RPA mass murder: from DRC, UN should go to Nyungwe

RPA mass murder: from DRC, UN should go to Nyungwe

A leaked draft UN report named; ‘Mapping exercise’ about a possible hutu genocide in DRC accuses Kagame’s regime of killing millions of Hutu who had flocked to the life-size Central African country. Indeed, it has been described as genocide, rightly so, because, the alleged killers well knew they were exterminating a particular section of people, as it was with killing of Tutsis in Rwanda.
As usual, Rwanda tried, though with no success to block the report by using the usual tool; blackmailing the UN over its failure to stop the Tutsi genocide. In foreign affairs Minister, Louise Mushikiwabo’s letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on 05 August, she asks him to help, but does not forget to cite the infamous blackmail of how the UN failed to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
After failing to stop it (the report), in a press statement reacting to the report from Kigali, the foreign affairs ministry came up with another blackmail: that the timing of the report was aimed at concealing their shame and complacency after the scandalous crimes committed by FDLR before the UN’s MONUC in DRC.
Well, I’m not a fan of the UN system; theirs has been an abysmal failure in most of their missions to say the least, but, we have to look at UN failures and Kigali’s alleged crimes, each on a separate sheet. None can justify the other. The UN’s failure to stop the genocide and its current failures and un-doings in DRC are a shame, but, they can in no way justify the almost evident (even before any investigation) crimes committed by the Kagame regime, 20 years past. The UN talks about the genocide by Kagame’s force in DRC, but, before that, there has been pressure on ICTR to try RPF soldiers who committed crimes during the 1990-1994 ‘liberation’ war. Or better still, the failures of the UN do not give the RPF/A permit to commit crimes and later clamour for immunity from scrutiny and accountability.
The kind of blackmail being persistently advanced by the Kigali regime and its officials in a bid to evade prosecution for crimes whose testimonies are all well documented is unacceptable especially, for a country whose rhetorical propaganda is awash with words such as; accountability, justice…
One thing is clear though. Questions about Rwanda’s misdeeds in DRC were always going to come at some time, and they have been coming over time and are still coming.
So, Kigali must take responsibility and stop the kind of cheap blackmail employed every time their deeds are exposed as this seems just the beginning.
For example, recently, Rwanda’s former External Security Director, general Patrick Karegeya revealed that President Paul Kagame ordered the killing of politicians Theoneste Lizinde and Seth Sendashonga in Nairobi, Kenya. He further revealed that several mysterious assassinations of Kagame’s political opponents were carried out during the period he was still in position to follow what was going on.’
Notable among those are the killings of people like; Maj. Alex Ruzindana, who was killed and burnt in Nyungwe forest, according to a testimony given by a close relative, who is also a former RDF soldier. Nyungwe forest has been the Department of Military Intelligence (DMI’s) killing ground since 1994. The likes of Col. Augustine Cyiza, MP Leonard  Hitimana, all former critics of Kagame, who disappeared mysteriously, were burnt to ashes there in Nyungwe. No official investigations were ever made about their disappearances.
Also, during the recently-concluded elections’ campaigns that were characterized by irregularities, two prominent politicians who were critical of government and a journalist were killed with one of the politicians, Andre Rwisereka, decapitated.
Those are the high-profile ones, but, thousands disappeared at the time and the Nyungwe factor always arose. So, do we need independent investigations about such killings? Certainly yes, and one day I have a feeling they will take place.
That is why, after the DRC Mapping, the ‘Nyungwe mapping’ exercise is a necessity. I hope, Kigali would allow investigators and witnesses access the forest, so, the investigations are not later rubbished through propaganda orchestrated by state machinery.
Like I mentioned earlier, I am not a fan of the UN but given Rwanda’s rights track record, it should spare itself the infamy and embarrassment of comparing, or even questioning UN’s investigations and methodology.
This is because all people of good conscience both in Rwanda and elsewhere know that the Kigali institutions can never be more reliable than the UN organs that foreign affairs minister Louise Mushikiwabo is criticizing and trying to blackmail.
That she was even recently overheard trying to convince people that Kigali’s institutions (which are well known for serving Kagame’s interest without question) should be trusted to make investigations into the political murders in Rwanda is laughable, to say the least.
Honourable Minister, give us a break.