwilingiyimana.

DB: So the removal of his hands was part of the torture he endured to force him to cooperate. Was that the message to the Rwandan community?

JCN: To the Rwandan community, it means that, if you are asked to testify against your friends, parents, whatever, you have to do it. If you don’t cooperate, you will be killed. Nobody can deny that the RPF has death squads flourishing in Europe. I am afraid the European countries are not able to protect us against these RPF death squads. They even let RPF killers come and search for those who are saying anything other than Kagame’s scenario. We say that we cannot…I just want to emphasize the fact that I will never accept the scenario as told by the RPF. They know Paul Kagame cannot tolerate opponents, especially those who challenge him about the genocide. He wants everybody to see the genocide only how he defines it. That guy Uwilingiyimana, he worked closely with Habyarimana. I mean, he was a former minister in Habyarimana’s administration and was believed to be his close friend. People also said he was close to the so-called “Akazu”4 meaning that he knew everything and was an important figure. You should know that the term Akazu is really just another label to characterize and qualify the enemy so his testimony would back up the idea that the genocide was planned only by Hutu extremists. He was called to testify and was told to accept the RPF’s version of the genocide story. He was told to confirm that Hutu planned the genocide in advance and killed Tutsis. He refused. He said he would never accept this. After they found out he was not willing to change his mind, they unfortunately decided to torture and kill him. The people guilty of threatening Uwilingiyimana were from the U.N. and working for the ICTR at the time. They were two Canadians, Richard Renaud5 and another guy named Rejean Tremblay,6 along with a Belgian guy named André Delvaux.7 Later, I saw on T.V. Tremblay and another person I don’t want to mention here together with Louise Arbour,8 and they were talking about how they were working with the ICTR to track down Hutu and force them to testify. It was incredible!9

DB: Now, so I get this correct, the ICTR workers investigating Mr. Uwilingiyimana were the ones on the T.V.?

JCN: Yes. This plan started with a guy named Akayesu who was being tried in Arusha.10 He was forced to testify to things in which he himself did not believe in. He also was forced to sign a document. If he did not sign it, he was told he would be killed. The investigators told him that he would be released or get a very short time of imprisonment if he signed it. Everyone should also know about the hate speech of Paul Kagame given this April in Murambi. He said he did not kill enough Hutu in 1994. He actually admitted he is trying to think of a way to carry this out again. Then, only one or two weeks after his speech, there were killings in southern Rwanda near Butare, in the previous Mbazi Commune, and in other places. Then, his speech transcript was censored and changed on the Internet. Other places removed the audio file of his speech from their websites.

DB: I didn’t see any reports about the killings. I did not know about that.

JCN: I have heard the killings were carried out by Jean de Dieu Mucyo. No reports have been given about it in the papers. In the same context as Akayesu, there are men and women who are specially trained to give false testimony, like the well-known Kimisagara accusers. There are men and women from Kimisagara, Bugesera, and Kibuye who are brought to Kigali to be specially trained for that. This started after Hillary Clinton came and offered a reward for the first rape conviction at the ICTR. Suddenly, all these women came forward to the ICTR to testify and then Akayesu was convicted for rape and many others followed! To know exactly what I am talking about, ask the defense attorneys in Arusha. They will tell you all about these women’s false allegations. For instance, they will say, “Oh, we were raped by this man for one, two weeks, etc.” After the cross-examination session, it’s obvious they are lying. Some of them will even admit it, but then they cannot to go back to Rwanda. This is a matter of fact. Do you realize that? Sometimes, when asked about conflicting facts in their testimony, these women reply, “I am sorry, I have forgotten,” or, “It wasn’t my idea.” If they testify otherwise though, there is a problem. This problem is real but it is minimized by ICTR prosecutors who maintain the genocide was planned and executed only by Hutu extremists. This is why the ICTR, through its prosecutors, is under RPF control. The ICTR has become the main source of money for the judges and attorneys who had a chance to get a job there. They are there to get rich. It is also about getting a reputation, about being known. The thing is, the prosecution must be done according to the will of Paul Kagame. There is one man who I owe much respect because said he couldn’t do his job under such conditions. That’s why he resigned on September 30th, 1996. A former ICTR judge named Richard Goldstone from South Africa said on the BBC (British Broadcasting Company) that what is happening at Arusha has nothing to do with the rule of law! “Nobody can talk about ICTR partiality. If we are going to reconcile Rwandans, we have to work under the rule of law. All crimes that have been committed between January 1st and December 31st, 1994, must be prosecuted, including RPF crimes committed against Hutus. We have to investigate and find out why so many people died and find out exactly what happened.” That’s what he said. From my side, when I came back to Rwanda for the second time in 1996, on the 17th of November, I personally saw people getting beaten, imprisoned, and killed by the RPF. My brothers and my sisters died in these conditions. I’d like to give you the names of some of my family members who were murdered by the RPF. Domitille Uwimana, who was working for the Red Cross, was raped for one week at the gendarmerie headquarters in Gisenyi before she was killed along with her one-year child named Nshuti. My brother, Charles Kizito Bwanakweli, disappeared on January 23rd, 1997. Diane and her sister Fifi, six and eight years old, and my other brothers Nshimiye and Ndagije, sixteen and seventeen years old, were also killed. At Mukamira Centrum in Nkuli Commune, the RPF massacred my cousin Josephine Mukagatare, her six children, and her husband Serushago. They killed my cousin Dativa, her mother, her three sisters, her brothers Emmanuel, Dusabe, Ntabugi, Kazehe, and her father Aloys Kanyabitaro. Rose was killed by the RPF on the morning of April 7th at Remera, in Kigali town. My uncle, Stanis Baganizi, was together with his wife Theresia, a tutsi woman (umugwabira) and their four children were burned alive in their house at Nyundo, in Gisenyi.

DB: Where were you in Rwanda?

JCN: Ruhengeri.

DB: So, you came back through Goma?

JCN: Yeah. I was living near Goma in the camp at Mugunga on Lake Kivu. The camp was attacked by the RPF and we had to flee to Sake. Then we were forcibly sent back to Rwanda on November 14th, 1996.

DB: So you left Congo at the time Mugunga was destroyed.

JCN: Yes. I was living there at the time the massacres started. I fled to Sake where I stayed a couple of days before coming back to Rwanda.

DB: What happened in Mugunga? Can you describe what you saw?

JCN: Well, what I saw there…was just like, um…I have never been in the Sahara Desert before, but I think the day the RPF attacked must have been like that. It was very hot, a very hot afternoon. In the beginning, you know, there was intense artillery falling on the camp. I don’t know how to describe that, I’m not military. I am not a soldier. Before the attack, it was so hot in that camp we didn’t know how much worse the situation could possibly be. The roads were crowded with crying children and anxious women. First of all, before the attacks, I saw people in Mugunga who looked like journalists, white journalists, approaching us. They came to us and said that they wanted to know how we were doing and they asked if they could help somehow. They said they were working for an NGO but did not specify what organization they were working for.

DB: How many of them were there?

JCN: I saw three.

DB: Did they have any accents? Did they sound British, American, South African…

JCN: American accent, yes, there was one American there. British accent, yes, there was also one British guy. But South African I can’t say because I don’t know. I’m not sure where the third guy was from. I don’t believe they were journalists or NGO workers. They were wearing khaki shorts with small khaki shirts that had four pockets, two on top, two on bottom. At the same time, I couldn’t pay too much attention to them because I was in panic. We knew the RPF was approaching the camp and a bloodbath was about to happen. I had to decide very quickly if I wanted to go back to Rwanda or move ahead into the huge Congolese forests and mountains.

DB: What did they say that made you suspicious of them?

JCN: After they left, many people were shot and others were mutilated. When the RPF arrived at the camp, we didn’t know where exactly the rifles were shooting from and I don’t really know which side those ground troops attacked from. So many people got killed.11 I saw wounded people being helped into a Toyota vehicle. Many of them were mutilated and their arms and legs were blown off. There was so much blood on the road. The vehicle went towards Sake, where there were medical facilities. I am sure that those people who went there as NGO workers wanted to collect information so they could help the RPF attack the camp.

DB: Why did you go to Sake?

JCN: The first people who left Mugunga and went to the Rwandan border right away ran into the RPF and were killed. I couldn’t pass through. I just wanted to go with the crowd because I thought I would have a better chance to survive. I had to wait until later. If they found out I was somebody who knows something, I mean that I was educated, I would be killed. I couldn’t leave Congo that way. I even had to wear very dirty clothes so the RPF soldiers wouldn’t think I went to school.

DB: So most of the intellectuals decided to stay there in Congo?

JCN: Yes. Unfortunately, many of them got killed. I can’t say for sure who survived the RPF mass-slaughters. I know many of my friends got killed, including a classmate of mine, Banzi Wellars. He and his wife never returned to Rwanda. They were educated in mathematics. Those who survived the forest…there were many massacre sites in Congo were thousands of Hutu were killed. I know so many who died, but I won’t talk about them because there is not enough time for that. Many of the people who were butchered in Kibeho and in the Congo were teachers from Butare University.

DB: So they went into the forest and decided to take their chances and those who survived the forest ended up at the Tingi-Tingi? camp.

JCN: Not only at Tingi-Tingi?, but also later at Ubundu, Kisangani, Mbandaka, and many other sites where Hutus were slaughtered by RPF soldiers. There is one lady who lives in Switzerland who knows exactly how refugees were butchered by RPF soldiers. My people are ready to testify but most of them have not had an opportunity to do so like me. When I left Rwanda, I was with my wife and our daughter, Vanessa. She was the only child we had together. I told my wife I knew I would be killed by the RPF so I have to go to Congo without her. I was with a friend and my brother-in-law, Dr. Deo Twagirayezu. By the way, he’s also ready to testify publicly. He lives in exile in Europe. He’s suffered so much because he lost almost his entire family to RPF massacres. Ok. We had some money we were going to share and I said to my wife Catherine, “Go home ok, I’ll never see you again. I know I’m gonna die, but what I can do…maybe you will be safe, I don’t know, but please try to survive.” That’s what I told her. I was in tears of course. I kissed her for what I thought was the last time. After that, I left and when I arrived at the border between Rwanda and Congo at Gisenyi, an RPF soldier guarding the border there asked me, “Where are you going? Where are you staying?” I told him I was going to Butare.12 He looked at me with anger and said, “We will find you anytime.” There were thousands of people crossing while I was there. If you had any kind of document that showed you were educated, you could not survive. I saw many people who went to Congo before me that were killed. I also had some diplomas for my students. I hid them under a big stone before I left. Like so many of my fellow Rwandans, I had to destroy all my remaining documents, including my identity card. Our cloths were so worn…you could not imagine that we had not moved anywhere before this. There was one place at the border where the RPF separated some of the men from the women and they were led away. I don’t know where they were taken but I never saw any of them again. There was one lady from the Red Cross working there who called me over and said that I should not cross the border, it was too dangerous.13 She took me to her place where I stayed with my wife and child in Gisenyi for the night. Those who crossed over on that day, many of them got killed. We couldn’t find any of them on our way back to Nkuli Commune. That could have been me. As a matter of fact, in 1996 and 1997, RPF military officers serving in Ruhengeri Prefecture that killed people were promoted. As a reward for killing people in Ruhengeri, the RPF promoted soldiers to different positions in the ministries. People like (Deus) Kagiraneza were promoted to command the Ruhengeri Prefecture. (Gerald) Gahima, (Diogène) Bideli, (Charles) Zilimwabagabo, and many others killed thousands of Hutu in Ruhengeri. The RPF arbitrarily arrested people and put them in Ruhengeri Prison. Later, they were killed and their relatives were not even allowed to bury the body. You know Zac Nsenga? He represented Rwanda as the Ambassador to the United States. He was in Ruhengeri killing people also. As a promotion, he was given the post of Ambassador to Washington DC. It’s incredible! One time, Paul Kagame came personally to Ruhengeri and he called everybody to meeting. He blamed the local population for supporting the ex-FAR and Interahamwe. He even called on some of the attendees to stand up and explain why they were supporting the militias. He told them they would be held responsible for what would happen to them. He personally ordered the RPF soldiers there to kill everyone present at the meeting and he left after that. Hundreds of people were killed that evening. The killing occurred in Nkuli Commune, on the hills near the Gatovu secondary school. When I came back to Rwanda in November 1996, there were no military troops; no RPF soldiers were in the military camps. All of them were spread out across the country. You had twenty-five to twenty-six RPF soldiers in each commune. They had permission to kill any anyone they even suspected of disagreeing with the RPF. The other soldiers were known as the Local Defense Forces, or Abakada. They arrested, killed, looted, and terrorized Hutus throughout the country. They started training with the RPF in 1995 up to 1998. General Nyamwasa was the chief commander of military operations in Ruhengeri Prefecture. He organized all the massacres in that area. Throughout that prefecture, you had one hundred to four hundred soldiers total with twenty-five here, twenty-five there, twenty-five there, and they killed people every day after a few interrogations. They would shoot a friend of yours or maybe your brother and the way they killed him was so incredibly horrible that you couldn’t recognize him anymore. After that, they told us the people they killed were Interahamwe and they said the killings were proof for those who wouldn’t accept that we had Interahamwe living among us. They said, “This is the sentence for all those who committed genocide.” We didn’t even know who the Interahamwe really were. In reality, it was every single Hutu! We were all just told the Interahamwe were evil and were the enemy. We all knew that tomorrow any Hutu could be accused of being an Interahamwe, a common enemy that had to be destroyed, by anyone if they wanted us dead. We lived in constant fear. After that, we had to get food from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) because when we returned to our houses after arriving back from Congo, we found they were occupied Tutsi returning from Uganda that supported the RPF. The UNHCR representatives told us they were going to give us papers that could be used to move from the countryside through the commune to go and get food. As I said, when we got back from Congo, all of our homes were forcibly occupied by Tutsis. You had no rights to reclaim the house that belonged to you. No. Anyone who said anything was accused of being an Interahamwe and was put in prison or executed. Those who asked RPF officials for their property back were also killed.

DB: Where were you at this time?

JCN: In Ruhengeri Prefecture. My family lived in a plastic sheet outside and we could say nothing about it. We had to worship those who had stolen our houses. It was slavery.

DB: Ok.

JCN: Because our homes were taken away by the RPF. We had to sleep outside and the UNHCR did nothing to help us. All they did was give us those papers. You had to use them during your travels inside the country. At the same time, that permit was proof you were a returnee from Congo, and that meant you were a refugee, an enemy who fled. It made it very easy for the RPF militias and the Local Defense Forces to identify you and kill you. Many of the returnees were reported missing. Others were imprisoned and still others were killed. That’s why I refused to travel anywhere and you know what, I still hate the UNHCR for that. I was forced to stay there in the countryside and couldn’t sell anything that belonged to us for food. Everything we had there was taken for the Tutsis’ enjoyment. We needed to buy documents such as an ID card, but this was not possible. We weren’t considered Rwandan citizens. We were treated like second-class citizens by everyone, even the U.N. So the only way to travel was to get an identity permit with your picture on it (Attestation d’Identité Complete) otherwise we were exposed to imprisonment, disappearances and killings. There was a soldier at every checkpoint for population control on the way to Kigali. Even in Kigali, we were checked every day, every morning, and every night.14 When we came back to Rwanda, people in Gisenyi who wanted to go to Cyangugu could not go through Goma as a shortcut and cross the border back into Rwanda at Bukavu. The RPF didn’t allow us to do this. Instead, we had to walk through Ruhengeri, then Kigali, Gitarama, then to Butare, Gikongoro and finally Cyangugu. We were forced to walk the entire way by the RPF. Do you understand? Many of the people who walked those hundreds of kilometers died on the way. There were UNHCR vehicles parked along the entire path, but they did not help anyone. It was so many kilometers to walk! Five hundred kilometers!? Six hundred kilometers!? Maybe even eight hundred kilometers?! I don’t know exactly but we did exactly the same thing as those people who fled into the Congo forests!

1 Note: Akandoya is a Ugandan word meaning to tightly bind both arms behind the victim’s back with such pressure that the ribs break.

2 Note: An agafuni is an old used hoe.

3 Note: Juvenal Uwilingiyimana, a Hutu, was the former Minister of Parks. His naked and maimed body was found in a canal in Brussels on 17 December 2005.

4 Note: The word Akazu means “little house.” In this context, it refers to a tight knit group of Hutu Bushiru, an area that included the Karango Commune President Habyarimana was born, and the Giciye Commune, where his wife Agathe Kanziga was from. She was reportedly well-connected and her “clan” wielded tremendous influence within the government. They were all Bakiga, which is a term generally referring to Hutu living in north-central and northwestern Rwanda (Byumba, Ruhengeri, Gisenyi). Bakiga resisted the Tutsi monarchy and were political opponents of the Hutu living in southern Rwanda, where Rwandan President Grégoire Kayibanda was from. Recent ICTR testimony by Jean-Marie? Vianney Nkezabera, a member of the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), said the Akazu did not exist and were a creation of the political opposition parties to isolate President Habyarimana and discredit his leadership abilities. (“Akazu, Opponent’s Invention (Witness),” Hirondelle News Agency. 8 March 2007.)

5 Note: Chief of Investigations at the ICTR.

6 Note: Chief of Legal Proceeding at the ICTR.

7 Note: Mr. Delvaux was a police inspector at the time.

8 Note: Louise Arbour was the Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR at the time. During her tenure, ICTR judge Richard Goldstone (South Africa), Judge Honoré Rakotomana (an ICTR Prosecutor) and Mr. Alphonse Breau (then Director of Investigations) asked Australian lawyer Michael Hourigan to investigate the shoot-down of President Habyarimana’s plane. After completing his investigation, he concluded the RPA was responsible. When he presented his findings to Ms. Arbour, she abruptly shut down the investigation without warning. (Affidavit of Michael Andrew Hourigan. Filed at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. 27 November 2006.) After her tenure at the ICTR was completed, she was promoted to the Supreme Court of Canada and is currently the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. At the end of May 2007, she visited Rwanda and lauded their rebuilding efforts, but said the gacaca trials are progressing too slowly. (“UNCHR Chief Happy With Reforms, Advises on Gacaca,” The New Times. 27 May 2007.)

9 Note: According to a note left by Mr. Uwilingiyimana before he died, Mr. Delvaux, Mr. Renaud, Mr. Tremblay, Stephen Rapp (an American who was serving as Chief of Prosecutions at the time), and Chief Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow visited him on 5 October 2005. He says in the letter his life was threatened by Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Delavaux if he didn’t cooperate and incriminate Protais Zigiranyirazo, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Edouard Karemara, and Michel Bagaragaza. (Letter to the Prosecutor of the ICTR. Juvénal Uwilingiyimana. 5 November 2005. http://www.internationalcrimesblog.com/Nov5_letter.pdf.) There have been other allegations of witness intimidation and tampering. One witness stated he was threatened to testify in support of Protais Zigiranyirazo and Tharcisse Renzaho accused Rwandan officials of intimidating defense witnesses. Several of the witnesses will no longer testify in the trial because of threats. (“The ICTR Orders an Inquest on an Eventual Pressure on a Witness,” Hirondelle News Agency. 4 April 2007; “Renzaho’s Defense Accuses Kigali of Witness Intimidation,” Hirondelle News Agency. 17 May 2007; “An ICTR Lawyer Denonces (sic!) the Threats Made to his Witnesses,” Hirondelle News Agency. 12 June 2007.)

10 Note: Jean-Paul? Akayesu was a teacher, school inspector, and MDR party member. He was also mayor of the Taba Commune. One woman who testified against him was killed with her family in mid-January 1997. Officially, the murders were committed by Hutu insurgents.

11 Note: The RPA attacked Mugunga from the northeast and the east in a strategic pincer attack. (Then) Colonel James Kabarebe led the RPA unit that approached Mugunga from the east and (then) Colonel Fred Ibingira led the RPA’s 7th Battalion approaching from the northeast. (Génocide de Mugunga. R94.org. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW8j-o3JPrY.) RPA soldiers approaching from the east stole vehicles from the United Nations High Commissionner for Refugees (UNHCR) and forcibly loaded Rwandan medical patients at NGO clinics into the vehicles and moved them to Nkamira. The NGOs were also prohibited to distribute food to returning refugees. (“Rwanda: Human Rights Overlooked in Mass Repatriation.” Amnesty International. AFR 47/002/1997. 14 January 1997.)

Paul kagame always looked a killer

DB: Now in 1996, in March, then again in October while you were in Congo, there were several Spanish priests and nuns killed in Rwanda. Do you know anything about these incidents?

JCN: What happened there, every outsider…priests, nuns, none of them could survive because they were accused of supporting the former regime. The RPF killed many of the priests all across the country and as you know many of Rwanda’s religious figures were assassinated in Gakurizo. They slaughtered bishops, nuns, and priests, especially Hutus. Another reason to kill the Spanish priests was because they helped resist the Tutsi monarchy in the past. They empowered Hutu with education through their missions. Also, the Spanish priests knew the RPF massacred Bagogwe,1 who the RPF said were killed by Interahamwe. The RPF believed the Spanish priests and nuns were reporting RPF massacres of Hutu to the international community and NGOs.

DB: Do you believe now, we saw that the RPF was particularly violent towards Hutu in the north, towards the so-called “Bakiga.”

JCN: Yes.

DB: Do you believe that comes from their resistance to the monarchy? That Paul Kagame was carrying out an old feud so-to-speak?

JCN: Yes, I believe that is true. Even before when we had the monarchy in the country, it was rejected in the north and many of my fellow citizens, I mean those who were educated, were still threatened for not collaborating with the regime. I remember in 1996, Tito Rutaremara, the RPF’s main philosopher, his brother Jill Rutaremara,2 General Nyamwasa, and Antoine Mugesera, another RPF philosopher who actually is changing the history of Rwanda in Butare University, organized a meeting were they wanted to learn why the Bakiga did not accept a monarchy and minority rule. It was held in Ruhengeri town. Dr. Twagirayezy was there as an attendee and he actually wants to testify about this event as I told you before. They brought a document for everyone to sign as a contract agreeing to RPF rule in order to bring security back to the region and the person who signed it took an oath not to undermine the RPF’s efforts. Many of the people that gathered there were killed; especially those who refused to sign the document.

DB: Some individuals have brought up Paul Kagame’s own unique bloodlines that extend back to the monarchy. Does this influence his domestic policies?

JCN: In my country, we have a president, but we really have an unofficial monarchy. You know, in that country we have two competitive clans: Abanyiginya and Abega. They have been killing each other for power, you know, and whatever clan was in charge of the monarchy always killed local Hutu chiefs to expand their influence. Have you ever heard about the Kalinga?

DB: Yes, I have heard about that. It was a symbolic royal war drum.

JCN: Yea, they hung the testicles of Hutu from it for about four centuries.

DB: I have heard of it before, but I always wondered if it was real or just propaganda to demonize the monarchy.

JCN: It’s true. It’s true.

DB: Do you think his ties to the royal family help him keep the loyalty of some RPF members? 3

JCN: I know that he is related to one of the royal family, I don’t know, one of them was killed in the genocide.

DB: Oh, yes. That was his aunt. It’s his aunt Rosalie Gicanda. She was the Queen Mother.

JCN: Yes, I heard about that, but I already know, Kagame does not want the rule of a monarchy to become official because the king has to answer before the Tutsi council, “Abiru”, a council that holds the real power over the country. That is exactly the same council used in gacaca courts today to decide every Hutu’s fate.

DB: Are you saying that if he formally becomes king, he would have to answer to somebody?

JCN: Yes, and this is the big issue. Kagame is from the Abega tribe, so he hates the Abanyiginya who for four centuries were ruling the country before a revolution took place in 1959 to overthrow the monarchy and install a Republican regime. He is the king of Rwanda under the president’s label. He decides everyone’s destiny, takes or gives to anybody he likes or dislikes. The entire power is in his hands. Whoever says anything contrary to his will gets arrested or killed by his death squads. He says how everything must be done. I think you understand this.

DB: I saw President Kagame speak at Amahoro Stadium on Liberation Day last year and it was particularly remarkable how different his attitude was during his speech from his trips abroad. His delivery and word choice had so much more conviction and was so stern compared to when he is speaking abroad.

JCN: Also, in 1996, Kagame said that he would destroy the refugee camps in Congo anytime he wanted due to the fact they did not listen to him when he asked them to return to Rwanda. Then, after they forcibly returned, he invited the public to Amahoro Stadium and he had a group of Hutu refugees march before everyone in the stadium. He said, “You see these Interahamwe marching in front of you. They aren’t human anymore. Look at them! And they tell people they can attack Rwanda! They are nothing! Nothing!”

DB: Now in 1997, there were a number of assassinations in your country. In January and February, you had several U.N. observers killed.

JCN: If it was January or February, I don’t remember, but the killings were blamed on ex-FAR while it was really more RPF crimes. All of those ex-FAR who were sent back to Rwanda were told they would be integrated into the new RPF army. Many of them believed that and later in January they were killed together with their families and neighbors. This carnage took place in Rwanda during thirty straight days of killings. RPF soldiers and Local Defense Forces started by killing the high ranking ex-FAR officers together with their wives, children and all their neighbors so that nobody could testify. They killed everybody within one kilometer of the targeted neighborhood.

DB: Do you know Kiswahili by chance?

JCN: Yes, I do.

DB: You know the word, “Fagia?”

JCN: Yeah, fagia means “finish the job.”

DB: Ok. I am aware that Kagame….

JCN: Yes, that’s…

DB: …used that word to speak of such operations.

JCN: …to finish the job.

DB: So essentially, it’s….it’s a complete extermination of one’s bloodline in a sense, if it’s a targeted individual.

JCN: Yes. “Fagia” meaning to kill him or them, those who were targeted….nobody could survive.

DB: Yes.

JCN: We know that many people here, there, everywhere were killed in a different manner. The RPF used akandoya and other times, they forced someone to kill their own friend, bury them, and then the RPF killed them also. They used such cruel methods, not just killing someone but humiliating them first.

DB: What you just described, this was all around Ruhengeri?

JCN: Yes, Ruhengeri Prefecture was like….it was horrible.

DB: Now, when the U.N. observers were murdered on the 4th of February, I have it at the Karengera Commune near Cyangugu and that a Briton was among those killed. Only about a week earlier, several Spanish medical workers for Medicos del Mundo were killed and an American worker was among those wounded.4 There’s currently a pending lawsuit against several Rwandan military officials for this incident.5 What were these events about?

JCN: The RPF was always up there in 1997. They were always by the border area. We were told Interahamwe were crossing the border and killing people, but for us in the north, we never saw any Interahamwe as far as I can remember, but we saw many people getting killed. There were times around one hundred people were killed in Cyamabuye Pentecostal Church and in several schools, but they officially reported these killings were criminal acts by the Interahamwe, but this was not true. The RPF and Local Defense Forces killed everybody in the area and at the end of the day, RPF local authorities reported that all of them were killed by Interahamwe or by ex-FAR insurgents crossing over from Congo. The soldiers would even take weapons with them and leave them with the bodies and say they were Hutu infiltrators. Nobody could take a risk and say that RPF was involved in those massacres. Another trick that the RPF used is they went to your home at night and brought a pair of boots and left them there. In the morning, they came back and said that you were using the boots to help Interahamwe cross Lake Kivu into Rwanda. As a result, they killed those people and told everyone they were helping the insurgents.Those Spanish citizens, they died like so many Rwandans did. They were not killed by insurgents; they were killed by RPF soldiers and LDF (Local Defense Forces). As I said earlier, the RPF killed Bagogwe in that area and said the Interahamwe killed them. They added that the genocide is underway again. Those aid workers knew about this and were going to report it.6

DB: Then in February, as I mentioned, another priest was killed and then several U.N. were killed in Karengera.

JCN: Cyangugu?

DB: Yea. Was this a similar situation?

JCN: Yes. The RPF believed those guys were giving information to the international community and the RPF had a policy to kill without being seen or finish the job without any eyewitness to their crimes. That’s also what happened to the Canadian priest in Ruhengeri and to the Croatian priests and so on…

DB: I want to ask a question specifically about the Local Defense Forces. When I was in Rwanda, as I was coming in from the countryside, I saw soldiers in camouflage uniforms patrolling along the road to Kigali, particularly around the forests. In the forests, there were also soldiers blending in amongst the forest, presumably for border security. In Kigali, there were armed men, typically young, who wore pink uniforms, but not the prison uniforms. I was told by Rwandans they were called the “Local Defense Force.” Who were these different groups of soldiers?

JCN: You have guys who, most of those guys in the countryside roads are RPF. The Local Defense Force does not wear a uniform out there. They look like ordinary Rwandans. But all in all, they were Abakada as we Rwandans call them. Those guys travel in groups of five, all men, and they patrol the area they are in charge of. They are not paid and they do whatever they want in the area they control. Their main training camps are in Mutobo, Gabiro, and Gishari. But also, there are these so-called “Rasta,” who are Hutu soldiers, sometimes even ex-FAR, that work for and are under RPF supervision.7

DB: So it is a paramilitary unit.

JCN: A paramilitary unit as you said, yes, but they received training from RPF officers. They even make maps and generate plans together with RPF soldiers for their military operations.

DB: That helps clarify things for me a bit. Now just one more question with regards to specific military units. One well-known military unit in Rwanda is the Presidential Guard. In Rwanda today, in current times, what role does this unit play? What is their mission? Is it only to provide physical protection for President Kagame?

JCN: The Presidential Guard, what it is…ok. Everywhere President Kagame goes in the country; they are part of his escort and must be there with him. They are all chosen to do the job, you cannot volunteer. It is run by Frank Nziza. They are mostly used in special death squad missions inside and outside the country. There is no denying also they have received training by U.S. Special Forces and some of them, including U.S. intelligence-gathering units, are based in Kigali-Kacyiru?.

DB: When I was in Kigali, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to tour the KIST (Kigali Institute of Science and Technology) school grounds. I asked some of the students there what they were going to do once they graduated. All of them told me they were going to work for their country. Since it is a technology-education school, they said they were going to work for firms like Terracom and other state-owned telecommunications firms. What is the relationship between schools, jobs, and political ideology in Rwanda?

JCN: Let me explain to you the job situation as I understand it. In the countryside, we were told by Rwandans coming from Kigali there was nowhere to go. I went to Kigali by taxi and got a job at Sulfo-Rwanda? Industries, an Indian-owned mining company. When I worked there, every intellectual Hutu had to pay 5,000 Rwandan Francs8 every week to their supervisor. This guy who worked there, he was a friend of Rose Kabuye’s9 husband. He told me if I didn’t pay him every week, he will come back to find me and my new home would be 1930, meaning the central prison in Kigali. I was afraid so I paid every week on Friday. They told me, “You have to know what happened to other Hutus.” He also told me he’s saving my life and I actually do agree with that. After that, I decided to try and find another job. I went for an interview with the UNDP (United Nations Development Project) and a Tutsi woman refused to give me access to the person in charge of interviews. She said I had to bring proof that I have a job from the Ministry of Industry. I told her, “No, I got a job at Sulfo-Rwanda? you cannot ask me to bring such proof. Everyone there knows me.” She responded, “That’s your business.” Then I left and understood I would never get that job.Also, there was a guy connected to Sulfo-Rwanda?, Froduald Karamira, who was killed on February 14th, 1997. I was in Nkuli Commune on that day, which is now known as Buhoma District. He was accused of being a Hutu extremist so he fled to India through his contacts at Sulfo-Rwanda?. He was arrested in Bombay and instead of being sent to the ICTR, he was deported back to Rwanda. In return, India was given a contract to supply the RPF military with TATA vehicles. Karamira admitted he was guilty and the RPF took him and a woman lawyer to Nyabugogo and shot them in public. However, the real reason he was shot was so the RPF could confiscate his property, just like they did with Kabuga’s properties. Clever, huh?Every Hutu lived like this. You had to work for the government, for the RPF. They used other workers to keep informed about every newcomer, everyone who’s starting work. To understand this, let me give you an example. Today, when you graduate, you must go to a training center at Gikondo for brainwashing to get a job. Every semester, some graduates are chosen to be sent there from among all the universities in Rwanda. Nobody knows where that person is going and then they return later, both Hutu and Tutsi, determined to kill anyone who opposes the RPF. You spend six months at the center. They give you a list of people to hate, people who are supposed to be opponents of the RPF. People are taught to hate their own parents and friends if they oppose the RPF. These people spy on everyone else at work and report suspicious people to the Department of Military Intelligence. After one and a half years of living in this hell, I fled to Nairobi.

DB: That was when you eventually moved out of Africa?

JCN: At that time, my wife was regularly travelling to Kigali. Many people thought she looked like a Tutsi so she didn’t have as much trouble. The third time she went there, her friends were killed. She came back and told me to leave. We got a traveling permit and I traveled to Kigali. The last day I fled to Kampala and from there I went to Nairobi. After Seth died, I left Africa. I am not afraid to say that. I have nothing to hide.DB: What happened in Bwindi Forest in 1999?JCN: You know Americans were killed there right?

DB: Well, there were reports that an armed group came and killed some western tourists. Some said it was Interahamwe, others said it was a Ugandan rebel group like the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) or NALU (National Army for the Liberation of Uganda). There were different….

JCN: If you ask me that question, I will ask you why you the Bagogwe tribe got killed in Gisenyi. Who is the perpetrator? The same one who killed the American tourists: the RPF soldiers and Paul Kagame. After Madeline Albright arrived in Rwanda….

DB: This was where?

JCN: I was in Rwanda, in the countryside, in my commune of origin. Albright left to go to Congo or something like that. After they left Rwanda, Bagogwe were killed by the RPF and they reported the Interahamwe did it. Albright and…I don’t remember the other one; she was in African Affairs Department.

DB: That would be Susan Rice.

JCN: Yes, Miss Susan Rice. She also came back to Rwanda with Albright and met with Paul Kagame. After the meeting she approved his allegations that the Interahamwe killed the Bagogwe. Everybody knows that version of facts is incorrect. The Prefect of Gisenyi, Epimaque, said on Radio Rwanda the Bagogwe were killed because they were stealing potatoes. Kagame got mad about that and removed him. Exactly the same thing happened to the tourists, the American tourists. This was an act of terrorism.10 On that same day, in Jenda District, where I was born, and also in Nkuli, RPA soldiers killed at least 500 civilians on November 21st. Susan Rice did not say anything about this. Why did she condemn this crime and accuse Hutus before an independent inquiry team went there to investigate?

DB: Are you saying the RPF committed all those crimes?

JCN: Of course, I know this for sure. I also know that they even killed Tutsis in different areas, including a Tutsi agriculturist in Ruhengeri. I don’t know his name unfortunately, but he was an agriculturalist who worked at the plantations in the countryside of Nkuli and Karago communes. He was killed at the Adventist Church in Rwankeli, Nkuli Commune with his wife, children, and fifteen neighbors. The RPF blamed the Abacengezi.11 In total, seventeen people were killed that day in the same area.

Also that year, in January 1997, one RPF soldier was killed in public because he was supposed to kill some people, but did not. There was a Hutu woman who came to ask for her husband’s house back because it had been taken over by Tutsis. For this courageous act, the woman had to die. The soldier who was ordered to shoot her did not do so and that RPF soldier was killed for not following instructions. He was shot in public. So when Paul Kagame says he punished those who were involved in killings, it’s not really true. The RPF soldiers who did follow such orders, they were glorified and promoted to the highest military rankings. For example, Colonel Ibingira after he massacred displaced people in Kibeho. There was also (Faustin-Kayumba) Nyamwasa, (Jackson) Nziza, (Gerald) Gahima, (Charles) Zilimwabagabo…as a matter of fact; the RPF punishes those who don’t kill Hutus. Can you believe that? You can’t believe this. But it’s true.

DB: Let’s talk about another one of those cases you just mentioned. Can you tell me about Kibeho?

JCN: Yes, Kibeho, I cannot forget that because I had a good friend who was killed there. Remember, you asked me in the beginning about how people in Butare were killed by the RPF soldiers while U.N. forces were there? University workers, students, and teachers were massacred in front of the U.N. peacekeeping forces. At first, the Rwandans who ended up in that camp were going to flee to the southern region of Congo, but this did not happen because they were told they would be protected by the U.N. peacekeeping forces. At that time, Octave Iligukunze, a classmate and a friend of mine at Moscow University was there. He was there with other Hutu intellectuals at the camp and… you know what, I’ll never, ever see him again because the RPF killed all of them. They were told to go to Kibeho and after that, Paul Kagame gave an ultimatum and told them leave the camps. He said the RPF is going to close the camps in Rwanda starting with Kibeho because it was not necessary for them to stay open because the country is now safer than it was before. The result was catastrophic, unspeakable killings done with U.N. and UNHCR complicity. The RPF started by using machine guns and mortars to destroy the camp; destroy the houses, to destroy all the people. They killed women, children, and young guys from the university that were there. This was a bloody planned genocide as I told you before; genocide planned very well by the RPF leadership. No Hutu intellectual could be allowed survive. If you survived Kibeho, you had to go to the countryside and stay there until you disappeared or were killed very far from the U.N. observers in Kigali. We had no rights. We were treated animals that had to be butchered. No more, no less. Luckily, I had a chance to escape and go to Kigali. How did I get there? Through bribery and corruption…using whatever I could so that I could go there.

DB: To Kigali?

JCN: Yes. I know how my friends got killed at the same time as I left my area for Kigali, but you have asked me about Kibeho so…Kibeho was really our tragic history to live with. I don’t…I compare it to the Jewish Auschwitz. During the morning, starting at about 04:00, they started shooting and using all kinds of weapons, including heavy artillery to kill them. They killed a lot of innocent people. They did not care. U.N. soldiers from Australia that were there have said they are ready to testify anywhere if they are asked. They saw everything.12 There was also an organization that included this lady named Kleine who has a website where you can find pictures of the mass graves.13 You have seen those?

DB: Yea, I’ve seen those.

JCN: So the guy, Paul Kagame, decided to close the camps using this guy named Fred Ibingira, who was promoted to the rank of General a few months later. He worked with Jacques Bihozagara, who was first promoted to be the Rwandan Ambassador to Belgium then later as the Ambassador to France for having killed so many people. You know that I talked about him already. He was killing people in Ruhengeri before getting appointed to a higher position. Also, there was Major Rubagumya Gacinya, who headed the CID (Criminal Investigation Division) and was recently named the military attaché at the Rwandan Embassy in Washington D.C.

Now, let’s talk about happened to my people, my fellow citizens. President Bizimungu went to Kibeho because he was afraid of Kagame and he told everybody only a few hundred were killed there. At the same time, how many really died? Most people say eight thousand people but I met a guy from the UNHCR who told me twenty-one thousand died, including Kibeho and the surrounding area.

DB: I found some similar information that I would like to share with you and get your reaction. It started on the 22nd or 23rd, but the day after the killings, the United States Embassy sent its Defense Attaché Officer (DAO), whose name is Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Odom, along with Mr. Mickey Dunham, the Operations Officer in the Defense Attaché Office at the U.S. Embassy to Kibeho to find out exactly what happened.14

JCN: Yea.

DB: They spoke with Sam Kaka, Colonel Nyamwasa, Charles Muhire, and Lieutenant Colonel Karenzi. When they left, they told U.S. Ambassador David Rawson that 2,000 were killed in Kibeho. Now this is what Lieutenant Colonel Odom, a well-trained and veteran military officer said was his reasoning for his estimate. He determined eight thousand or more bodies could not possibly have been moved overnight because there were only five thousand RPF soldiers in the area, which wasn’t enough manpower to move that many bodies and also remove all the shell casings it would have taken to shoot that many people.15After that, Ambassador Rawson called in a lawyer named Maurice Nyberg, an American who was part of the U.N. Special Investigations Unit that eventually became the ICTR. Anyway, he investigated Kibeho for a month and stayed with Lieutenant Colonel Odom at the house of the U.S. Embassy’s Political Officer at the time, (then) Ms. Laura Lane. Whatever Mr. Nyberg discovered was never made public.16 The reason I bring this up, first it is clear the U.S. was on the ground in Kibeho very quickly after the event. Second, there are no indications they ever interrogated any surviving refugees in the camp. What are your thoughts on this?

JCN: Of course, this is ridiculous and shameful. I don’t understand how the U.S. could support such criminals.

DB: To move on from that subject, you, now in 1993, you were in Moscow for graduate school?

JCN: Yes, up to February 28th, 1993.

DB: Can you tell me what happened when you got back to Rwanda?

JCN: Well, I told you about the February attack in 1993. I thought there would be peace in Rwanda; otherwise I wouldn’t have gone back. What I remember is that the RPF signed the Arusha Accords. Rwandans thought those accords would be implemented, but the RPF had another agenda. Many people in Rwanda were hopeful the fighting would end, but, for the U.S. and the U.K., as RPF backers, this would be a tragedy because the RPF would lose the elections because they killed so many people and nobody wanted them in power after what they experienced. That is why RPF had to step up to the second level; to step up to the killing of Hutu political leaders like Gatabazi, Bucyana, Rwambuka and Gapyisi. The RPF expected the Hutu to react by killing Tutsis so the RPF could resume hostilities and say they were defending Tutsi, but this did not happen. Eventually, they stepped to the 3rd level and eliminated President Juvenal Habyarimana and hoped Hutus would be too angry to stay calm. Without that, the RPF could not seize power and accomplish the final agenda of going to the Congo to payback their debts to their backers.

DB: You believed the Arusha Accords would hold?

JCN: Myself, yes. I believed Hutu and Tutsi finally had a chance to live together without too many problems.

DB: Where did you go when you first arrived back in Rwanda?

JCN: I stayed in Kigali because I came back with Jews, Russian Jews who wanted to establish a company in Kigali for mineral resources.

DB: Do you know the name of the company?

JCN: Excuse me?

DB: Do you know the name of the company?

JCN: (Long pause)

DB: That’s ok if you don’t remember.

JCN: (Laughs) I will be telling you sometime maybe. I had a problem with the Rwandan Government because they said we cannot accept their offer because there was already another company mining the mineral resources. They did not want the Russians to go in there. They asked me to pay six thous-…er, six million Rwandan Francs unfortunately. I refused. I was so angry. In the end, we had to negotiate and we paid four to five million for the startup costs.

DB: So at some point, you said you went home to…er, you said you accepted a job at the university in Gisenyi.

JCN: What happened to me was, after that, people from the MRND said, “This guy, Jean-Christophe? is not helping so we have to work with someone else, we have to discuss directly with the Russians.” They decided to remove me and send me to Gisenyi. Before I came back to Rwanda, I had not even heard of this university, but I went because they asked me to and I had no choice.

DB: Who asked you to go?

JCN: They were people from the MRND. One of them belonged to Habyarimana’s family. They were angry with me, but I really don’t want to talk about this. Actually, in 1993, this is why I decided to pursue my PhD studies in Canada. First, I had a proposal from the U.S. Embassy, but later I decided to go to Canada after winning a French speaking scholarship that gave me the possibility to pursue PhD studies. I told the Canadian Embassy not to tell anyone because I was afraid they would find out and put an end to my dreams. I later resigned from the institute after March 5th and I got a letter from the Rwandan Embassy in Canada that I was chosen to fly to Canada. I didn’t tell anyone at the university where I was going for security reasons. Fortunately, at that time, everything went smoothly. What happened later in the beginning of April, it was unthinkable for me because the Canadian Embassy told me I had to prepare to leave for Canada in April 1994. Then, you know what happened next.

DB: Right.

JCN: The death of Habyarimana.

DB: You mentioned that you first had an offer to go abroad through the U.S. Embassy. How did you forge ties with the United States Embassy?

JCN: Ok, first of all, I needed books for my studies at the Institute so I got some contacts the embassy and they put me in touch with their Political Affairs officer named Linda. She told me there was no problem and she was going to help me. She said she could also get books from the U.S. and she did. I got many books from her. She also gave me a pass to attend a July 4th celebration held at the U.S. Embassy in 1993. After that, she told me that I could maybe get a Fulbright Scholarship to go to the U.S. and get my PhD. I said, “Ok. I have to tell those MRND guys who sent me to the university.” They told me that there was no problem to go to the U.S. I just had to wait and decide with Linda. In January 1994, she told me I really should go, but I thought the Arusha Accords would hold so I did not go. I have no idea if she knew that something was going to happen and was trying to warn me. I regret that I did not go because of what happened to me after that was not really….it was my fault. I made a mistake.

DB: But you honestly believed the Arusha Accords would work?

JCN: Yea.

DB: Ok. So you told Linda Buggeln at the U.S. Embassy you were not going to go and the Arusha Accords were already signed but not implemented. Then there were a series of political assassinations in Rwanda. You mentioned these names earlier. Gapyisi, Rwambuka, Gatabazi, Bucyana…what can you tell me about what it was like in Rwanda at that time? Who was responsible for these killings and did they influence the intensity of the genocide?

JCN: As I told you before, the killings were part of the strategy of genocide, so that mass killings of Tutsi would occur in Rwanda. It was a plan that was initiated by the RPF leadership because the RPF knew they could not seize power under the Arusha Accords. They had to have mass killings of Tutsi so they could start the final aggression and say that they were fighting to stop the killings when all they really wanted was to seize power. They had to get people to kill Tutsis and the killing of Hutu in the northwest of my country was obviously not enough to generate that kind of hate. People got angry and their anger was rising day after day towards the RPF, but they were not attacking Tutsi civilians. The second step was to create strong tension between the people to prepare them for killing. You are going to ask me how. In the beginning, they started by killing the heads of prefectures. They watched the reaction from the government, from others, you know, the chairmen of political parties, and they saw Rwandans acting disciplined. Rwandans were not reacting to every single RPF attack, every assassination. So they said, “Ok, we have people in power that really have influence in this country. Let’s start with them.”They started by killing Emmanuel Gapyisi of the MDR (Democratic Republican Movement) in May 1993.17 Gapysi was very intellectual and he was supposed to replace Habyarimana, as I understood it at the time. He was from the south, but was supported by Hutu in both the north and the south. He created a kind of a…he was in the right place at the right moment. The RPF saw that he was going to replace Habyarimana and possibly help unite Hutu in the north and the south, which was not in their interests.Then in August 1993, the RPF decided to really raise tensions by killing Fidele Rwambuka, the Mayor of Kanzenze Commune from the MRND party. These assassinations were trigger points and each time the RPF killed one of them, they thought the militias of their political parties would react by killing Tutsi, which would allow the RPF to resume aggressions. When they killed Fidel Rwambuka, there were riots but no lynching, so nothing happened.In February 1994, they killed Felicien Gatabazi of the PSD (Social Democratic Party). He was going home and the RPF killed him at the gate to his house. People say that Eric Hakizimana led the death squad that killed him. In 1993, when the RPF was killing people in the north and they attacked Ruhengeri, they destroyed the electricity source, water supply…they destroyed everything. Gatabazi, who was the Minister of Public Works, said, “We can’t trust the RPF anymore. What they did is a crime against humanity. How could they do this knowing that ninety percent of the population used that water? Why did they destroy it?”18 After he said that, he was killed because the RPF knew they would no longer have his support. You see, he went too far because he sent the Abakombozi19 to train with RPF soldiers in Mulindi. They thought he had no right to criticize them. That’s why they killed him. After he was killed, Abakombozi militias of the PSD got angry and started riots with the CDR (Coalition for the Defense of the Republic)20 militia, the Impuzamugambi21, who they thought had killed Gatabazi. This was just what the RPF wanted. See, after Gatabazi was killed, the RPF began using Radio Muhabura to spread lots of rumors about who had done it. Infiltrators in Kigali helped out by telling people in town. You know the big difference rumors can make during wartime. Still, Habyarimana did not believe it. He told everybody to stop the riots because this is exactly what somebody wants us to do. We must stop. Everybody did stop, but divisions were created between the parties. It also made the Rwandan conflict look like a civil war to the outside world and that is what the RPF wanted. Unfortunately for them, the Hutu stopped rioting and they still did not kill Tutsi. The next day, the RPF did a very smart move from their viewpoint. They killed Martin Bucyana, the CDR’s president. By killing the head of the “extremist” party, they thought for sure Tutsi were going to be killed because they knew the CDR would blame the RPF and kill Tutsi civilians who they thought were RPF infiltrators in revenge. Also, Bucyana was killed when he was travelling from Cyangugu to Butare in his own car. The RPF killed him knowing that, if he was killed in the area where Gatabazi was born, the CDR might also blame the Abakombozi for the killing and the Abakombozi would start riots with the CDR militias again. At the same time, Radio Muhabura said the Hutu militias were responsible to make sure there was mass confusion. The RPF also got help from the international community, who were only saying in the press that Bucyana was an extremist, like he deserved to be killed. That way, nobody cared that he was killed and nobody would ask questions about who really killed him.The RPF was increasing tensions to get an explosion of violence. I myself can say that tensions were much worse after each political killing. Sometimes during the latest riots after Bucyana’s death, there was lynching. After that, people did not want to be around anyone they didn’t know. You would go to a new place, for example a bar, and the people there would say to you, “Who are you? Don’t you know the RPF is going to be here in two weeks? Get out of the bar!” Then people, including infiltrators, were going around telling Hutu, “You have to get armed, the enemy is increasing every day.” Infiltrators were also committing random killings in the city. They would drive by somewhere on a motorcycle and use a grenade somewhere that people had gathered. Myself, I had Tutsi family friends, but we became divided by stereotypes. While all of this is going on, one of these politicians were killed, somebody’s friend and a member of a powerful political party. The RPF expected people to react! Still, it did not happen! The RPF and its allies were very angry with that. They did not understand what kind of people they were dealing with.

DB: Where the FAR and Presidential Guard compromised by RPF infiltrators by the time President Habyarimana was killed?

JCN: I really don’t know for sure but I do not think so. Other units were infiltrated but not the Presidential Guard. The RPF did offer Major Ntabakuze millions of dollars to work for the RPF, but I was told he refused.So the final step, the final job, was to kill President Habyarimana, the president’s staff, and Déogratias Nsabimana, the FAR Chief of Staff who went with him to Tanzania. They were killed coming back from a meeting about implementing the Arusha Accords. What the RPF did is obvious. That series of assassinations, the killers showed deep knowledge of Rwandans’ limits of tolerance. It was the last possible step in something they had planned for a long time. I believe they chose April 6th because Paul Kagame thought the militias were at their breaking point and they would kill with the most anger because of the tensions.22 They knew that people were already very angry and prepared to kill because they were paranoid and thought so many Tutsi were RPF sympathizers. The RPF knew people would get revenge this time. That’s why you saw those people killing everybody after President Habyarimana. The country had not only Tutsi, who were financing the RPF, but you had infiltrators, RPF infiltrators in so many places. You must know Valens Kajeguhakwa, who was with the RPF, said they even used priests to hide RPF weapons in churches. Everyone knew this and unfortunately, the Hutu militias found documents and RPA identity cards on many people in the churches and that is why so many people believed this and killed so many people in the churches. They realized they had been betrayed and because of the tension, because of the situation after the killing of President Habyarimana, the FAR and gendarmes were unable to control the militias. The country was beheaded and the genocide could only be planned by someone who knew the consequences of the 6th of April and it was not a surprise to anyone to see the RPF attack in Kigali and Kanombe on the same night Habyarimana died.

DB: President Habyarimana had a famous nickname did he not?

JCN: Huh?

DB: He was called, “Ikinani.”

JCN: Ok!

DB: The Invincible.

JCN: The Invincible. What that means, he said so because when he went to Ruhengeri, he said that at the time we had many political parties in the country. So they had to go and vote. He had been in power for many years and he said he was going to stay there. He also said to everyone, “My Interahamwe are going to win.” Radio Muhabura told everyone Habyarimana was not invincible to the RPF. The truth is, people who wanted democracy would never have voted for the RPF over Habyarimana, and he knew that. So the RPF knew they had to somehow mobilize opinion against the MRND.

1 Note: The Bagogwe are a sub-group of Tutsi pastoralists who live in northwestern Rwanda around Gisenyi and Ruhengeri.

2 Note: Jill Rutaremara is currently the Military Spokesman for the RPA.

3 Note: In pre-colonial times, before the ethnic (or racial within Rwanda) identity of Hutu and Tutsi deeply divided the country; clans (ubwoko singular) formed the foundation of Rwandan society and identity. The clan is the most abstract form of patrilineal kinship in Rwanda but its members do not trace back to a common ancestor. Clans do not regard ethnic identity and all clans have both Hutu and Tutsi members. Clan membership does not bestow a social status or privilege to its members and clans do not have a “leader” or person in charge. (Government of the Republic of Rwanda. “The Counting of the Genocide Victims: Final Report.” Ministry for Local Government: Department of Information and Social Affairs. November 2002. pg. 7.) The only possible exceptions were the Abanyiginya and Abega clans. However, originating from one of these clans does not afford an elevated social status to its members because other sub-divisions within the clan, such as lineage, are more indicative of social status. Rwandan mythology says these two clans hold a sacred origin because the Rwandan Kings were chosen from these clans. In pre-colonial times, the King was believed to be a divine being sent by God and was considered to be the physical embodiment of Rwanda itself. (Mamdani, Mahmood. “When Victims Become Killers.” Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2002. 3rd Edition. pg. 54-55, 79.) The Queen Mother came from the Abega clan. (Martins, Ludo. “Rwanda: The Responsibility of Belgium in the Creation of a Racist Ideology.” Report Presented at the Conference on Rwanda. English Translation. Brussels, Belgium. 5 April 1997; Prunier, Gérard. “The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide.” New York, New York: Columbia University Press. 1995. pg. 9.) As the Rwandan refugees from the late 1950s-very early 1960s grew up in Uganda.

DB: Can you comment of the recent release of former president Pasteur Bizimungu?

JCN: Bizimungu is just like the situation with releasing those kids from prison. Kagame said publicly it was for national reconciliation. He made Bizimungu write a letter to apologize and ask for forgiveness. Bizimungu had, in fact, already written a letter to Kagame earlier asking for clemency, but Kagame lied and said he never wrote such a letter. It was not Kagame’s good will that released him. Bizimungu is a finished man. He is very sick and cannot do anything. The way he was treated in prison…they will never let him leave Rwanda. He knows too much. They are afraid of what he will say. He can’t apply for exile. It’s incredible. What I see is Paul Kagame becoming god, in my own country. Anything that happens must be ordered by him. Only he has the power to let you survive. This is why many prisoners are freed all at once, usually along with RPF infiltrators mixed in with them. The infiltrators ask the prisoners about their crimes to find out who really killed who and report to military intelligence.

DB: What was the reason he was released?

JCN: He went to prison on multiple charges. After Bizimungu found out the real agenda of the RPF after Kibeho, he said, “I’m gone. I’m going to found my own political party PDR-Ubuyanja (Party for Democratic Renewal).” His party brought in many followers like Ntakirutinka. Some of the party members were killed by the RPF and then Bizimungu was sent to prison to stop any attempt to create a serious opposition party to the RPF. The RPF wanted to control the forum. They had no use for all those political parties and Bizimungu’s party could have competed for the presidency.

DB: Is this also why former Speaker Sebarenzi was considered a threat?

JCN: Yes. It was the same arrangement. I think he left the country because he was considering joining that party, then he later founded a political party after he was in exile.Back to the prison system…it’s unbelievable. Every commune has two hundred RPF and Local Defense Forces. They arrest any Hutu in the north they want. After holding them for several days, they tell him he can go free, but first he must sign a document stating he killed Tutsi during the genocide. He also must also name four Hutu and say they killed with him. It can be any four Hutu; they don’t really care if they actually committed any crimes. If you refuse, you stay in jail. So for every one that is released, four go in jail. When something happens to make the RPF look bad to the international community, they release most of these prisoners and say it is for national reconciliation to look good.1 Others are tried in gacaca. All those prisoners have to say, “Oh yes, we killed Tutsis.” Nobody wants to stay in those prisons.2 For five thousand Rwandan Francs, you can have somebody sign a paper accusing anybody you want of genocide. Then that person is thrown in jail. The Red Cross even knows about this system. They kept lists of the prisoners they met with. Every time they went back to those prisons, people on their list had disappeared.

DB : You know Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank’s President?

JCN : He fooled everybody when he went to Rwanda. People think the World Bank is going to help them, but Wolfowitz said he was proud of Rwanda and that the country was going well. He was saying how prisoners working on the plantations are a good thing. You can go to Butare, Kigali, more so in the north, you will see what those prisoners are doing. As I said, they are forced to work on plantations owned by RPF leaders. I found out also that foreign NGOs are using this labor force! I know of some Belgian NGOs for sure. There needs to be an investigation into this. They use the cheapest kind of labor where you pay nothing and then the same NGOs ask for donations from their own countries to give to Rwandans! They keep the money and they don’t need to pay their workers. They even use these kids as labor and they will never go to school!

They say gacaca is for the national reconciliation, but who is there on trial? Only Hutus. It doesn’t concern the Tutsis. Who is a Hutu? He is a genocidaire! They are the only ones who committed genocide and yet so many Hutus died during the genocide as well. Those who killed them now run the gacaca courts and at least seven hundred and fifty Hutu are added to gacaca every year. Imprisonment in Rwanda is a tool just like the genocide is a tool. It is a tool to stay in power. The RPF even said so. After the genocide of 1994, the RPF told everyone to always be sure and talk about the genocide with everyone, especially foreigners, or else we will lose power in this country.

DB: Where did they say this

JCN : Radio Muhabura. It was January 1997 at 08:30 on a Sunday. I don’t remember the date exactly but everybody knows about it. You can ask people and they will tell you the RPF told everybody they must always talk about the genocide or else they are lost. It was announced by Antoine Mugesera and Rutaramara. They said, “We must portray ourselves as victims.” We (Diaspora) know how many people really got killed. We have the study from the University of Maryland.4 The RPF uses the genocide to ensure Hutu do not approach power. They try to control everything. When they took power, they renamed all the streets, reorganized the prefectures created provinces, and changed the spelling of many names. They did this to confuse investigators and erase that history from the minds of the next generation of Rwandans.

DB: That’s ironic you should mention that last point because one individual I met in Rwanda laughed at the map of Kigali I had because all the streets were labeled wrong. They were labeled with their old names. Moving on, one of the forgotten topics in the Great Lakes region is Burundi. As you know, in the space of less than a year, Burundi lost two Hutu presidents to assassinations. The first president who was assassinated, Melchior Ndadaye, was killed by the Armed Forces of Burundi (FAB) in Bujumbura.5

JCN: With the help of Paul Kagame.

DB: That was precisely my line of questioning. I have heard of such claims. Can you comment on that? Is there any truth to them?

JCN: Ok. The reason I know that RPF was involved is because when Ndadaye was killed, I was, at that time, politically active. My friends and I created the Ndadaye Foundation at the CEPGL headquarters in Gisenyi. It was part of an administration that was in five countries including Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda. After he was killed, we received some MPs (Members of Parliament) from Bujumbura who came to thank us for doing a great job because they really appreciated our unforgettable deeds. We all respected Ndadaye because he was democratic and respected all ethnic groups. He was working for his country and wanted to reunify Burundians. Unfortunately, President Buyoya got a job from the European Union (EU).6 I don’t know why people supported him.When President Ndadaye was elected, it could not be accepted by the RPF because a Hutu in power in Burundi, especially when Tutsi are trying to seize power in Rwanda… it could not happen. It would cause turmoil in Rwanda. That’s why they decided to kill President Ndadaye. For the continuation of Tutsi rule in both countries. The day he was killed, Paul Kagame was in Bujumbura. I was told by the MPs who came to visit us in Gisenyi that he was there in a hotel where he spent his holiday. During his stay, he met with the Chief of the Army, Bikomagu.

DB: And yet, if I recall correctly, Colonel Bikomagu was later acquitted for his role in the assassination.

JCN: Yea. They set up everything just like with Gatabazi and Bucyana.

DB: Does the Rwandan community believe the RPF was involved in the assassination?

JCN: Yes. In fact, President Ndadaye had many supporters in Rwanda. Thousands of people came to Gisenyi to support the foundation and I spoke to them. I remember when I talked to them and they were so keen to support the foundation. They supported people who wanted to bring democratic values to their countries. Of course, we must remember also the other Burundian Hutu president, who was killed along with President Habyarimana. His name was Cyprien Ntaryamira. Then, you had President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya escape to the U.S. Embassy and come out of hiding after the coup by Buyoya.

DB: How are relations between Rwanda and Burundi today?

JCN: The relations are still good because the government does the will of Kagame.

DB: Yet, current President Pierre Nkurunziza is a Hutu.

JCN: Yes, he’s a Hutu, but he is willing to leave him alone if he takes orders. We know that the former Chairman of the FDD (National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Front? for the Defense of Democracy) party was in Kigali supporting Paul Kagame officially.7 He was asked by Paul Kagame to remove some members of his party that did not agree with RPF policy in Burundi. After he tried to do so, he got in trouble with some old MPs who removed him instead. Today, he is in prison because he said four guys, including former President Ndayizeye, were planning a coup, but it was not true and Ndayizeye was dismissed from the courts.8

DB: This is a broad topic, but the single most influential event in your country recently is probably the Brugière arrest warrant. One thing…

JCN: Ok. I just remembered. The U.K. officer, the military officer who sent the fax to the U.N. was Colonel R.M. Connaughton of the British Army, based at Camberley, Surrey in England, the home of the British Military Academy. His nameand fax number appear at the top of the document. It was sent to Maurice Baril at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in the U.N. There was no cover letter explaining who sent it or why it was sent. There was no document confirming that it was received and accepted by the U.N. ad hoc authorities.

DB: Ok. Thank you.

JCN: You’re welcome.

DB: Ok. When the arrest warrant came out, there were large protests in Rwanda. What was behind all that?

JCN: The people were incited to demonstrate. First of all, the Rwandan people knew nothing. Most of them do not even know where the French embassy is. Those people had to be brought there by buses and trucks. Who paid for that? Those poor people? Who was angry with the French in the first place? Kagame and the RPF-the real criminals-who asked everyone to demonstrate. The demonstrators destroyed the French Embassy and the French Cultural Center. Rwandans demonstrated once before when ICTR prosecutor Carla Del Pointe went there. She was investigating RPF crimes also and wanted to try them at the ICTR. Why is it that Rwandans are only demonstrating when an international person is doing something the RPF doesn’t like?The way the country is run where people become so frustrated…they are in constant fear and terror. They are terrorized because they must do whatever the RPF tells them. During elections, people have to stand in line and vote one after another. The way it works, you have to go and stand behind the box of the person you are voting for, so everybody knows it. If you do not do this, your vote is lost and in some places, if you don’t vote RPF, the soldiers will ask you to go and vote again, this time for the RPF. In the same way, during demonstrations, you cannot stay at home because the abakada go to every house to see who is still at home. Anyone who is at home is threatened, “We will remember you.” Nobody can say no, yet most Rwandans who are protesting do not know who Brugière is at all. If the warrant was something that really had no basis, why does the RPF refuse to go and testify to clear their names? Why does Paul Kagame refuse to testify? He knows he has killed people. Those nine people could go to a French judge and explain what they did, but they don’t. Why not if they are innocent?For the French, it was about the French crew members who died in the plane with Habyarimana. When the Libyans shot that plane down years ago, Gaddafi turned over those who committed the crime. Why doesn’t Paul Kagame do the same? If the international community ever approaches him with criminal charges, he will threaten to use ordinary Rwandans who had nothing to do with it, like in these demonstrations.9

DB: In closing, I want to leave it open to you for any comments you may have about anything. Is there anything at all you would like to say, any focused message you would like to give or something you want to add?

JCN: What I want to say concerns the attitude of the American and British administrations before, during, and after the massacres in my country. The U.S. administration refused to intervene while Rwandans were getting killed. The administration refused to investigate when the American tourists were killed in the Congo by the RPF. The U.S. refused to investigate when Dian Fossey was killed. Inquires should be taken seriously by the powerful democratic countries. They should try to help us so all Rwandans can finally be free. There is no other way these nations can apologize to us for what happened other than by giving us freedom from these criminals. We need justice. To apologize to Rwandans, the international community must send the RPF to justice. We cannot accept anything else. I listen to how my kids talk about wanting to go to America, but at the same time, they are in exile because somebody in the White House helped the RPF kill their uncle and other people they loved. It’s an embarrassing situation for me as a father. It’s shameful and I get angry because I know the United States can still help us go home to a place where we won’t be killed or oppressed. Paul Kagame is killing his own people, even today. He’s killing and destroying everybody and now he’s blackmailing those who helped him, saying, “If you don’t do this for me, I’m going to tell everybody how you helped me take power,” or “If you don’t do this, I will do that.” Please don’t wait for Paul Kagame to kill more people. Now is the right time to listen to me as a Rwandan who honestly likes Americans. Please help us so we can have a free country to organize a democratic society. Rwandans will not cut ties with Americans after the RPF leaves. We know so many of you were not told the truth about what happened in my country. It is not the fault of the whole country, just those people in the administration who aided the RPF.That’s it. That’s what I wanted to say. For me personally, I want to see my kids raised back home in Rwanda. I want to see everybody’s kids grow up without being incriminated by what happened in 1994, or by what somebody says their parents did in 1994. We have to respect each other and we have to respect our ethnicity. We can’t be afraid of our neighbors. We cannot live that way. Please help those of us who can’t go back to help rebuild our country. We need support and it is possible. Thank you very much.

David Barouski is an African Affairs researcher focused on Central Africa and a Political Science student at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh?. He is a regular contributor to ZNet/ZMagazine. His work has also appeared in Waheen Online, the Somaliland Times, Golis News, Congo Vision, and the Congo Panorama. He authored the book, “Laurent Nkundabatware, his Rwandan Allies, and the ex-ANC Mutiny: Chronic Barriers to Lasting Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” and he traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda in 2006. He can be contacted at // BarouD@hush.comBarouD at hush.com.

Jean-Christophe? Nizeyimana is a Rwandan national from the Jenda (Nyabihu District) of the former Ruhengeri Prefecture. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Moscow University and is a former Professor at the High Institute of Management and Computing in Gisenyi. He is the author of “A Compendium of RPF Crimes,” “Hutus: Victims of Verbal Indoctrination,” and several other articles available at info-Burundi.net. He currently lives in exile.

1 Note: One fairly recent example of this occurred in January 2007, when the Ministry of Justice released eight thousand prisoners. (“Rwanda Announces Upcoming Release of 8,000 Prisoners,” Hirondelle News Agency. 25 January 2007.)

2 Note: Hundreds of Rwandans fled the gacaca courts for the Congo during the first two weeks April 2007. In June 2005, nearly ten thousand Rwandans fled to Burundi for the same reason. (“Hundreds of People Fleeing the Gacaca Tribunal Towards the RDC,” Hirondelle News Agency. 17 April 2007.)

3 Note: At the time this interview was conducted, Mr. Wolfowitz had not yet resigned from the World Bank.

4 “Rwanda 1994: More than Genocide.” Christian Davenport, Allan Stam. University of Maryland. http://www.umd.edu/features/rwanda.html; http://www.geodynamics.com.

5 Note: President Melchior Ndadaye was assassinated at the Muha Barracks by Tutsi Armed Forces of Burundi (FAB) soldiers from the 11th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and the 1st and 2nd Parachute Battalions (led by Chief-of-Staff? Colonel Jean Bikomagu and former Burundian President, Colonel Jean-Baptiste? Bagaza) on 20 October 1993. Journalist Charles Onana uncovered documents from the International Christian Democrat stating they were warned on 18th October about the coup attempt and informed them General Paul Kagame was in Bujumbura travelling on a Burundian passport during the days leading up to the assassination. He reportedly met with outgoing President Pierre Buyoya and blessed the coup. Paul Baril was hired to investigate the coup threats and he reportedly concluded the RPA was actively involved. However, as a French mercenary involved in Operation Turquoise, Mr. Baril’s potential bias against the RPA should be noted. (Onana, Charles. “Les Secrets de la Justice Internationale.” English Translation. Paris, France: Editions Duboiris. 2005; Brugière, Jean-Louis?. “The Report by French Anti-Terrorist? Judge Jean-Louis? Brugière on the Shooting Down of Rwandan President Habyarimana’s Plane on 6 April 1994.” Article 45. English Translation. 17 November 2006.)

6 Note: Mr. Buyoya, a Hima, became Burundi’s President again in 1996. He received his military training in Europe and he is now a visiting fellow at Brown University in Rhode Island, U.S.A. The term “Hima” in this context, refers to a sub-group of Tutsi hailing from Southern Burundi.

7 Note: Shortly after Rwanda severed ties with France following the release of Judge Brugière’s arrest warrants, Chairman Rajab Hussein visited President Kagame at Village Urugwiro and told him, “I am here to assure the President of our government’s support at this time when relations (between Rwanda and France) are not good.” (“Burundi backs Rwanda on France,” Robert Mukombozi. The New Times. 30 November 2006.)

8 Note: In late August 2006, former Hutu President Domitien Ndayizeye was arrested by the Burundian Government and charged with plotting a coup that included a plan to assassinate President Nkurunziza, the Secret Service Chief, and several military officials. Some of the journalists and radio personalities who reported on his detention were accosted and thrown into jail on claims they were threatening public order. Suspected rebel leader Alain Mugabarabona said he was tortured by the Documentation Nationale (Burundi’s Presidential Guard and police force) and forced to implicate Mr. Ndayizeye in the plot. (“Burundi’s Ex-President? in Court,” BBC News. 25 August 2006.)The case took an interesting turn in late December 2006 when prosecutor Gaudence Ndayizeye said D. Ndayizeye and Mr. Mugabarabona met with General Laurent Nkundabatware, General James Kabarebe, and General Salim Saleh to plan the coup. He called the group the “Club of Kampala” and said their aim was to get a sympathetic rebel group in power (led by Mugabarabona) that would allow Burundi to be used as a rear base for General Nkundabatware to attack the Congo with the help of Rwanda and Uganda. (“Guerre à l’Est : Voici Comment est Aidé Nkunda pour Attaquer la RDC : Révélation sur un Réquisitoire,” DigitalCongo? 3.0. English Translation. 23 December 2006. http://www.digitalcongo.net/article/39809.) Rwandan military officials denounced the allegations as unfounded and baseless.Burundi’s Tutsi Minister of Defense General Germain Niyoyankana denied there was ever any coup plot and claimed the Army’s intelligence division had neither received nor observed any indications of such a plot. In the end, Mr. Ndayizeye, former Vice President Alphonse Marie Kadege, FAB officer Damien Ndarisigaranye, lawyer Isidore Ruyikri, and politician Deo Niyonzima were acquitted of all charges on 15 January 2007. Mr. Mugabarabona was sentenced to 20 years and Tharcisse Ndayishimiye, who admitted attending meetings with the accused, was sentenced to 15 years.

9 Note: The ICTR ruled they have no jurisdiction to try President Kagame and other RPF/RPA officials accused of committing crimes in 1994. The Rwandan Government has asked the International Court of Justice to overturn the warrant. In particular, General Charles Kayonga and General Jack (Jackson) Nkurunziza (Nziza) claim the warrant has restricted them to the point they can no longer carry on the duties their respective jobs require.

Burundi is geographically at the heart of Africa but, sadly, has also been at the heart of African horrors in recent years. Here is a country of wonderful landscapes, from mountaintops to forests, huge lakes to tropical plateau. Yet this topographical patchwork mirrors Burundis cultural patchwork, one which has interwoven both Hutu and Tutsi tribal strands, often with violent consequences.

The agricultural Hutu and Tutsi have occupied Burundi for many centuries. The society was never highly centralised and proved unable to withstand the advances of the Germans during the scramble for Africa in the 19th century. The country subsequently became part of German East Africa. Shuffled around yet again after 1919, Burundi and neighbouring Rwanda were administered by the Belgians. During this time, the Belgians unfortunately demarcated the Hutu and Tutsi tribes further, believing the Tutsis to be superior to the Hutus and bestowing on the Tutsis better jobs and status. When both Burundi and Rwanda gained independence in 1962, Burundi’s chronic instability worsened, sporadically flaring up into mass violence and the massacre of tens of thousands, especially in 1972 and 1988 although it has never reached the scale of neighbouring Rwanda, where the same ethnic split prevails.

Politically, Burundi has also been split by several coups. Three occurred between 1966 and1987. President Buyoya seemed to herald positive progression in 1992, with a change of constitution and the introduction of multiparty elections for a National Assembly. Against widespread expectation, the incumbent President Buyoya representing the main Tutsi party was peacefully displaced by Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu banker who headed the Front for Democracy in Burundi. In October 1993, another military coup was unsuccessful but claimed the life of President Ndadaye. In January 1994, another Hutu, Cyprien Ntaryamira, took over but had an equally short tenure; returning from an overseas trip with Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, he was killed in a plane crash. This was the incident that set off the genocide in Rwanda. Burundi narrowly avoided the same fate, although tensions between Tutsi and Hutu sharply increased and the civil war that followed claimed 300,000 lives in Nelson Mandelas words a slow burning genocide.

Burundis situation is improving. President Nkurunziza, democratically elected in 2005, is engaged in peace talks and has announced applauded measures, such as that of introducing free education. However, there is still a danger of indiscriminate attacks from rebel groups in Burundi. Until these incidents are fully quashed, many will miss out on seeing the beauty of Burundi for themselves. Amongst the debris of human nature at its most vicious, nature itself in Burundi remains gorgeous and tranquil.

To follow your heart, take a leap: A father’s commitment to Africa lives on in his daughter’s work for justice
By Makeda Crane ~makeda.crane@yahoo.com

(This article originally appeared in the Baltimore Sun in the Maryland closeup section, Sun, February 22, 2009)

On the weekend after Thanksgiving, I went home to Brooklyn, N.Y., to visit my father – the man whose height and stature always felt like a wall of protection between me and the world. As I sat beside his hospital bed in these last few months of his life, I had watched the body of this once robust, 6-foot-2, 240-pound man slowly transform into a wilted flower.

Now he was down to about 130 pounds. I whispered in his ear, “Daddy, do you remember me telling you that I’m going to the Congo”? He nodded back, but I wasn’t sure if it was a mere nod of recognition or true comprehension.

My personal connection to the Congo had been forged by my father, Ernest Crane. Born and raised in Harlem, he would often say, “I feel like a walking history book,” as he recalled the important moments he participated in and lived through: Jim Crow, the March on Washington, Vietnam, Watergate. He often credited “Mama Lilla,” his grandmother, with giving him a love of history. She would tell him bedtime stories of her parent’s lives as slaves – this was the root of his interest in his African ancestors.

It is no wonder that he was a lifelong student of liberation movements in America and abroad, and an avid reader of African history. Later, as a professor of psychology and African-American history, he taught students to value, study and honor their collective history.

I had never been to the Congo but had been transplanted there by my father’s accounts of its history. He spoke of the Congo as a beautiful, lush country that had been sought after, first by Portugal and Belgium, then by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. I recall him saying, “The Congo is one of the most underreported massacres in history, how can 6 million people die and the world stands by, in silence?” He spoke of the courage of Patrice Lumumba, a personal hero of his, who stood up against Belgian colonial rule.

I got closer to the Congo after watching a news program on which a guest spoke about the plight of the Congolese people. Later, flipping through the channels on my TV, I accidentally turned to a program about the systematic rape of women in Eastern Congo. I found myself drawn to stories about the area, and even though these were coincidences, there were too many for me to ignore the call.

I felt compelled to act and battled with myself about how – and if – I could make a difference from thousands of miles away. It was increasingly difficult to continue living the awful cliche of the sympathizing American who talks about the world’s suffering over a chai latte, but goes home and does nothing.
“As I met the eyes of an armed soldier, I felt my stomach drop.”

Instinctively, I realized the hidden message in my father’s words: “Makeda, always follow your heart.” It was his love of freedom and dignity that compelled me to ask 150 people for $33 so I could go to Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, as an independent journalist through Friends of the Congo [2], a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization.

My father passed away on Jan. 3, and two days later, I left for the Congo. As I crossed the border into Goma and met the eyes of an armed soldier, I felt my stomach drop, as if I were on a roller coaster that had just made a sharp plunge. The nearly 6 million people who had died in the 12 years of conflict seemed to loom over the dusty streets of Goma and its people.

At Goma’s main hospital, I looked into the pupils of a woman who represented the hundreds of thousands of women who had been systematically raped by foreign troops and Congolese militiamen; I sought evidence that she still had breath in her body. I felt a bond with her that surpassed sympathy; I knew her struggle was my own.

I listened like an empty vessel to a Congolese trader of coltan (a mineral vital to cell phones and other electronics) say, “The voice of a poor man doesn’t have any importance.” He spoke of U.S., Britain, Rwandan and Ugandan companies profiting from the unregulated mining and selling of Congo’s vast mineral deposits, and I wondered: How many Congolese lives had been sacrificed to produce the coltan in my cell phone?

At refugee camps, I witnessed the inadequate food rations dispensed to the refugees, while in the distance were vast green forests. When I asked children whose villages had been destroyed in the conflict how long they had been in the camps, many couldn’t recall living anywhere else.

As I walked through the last refugee camp on the line of conflict between Rwandan troops and Congolese rebels, I again felt the uneasiness that had accompanied my first steps onto Congo soil. I pulled out my father’s picture and looked at his smile, which assured me that I was protected.

Someone once told me: “People rarely take risks because they want to, but they take a leap of faith because of the persistent yearning that can only be resolved through action.” I knew this trip was the start of an intimate relationship with the Congo.

Paying the highest tribute to my father, I vowed that when I returned home I would talk and write about the Congo in as many public forums as possible. To advocate for the Congolese, I must teach friends, family and others that the deaths of millions is a global issue that cannot be ignored. And people must be told that the root cause of the conflict is not ethnic division between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, but control of the Congo’s natural resources.

I will continue to act on behalf of those who have been silenced, grabbing the torch that was given to me, and keeping my father’s legacy in front of me as a guide in creating my own.

Bosco ntaganda: Ituri and KIvu War Criminal

An arrest warrant for Ntaganda has been issued from the ICC prosecutor for crimes committed in Ituri, where he was the close contact of Thomas Lubanga, who is currently in detention in The Hague. Nkundabatware was never asked to hand Ntaganda over while Ntaganda still worked for him. It was when Ntaganda turned away from Nkundabatware – when he found himself alone and living under surveillance in Rwanda – that calls were placed to demand his arrest.

By Joachim Diana G.

Never before has such controversial data been used to exercise political pressure as in the case of Laurent Nkunda’s former second-in-command, Bosco Ntaganda. Although the U.S. does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Americans still hope to send Ntaganda, a lesser criminal than Nkunda, to the ICC.

Howard Wolpe is the special representative of U.S. President Barack Obama in the Great Lakes region of Africa. He is sojourning in this area, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Peace in this part of the continent is apparently of utmost interest to Barack Obama.

Members of the State Department have arrived in this region one after another, at an unusual pace. Howard Wolpe arrived in the DRC only three months after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit, which was widely covered in the media. The American adjunct secretary of state in charge of displaced persons also visited the region, including Kinshasa.

The American under-secretary of defense also came to the DRC during this period. It seems that practically every month American officials have visited the DRC.

What should be Expected from these Visits?

This pace is peculiar. What does it foreshadow? Hillary Clinton has become aware of the humanitarian disaster that eastern DRC has experienced. She even almost touched on the origin of the situation by stating that the estimated 5 million deaths during the last conflicts should not remain unpunished. She suggested the idea of a special tribunal for the DRC, an idea which has been acknowledged more than once in past years, but which has never been implemented. There have already been special tribunals in Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Yugoslavia; it is stunning that the DRC has not benefited from this type of jurisprudence.

We are surprised that the more than 5 million Congolese killed in armed conflict, and the aggression with which all the conventions of the U.N. Charter were violated do not preoccupy a world enamored with peace and justice. When the American secretary of state spoke loudly and strongly of it, we had reason to believe that, henceforth, the international community, and particularly the U.S., would change the lenses through which it views the Congolese situation.

Obama Risks Treading Well-Beaten Paths

We are surprised to note that the U.S. is poised to overlook Congo’s real problems in order to side with certain so-called international NGOs. These NGOs incorrectly predicted that peace in the DRC, particularly in the east of the country, would arrive with Ntaganda’s arrest and his transfer to The Hague. It seems that this is the American doctrine Obama’s special representative has come to repeat to Joseph Kabila. The United States now swears to only be targeting Ntaganda, the former chief of staff of the National Congress for People’s Defense (CNDP). The CNDP is the rebel movement that Laurent Nkundabatware directed in the east of the DRC.

Now, Kinshasa has never refused to collaborate with the ICC. The problem is that, as a sovereign state, it wants to be able to choose the timing of its collaboration, especially when facing matters of its survival, such as the security situation in the eastern DRC. What is the benefit in handing over Ntaganda if hostilities are renewed with even more force in the East? Certain warlords will use Ntaganda’s arrest as a pretext to unearth the battle-axe. Insistence by the U.S. to arrest Ntaganda does not take into account the security related interests of the DRC.

Although they may not want to believe it, certain NGOs know that Ntaganda is an important element to peace in this part of Congolese territory. Curiously, although the NGOs seem to believe very strongly in international justice, they have never pressured the U.S. to ratify the Rome Convention. Until the U.S. ratifies this treaty, it is not subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction.

The Reasons of the State

The fact that the U.S has not ratified the Rome Convention clearly means that there are situations that could prevent a state from fulfilling its duty to bringing about international justice. The situation in the DRC is one such example, as the arrest of one person wanted by the ICC can worsen the security problems for millions of Congolese.

The trial will have the same value, whether we judge him today or tomorrow. The trials of the Congolese who preceded Ntaganda in The Hague are only beginning. We are not saying that the ICC judges will be twiddling their thumbs, trying to keep themselves busy while waiting for Ntaganda. But this is why whoever does not understand Kabila’s concerns does not work in the interest of the Congolese.

As for problems, the Congolese have many of them. Today, whoever is inclined to help must use its aid to hunt the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). That is what Germany has just done. Large numbers of people, fleeing the blind violence of the FDLR, find themselves in displacement camps. Stopping the FDLR is more important than any type of humanitarian aid, as the only way to really help those displaced is to clear the way for a safe return to their respective villages.

The Debate on MONUC’s Retreat

At the moment, if the DRC wants to once again launch the debate on a problem as serious as the retreat of the Mission of the United Nations Organization in the DRC (MONUC), Kinshasa needs to be saved from certain lies. Among these lies, is the idea that Joseph Kabila no longer supports the presence of MONUC. This is not the truth. It is not because Kabila no longer supports MONUC that it will leave, but rather because MONUC must leave that Kabila wants to talk about it.

The 50th anniversary of the DRC’s independence has nothing to do with the retreat of MONUC. The country has celebrated more than one independence anniversary without feeling disturbed by MONUC’s presence, as it has been in the Congo since 1999.

That Kinshasa wishes to engage in debate about the retreat of MONUC should not be surprising. What is rather surprising is that many are stunned that we are speaking of MONUC’s retreat. Does that mean there are people who thought MONUC would never leave this country? Never have the Congolese leaders given the impression that they felt as if they were students under supervision.

Nevertheless, that is the idea certain NGOs have. We want those who really want to help the DRC to join the debate about the retreat of MONUC. They need to speak up against the agitated cries of those who cannot see the DRC without MONUC. This group of people see the situation in the DRC in the frame of “no war, no work” and are acting in their own self-interest, rather than that of the Congolese.
Translated By Claire Lauterbach

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead.

As Human Rights Day approaches, as I delve deeper and deeper into readings and articles and theories on failures and triumphs in failed states and become more unsure about what the solution is, I think about tourism to these countries.

Tourism can spark an economy, that much we know for sure. But in a country with militias, rebel forces, corrupt governments, do we really want to contribute to the economy? The continued purchasing of tin and gold from DR Congo has funded the FDLR (Hutu militia) for some time since those areas rich in tin and gold are controlled by rebel groups. So, no, we don’t want to fund the conflict. No one wants to fund genocide.

On the other hand, however, Suu Kyi, the opposition leader in Burma has long opposed tourism to the country, hoping that a boycott of the country will force the government to change their ways. She’s recently dropped this opposition (given that tourism is run through private organizations and not the government), stating that tourism might help. Might help open the eyes of the world to the oppression citizens are subjected to by the military junta.

So, what’s the solution? Read? Know where you’re going and who’s pockets you’re fattening. Then, enjoy, I suppose. And let your experiences change you, for the better. Because, idealistic as it may be, I do believe that one person can change the world and that every single person should try.

This motivates me, hopefully it will do the same for you:

xo

J. Justine

Through DNA testing, I learned that my Y-DNA haplotype is E1b1a/M2 (formerly known as E3a).

Y-DNA, or Y-chromosome DNA, is patrilineal (male-lineage).

After I took my mtDNA test, I followed up with a Y-DNA test.  Once again, the process was as follows: I used the same DNA company as with my mtDNA test. There are numerous ones to choose from (Family Tree DNA, National Genographic, etc.). I contacted my older brother to take the test, because females cannot take the Y-DNA test. After hounding me about the reasoning for having him take the test, he agreed. I paid for the test and he received the package that contained testing materials. He swabbed the inside of his mouth and returned the testing materials to the DNA company.

Weeks later, I/we had our results =). Though I shared the results with him, I took on the job of analyzing those results.

My haplogroup E1b1a/M2 is approximately 30,000 years old, and descends from the paternal father clade PN2/P2. PN2/E is an African clade and approx 35k years old. PN2 is also the father of M35 (approx. 22,000 years old) and M78 (approx. 17,000 years old) (Source: Cruciani et al., p. 1018, 2004). E1b1b (formerly E3b) falls from the branch of M35, which The Jewish Virtual Library attributes as a major founding lineage among Ashkenazi Jews.

In a study that presented frequencies of haplogroups J and E among various groups, including both Ashkenazi and Sephardic populations, researchers found 14 out of 77 Ashkenazim (18.2%) were E3b, while 12 out of 40 Sephardim were E3b (30%) (Semino et al. 2004).

“The Y-chromosome clade defined by the PN2 transtion (PN2/M35, PN2/M2) shatters the boundaries of the phenotypically defined races” (Source: Keita, 2004, p. S18-19).

 M78 gave birth to V12 and V13, both found in populations in Greece and Italy.

M2 is found at high frequencies in West Africa. M2 is found in approximately 58-60% of African Americans as well.

M2 can be found among 8.4% of Sephardic Jews.  (Source: “Hisory in the Interpretation of the Patten of p49a, f RFLP Y-Chromosome Variation in Egypt: A Consideration of Multiple Lines of Evidence TaqI” Keita, 2005)

M2 is found at 80% among the Tutsis of Eastern Central Africa who are thought to be originally eastern Ethiopians or Egyptian/Nile Valley people. Tutsis are said to be related to Jews. Tutsis are 100% of African origin. (Source)

M2 is one of the three prevalent groups among the Nubians: M2, M35, and M78.

In a study of the three common variants in Egypt, M2 was found at 67% (Source: “Hisory in the Interpretation of the Patten of p49a, f RFLP Y-Chromosome Variation in Egypt: A Consideration of Multiple Lines of Evidence TaqI” Keita, 2005).

Bantu Migration Map

 (Source)

“The Bantu expansion was a millennia-long series of migrations of speakers of the original proto-Bantu language group. This group is hypothesized to have originated from modern day Cameroon. A diffusion of language and knowledge spread among neighbouring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage spread to new areas and communities. The expansion is taken to have begun after the introduction of agriculture, which would indicate a date of ca. 3000-2500 BC for the early expansion within West Africa, followed by first eastwards and southwards migrations beyond West Africa from about 1500 to 1000 BC.” (Source)

“Haplotype IV has substantial frequencies in upper Egypt and Nubia, greater than VI and VII. Sometimes haplotype IV is seen as being associated with “Bantu expansion” but this does not mean that it is not much older. Bantu languages were never spoken in these regions or Senegal, where M2 is greater than 90% in some studies. (Keita, 2004, p. 229).

*M2 is represented by Haplotype IV* 

Senegal is represented by the Western Atlantic family group of the Niger-Congo (A) language family.

The Igbo language of Nigeria falls into the West Benue-Congo family group of the Niger-Congo (A) language family.

“Haplotypes XI and IV, called ‘‘southern,’’ with IV labeled ‘‘sub-Saharan,’’ have their lowest frequencies in lower (northern) Egypt, but increase in upper (southern) Egypt and lower Nubia.” (Source: Keita, 2005).

“Early Afro-Asiatic Speakers, along with those of Nilo-Saharan, were likely drawn into the Sahara which was less arid in the late pleistocene in the early holocene after the last glacial maximum.” (Source: Keita, 2004)

“Haplotype IV, designating the M2 subclade as noted is found in high frequency in West, Central and sub-equatorial Africa in speakers of Niger-Congo — which may have a special relationship with Nilo-Saharan — spoken by Nubians.” (Source: Keita, 2004).

The Afro-Asiatic Language groups consists of Chadic, Egpytian, Berber, Omotic, Cushitic, and Semitic languages.

“The Nilo-Saharan languages are African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers (hence the term “Nilo-”), including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of Nile meet. The languages extend through 17 nations in the northern half of Africa: from Algeria and Mali in the northwest; to Benin, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the south; and Sudan to Tanzania in the east (excluding the Horn of Africa). The largest part of its major subfamilies are found in the modern nation of Sudan, through which the Nile River flows in all its incarnations: the White and Blue Nile, which join to form the main Nile at Khartoum. As seen in the hyphenated name (compare map at right), Nilo-Saharan is primarily a family of the African interior, including the greater Nile basin and its tributaries as well as the central Sahara desert.” (Source)

“Recently Roger Blench has proposed that Niger-Congo is simply a branch of Nilo-Saharan, most closely related to the Central Sudanic family of Nilo-Saharan in the centre of the African continent. If this view is correct, Niger-Congo would have originated farther east than is us ually assumed, perhaps to the northwest of the present-day central Sudan. The Congo family, in Sudan, is assumed to have moved eastwards. The other families of Niger-Congo presumably were gradually compressed into West Africa as a result of the desiccation of the Sahara. As Western Africa became more crowded, Adamawa-Ubangi and Bantu expanded southwards into central Africa and later, in the case of Bantu, into eastern and southern Africa….Two relatively small families, Dogon and Ijoid, are thought to have split off next. Dogon with little internal differentiation, remained on land, south of the bend in the Niger, while Ijoid, with somewhat more internal differentiation into Defaka and the Ijo group, moved down the Niger to its confluence with the Benue and then either directly along the Niger or via the Benue and Cross River to the Niger Delta and associated waterways where it is found today….” (Source)

“So-called Saharo-Sudanese or Aqualithic speakers are found from Nile to Niger rivers in the Sahara and Sahel, and south into Kenya.” (Source: Keita, 2004).

*Hausas who reside mainly in northern Nigeria  speak Hausa, which is a Chadic language from the Afro-Asiatic language family.

My family

Igbo man and my father circa 1970s

Hausa-Fulani Girl

Wolof (Senegal) Griot

Genevieve Nnaji (Igbo)

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Igbo)

Somali Woman

Lemar Obika (Igbo)

In vorkolonialer Zeit gab es in Ruanda und Burundi ein Nebeneinander der Gruppen der Tutsi, Hutu und Twa, deren Sozialstruktur sich in dieser Rangfolge über den sozialen Status ergab. Während die Tutsi überwiegend Viehzüchter waren und die Twa als Jäger und Sammler lebten, betrieben die Hutus vornehmlich Landwirtschaft und stellten die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung. Eine vertikale Durchlässigkeit zwischen den sozialen Gruppen war gegeben; beispielsweise durch den Erwerb von Vieh war sozialer Aufstieg möglich. Alle drei Gruppen sprechen Kinyarwanda.

Erst während der Kolonialherrschaft Deutschlands (bis 1916) und des Völkerbundsmandats Belgiens (ab 1923) über Ruanda entstand eine ethnische Bedeutung der Zugehörigkeit von Menschen zu den Gruppen der Hutu, Tutsi oder Twa. Die Einteilung in Ethnien und das Bilden einer herrschenden Volksgruppe als Oberschicht dienten den Kolonialherren zur Organisation der Kolonialverwaltung im Sinne der von Deutschen und Belgiern praktizierten indirekten Herrschaft. 1934 galt als ein Kriterium für die Zuordnung zu den Hutu oft der Besitz von unter zehn Rindern. Häufig legten die Behörden die Zugehörigkeit zu einer Gruppe auch nach dem Aussehen der Menschen fest.

Im damals vorherrschenden rassistischen Denkmodell wurden die ethnischen Gruppen auch anhand ihrer Phänotypologie unterschieden, wobei diese hier auf die bereits bestehenden sozialen Gruppen übertragen wurden. Die sozial untergeordneten Hutu wurden als negride, „unterwürfige Rasse“ klassifiziert, die Tutsi als überlegene „Rasse mit natürlichen Herrscherqualitäten“. Als Legitimation wurden die Tutsis gemäß der Hamitentheorie als hamitisch-semitische und damit als europide Rasse eingeordnet, deren Herrschaftsanspruch sich daraus ergebe.

Diesem Denkmodell folgend wurden Tutsi seit Beginn der Kolonisation von den Machthabern in Schlüsselpositionen eingesetzt und gefördert. Nach dem Ende der Kolonialherrschaft wurden jedoch die Bevölkerungsmehrheit der Hutu zur herrschenden Gruppe. Diese historische Entwicklung ist eine der mittelbaren Ursachen für ethnische Konflikte in beispielsweise Ruanda, der Demokratischen Republik Kongo und Burundi.

Der Konflikt zwischen Hutu und Tutsi führte 1994 zum Völkermord in Ruanda einschließlich des Massakers von Nyarubuye.

(Quelle: Wikipedia)

The Mounties have arrested a 37-year-old Rwandan man in southwestern Ontario and charged him with war crimes related to the 1994 genocide in his home country.

Investigators picked up Jacques Mungwarere, who’s been living in Windsor, Ont., late Friday in the city and took him to Ottawa, where he made a brief court appearance Saturday and was remanded in custody until another court date on Thursday.

Mungwarere becomes the second person to be charged with genocide under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which became law in October 2000.

But the case, which has been more than six years in the making, is shrouded in secrecy.

The RCMP war crimes unit would only confirm that Mungwarere was accused of committing an act of genocide in the area of Kibuye, Rwanda.

The community is the capital of a western province and is situated on a lake that borders Rwanda and the Congo. It was the scene in 1994 of a horrific massacre where at least 2,000 Tutsis died when bulldozers knocked down the church where they had sought refuge.

RCMP cagey about details

RCMP Sgt. Marc Menard refused to go into details about the allegations against Mungwarere, saying that prosecutors in the Justice Department will have to answer specifics.

Officials with the Justice Department were not immediately available to comment.

“The RCMP’s position is that we take this very seriously,” Menard said Saturday.

“We’re committed to prosecuting these cases to the full extent of law, and we’re going to hold those involved in these types of crimes accountable for their actions.”

Nearly 800,000 members of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered during the 100-day Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Last May, Desire Munyaneza became the first person ever convicted under the War Crimes Act. A Quebec judge sentenced him to life in prison last month, with no chance of parole for 25 years.

In a statement, the RCMP’s war crimes section said the investigation involving Mungwarere began in February 2003 after the unit received a complaint from a concerned citizen. But Menard couldn’t say whether the tip originated in Canada or elsewhere.

How Mungwarere came to be in Canada and what his status might be in the immigration system is unclear.

Menard said the Canada Border Services Agency would have to answer that, and officials there were not immediately available for comment.

“I can only say that he is a Rwandan national,” he said in an interview.

A local mixed media artist group I participate in created torsos representing different countries where women survive war.  We auctioned off these torsos October 30th at Art on Boston in Chandler, AZ.  We raised almost $1000 for Women for Women International, a group that counsels and trains women survivors of war.

The highlight of the evening was hearing the story of Rose Mapendo, a Congolese survivor who spent 16 months in a death camp.  If you all remember the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, this same genocide moved to the Congo where Rose witnessed the murder of her husband and she and her children were nearly killed, all for being Tutsi.

Rose Mapendo now represents Mapendo International, a group that relocates war refugees.   Currently  living in the greater Phoenix area, Rose’s story was well described in Phoenix Magazine by journalist Joshua Schoonover.  Click here to read Rose’s story.  Rose is a remarkable, kind and gentle woman and I have been blessed to meet her.

I will be getting back to traditional design blogging…”Designing a Mindful Life” is not only about great design, but I believe also about designing an honorable life for yourself.  If you are able to contribute in any way to these organizations that I support, or organizations that touch your own heart, you are designing  your own mindful life that becomes larger than your daily activities.

En septiembre pasado, un investigador de la ONU denunció que el ejército congoleño había asesinado a refugiados y violado a mujeres en el campamento de Shalio en Kivu Norte.

La Misión de las Naciones Unidas en la República Democrática del Congo retiró su apoyo al ejército de ese país africano tras acusar a los soldados de asesinar de manera deliberada a 62 civiles entre mayo y septiembre pasados.

Alain Le Roy, jefe de la MONUC, aseguró tener información de que el ejército “claramente había disparado sus armas” contra los civiles en el este de la República Democrática del Congo (ex Zaire), según reportes radiales procedentes de Kinshasha, capital de ese país.

“Hemos decidido que MONUC suspenda inmediatamente su apoyo logístico y operativo a las unidades del ejército congoleño implicadas en estos asesinatos”, dijo Le Roy a Radio Okapi, radiodifusora que tiene el apoyo de las Naciones Unidas (ONU).

Tras un recorrido por la región, Le Roy precisó que los asesinatos ocurrieron alrededor de la aldea de Lukweti, a unos 100 kilómetros al noroeste de Goma, la capital de la provincia de Kivu Norte.

La misión de la ONU ha brindado apoyo operativo a las fuerzas del presidente Joseph Kabila contra los rebeldes hutus ruandeses de las Fuerzas Democráticas de Liberación de Ruanda, pese a las protestas de grupos de derechos humanos sobre los abusos de los soldados.

Activistas de derechos humanos han denunciado en repetidas ocasiones que civiles hutus están siendo asesinados por el ejército congoleño en el oriente de la RDC y han acusado a la ONU de no hacer algo para impedir los asesinatos.

Grupos de derechos humanos calculan que más de mil civiles han sido asesinados, más de siete mil mujeres y niñas violadas por rebeldes y soldados y más de 90 mil personas obligadas a dejar sus casas desde que la RDC lanzó en enero pasado una ofensiva en el oriente del país.

En septiembre pasado, un investigador de la ONU denunció que el ejército congoleño había asesinado a refugiados y violado a mujeres en el campamento de Shalio en Kivu Norte.

Los rebeldes hutus huyeron hacia el área en 1994 después de ser acusados de tomar parte en el genocidio de Ruanda y de haber estado peleando desde entonces contra la población local tutsi y contra las tropas del gobierno.

Fuente: Milenio

Al Jazeera English - A Rwandan man charged with crimes against humanity has been jailed for life under a Canadian law allowing people in the North American nation to be tried for crimes committed abroad.

Desire Munyaneza, the first person to be convicted under the war-crimes act, was sentenced on Thursday after a court found him guilty in May of seven charges relating to the Rwandan genocide.

The charges included genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

During the genocide in 1994, at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu extremists known as the Interahamwe in a spate of killings that lasted 100 days.

No parole

Munyaneza, a 42-year-old Hutu denied refugee status in September 2000, will not be eligible for parole for 25 years. He has since lost several appeals.

Richard Perras, the defence lawyer, argued last month that the sentence should be closer to 20 years and said his client would appeal the conviction.

Munyaneza was living in Toronto and was arrested in October 2005 after reports surfaced that he had been seen in Canada’s Rwandan community.

African Rights, a Rwandan group that has documented the genocide, linked Munyaneza to prominent figures indicted by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

About 66 witnesses testified in Montreal during the trial, often behind closed doors to protect their identities.

Many accused Munyaneza, who was 27 at the time, of being a ground-level leader in a militia group that raped and murdered dozens.

Bruce Broomhall, of the Canadian Centre for International Justice, said on Thursday: “He is the Hutu commercial elite of a fairly large community in Rwanda, who saw in the genocide a kind of opportunity to promote himself and to be prominent in his community.”

The sentencing was closely followed by a number of Rwandan-Canadian’s who had endured the genocide.

‘Rwandans happy’

Emmanuel Muhawenimena, who said he lost 70 family members in the genocide, said the result would be felt around the world.

“So many Rwandans in Montreal, across Canada, all over the world, they are happy today,” he said.

Jean-Paul Nyilinkwaya, a Rwandan who lives in Montreal and whose father was killed in the genocide, said he hoped Thursday would just be the beginning.

“This should be a sign that, you know, it can work and it is positive. So, you know, we hope the Canadian government can forge ahead and bring everybody to justice” he said.

Nyilinkwaya, who was instrumental in Munyaneza’s capture in Canada, said the sentence allows victims to believe humanity still exists.

Paul Kagame is responsible for the death of Rwandans,Congolese and Ugandans in Millions

Athough the U.S. has been successful in preventing Kagame’s crew from being indicted at the ICTR, other courts have indicted Kagame and members of his retinue. In late 2007, French Judge Bruguiere indicted the assassins of Habyarimana and personally recommended to Kofi Annan that Kagame be prosecuted by the ICTR.[22] And, in February 2008 Spanish Judge Merelles issued a 180-page indictment specifically charging Kagame with: Genocide; War Crimes; Crimes Against Humanity; including the massacres of more than 300,000 civilians.

The Ruhengeri city attack of January 23 1991:

The RPF staged a night attack on the city of Ruhengeri, resulting in heavy civilian casualties and heavy property damage. The RPF opened the gates of Ruhengeri prison, freeing many prisoners and enrolling them as fighters. The RPF also engaged in heavy looting activity in the city, and a reported 400 people were forced out of their homes to help carry the loot. These 400 civilians were all killed afterwards, along with another 100 civilians around the city as the RPF retreated back into the volcano forest. (Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Rwanda, L’Histoire? Secrete, 2005, p. 132)

The Butaro massacre of May 199

At Rusasa in the commune of Butaro, in the province of Ruhengeri, the RPF attacked displaced people on a small island in the swamps of Rugezi, destroying their shelters and killing their goats and sheep. 150 people were reportedly killed in this attack. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

The notorious Ruhengeri and Byumba massacre of February 8, 1993:

The RPF staged a major attack in several communes of the Provinces of Ruhengeri and Byumba, killing many people and inflicting heavy damage on state and privately-owned property. During this attack, the RPF killed a total of 24,400 people in Ruhengeri, and of15,800 in Byumba. (James K. Gasana, Rwanda: du parti-Etat a l’Etat garnison, 2002, p. 185)

The political assassination of May 18, 1993:

The RPF is reported to have killed Emmanuel Gapyisi, a prominent political leader from the south and vice president of the MDR party. He was one of the most clear-minded and respected leaders of the MDR party. His killing removed a powerful RPF opponent because Gapyisi was very critical of RPF violent methods and practices. But this also was an extremely reckless crime capable of plunging the country into widespread violence between southerners and northerners especially if the former came to believe the latter had killed their man. Gapyisi’s killing was among the first in a wave of assassinations nationwide targeting Hutu political leaders, including businessmen, mayors, parliamentarians, and leading up to the assassination of Gatabazi, Bucyana, and finally President Habyarimana. An investigation is needed to clear the mystery of these assassinations once and for all.

Other crimes and terrorist acts:

Throughout the year of 1993, Rwanda experienced a major spike in acts of armed banditry, grenade attacks and mini-bus taxi explosions in several parts of the country. According to several credible witnesses, among them former RPF officer Lieutenant Abdul Rizibiza now in exile in Norway, the acts were the work of infiltrated RPF hit squad members and spy operatives all belonging to the “RPF Network”, who were assigned to spreading violence and insecurity, thus rendering the country ungovernable in a bid to overthrow the government and seize power by force. (Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza, March 14, 2004)

IV. RPF CRIMES FROM JANUARY 1,1995 TO NOVEMBER 8, 2006

RPF War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and Crimes of Genocide (January 1,1995 – Present: November 8, 2006):

The gruesome Kibeho massacre of April 17-23, 1995:

An estimated 4000 internally displaced people were reported killed on the orders of Major General Paul Kagame when army units collectively fired on the Kibeho camp that was estimated to shelter about 100,000 people, indiscriminately killing unarmed men, women, children, and many elderly. Paul Kagame, then vice president and minister of defense, reportedly had established his local operations headquarters in nearby Butare to closely supervise the siege and dismantling of the Kibeho camp. It took one full night of non-stop body disposal by truck towards the Nyungwe forest for mass incineration (many areas of the site were cordoned off for supposed “security and military reasons”) before the RPF allowed journalists, independent observers and UN monitors, to access the site. (Paul Jordan, Witness to Genocide – A Personal Account of the 1995 Kibeho Massacre, 1998; Abdul J. Ruzibiza, Rwanda, L’Histoire? Secrete, 2005)

This was a well-publicized massacre brazenly carried out by the RPF government, in the presence of the UN military contingent from Zambia and officials from NGO’s assisting these refugees, and many pictures of which were taken and made public. The simple question, then, is why hasn’t there been any independent inquiry so that the perpetrators can be officially identified and punished?

The deadliest year of 1996:

The year of the infamous mass murder of refugees in Zaïre (currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and forced deportation of refugees: The RPA army carried out perhaps the most brutal and genocidal campaign in modern history by attacking the sprawling refugee camps in Goma and Bukavu in Zaïre, home to an estimated 1 to 2 million Rwandan refugees. There is little doubt that among these refugees were those who had participated in the mass killings inside Rwanda 2 years before. But the RPA army put the guilty and the innocent in the same bag, and indiscriminately fired on the camps and crowds of unarmed fleeing refugees, especially women, children and the elderly who were the weakest and unable to run fast, hunting down many of them like beasts deep into the tropical Zairian forest all the way to Tingi Tingi and Mbandaka. By all accounts, it is estimated this whole operation claimed the lives of 400,000 Rwandan refugees. While this operation was underway, the RPA army undertook one of the biggest deportation campaigns ever, by forcibly (i.e. against their will) airlifting an estimated 700,000 refugees back to their respective original communes in Rwanda. Then the RPF started a long-running criminal process of killing these returnees, as a result of which about 50% of the returnees are not living today. These horrific crimes, both in Zaïre and in Rwanda, were executed with orders received from their leaders. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living; Marie Beatrice Umutesi, Fuir ou Mourir au Zaire: Le vécu d’une réfugiée Rwandaise, 2000)

The International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development (CIDPDD), in teaming with the African Association for the Defense of Human Rights in DRC (ASADHO), concluded that “It appears pertinently that the Rwandan government can be held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide” in their document entitled “Report of inquiry by the international non-government commission on human rights violations in DRC (former Zaire) 1996-1998”, 1998, p.78.

The slaughter of the Nyarutovu wedding, January 18-19 1997:

In the night of January 18-19, 1997, the RPF attacked and killed each and every one of the guests, including the bride and groom and their parents, at a civil wedding in the home of Major Laurent Bizabarimana in Nyarutovu in the northern province of Ruhengeri. 50 peoplewere collectively slaughtered that night. Major Laurent Bizabarimana and his family had recently returned from Zaire during the massive forced deportation by the RPF, and became victims of a brutal RPF nationwide campaign inside Rwanda to eliminate “genocidaire elements” from among these returnees. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

The horrors of the Nyakinama Cave, October 23-28, 1997:

RPA soldiers are reported to have pursued and killed8,000 unarmed civilians, especially women, children and the elderly who were too weak to run who had sought refuge in the cave of Nyakinama, in the commune of Kanama, to escape indiscriminate shootings and bombings by the RPA in the area. RPA soldiers reacted by lobbing grenades and other explosives into the cave, then went on to seal off the entrance of the cave with rocks and gravel so no one would be able to come out. ( Amnesty International, The dead can no longer be counted, report, December 1997)

The Hutu Christmas massacre of Kayonza, December 23 25 1998:

In the evening hours of December 23, 1998, a passenger on a mini-bus taxi from Kigali got off near Nyagatare, and suddenly fired a gun into the air before running off into the hills of near-by Ngarama. The next day, people woke up to road blocks at Kayonza and Musha, and to military security sweep operations in the surrounding communes of Ngarama, Muvumba, Murambi, Kayonza, and Bicumbi. All taxis to and from Kigali were stopped and carefully screened for Hutus, who were ordered out before the taxis were allowed to resume their journey. These Hutus were then all executed using guns or used up hoes, then loaded up onto trucks and shipped to humming incineration centers in the Mutara region, with the ashes later dispersed into the Akagara National Park. An estimated 5,000 innocent civilians, including the cousin of one witness, perished in this macabre 2-day operation. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

The brutal reprisal campaigns against Abacengezi (1997-2000) and the ethnic cleansing of the Mutara region (1995 and after):

From 1997 to around 2000, the RPF faced an increased number of cross-border raids from Zaire into Rwanda carried out by remnants of the previous army who called themselves “Abacengezi” (or inroad specialists). Each time they attacked, the RPA army responded by unleashing a brutal reprisal campaign targeting the civilian population, especially in the northwestern provinces of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi, in order to break the will of the insurgents, many of whom originated from these provinces. More than 50,000 people were killed in many communes of these 2 provinces from 1997 to 2000. In the meantime, the RPF returned to the Mutara region in the northeast and started where it had left off in cleansing the area of all ethnic Hutus. The RPF decimated native Hutus, as well as other Hutus who had immigrated into this once under-populated area from other parts of the country in search of land and new jobs during the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s. The Mutara region is now the new all-Tutsi land of Rwanda, complete with farms and cattle ranches for the Tutsi herders. There have been reports that these ranching activities, in search of grazing pasture, have led to severe encroachments into the adjacent Akagera National Park, destroying the ecosystem of the area and the natural habitat of many wild animals. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

V. OTHER ALLEGED RPF CRIMES

The crime of denying people their right to seek medical treatment overseas: Since taking power in July 1994, theRPF has put in place a criminal policy of systematic non-issuance of medical treatment exit visas for people it wants to punish for multiple reasons. These are mostly people who have voiced their criticism of the government or the army, or are perceived to be in the political opposition, etc. One of the most glaring cases is that of Father Andre Sibomana,former Editor of the independent newspaper“Kinyamateka”, and a former interim Bishop of the Diocese of Kabgayi after the assassination of Bishop Thaddee Nsengiyumva in June 1994. He was a staunch social justice advocate and human rights activist known for his editorials denouncing the excesses of the RPF regime. He was never allowed to seek expert medical treatment overseas, and succumbed to his illness in Kabgayi at the young age of 43 on March 7, 1998. Dr. Jean Bagiramenshi, a veterinarian who worked for the government and later consulted for the World Bank, was another victim of this policy. He suffered from multiple ailments, including kidney malfunction and gout, and may have had liver problems as well. He was prevented several times from seeking medical treatment out of Rwanda on his own money, and by the time he was allowed to leave, it was too late. He died in Belgium in 2005.Investigations must be carried out to determine how many people have fallen victim to this criminal policy.(Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

RPF death squads on the trail of opponents inside and outside Rwanda:

On May 5, 1998, former Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga was assassinated in Nairobi, Kenya; on October 6, 1996, Colonel Theoneste Lizinde and businessman Augustin Bugirimfura were assassinated in Nairobi, Kenya; in the night of February 14-15, 1999, former CEO of Rwanda African Continental Bank (BACAR) Pasteur Musabe was assassinated in Yaounde, Cameroon. Inside Rwanda, former Council of State presidentVincent Nsanzabaganwa was assassinated on February 14, 1997; former presidential advisor Assiel Kabera was gunned down on March 5, 2000; on April 7, 2003, parliamentarian Leonard Hitimana was assassinated, and no inquiry has been conducted. Two weeks later on April 23, 2003, Colonel Augustin Cyiza was abducted and killed.Edouard Mutsinzi, former editor of “Le Messager” newspaper in Kigali, was abducted and beaten up, with his ribs broken, his eyes taken out, and his brain damaged so bad that he lives in a vegetative state in Belgium. All the victims were either critics of the government or potential compromising witnesses in possession of top state secrets. These crimes and many others were reported to have been committed by RPF death squad members assigned to do the dirty work against RPF opponents in different world capitals. They must be investigated, and their perpetrators brought to justice.

The cruel and inhumane use of prisoners in de-mining operations: The RPF has been reported sending hundreds to Hutu prisoners to their immediate death by forcing them to run in areas where landmines are suspected of having been planted by the ousted army, especially in the Bugesera region. These allegations must be fully investigated and prosecuted. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

The cruel and inhumane treatment and exploitation of Rwandan prisoners in the Congo war for the profit of President Paul Kagame:

During the Congo war and the occupation of Eastern DRC by the RPA, reports abounded about Rwandan prisoners being sent to die at the forefront of a brutal war of occupation and exploitation of the DRC. There were also numerous reports that hundreds, maybe thousands, of Rwandan prisoners were sent to RPA-occupied areas of the Congo to work as forced labor in the digging of minerals, especially Coltan, gold and diamonds, for the top brass members of the RPA army, starting with President Paul Kagame himself. This was a flagrant violation of international laws governing prisoners and a despicable trampling of human dignity. A full investigation and prosecution of these crimes is warranted. (Testimony provided by witnesses, still living)

VI. FINAL OBSERVATIONS

When this RPF crime compendium is released, I expect the RPF government to hit back with blanket accusations, without any proof, that I am a “revisionist and a negationist of the Rwandan genocide”, and that “I harbor an ideology of genocide and divisionism”. The international community must take a very close and careful look at such character assassination, and in many cases outright persecution, of all real and perceived contrary opinion holders and political opponents, social justice advocates and human rights critics in Rwanda by the RPF government, and find a proper way to address it.

The present compendium was conceived as an effort to document most reported and under-reported crimes by the RPF organization as a predominantly Tutsi rebel group and government with a view to bring to light its apparent share of responsibility in the whole Rwandan tragedy. Even though it places a premium on seemingly forgotten Hutu casualties, this document did not and does not intend to belittle Tutsi and Twa casualties of the Rwandan genocide. All sons and daughters of Rwanda, as well as foreigners who perished in this tragedy were a terrible loss to humanity and must be equally mourned and remembered, regardless of their ethnicity. We need to know with certainty who massacred the Bagogwe Tutsi sub-clan of Gisenyi in 1991 and 1992. We need to know with certainty who butchered the Banyamulenge Tutsis and Bagobwe Tutis sheltered at Mudende camps in August, November, and December 1997. We need to know with certainty who killed the American, British, Australian and New Zealand tourists at Bwindi National Park in Uganda in 1999. Who killed the Spanish volunteers in Rwanda in 1997 and in Congo in the following years? Who abducted, mutilated and killed former Rwandan cabinet minister Juvenal Uwiringiyimana before dumping his body in a Brussels canal in December 2005? Was he or not a victim of the RPF death squad in Europe as widely suspected? The overall goal of this document is to lift the cloud of mystery and secrecy hanging over the Rwandan tragedy. It is to fight impunity and help bring equitable justice to Rwanda: whoever killed a Tutsi must pay, whoever killed a Hutu must pay, whoever killed a Twa must pay, and whoever killed a foreigner must pay.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is now widely believed to be behind the shooting down of the aircraft carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana on that fateful night of April 6, 1994. In that capacity, he is the suspected triggerman of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the architect of the genocide after 1994. Kagame outright denies these allegations. But a better way to refute the charges and clear his name once and for all is to allow an independent investigation to look into these crimes. Of course Kagame will never request such an independent investigation, because he knows he is guilty. That’s why we ask the UN to mandate the ITCR to investigate these tragedies not covered by the current mandate.

The provinces of Byumba and Ruhengeri did not experience the wave of genocidal killings that engulfed the rest of the country in April 1994, because they were already under RPF control. Yet, the vast majority of families currently living in these regions (about 80% of all inhabitants of these areas) are made up of widows and orphans, who tell stories of their husbands and fathers having been killed by the RPF. International non-government organizations (NGO’s) have been prohibited by the RPF government to go into these areas and assist these widow-run families to move ahead, and to mend the traditional family nucleus and the social fabric which have been completely shattered. Families in these areas with a member in the previous government army have been especially targeted and hit the hardest by the RPF. The simple question is this: why has the international community remained blind in the face of such blatant brutalization of human life? From 1990 to 1994, a reported 400,000 people have died in these areas. Who killed them?

Reports have circulated that many extremist RPF members in Kigali and other cities had large caches of weapons in their residences, and had dug up very deep pits in their backyards a few months before the genocide. What was the purpose of these weapons and pits? There have been reports that in the ceasefire months leading up to April 1994, many RPF youths received extensive fire arms training in the CND parliament building housing the RPF battalion, and at the RPF headquarters in Mulindi. Also, it is no secret that while the ruling MRND party had the Interahamwe militia, the MDR party had the JDR (Democratic Republican Youth) militia, and the PSD party had the Abakombozi militia, the RPF had a youth militia of its own that inflicted as much damage as the other militias. An independent inquiry of these facts is needed, and witnesses are available to testify openly.

The killings in Rwanda in 1994 were called genocide. Today, the killings in Darfur are being denounced as genocide. The killings in Zaire from 1996 to 2001, which took the lives of more than 4 million innocent lives, were called just that: killings. Where is the logic? Some of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have been punished, and from all indications the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide will be punished, since the setting up of an International Criminal Tribunal for Darfur is already in the works. That’s all good. But when are we going to have the International Criminal Tribunal for Congo? When will the perpetrators of the Zairian killings be punished? Never mind calling the Zairian killings genocide, can their perpetrators at least be punished? There are countries which do not have a total of 4 million inhabitants. That’s a lot of people to kill and live freely ever after. We all know beyond a doubt that the RPF committed these killings. You, the international community, can you tell us who you hold responsible for these wholesale massacres? For the same crimes, there must be the same punishments.

More than 50% of current inmates in Rwanda have no official criminal charges against them, but continue to be kept in jail and out of active life. The government keeps the inmates on meagre meals that must be supplemented with additional food rations from their families, or they will die from hunger – when they do not succumb to torture so rampant under different forms inside official prisons throughout the country and inside hidden unofficial torture centers. In most cases, women, including those educated, cannot keep a paying job because they need 2 to 3 hours per day to go feed their husbands in jail. No employer will agree to so much time off every day. This means that for the 100,000 married men in prison, there are 100,000 women not working, or a total of 200,000 people not actively contributing to the economy. With an average of 4 children per Rwandan household, that’s a total of 400,000 children nationwide that lack parental guidance and money to attend school. And all of a sudden, the grim picture of the legacy of the RPF regime comes into full focus: the pauperization and illiterate-ization of an entire generation of Rwandans. If this is not slow genocide, then genocide does not exist. Truthfully, there are 5 main factors of genocide: bad leadership, bad media, impunity, poverty, and lack of education. Today, all these 5 genocide factors are in place in Rwanda. The height of injustice in Rwanda can be summed up this way: manyinnocent Hutu civilians are in jail, while all criminal RPF elements are free. Where is the UN while all of this is happening? There cannot be any possible reconciliation in any nation where one part of the population is having a field day at the expense of the other part of the population on its knees.

Joseph Matata, a Rwandan human rights advocate who heads the Brussels-based “Center against Impunity and Injustice in Rwanda”, has reported that about 100 ex-FAR military officers are jailed at the Kibungo military prison since April 1999. An additional 37 or so ex-FAR military officers remain unaccounted for, while many other former comrades have been summarily executed Report of April 14, 1999.The “official” political parties in Rwanda today function under the umbrella of the so-called “Forum of Parties” where the RPF is sole master. In view of all this, the question is this: Does the Arusha Peace Agreement of August 1993, painfully reached between the then-RPF rebels and the then-government, and which called for a merger of the 2 fighting armies and free political activity in Rwanda, have any relevance left?

Contrary to RPF claims, there is no peace in Rwanda. That explains why far too many Rwandans continue to flee overseas and are easily granted asylee or refugee status. How long is the RPF going to use genocide as a pretext to stifle democracy and entrench one of the most predatory dictatorships ever? Political opposition is completely muzzled. How long will the people of Rwanda continue to die a slow death? Former President Pasteur Bizimungu and his collaborators, such as Charles Ntakirutinka, are rotting in jail for having started a political party. In fact, in Rwanda there is no shortage of political prisoners, prisoners of opinion, prisoners of hate, prisoners of race, etc., and Colonel Stanislas Biseruka, reporter Dominique Makeri, and Colonel Patrick Karegeya are only a handful in a long list. You, the ICTR, whose original mandate was to reconcile the Rwandan people among other things, what is going to be your legacy for Rwanda when your time expires?

The recent brutal killing of many businessmen among them Fulgence Nsengiyumva of Gitarama, aged 49, by the RPF government army on August 6, 2006 must be condemned vehemently. His wife is being persecuted for reclaiming the confiscated truck that belonged to him, and their 5 innocent children will be traumatized for the rest of their lives. The recent arrest, search and strip of old women in an open market place by RPF police in broad day light as a way to humiliate and force all old and barefoot women to never set foot in a market place again, is abhorrent and must be condemned vehemently. The on-going campaign to ban bicycles and motorcycles from cities, especially Kigali, as well as the on-going campaign to raze all banana plantations, is an act of economic depredation on the Rwandan population by its RPF government and will result in the starvation of the masses. It must be condemned vehemently. The on-going campaign to expel from Kigali city all the poor, all AIDS orphans, all war widows and war invalids, is criminal. It all started with a seemingly simple desire to take the poor away from the city, then the campaign targeted the bare-foot crowd, then those wearing sandals and slippers, then the pedestrians, then the bicyclists, and finally the motorcyclists. Who is it going to be next? There is clearly a pattern of criminal exclusion that must be condemned. In reality, this whole campaign is an empty attempt by RPF rulers to project to visitors and donors the deceptive impression that Kigali in particular, and Rwanda in general, are well-managed to deserve more financial aid. Chasing all these poor people away from the city without addressing the root cause of their misery is a window dressing, whitened-sepulcher, or sweep-under-the-rug type of approach to development, and it obviously can’t help any poor Rwandan. It can’t fool any foreign donor country either. So the simple question to the United Nations is this: why are the people of Rwanda being so toyed with, persecuted and killed by their own government in this fashion and nothing is being done about it?

Finally, what is Presidential Immunity? It seems to mean that someone can kill all the people he or she wants, and not worry about any consequences as long as he or she is president of a given country! We are in the 21st century, and humanity sure can come up with better laws.

VII. GENERAL CONCLUSION:

The above list of RPF crimes is by no means exhaustive. There are reports of countless RPF crimes before 1994, in 1994, and after 1994 that could not be compiled in this document. For example, in the small eastern town of Muhura as the RPF marched onto Kigali in the Spring of 1994, General Paul Kagame himself is reported not only having given direct orders to fire on crowds of wandering displaced people, but also having personally sprayed bullets into these crowds with his own machine gun. An investigation of this massacre is needed, and witnesses are available to tell the story.

Currently, there is a general, state-sponsored crime being perpetrated by the RPF government against an entire segment of the Rwandan population, specifically Hutus, through the infamous Gacaca Courts. The RPF government is attempting to incriminate the biggest number of Rwandans possible by officially labeling them “killers” or “genocidaires”, thus ostracizing them from public life and creating a caste of second class citizens or “untouchables”. Gacaca trials are an age-old, small-courts-type Rwandan tradition designed to settle only misdemeanors, such as stealing a cow, a goat, or chickens, and minor land disputes between neighbors. By its nature, a Gacaca trial does not require judges and jurors to have law school training and degrees, only common sense. Conversely, the crime of genocide is so grave by nature that it cannot be tried in a Gacaca court, with semi-literate judges and jurors, and with no legal defense, without being diminished and debased.

The justice system in place wants detainees to admit to the crime of killing if they want to be freed. Then, they head to a local Gacaca court where they not only must confess (and explain) their crimes but also reveal and denounce other killers. Anything short of this is a half-confession and not acceptable, and the suspect must go back to jail. In other cases, witnesses are produced from the woodwork to incriminate suspects for crimes they never committed. Very clearly, there is an attempt here on the part of the RPF government to humiliate and exterminate an entire people.
Paul Kagame is the living satan of the great lakes. As long as this butcher is free, the dead will continue to demand for Justice.

JE ME SOUVIENS, nous y étions pour quelques années, car outre la mutation de mon père, mes bronches n’appréciaient pas à sa juste valeur le climat tempéré qui baigne l’Europe, et que “là-bas” est à 1000 mètres d’altitude et pile en dessous du soleil.

L’arrivée et le voyage ainsi que la raison du départ, ce sont mes parents qui me l’ont racontés.

Par contre, je me souviens de cette route en asphalte, unique trait noir au milieu d’une ville aux artères, couleur terre battue de Roland Garros, les lignes en moins et la poussière en plus, les femmes déambulant d’un bord et de l’autre, droites comme des i, des régimes de bananes ou des bidons d’eau collés sur la tête.
Je me souviens des caméléons et de leurs yeux globuleux que l’on prenait délicatement, les déplaçant d’une feuille verte à une branche noire, puis d’une branche noire à un canna rouge puis retour à nos petits bras roses. Pour les transformer en arc-en-ciel. Je me souviens que cette technique empirique et scientifique mise au point avec ma sœur se révéla un échec. En tout cas …

Je me souviens d’un serpent sous la niche du chien, de la panique dans le jardin. Du crocodile mort au milieu de la pelouse qui avait été capturé et occis par un Je ne sais qui, lui, attirant le monde.
Je me souviens de ce buffle, seul et solitaire, au milieu de la piste, martelant du sabot désignant l’interdiction de passage à une coccinelle blanche. La nôtre. Des girafes, des crocodiles, des hippopotames, honorant leur nom, marchant au fond dans cette eau limpide bordée de joncs… de l’ envol des grues cendrées… De la mouche tsé-tsé, (terreur du guide), des singes (terreurs de ma mère)…

Au lever du jour, je me souviens des éléphants, au point d’eau et du goût du jus d’orange qui y est associé à jamais. (On a chacun sa madeleine. Proust avait raison).

Je ne me souviens pas du Kilimandjaro pointant son nez hors des brumes parce que je trouvais plus intéressant de plonger le mien dans une bande dessinée. Un comics plus comique qu’un volcan éteint.

Je me souviens de cette savane désertée par des lions, qu’en fait, on n’a jamais vus. Personne ne s’en souvient, donc.
Je me souviens, aussi, tous les soirs, il faisait noir, de la même manière. D’une noirceur obscure, dense et évidemment très sombre. Je me souviens de Nairobi ou de Kampala, je ne sais plus laquelle des deux, éclairée de mille feux. Ce jour-là, j’ai compris qu’une ville pouvait être drapée de lampadaires…

Je me souviens de cette jetée en bois, aux planches parallèles brûlées par l’équateur d’où je me suis jeté à l’eau. Dans ce Kivu, aux eaux noires comme de l’encre, je me souviens de mes premières brasses, sans bouées, ni flotteurs, le souffle court.

Je me souviens d’Eugène et je me demande s’il reconnaîtrait mon frère, né là-bas, un beau jour de juillet.
Je me souviens de son visage empli de gentillesse, une banane minuscule dans son immense main. Je me demande si…Il est encore de ce monde. Si… Il était Hutu ou Tutsi.

Je me souviens du retour dans cet avion …

Et puis? J’ai grandi. N’est-ce pas ce que l’on attend d’un enfant ? J’ai grandi avec cette dette de cœur. Immense.

“Je me souviens”

Il nous suffit d’une journée passée et d’être rendu au lendemain pour avoir le droit d’emprunter l’expression… Je me souviens que nul n’a bougé pendant les événements. Que c’était un génocide. Que nous, qui savions, tous, mieux que quiconque… On l’avait promis… Une fois de plus. Que le général Dallaire, (c’est lui qui le dit) a serré la Main du Diable.
Je me souviens que de ce pays aux milles collines, où loge Kigali, est planté au milieu de l’Afrique comme une plantation de bananes…On ne fait guère attention à une plantation de bananes.
Je me souviens que, comme chaque fois, on rapatrie à grands renforts de C130, couleur  camouflage, les ressortissants étrangers, nous les Occidentaux, et puis…on s’en va, tout en se lavant les mains, et puis… on ose et on revient, le sentiment de gêne passé.
Je me souviens que peu importe ce qu’il arrive sur ce continent, le sort de l’Afrique n’intéresse pas Grand Monde, les grandes puissances. Que nous sommes accrochés à nos réflexes post colonialistes ou à défaut ceux de cette supériorité. Oui, le racisme non-dit est latent et existe encore.

On s’en souvient moins car on le sait moins, le gouvernement conservateur et son ministre Harper (car loin de s’en vanter) ferment une à une les ambassades en Afrique… laissant ainsi les organisations et les compagnies canadiennes livrées à elles-mêmes sans support diplomatique auquel elles ont droit, obligées d’œuvrer dans un désœuvrement logistique administratif. Ce qui a fait dire à Jean Chrétien de passage à Paris et honoré par la Reine à Londres : « En Afrique aussi, la voix du Canada est beaucoup moins forte. On a fermé les ambassades. A Ottawa, dans la rue, je rencontre des ambassadeurs de pays qui ont encore des ambassades au Canada alors qu’on n’en a plus dans leur pays. C’est un peu gênant, non?” a-t-il souligné. (1)

En 2004, il nous faut nous souvenir que le Parlement a adopté un projet de loi (connu sous le nom d’Engagement de Jean Chrétien envers l’Afrique) créant le « Régime canadien d’accès aux médicaments » (RCAM).
Je me souviens que son objectif était d’aider à fournir des médicaments aux malades de pays en développement pour des besoins de santé publique. Pour le VIH/sida, la tuberculose, le paludisme et d’autres maladies épidémiques…
Je me souviens que la loi du RCAM a été adoptée par le Parlement canadien avec l’appui de tous les partis politiques et qu’elle est entrée en vigueur en mai 2005. Depuis son adoption, il y a plus de cinq ans, le RCAM n’a été utilisé qu’une seule fois pour une seule livraison d’un seul médicament antisida, au seul Rwanda, si je ne me trompe pas. Dans sa forme actuelle, il est peu probable que le RCAM soit utilisé à nouveau en raison des exigences de procédures qu’il impose aux pays en développement et aux fabricants de médicaments génériques. Pendant ce temps, des gens meurent tous les jours.

Il faudrait se souvenir aussi que pire encore, dans un examen complété en 2007 Ottawa, a conclu sans cynisme qu’il “s’est écoulé trop peu de temps et que les données accumulées depuis l’entrée en vigueur sont insuffisantes pour justifier des modifications législatives au Régime”. Le RCAM a été créé il y a près de cinq ans. Depuis, une seule licence a été demandée, et octroyée; cela n’a conduit qu’à l’envoi d’un lot correspondant à une seule commande d’un médicament, à un seul pays. Cette percée a eu lieu seulement après des années de pressions faites par des ONG et des militants impliqués, grâce à l’engagement d’un fabricant générique, et en présence de soutien et d’encouragement considérables au palier local, au Rwanda.(2)
Les produits génériques leur sont toujours quasiment inaccessibles.

Heureusement, en Belgique les choses paraissent plus simples. Pour une fois. Les conflits linguistiques ou autres BHV n’empêchent pas les initiatives, il faudra s’en souvenir.
Une PME belge, à Courcelles a développé un médicament antipaludéen. Les phases de développement ont duré deux ans et demi. L’antipaludéen ainsi développé, le Trimalarex a reçu récemment l’agrégation de l’Agence fédérale des médicaments et des produits de santé. En clair, cette autorisation va permettre l’exportation du médicament vers l’Afrique, l’Asie ou  l’Amérique latine où le paludisme sévit à grande échelle. (Le paludisme tue un enfant toutes les 30 secondes en Afrique.)
Au point de vue financier, cette commercialisation permettra à cette PME de toucher quelques premiers cents pour la recherche et tout le travail qu’il s’en suivit, qu’elle a assumée seule, sur ses fonds propres.
Les responsables de Propharex n’envisagent pas, du moins ouvertement, de gagner des sommes énormes sur le dos des malades du paludisme. Selon eux, l’idée serait davantage de permettre de produire localement l’antipaludéen, nous dit le journaliste de l’Avenir. (3) Et Pfizer ici ?

Nous ne sommes pas tous, comme le général Dallaire. Face à une impasse.

J’ai une immense dette de cœur.
Jamais je ne pourrais leur rendre ce qu’ils m’ont donné.

Et de mon point de vue, nous, les pays occidents, nous avons plus qu’une dette de cœur. Nous sommes face à des cas de conscience.
Jamais les pays développés ne pourront leur rendre ce qu’ils y ont pris. Excusez l’euphémisme. Les médicaments génériques contre le sida, contre… seraient déjà un premier geste. Un deuxième, revoir leurs dettes, car un tiers du budget est consacré à l’apurement de la dette, a ainsi été souligné par le ministre ivoirien des Finances, Charles Koffi Dybi.

Et pourquoi pas …

Alors, j’essaie par ces lignes d’attirer l’attention, demandez à votre député, demandez-lui de poser la question aux Communes, à notre premier ministre, la raison des fermetures des ambassades du Canada en Afrique. Et la RCAM?
Le Québec et moi n’avons pas les mêmes souvenirs.

Je me souviens est une devise, je l’entends qui appelle notre conscience collective. L’Afrique, toute l’Afrique, a besoin d’un avenir et non de souvenirs.
Car les leurs, avouons-le, ne sont pas les miens.

Thierry De Greef

________________________________________________

Source :

(1) LCN & Presse Canadienne

http://an.capacadie.com/canada/2009/10/19/jean-chretien-deplore-le-recul-du-canada-sur-la-scene-internationale

(2) Réseau juridique canadien VIH/sida – rectifier le régime d’accès aux médicaments (RCAM)
http://www.aidslaw.ca/publications

(3)L’avenir-actu.be-publié le 19 septembre 2009 :

http://www.actu24.be/article/courcelles_6180_un_generique_pour_lafrique/343661.aspx

Well, obviously enough, I’m deciding not only to review new movies, but a variety of them, old and new. Great old films need to be revisited from time to time. I mean, I’m a new film student. There are tons of films I haven’t seen, and I imagine that’s the way it is with a lot of people my age. So in addition to just reviewing it, obviously some historical significance will be discussed and other such things. I just became a member of Netflix, so every DVD that gets shipped to me will be reviewed on here. The one I received and watched yesterday, Hotel Rwanda, is the subject of this post.

Also, for future reference, I’ll probably just review a bunch of movies on here, attempting to go fairly in-depth into them. It’s much less of a review in the sense of pure recommendations for seeing it or not seeing it, but more like a foundation for a discussion. I look into the movie, utilize my knowledge that I’m obtaining in school, and try and provide some thoughts about the movie. What better way to help me learn about film than by watching? I’ll do my best to see one new movie a day (though there might be days wherein I haven’t the free time, so I’ll make up for it somehow), and try even harder to go see a new one in theaters at least once a week.

Alright. You should know the context of me re-watching this movie. I saw it early in high school, I believe. I can’t remember exactly when, but that’s not important. Basically, I couldn’t really appreciate the rich and deep themes of the film. It was a well told story to me, and that was it. It really sucked to be Don Cheadle’s character. That was my initial impression of the film. However, now that I’ve attended some college and started to emerge from the bonds of adolescence, I’m more able to appreciate this film for what it is: a great commentary on imperialism and war.

See, some people might say that this movie demonizes the Hutu and sympathizes with the Tutsi. I would agree, to an extent, but it does so because of the nature of the main character. There’s no doubting that the Hutu could and would be pretty vicious and downright evil at times. Now, just because the Hutu are portrayed as evil doesn’t mean that the Tutsi are automatically good. Sure, they end up being a huge help in the end, but they are indeed involved in the war. In my humble opinion, if you’re involved in a war, regardless of the arguable necessity of it at times, there is some evil in you. You’re taking part in the killing of other humans, something I think most people would agree is a bad thing. It can make sense, like if your country is being invaded, but that doesn’t automatically negate the negativity of killing other people. This movie definitely demonizes the Hutu more, considering it portrays them as the main bad guy, and they’re the majority being incredibly discriminatory toward the minority.

But ultimately, I think it’s just stating that regardless of the reason, war is bad. Killing people is bad. Being mean is bad. Being nice is good. Not killing is good. So on and so forth.

If you think about it, however, the movie really shows how imperialism screwed up Rwanda. The Belgians create this false division in the Rwandan society, and everything goes through extra hell when they leave. They’re the true bad guys in this movie.

Anyway, these sorts of historical themes are things I can appreciate now. Moving on to another huge theme in the movie: the U.N.

People have told me, “Lefty, the moral of this movie is that the U.N. is freakin’ worthless,” usually with more colorful language. However, my argument is that the U.N. isn’t necessarily worthless, just that it needs the support of its members, like any group. You have the peacekeepers, who are far too outnumbered to even think about keeping the peace. Member nations of the U.N. are unwilling to support the U.N. and by extension, support Rwanda. It’s as the cameraman said, they’ll hear the news, think it’s terrible, then go right back to eating their dinners.

On the subject of the movie itself, it’s well made. Good acting on all fronts (of course we can expect that from Don Cheadle, really). It really is an acting movie. It’s not as if the cinematography, editing, etc. weren’t good, it’s just that the acting and writing really steals the show. It’s definitely a must see, but be prepared to cry. I did so multiple times. But I want to know what you think. How do you feel about the film? Do you agree or disagree with me, and why? I’d love to hear your input in the comments section below.

This won’t be a trend, I promise, I’ll go into more technical aspects of movies when I find one where it’s really worth doing so. I mean, Where the Wild Things Are looked and felt great, but everyone was already raving about that. Just looking at the trailer makes you realize that’s the case. It’s the story that’s completely stolen the show in both reviews so far, and I apologize for those of you with an interest in it.

Also, I’ll try and do my reviews a bit closer to when I actually see the movie as to capture more of that immediate reaction to them.

Le président du Rwanda, Paul Kagame, salue le programme d’investissements de la Chine en Afrique. Il critique, en revanche, l’aide occidentale qui “n’a pas fait avancer” le continent.

“Nos ressources ont été exploitées et ont servi à d’autres. Des sociétés occidentales ont pollué l’Afrique à grande échelle et elles continuent à le faire”, déplore Paul Kagame dans un entretien au quotidien économique “Handelsblatt”, à paraître lundi.

En revanche, “les Chinois apportent ce dont l’Afrique à besoin: des investissements et de l’argent pour les gouvernements et les entreprises. La Chine investit dans l’infrastructure, construit des routes”, estime-t-il aussi.

Le président rwandais reconnaît encore “que les Européens posent davantage de questions, notamment sur les droits de l’homme”. Mais “cela a-t-il contribué au développement de l’Afrique?”, demande-t-il.

“Je préfèrerais que le monde occidental investisse au lieu de fournir de l’aide au développement”, dit-il. “L’aide est nécessaire mais elle doit être employée de sorte à faciliter le commerce et à créer des entreprises”, ajoute-t-il.

Il suggère que les pays industrialisés garantissent à l’Afrique les mêmes droits commerciaux qu’ils s’accordent entre eux.

Depuis son lancement en 2006, le fonds de développement chinois pour l’Afrique a investi 400 millions de dollars sur le continent africain.
romandie

Nous connaissons tous la triste histoire du Rwanda, je veux dire par la que ce n’est pas étonnant que ce soit des rwandais qui affirme cela.

Je suis tout de même un peu perplexe sur le rôle ” bénéfique ” de la Chine en Afrique.En même temps après le pillage sans partage des ressources du continent noir pendant 3 siècles, le simple fait de construire des routes et autres infrastructures change tout.

En même temps que dire quand on lit ” Je préfèrerais que le monde occidental investisse au lieu de fournir de l’aide au développement”, dit-il. “L’aide est nécessaire mais elle doit être employée de sorte à faciliter le commerce et à créer des entreprises “.

Bien entendu les médias occidentaux, non content de ne pas faire une auto critique sur les méfaits de la colonisation, attaquent les chinois et leurs pratiques du commerce.
Nous sommes des mauvais perdant.

En gros, nous nous sommes fait damer le pion par les chinois et voila que nous critiquons ce que nous avons fait pendant des siècles.

Les chinois font ce que nous avons fait au début de la colonisation, ils construisent des routes , des chemins de fers, des ports mais ne soyons pas naifs, c’est pour mieux sortir du continent les minerais et autres ressources que ces travaux sont réalisés.

Pauvres africains, espèrons tout de même que les chinois seront moins malsains que nous.

800,000 Rwandans murdered in only 100 days.  If only Rwanda was filled with diamonds and oil.  Either one of those resources would have caught the attention of the US.

Murambi Genocide Memorial Site

This project is centered on the main building in Murambi, a school that has been left vacated since the genocide in 1994. The school classrooms where over eight hundred corpses have been preserved have been left untouched. After the genocide, as mass graves were being discovered around the city, it was decided that a single monument/ burial place should be created, where the victims could be laid to rest with dignity.

"In a barn-like building at the far end of the complex, coarse blue rope has been strung across a cavernous space. Bloodstained clothes have been draped over the rope."

On the ground floor on the main building new walls were constructed to create a space that allowed for the design of the exhibition and burial place. The open hall on the ground floor of the main building now has a pathway, which leads visitors first to an exhibition describing the context of the genocide, then into the burial rooms. The burial rooms allow some of the preserved human remains to be viewed, while at the same time they are also buried with some dignity. Some of the survivors of the genocide have been trained as guides at the centre.

Before beginning my educational endeavor into Rwandan history I had great love and respect for the US.  After learning about the US and UN’s atrocious behavior  I am ashamed and disgusted to have ever respected such a petty, inhumane nation (don’t even get me started on the French).  I have never been a fan of Human Rights, nor the UN.  Why is the United Nations still around?  What good have they actually done?  I see the mass genocide in Rwanda as a direct failure of UN intervention.  What is the UN there for if not to intervene when people are being murdered because of their so-called “race”?  A Beligium-created racial difference that resulted in over a million deaths.  I do not understand.  It takes money, wealth and resources (OIL) to get the worlds attention.  I am taking down the Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations.  The West – you have failed again.

On the other hand…

Special shout-out to Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire – Force Commander of the UN units in Rwanda in 1994.  He might just be the Greatest Canadian EVER.  Making him more awesome: the Honourable Romeo Dallaire is now a Liberal Senator from Quebec.  Two things I personally love: Quebec for its poutine and the Liberal’s for the sharing.  Seriously, this man is a hero and the small group of UN Peacekeepers that were allowed to stay in Rwanda are just as kick-ass.

If you thought Hotel Rwanda was sad then check out Sometimes in April.  Hotel Rwanda is baby food in comparison.

The drama is set in two periods, which unfold concurrently: In April 1994, after the Hutu Army begins a systematic slaughter of Tutsis and more moderate Hutus, Augustin and a fellow Army officer named Xavier, defying their leadership, attempt to get their wives and children to safety. Separated from his wife Jeanne and their two sons (whom he entrusts to the care of his reluctant brother), Augustin gets caught in a desperate struggle to survive. Barely escaping the purge, he’s haunted by questions about what happened to his wife, sons and daughter (who was a student at a local boarding school). In 2004, looking for closure and hoping to start a new life with his girlfriend Martine (who taught at his daughter’s school), Augustin visits the United Nations Tribunal in Arusha, where Honoré awaits trial for the incendiary role he and other journalists played in the genocide. In the end, through an emotional meeting with Honoré, Augustin learns the details of his family’s fate, giving him closure and, perhaps, hope for happiness in the future.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

The UN is no “friend” to any nation anymore.

Le secrétaire général de l’ONU, Ban Ki-moon, a salué le transfert par le gouvernement congolais d’une figure du génocide rwandais, Grégoire Ndahimana, au tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda – TPIR -. Grégoire Ndahimana, rwandais et figure emblématique des forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda  – FDLR – , a été arrêté dans l’est de la république démocratique du Congo par l’armée congolaise le 10 août 2009. Grégoire Ndahimana figurait parmi les 13 fugitifs inculpés par le TPIR pour avoir commis des violations graves du droit international humanitaire au Rwanda en 1994. Son arrestation et son transfert le 20 septembre 2009 au TPIR ont été facilités par la mission de l’organisation des Nations Unies en république démocratique du Congo – MONUC -, à la demande des autorités congolaises.Grégoire Ndahimana est l’ancien maire de Kivuma, au Rwanda, où la plupart des 6.000 habitants Tutsis ont été massacrés pendant le génocide en 1994. Il a été inculpé par le TPIR pour génocide, notamment pour avoir orchestré avec le prêtre catholique Athanase Seromba le massacre de près de 2.000 Tutsis réfugiés dans une église, qui a été rasée au bulldozer.

Päähäni ei mahdu Porvoon oikeudenkäynti ruandalaismiehen syytteistä. Kigalissa tai Nairobissa käräjöidä pitäisi.

Muistelen, että EU maat ovat sopineet, että brittiläisen oikeusmallin Kenia hoitaisi EU maissa asuvien syytettyjen oikeudenkäynnit. Kenian Afrikka tuntemus ensinnäkin on suomalaisia parempi. Ei pidä luulla, että porvoolaislaamannille kukaan tutsi tai hutu aidon oikeasti mitään kertoisi. Lienevät ruandalaiset ihmetelleet suomalaisia syyttäjiä ja puolustajia heidän kävellessään Kigalin päällystämättömiä katuja. Toivottavasti etenkin naiset älyävät peittää raajansa ahnailta katseilta. Afrikassa vallitsevat vielä ikävän pitkään Afrikan lait. Kerran kävellessäni Zimbabwen Hararen katuja ajattelin, että pitkä matka kaikkeen kehitykseen. Ruanda on entistä Rhodesiaa vieläkin kehittymättömämpi. Suomi tietty kalleimman mukaan itse haluaa käräjöidä. Itkettää ja naurattaa, kun Vantaan poliisit yrittävät virittää maamme mallin mukaiset teknilliset laitteet syvälle Afrikkaan. Internet yhteydet tietenkään eivät toimineet toivotusti.

Kenties ymmärtäisin virkamiesten halua matkustaa yli 6000km päähän, jos Ruandassa samalla voisi oikeusoppineemme lomaillakin, mutta kun ei. Lomailla siellä ei tohdi. Hienoa olisikin kotimaan kustantama lomamatka ilman syytteitä korruptiosta. Kuvittelen, että makaavat vatsataudissa muutenkin. Verorahoja voi käyttää hyväksi, jos töiden jälkeen privaatisti lentää vaikkapa Safarille tai Mombasaan, kun kerran verorahoin lähellä ollaan. Säästyi itseltä mannerten ylitysten hinta?

Kaikessa maistuu järjetön verorahojemme tuhlaus.