In April 1995 members of the Australian Defence Force Medical Support Force, a component of the Australian Contingent of the United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda (UNAMIR) were deployed to the Kibeho displaced persons’ camp. The camp had been surrounded by two battalions of Tutsi troops from the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), which regarded it as a sanctuary for Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. In the ethnic slaughter that followed, the RPA killed some 4000 of the camp’s inhabitants. The following article is an edited version of an eyewitness account of the massacre at Kibeho.

It was 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday, 18 April 1995, when 32 members of the Australian Medical Force (AMF) serving in Rwanda received orders to mount a mercy mission. Their task was to provide medical assistance to people who were being forced to leave what was then the largest displaced persons’ camp in Rwanda. This camp was situated some five hours west of the capital city of Kigali, close to the town of Kibeho, and was estimated to hold up to 100,000 displaced persons. I was a member of that Australian force deployed to Kibeho, which comprised two infantry sections, a medical section and a signals section. We left Kigali around 3.00 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 April, travelling through Butare and on to Gikongoro, where the Zambian Army’s UNAMIR contingent had established its headquarters. We arrived at Zambian headquarters at around 7.30a.m. and established a base area before continuing on to the displaced persons’ camp at Kibeho, arriving around 9.30 a.m. The camp resembled a ghost town. We had been told that the RPA intended to clear the camp that morning and our first thought was that this had already occurred — we had arrived too late.

Map depicting events
1. Woman surrendered then executed in cold blood
2. Ambulance closely grazed by two bullets shot at lone displaced person
3. ZAMBATT (Zambian Battalion) latrines — displaced persons found hiding inside
4. Triage area — machete victims — Saturday am 22.4.95
5. Highest ground in immediate area
6. RPA screening and processing — displaced persons’ exit point for general evacuation
7. Beginning RPA accommodation
8. Our entry point each day and RPA roadblock
9. Recoilless rifle set up am 24·4·95

General information
• Map drawn 1500 hrs 28·4·95 Tpr JGS Church 
• Distance from church eastern side to RAP far western side = 1000m 
• Distance as seen extreme north to south 600m 
• Whole area dotted with lean-tos and grass bivouacs 
• All buildings and roads are on high ground 
• The valleys either side are quite deep—up to 80 m at 45° angle

As we moved through the camp, we saw evidence that it had been cleared very quickly. The place was littered with the displaced persons’ belongings, left behind in the sudden panic of movement. It wasn’t until we moved deep into the camp that we found them, thousands of frightened people who had been herded closely together like sheep, huddled along a ridgeline that ran through the camp. The RPA had used gunfire to gather and drive these people into a close concentration. In the frenzy of sudden crowd movement, ten children had been trampled to death. As we drove closer, the huge crowd parted before us and people began to clap and cheer: they obviously expected a great deal more from us than we could offer.

We set about the task of establishing a casualty clearing post and, after being moved on twice by RPA soldiers exercising their arbitrary authority, eventually negotiated a position just beyond the documentation area. We spent the day there and saw only one casualty, a UN soldier. We left the camp that day dogged by the frustrating sense of not being needed.

The next day, Thursday 19 April, we arrived at the camp at 8.30a.m. and moved through to what was designated the ‘Charlie Company’ compound, situated in the middle of the camp. Zambian troops on duty in the compound requested medical treatment for a woman who had given birth the previous night, as they thought that she ‘still had another baby inside her’. We arranged for the woman to be medically evacuated by air to Kigali, where it was discovered that she was suffering from a swollen bladder. We set up the casualty clearing post once again at the documentation point and, this time, went out to search for casualties.

RPA troops would frequently resort to firing their weapons into the air in an effort to control the crowd. At around 1.00 p.m., we heard sporadic fire, but could find no casualties. As the day wore on, tension mounted between the displaced persons and the RPA troops. We left the camp that evening amid the echoes of bursts of automatic fire. Leaving the camp was no easy feat because of the RPA roadblocks. We decided to follow a convoy carrying displaced persons out of the camp, but were held up when one of the convoy’s trucks became stuck in thick mud, blocking the exit road. Eventually we extricated ourselves and found a safe route out. Half an hour or so into our journey, we encountered a UNICEF official who informed us that he had received a radio message reporting that ten people had been shot dead in the camp. Because AMF personnel were not permitted to stay in the camp after dark, there was nothing we could do. We had no choice but to continue on to our base at Zambian headquarters.

On Friday, 20 April, we arrived in Kibeho at around 8.30 a.m. to find that thirty people had died during the night. Although the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital was busy treating casualties, we were told our assistance was not required at this stage. We set up the casualty clearing post at the documentation area (for what was to be the last time) and initially treated a few patients who were suffering from colds and various infections. Most of these were given antibiotics and sent on their way. A number of ragged young children appeared and, out of sight of the RPA soldiers, we gave the children new, dry clothes, for which they were most grateful. We also found a man whose femur was broken and decided to remove him from the camp in the back of our ambulance when we finally left for the night.

That evening, as we were preparing to leave, we received a call for assistance from the MSF hospital. Six ‘priority one’ patients required urgent evacuation. We picked up these casualties, all suffering from gunshot and machete wounds, and prepared them to travel. We called in the helicopter and the patients were flown to a hospital in Butare. The man with the broken femur could not be flown out because the helicopter was not fitted to take stretchers, so we prepared him for an uncomfortable ride in the back of the ambulance.

We returned to the Charlie Company compound where we found a man with a gunshot wound to the lung — a sucking chest wound. He was in a serious condition. Because night was falling, we decided to evacuate him by road to the hospital in Butare along with the man with the broken femur. This meant negotiating the RPA checkpoints as we left the camp. As we persuaded our way through these checkpoints, Captain Carol Vaughan-Evans and Trooper Jon Church crouched in the rear of the ambulance, giving emergency treatment to the two patients.

We continued our journey accompanied by two military observers from Uruguay who were guiding us. We made steady progress for the next two hours until our front and rear vehicles became bogged. As efforts continued to recover the vehicles, Lieutenant Tilbrook decided to send the ambulance to the hospital as the patient with the chest wound was deteriorating. The two military observers were to accompany the ambulance. After a further hour and a half on the road, and with additional help from Care Australia, the patient was eventually handed over to the MSF hospital in Butare.

On Saturday, 22 April, we arrived at the camp to be told that the hospital was teeming with injured patients, but the MSF workers were nowhere to be found. We went to the hospital where the situation was absolutely chaotic. We saw about 100 people who had either been shot or macheted, or both. Their wounds were horrific and there was blood everywhere. One woman had been cleaved with a machete right through her nose down to her upper jaw. She sat silently and simply stared at us. There were numerous other people suffering from massive cuts to their heads, arms and all over their bodies. We immediately started to triage as many patients as possible, but just as we would begin to treat one patient, another would appear before us with far more serious injuries.

As we worked, we were often called upon to make snap decisions and to ‘play God’ by deciding which patients’ lives to save. We were forced to move many seriously injured victims to one side because we thought they would not live or because they would simply take too long to save. Instead, we concentrated on trying to save the lives of those people who, in our assessment, had a chance of survival.

At one point, an NGO worker took me outside the hospital to point out more casualties. There I discovered about thirty bodies, and was approached by a large number of displaced persons with fresh injuries. Jon Church and I were deeply concerned and returned to the hospital to triage patients. In amongst triaging priority one patients, Jon drew my attention to the patient he was treating. This man had a very deep machete wound through the eye and across the face. I saw Jon completely cover the wounded man’s face with a bandage. There was no danger that the patient would suffocate since he was breathing through a second wound in his throat. The wounded man was, however, very restless and difficult to control, and eventually we were forced to leave him, despite our belief that he would almost certainly die. Later that day he was brought to us again, his face still completely covered in a bandage. Whether the man finally survived his ordeal, only God knows.

As Jon and I worked with Lieutenant Rob Lucas (a nursing officer) to prioritise patients, members of the Australian infantry section stretchered them to the casualty clearing post. These soldiers worked tirelessly to move patients by stretcher from the hospital to the Zambian compound, which had become a casualty department. Meanwhile, the situation at the hospital was becoming increasingly dangerous, and we were ordered back to the compound. Some of the MSF workers had arrived by now and were trapped in the hospital. Our infantrymen went to retrieve them and bring them back to the safety of the compound. As our soldiers moved towards the hospital, they came under fire from a sniper within the crowd of displaced persons. The infantry section commander, Corporal Buskell, took aim at the sniper, and the latter, on seeing the rifle, disappeared into the crowd.

Our medical work continued unabated in the Zambian compound as the casualties flowed relentlessly. At about 10.00 a.m., some of the displaced persons attempted to break out and we saw them running through the re-entrants. We watched (and could do little more) as these people were hunted down and shot. The RPA soldiers were no marksmen: at times they were within ten metres of their quarry and still missed them. If they managed to wound some hapless escapee, they would save their valuable bullets, instead bayoneting their victim to death. This went on for two hours until all the displaced persons who had run were dead or dying.

The desperate work continued in the compound as we separated the treated patients, placing the more serious cases in the ambulance and the remainder in a Unimog truck. The firing intensified and the weather broke as it began to rain. We worked under the close security of our infantry as automatic fire peppered the area around us. We continued to treat the wounded, crouching behind the flimsy cover presented by the truck and sandbag wall. At one point, a young boy suddenly ran into the compound and fell to the ground. We later discovered that he had a piece of shrapnel in his lung. We managed to evacuate this boy by helicopter to the care of the Australian nurses in the intensive care unit at Kigali hospital. Every time a white person walks into his hospital room, he opens his arms to be hugged.

The automatic fire from the RPA troops continued; people were being shot all over the camp. When we had gathered about twenty-five casualties, we arranged to have them aeromedically evacuated to a hospital in Butare. While the ambulance was parked at the landing zone, a lone displaced person ran towards us with an RPA soldier chasing him. The soldier maintained a stream of fire at his fleeing victim, and rounds landed all around the ambulance. Jon and I ducked for cover behind its meagre protection. When the RPA soldier realised that some of his own officers were in his line of fire, he checked himself. The displaced person fell helplessly to the ground at the feet of the RPA officers. He was summarily marched away to meet an obvious fate.

It was about 4.00 p.m. by the time we started to load the patients onto helicopters, and, by 5.00 p.m., the job was complete. People began to run through the wire into the compound, and the Australian infantry found themselves alongside the Zambian soldiers pushing the desperate intruders back over the wire. This was a particularly delicate task, as some of the displaced persons were carrying grenades. As the last helicopter took off, about 2000 people stampeded down the spur away from the camp, making a frantic dash for safety. RPA soldiers took up positions on each spur, firing into the stampede with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and a 50-calibre machine-gun. A large number of people fell under the hail of firepower. Fortunately, at this stage, it began to rain heavily, covering the escape of many of those fleeing. Bullets flew all around, and we made a very hasty trip back to the Zambian compound with the rear of the ambulance full of infantry.

Once back in the compound, we watched the carnage from behind sandbagged walls. Rocket-propelled grenades landed among the stampeding crowd, and ten people fell. One woman, about fifty metres from where we crouched, suddenly stood up, with her hands in the air. An RPA soldier walked down to her and marched her up the hill with his arm on her shoulder. He then turned and looked at us, pushed the woman to the ground and shot her.

As the rain eased, so did the firing. I was standing in the lee of the Zambian building when a young boy wearing blood-soaked clothing jumped the wire and walked towards me. I put my gloves on and the boy shook my hand and pointed to where a bullet had entered his nose, indicating to me that the bullet was still caught in his jaw. We took the boy with us and, given that the firing had died down and darkness had fallen, we put him into the ambulance next to a man with an open abdominal wound, and prepared them for the long journey to hospital by road.

As we left the camp, Jon and another medic saw a small child wandering alone. They made an instant decision to save the child, putting her in the ambulance as well. We then faced the unwanted distraction of a screaming three-year-old girl while we were frantically working on two seriously wounded patients. We knew also that the RPA would search the vehicle and any displaced persons without injuries would be taken back to the camp. I decided to bandage the girls’s left arm in order to fake a wound. The first time we were searched, the girl waved and spoke to the RPA soldiers. So we moved her up onto the blanket rack in the ambulance, strapped her in, and gave her a biscuit. The next time we were searched, the girl just sat and ate her biscuit, saying nothing. The RPA soldiers never knew she was there. After being held up at a roadblock for an hour, the convoy, which included all the NGO workers, made its way out of the camp. All the patients were taken to Butare Hospital, while the little girl was taken to an orphanage where we knew an attempt would be made to reunite her with her mother, in the unlikely event that she was still alive.

We re-entered the camp at 6.30 a.m. on Sunday, 23 April. While our mission was to count the number of dead bodies, Warrant Officer Scott and I went first to look around the hospital. Inside there were about fifteen dead. We entered one room and a small boy smiled then grinned at us. Scotty and I decided we would come back and retrieve this boy. I took half the infantry section and Scotty took the other half, and we walked each side of the road that divided the camp.

On one side of the road, my half-section covered the hospital that contained fifteen corpses. In the hospital courtyard we found another hundred or so dead people. A large number of these were mothers who had been killed with their babies still strapped to their backs. We freed all the babies we could see. We saw dozens of children just sitting amidst piles of rubbish, some crouched next to dead bodies. The courtyard was littered with debris and, as I waded through the rubbish, it would move to expose a baby who had been crushed to death. I counted twenty crushed babies, but I could not turn over every piece of rubbish.

The Zambians were collecting the lost children and placing them together for the agencies to collect. Along the stretch of road near the documentation point, there were another 200 bodies lined up for burial. The other counting party had seen many more dead than we had. There were survivors too. On his return to camp, Jon saw a baby who was only a few days old lying in a puddle of mud. He was still alive. Jon picked the baby up and gave him to the Zambians. At the end of our grisly count, the total number recorded by the two half-sections was approximately 4000 dead and 650 wounded.

We returned to the Zambian compound and began to treat the wounded. By now we had been reinforced with medics and another doctor. With the gunfire diminished, we were able to establish the casualty clearing post outside the Zambian compound and, with extra manpower and trucks to transport patients, we managed to clear about eighty-five casualties. A Ghanaian Army major approached Scotty and I to collect two displaced persons who had broken femurs from another area nearby. We lifted the two injured men into the back of the major’s car. It was then that we noticed all the dead being buried by the RPA in what I believe was an attempt to reduce the body count. The Zambians also buried the dead, but only those who lay near their compound.

We had been offered a helicopter for an aeromedical evacuation. We readied our four worst casualties, placing them on the landing zone for evacuation. The RPA troops came, as they always did, to inspect those being evacuated. At the same time, a Zambian soldier brought us a small boy who had been shot in the backside. The RPA told us that we could only take three of the casualties, as the fourth was a suspect. I argued and argued with an RPA major, but met with unbending refusal. He did tell us, however, that we could take the small boy who we hadn’t even asked to take, so we quickly put the boy into the waiting helicopter. The RPA officer then demanded that one of his men, who had been shot, be evacuated in the helicopter. I tried to bargain with the RPA major. In return for taking his soldier to hospital, I asked that we be allowed to evacuate the fourth casualty. His reply was final: ‘Either my man goes or no-one goes’. It was time to stop arguing.

The majority of patients we evacuated that day were transported on the back of a truck. The pain caused by the jolting of the truck would have been immense, but even this amount of pain was better than death. Jon and I took another load of patients to the landing zone, as they were to go on the same helicopter as the CO and the RSM. To our amazement, we were recalled and watched in frustration as the helicopter was filled with journalists. That day, all our patients left unaccompanied.

Just before our departure that evening, Jon and I were called to look at a man who had somehow fallen into the pit latrine, which was about 12 feet deep. I suppose he thought this to be the safest place. We left the camp at about 5.00 p.m. and spent the night at the Bravo Company position which was only half an hour away.

On Monday, 24 April, we returned to the camp which, at this stage, held only about 400 people. The RPA had set up a recoilless rifle, which pointed at one of the buildings they claimed housed Hutu criminals who had taken part in the 1994 genocide. Throughout the morning we saw displaced persons jumping off the roof of the building and, on two occasions, we saw AK 47 assault rifles being carried. The RPA gave us until midday to clear the camp, at which time they stated that they would fire the weapon into the building. We knew this would kill or injure the vast majority of those left in the camp.

Meanwhile the Zambians were busy digging two men out of the pit latrines. They were quite a sight when they were pulled out. The Zambian major planned to sweep through the building and push people out, and wanted us to bolster his ranks. Obtaining permission from headquarters to help the Zambians proved something of an ordeal, to my mind, the result of a surfeit of chiefs. Consequently, we were a crucial ten minutes late helping them.

We discovered a number of injured people huddled in a room directly adjacent to the building containing the Hutus. As we moved in to retrieve the casualties, a Hutu pointed his weapon at us, but rapidly changed his mind when ten Australian rifles were pointed straight back at him. We used this building as a starting point, evacuating all those in the room in Red Cross trucks. It was at this point that we struck a major obstacle. The criminal element within the camp had spread the word that those who accompanied the white people from the camp would be macheted to death on reaching their destination. This was widely believed and, as a result, only a few people could be persuaded to leave the camp that morning. On several occasions, women handed over their children to us, believing that ‘the white people will not kill children’.

The Australians found the attitude of these people incredibly frustrating. We could find no way to convince the majority of the displaced persons to leave Kibeho for the safety that we could provide. Many said that it was better to die where they were than to die in another camp. Even when we did succeed in persuading some to leave, a Hutu would often appear and warn those people that they would be macheted if they left with the Australians. This was a warning that never went unheeded.

At 2.00 p.m. that day, we were rotated out of the camp. We felt sick with resentment at leaving the job incomplete, but there was very little that we could have done for those people. We estimated that at least 4000 people had been killed over that weekend. While there was little that we could have done to stop the killings, I believe that, if Australians had not been there as witnesses to the massacre, the RPA would have killed every single person in the camp.

(Permission to reprint this story as published in the Australian Army Journal is gratefully acknowledged.)

Source: http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/peacekeeping/anecdotes/kibeho.html#fn04

Sharon Broussard, The Plain Dealer

Sharon Broussard, an associate editor of The Plain Dealer’s editorial pages, was one of 12 senior U.S. editors and producers who visited Rwanda in November as part of a Gatekeeper Editors fellowship organized by the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University.

Rwanda would rather be known for rising from the ashes of the horrific April 1994 genocide and as an African powerhouse than for the genocide that shocked the world and left nearly 800,000 people dead.

Both Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by their neighbors and local militias after local media exhorted people to kill “the cockroaches.”

But this poor East African country may be courting disaster instead.

Led mostly by the once-exiled Tutsis who vanquished the murderous Hutu militias in 1994, Rwanda’s efforts to craft a better life for its citizens have been marred by draconian limits on speech and by accusations that the government drives its critics into exile, imprisons or assassinates them.

As a group of U.S. editors learned during a recent visit sponsored by the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University, Rwanda may be making great strides, but inequities and unresolved ethnic divisions — which Rwandans are not allowed to discuss — are holding it back.

The Tutsis that dominate Rwanda’s ruling class make up just 15 percent of the population, although a Tutsi monarchy long governed Rwanda and was propped up first by German and then by Belgian colonizers. Hutus form the majority at about 84 percent.

Still, ethnic conflict wasn’t apparent as we traveled through this green, mountainous, land-locked country of 11 million, whose main exports are coffee and tea and whose main employment is subsistence farming.

Delicious, tiny bananas — we ate them every morning — mangoes and beans grow on nearly every bit of land in the countryside, including the hillsides, which are carefully terraced. And though there were some cars and plenty of bicycles and motorcycles, most people walked to their destinations.

But this country is on the move in other ways, as well.

As Liliane Uwanziga Mupende, director of urban planning and construction for the Rwandan government, puts it, “You leave the country for two or three months and [when you return] there is always something new.”

From the first day of our visit to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, our translator, Fred Mwasa, pointed out all the new construction — a newly built shopping mall and the steady rise of new office buildings — and dozens of shacks slated to be torn down by the government to make way for more development.

Even Kigali’s simple but well-guarded international airport will be replaced by a new airport in Bugesera, a rural section outside of Kigali, in 2015, said Mwasa, who is also managing editor of The Chronicles, a new independent newspaper in Kigali.

It’s all part of Rwanda’s 2020 Vision plan to turn this nation of farmers into a communications and regional transportation hub in Africa with an educated, skilled work force.

The first nine years of school are free for youngsters. The country also has a mandated health insurance plan.

The thinking appears to be that, if all boats rise, Rwanda’s long-standing ethnic divisions won’t sink them.

But nearly every government official we met was an educated Tutsi who had fled to Uganda or some other safe harbor before the mass killings of 1994 and returned to cushy jobs afterward.

Can such a seemingly exclusive group create an inclusive, stable government and a country that can become the hub of prosperity in East Africa?

President Paul Kagame, the former Tutsi militia general who led the Rwandan Patriotic Front that booted Hutu militias from the country in 1994 and who has been in power ever since, believes so.

The nation is trying to “have a niche, if you will, in the East African community, where we can do certain things or provide certain things others may not be providing,” he told our group of journalists.

Kagame has cracked down on corruption and streamlined construction and business permits to entice foreign investors and wealthy expatriates to come to Rwanda.

He seems to be achieving those goals. Rwanda now ranks 45th out of 183 countries on the World Bank’s “Doing Business in 2012″ report.

Entrepreneurs can start a business in just three days. And the country is clean — thanks to a brigade of workers on city streets as early as 7 a.m. — and safe. A stroll in Kigali, even at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., isn’t a risky endeavor — a major contrast with the unruly cities of Congo and Uganda, Rwanda’s neighbors.

Yet Rwanda’s orderliness can also be attributed to a scary, nearly omnipresent police and military force. Indeed, when our death-defying driver was waved over for trying to pass on a hill, a soldier sauntered over with a gun slung around his neck.

After a tense talk with our driver in Kinyarwanda, a Bantu language frequently spoken here although English is the official language, the soldier waved our driver along without giving him a ticket. The driver was careful after that.

But that isn’t the only frightening thing about Rwanda. Free speech is stifled, and the media, parts of which aided and abetted the killers by promoting the genocide in 1994, are still considered suspect. Hence the shackles on reporters, editors and ordinary Rwandans.

Rwandans risk time in jail if they talk about Hutus and Tutsis — everyone is supposed to be Rwandan now — and it’s against the law to criticize the president or government leaders.

The infamous genocide is called the Tutsi genocide by law, ignoring the thousands of Hutus, many of whom were married to Tutsis or just stood up for them, who were slaughtered as well.

Crossing those laws, or even the appearance of doing so, has led to long prison terms and even death for opposition figures, say human rights organizations, although the government has steadfastly denied such charges.

Even exiles aren’t safe. Lt. Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former Kagame confidant, accused Kagame of corruption, then fled to South Africa in February 2010. An assassin tried to kill him four months later.

There is talk of reforming press laws, but that may not come in time to help Agnes Nkusi, editor of the Umurabyo newspaper, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison last February for printing articles that said that some Rwandans weren’t happy with the president and other government leaders. Prosecutors, who also imprisoned for seven years the young reporter who co-wrote the stories, charged the reporting would stir up hatred against the government.

Kagame, an avid Twitter user who sent our group a Tweet, told us in an interview that if it were up to him, no one would be punished for “even abusing” the president, but that he had to “let these things run their course.”

But it’s an atrocious course, considering that it means Nkusi could rot in prison.

Kagame gets an opportunity before the 2017 elections to show whether he’s really willing to do what’s best for Rwanda or whether it’s all bluster and Tweets.

The two-term president could step down — as he promises to do. Or, he could find party hacks willing to carve out a third term in the constitution so he can run again.

“I will not be around as president, come 2017,” he told us flatly.

But some journalists in our group were not convinced.

And it’s safe to say from what I saw during our 10-day stay in the country, neither are many Rwandans.

Related Article:

U Rwanda Rurindiye Uburumbuke ku Nkomo

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/01/a_restrained_rwanda_hopes_for.html

Washington DC, 10th January 2012 – On the 1st October 2011, I published a confession in which I stated that Paul Kagame, then overall commander of the Rwandese Patriotic Army, the armed wing of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, was personally responsible for the shooting down of the plane on April 6, 1994, in which President Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda, President Cyprian Ntaryamira of Burundi, Deogratias Nsabimana, Elie Sagatwa, Thaddee Bagaragaza, Emmanuel Akingeneye, Bernard Ciza, Cyriaque Simbizi, Jacky Heraud, Jean-Pierre Minaberry and Jean-Michel were killed. I stated that Paul Kagame himself had told me, in July 1994, that he was responsible for the shooting down of the plane. I stated that Paul Kagame has to be brought to account for his role in this terrorist crime that provided a trigger for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I have also stated that myself and other witnesses are willing, able, and ready to provide further evidence to national or/and international jurisdictions interested in contributing to truth, justice, reconciliation and healing in Rwanda.

Neither myself nor other new, willing, and able witnesses have yet been able to meet Judge Marc Trevidic, or any other international tribunal/court. to give the true account of the events surrounding the shooting down of the plane.

Today, 10th January, 2012, the French Judge, Marc Trevidic, investigating the 1994 terrorist crime, made public the findings of the Technical Report by ballistic experts. Among other things, the technical report stated that a) the experts were leaning more towards the version of the events that the missile that shot down the plane originated from several areas, especially around the Kanombe area in Kigali; b) the missiles were made and supplied from the former Soviet Union and, c) lawyers and other interested parties have up to three months to contest any matters arising from the report.

In this regard, I would like to state the following:

1. That the missile was fired from a number of areas in the Kanombe area does not exonerate Paul Kagame from having committed the crime;

2. That the missiles were of Soviet Union origin will prove to be of substantive help in establishing who the real culprit is, and;

3. That there is time for us ( myself and other interested and new witnesses) to respond fully to the technical report and provide credible testimony to Judge Marc Trevidic, or any other in the international jurisdiction, to pin down Paul Kagame as the culprit in this terrorist crime.

I stand fully behind the letter and spirit of my October 1st, 2011 confession. Judge Marc Trevidic’s technical report has not proved me wrong. Nor has it exonerated Paul Kagame from this crime, and yet Kigali is spinning the story out of context to celebrate what it calls “victory”. In the coming months and years, myself, other witnesses, Rwandans and others in the international community who heed the call, will continue to endeavor to have Paul Kagame account for his role in this and other crimes.

I would like to remind all Rwandans and the international community that this is not Judge Marc Trevidic’s final judgement on the matter. Furthermore, matters of truth and justice for Rwandans will primarily be decided by us Rwandans. Even when the international community and foreigners in general have had the reputation of disappointing Rwandans, we must have faith in our struggle for truth, justice, healing, and reconciliation.

Let us mobilize and organize, for truth and justice shall ultimately prevail.

We shall win.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

E-mail: ngombwa@gmail.com

Mr  Vincent Karega the would be Rwandan Ambassador to South Africa, you are our Buffoon of the week.

This buffoon of the week has been sitting in South Africa for months without accreditation as an Ambassador.

Now this buffoon says that Rwanda and South Africa has good relations because the Rwandan Butcher was invited to ANC 100th year celebrations.

The buffoon says that “small issues” that led to tensions between the two countries are the thing of the past.

Mr Buffoon, let us put things into a proper perspective before you get carried away with lies:

• All African heads of state and world leaders were invited to this event! Unfortunately, Butcher Kagame happens to be one of them.
• Desperate Kagame seized the opportunity to show up! He no doubt saw this as an opportunity to make a bit of cash by renting out Bombardier Global Express to himself.
• But unlike his daddy/uncle Museveni who was invited to speak at the event, Butcher Kagame was part of decoration for the occasion.
• Further, President Jacob Zuma “has not yet found time” to receive the Butcher’s ambassador who is still in limbo, a diplomatic way of saying that the would-be ambassador is indeed a buffoon.
• Furthermore, South African Ambassador to Rwanda is still recalled.

Mr Buffoon and your Butcher boss, in case you forgot, you attempted twice to assassinate an exiled Rwandan General in SA during the 2010.

For trying to lie your way out of Kagame global terrorism, you are a buffoon of the week.

African Dictator

President Paul Kagame has said that only Rwandans can have the right to define who they want to be and work towards that and only them have that freedom to make such choices but not foreigners, intruders, the press or rights groups.

Speaking at the opening of the 9th National Dialogue (Umushyikirano) at the Parliamentary buildings today, President Kagame called on Rwandans to stand up and defend themselves against intruders who assume the responsibility of defining who they should be and what should define their country.

In a powerful speech, President Kagame came out strongly against the critics who usually say that despite economic progress, there are no rights and freedoms of expressions and democracy in Rwanda, observing that it is a responsibility of Rwandans to say whether such rights exist or not.

Addressing a full house of central government leaders, local government leaders, private sector and civil society representatives, religious leaders and diplomatic corps, President Kagame said that it is disturbing when foreigners, who sometimes don’t fulfill the lessons they teach others, ignore the progress made and instead start pointing accusing fingers, calling upon Rwandans to reject this patronizing attitude.

Amidst applause, the Head of State pointed out that Rwandans should find it offensive for such critics to undermine the home grown solutions such as the National Dialogue to instead accuse countries of stamping on freedoms.

He said that the objective of initiatives such as the Dialogue is to ensure that all Rwandans have a platform to participate and play a central role in the development and decision making processes of their country but such are never recognised.

“This meeting is a symbol of nation building through a process where all Rwandans have a right to contribute to the process and play an active role in deciding the path of their country,”

“They will talk about the many things Rwandans have achieved but then they say ’but’….why the but?They say Rwandans don’t have freedoms of expressions. I see three things involved, we are either dumb, even if we have what we want to say, we can’t because we are dumb. Secondly, maybe Rwandans can’t say anything because there is someone silencing them,”
“Thirdly, probably you might not be dumb or no one is silencing you but you have nothing to say. Today, I want us to find an answer to this question, to assess what other people think we are and then come up with a stand of who we want to be, regardless of what other people think of us. Whoever considers us to be whatever, that’s their burden,” President Kagame said.

The Head of State wondered why people talk of the economy growing but cannot put in perspective other aspects such as democratic processes, freedoms of speech and other rights which Rwandans have defined and put in place themselves along with the economic development that is visible but continue to complain about space.

“Which space is bigger than this one?” President Kagame said in reference to the dialogue itself.

“In fact the space that is lacking is that space which is constantly being occupied by those intruders. This nonsense from outsiders is the one occupying our freedom. These so called teachers of freedom, space, the same people getting stuck with genocidaires murderers and criminals,” he said, pointing out the case of Theoneste Bagosora, the genocide mastermind whose sentence was on Wednesday reduced from life to 35 years by the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR).

“It has taken them 17 years to try him and try him so badly and they are the same people coming here to give us press freedoms? You are a joker. Some of us you come to teach about freedoms have been freedom fighters for their and other peoples rights since childhood. We have interest in our own freedoms and rights than anyone else has. We have that responsibility more that anyone else,” President Kagame said.

President Kagame said such people can do it, just because they can but not becuase they are right.

“They can do it to Africans, they want to do it to Rwandans but I want to assure you that we are different people. You Rwandans sitting here should not accept this nonsense. Accepting it is unthinkable, but accepting it is worse off for you, stand up and defend that right, they should not speak for you,” he said.

The Head of State took a swipe at rights groups and the media, saying that the two should not be the ones to be seen to have the right to define or choose what Rwandans want and also make freedoms appear like a myth where only a few have the power and previlege to define them and know what suits others.

“My question is, who are you? Who are you speaking for? Are these millions of Rwandans here waiting for you to come and tell them what their interests should be and what their rights are?
You Rwandans should reject that. We cannot make this progress and then at the same time fail in other areas, it doesn’t just add up,” he said.

The Head of State said that he was recently reading a foreign newspaper where a certain person wrote that they cannot be governed by a minority several years after the country failed to form a government, observing that such a statement comes out wishful thinking because Rwanda is not governed by a minority but rather Rwandans.

“They wish to be governed like Rwanda, these are people who havent been governed for two years, they failed to put in place a government.
Who is minority? I am not from a minority, I am from these Rwandans you see here. We cannot be a minority in our own country. These are people who need lessons about Rwanda, lessons in freedoms, you cannot teach us about our own freedom,” he said

“The main problem is just one and thats what brings us here, they can afford to call us all sorts of names, they can do whatever they want— and they can do anything, ask where Mutara Rudahigwa went, they will do that because you depend on them, they give you remains, when you depend on them, anything will happen. Even passersby will poke at you, that’s the position we are in, that’s the position we want to live far behind us and that’s why we are here,” he added.

He called on Rwandans to be more determined than ever to be in the position they want to be and end being in the position of being beggars and that will be the only way Rwandans will be independent of such negative references.

Source: Rwandan governement website www.umushyikirano.gov.rw

Here is a testimony of a survivor of RPF atrocities Gerturde Uwamariya, read during the Commemoration of 15th Anniversary of Rwandan refugees massacres in Congo held in Oxford House in London on Saturday 26th November 2011.
Uwamariya said that what she saw and experienced in Congo was the most horrible experiences that anyone can experience and no one should experience that. She reminded the audience that those who committed those atrocities have not been persecuted despite all available evidences of their actions

Related:

● Remembering the Victims of Rwandan army in D.R. Congo

● Commemoration of 15th Anniversary of Rwandan refugees massacres in Congo