The UK delivered a statement on Rwanda at the 37th Session of Universal Periodic Review (UPR), sharing recommendations to improve their human rights record.
Published 25 January 2021
Ambassador Julian Braithwaite, UK Permanent Representative to the UN, Geneva.
The United Kingdom welcomes Rwanda’s strong record on economic and social rights, and promotion of gender equality. We remain concerned, however, by continued restrictions to civil and political rights and media freedom. As a member of the Commonwealth, and future Chair-in-Office, we urge Rwanda to model Commonwealth values of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights.
We recommend that Rwanda:
Conduct transparent, credible and independent investigations into allegations of extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture, and bring perpetrators to justice.
Protect and enable journalists to work freely, without fear of retribution, and ensure that state authorities comply with the Access to Information law.
Screen, identify and provide support to trafficking victims, including those held in Government transit centres.
Hari abantu bamaze iminsi bandika ku mbuga zitandukanye ko opozisiyo igomba gukora igisirikare cyo gukuraho Kagame. Njye siko mbibona kuko gukora ikirebeli ubu ni ugutuma Kagame agarura ubuyanja kandi nta munyarwanda ubyifuza, kandi abifuza intambara wenda baba basa na ba bandi nita ba Kozivuze Rutemayeze, Kagame ajya imbere akivovota, akivuga imyato atagira, akababwira ukuntu agiye kwica abanyekongo bagakoma amashyi, bati ubwo abatutsi bazakugwa inyuma twe tuzakugwa imbere; bariya ntawe uzi ko isasu ryica kuko batagiye ku rugamba, kuribo Kagame yishe ntacyo bivuze icya ngombwa ni umutekano wa miliyoni zabo bafata buri kwezi.
Kagame ariho arasamba rwose igisigaye ni ukumuhirika wa mugani wa Padri Nahimana Tomasi. Ikindi nkuko mwabibonye muri iriya mbonerahamwe iri hejuru, Opozisiyo ntishobora gukora icyo kirebeli mu gihe amashyaka ayigize afite ibyerekezo binyuranye; urugero mwarwiboneye, bamwe ntibemera ko revolisiyo yo muri 1959 yari Revolisiyo, ngo ishyaka rishaka gukorana nabo rigomba kubanza kuyihakana, njye rero mbona gutaburura abayoboye iriya revolisiyo nka Mbonyumutwa Dominiko cyangwa se ukandangaza abandi nka Kayibanda Gregoire, Gitera Habyarimana Joseph, Bicamumpaka B., Habyarimana, Juvenal, Makuza Anastase, Habamenshi Callixte ngo bari ibiyobyabwenge, bitabuza revolisiyo yo muri 1959 kuba yo; abaturage bayikoreye nibo bonyine bagomba kubazwa niba bayihakana si amashyaka. Aba kandi bakongeraho ko abahutu bose n‘abataravuka n’abazavuka, bafite icyaha rusange cy’ubujenosideri, ese amashyaka y’abahutu azemera iyi ngengabitekerezo ni angahe? Iki wenda nacyo bashobora guca ku nshuti zabo kikemezwa na Loni!
Revolisiyo “IKARAMU” rero niyo yonyine ishobora kwirukana Kagame na FPR ye, nta maraso yongeye kumeneka mu Rwanda kandi abenshi ndumva aribyo twifuza, ikanazanira umunezero buri munyarwanda. Rwose impamvu zatumye ba Hosni Mubarak wari Prezida wa Misri, Mouamar EL Kadafi wari Prezida wa Libya, na Zen El Abdin Ben Ali wari Prezida wa Tuniziya bahirikwa ku butegetsi na Revolisiyo z’abaturage, zirahari mu Rwanda kandi ziraruta izari muri biriya bihugu kiriya gihe nkuko twiboneye zimwe murizo mu gice cya kabiri cy’iyi nyandiko. Tugarutse kuri biriya bihugu navuze hejuru, urubyiruko rw’abashomeri rwari rwararangije amashuri rukabura imirimo nirwo rwagiye kuri Internet, face book, twitter maze rugenda ruganira ku bibazo byarwo. Icyakurikiyeho ni ukumvisha ababyeyi babo ko mu gihugu hari ibibazo kandi kugirango birangire hagomba kuba impinduramatwara mu gihugu. Icya gatatu n’uko urubyiruko rwashyize uwo mwuka mushya no mu bandi bashomeri batize. Icya kane n’uko abahembwaga imishahara idafashije nabo bahumutse. Abari hanze y’igihugu nabo bagiye bashyiraho akabo bakoresheje ziriya mbuga basobanurira abaturage uko bagomba kwifata kugirango bahirike izo ngoma. Urebye iriya muhuha yakoresheje ikoranabuhanga kugirango igere ku mugambi wayo. Dore rero uko byakorwa no mu Rwanda:
INTAMBWE YA MBERE: ( GUHUMURA)
Abafite imbuga bose ni ugusobanurira abaturage ibibazo biri mu Rwanda, icyabiteye n’uko byakemuka.( Ibi byaratangiye, ntawabura gushima intambwe imbuga zimaze gutera muri iyi gahunda)
Gukangurira abanyarwanda gusoma ibyo imbuga zanditse, bagashirika ubwoba bakumva ko Kagame n’abicanyi be batazashobora gusoma no kwica abazasoma ibyo banditse, kandi abaturage bagasobanurirwa n’ ukuntu umuntu akoresha amwirondoro muhimbano.
Za kaminuza ( abarimu n’abanyeshuri) nibo bagomba gusobanurira bagenzi babo bari mu mashuri yisumbuye icyo revolisiyo yabo “IKARAMU” igamije: kwigobotora ingoma y’injiji hakajyaho ubutegetsi bubereye bose, budasahura, budatonesha, butica, butaroga, butari ubwa ba gasurantambara, kandi budateranya abanyarwanda.
Abanyeshuri barangije ayisumbuye bari muri TIG n’abo mu mashuri yisumbuye nabo bagomba gukwiza ibi bitekerezo mu mashuri mato no mu baturage.
1. Abaturage bose, abanyeshuri bo mu mashuri yose n’abakozi b’ingeri zose bagomba guteranira ku KAGARI kabo buri wa mbere kuva saa mbiri kugeza saa sita basaba ko bakurirwaho imisoro baka idafututse: agaciro, uw’ingabo, amashuri, sacco n’iyindi; bagasaba n’ibindi bagiye babuzwa na Leta y’agahotoro ukurikije akagari barimo.
2. Gusaba ko abana babo batangiye amafranga atabarika mu mashuri barangije bakaba ari abashomeri bahabwa akazi.
3. Abana barangije amashuri yisumbuye bariho bakora TIG ya Kagame na Rucagu nabo bagomba kugira icyo babona buri kwezi, byibura amafranga yo kugura isabune yo kumesa imyenda bajyana muri iyo TIG.
5. Kubaza leta impamvu imfashanyo z’amahanga zihagarara.
6. Kubuza leta gukomeza gushora intambara mu bihugu by’abaturanyi, zitikiriramo abana babo aba Kagame n’agatsiko bariho basamara mu misoro yabo muri Amerika.
INTAMBWE YA GATATU: ( GUSHYIGURA)
Mu gihe kimwe muri biriya bivuzwe hejuru kitabonewe igisubizo, abaturage bagomba bose kujya guhurira ku mirenge yabo buri wa Kabiri, baka ko Leta y’Agatsiko ivaho hakabaho amatora.
Gusaba ko ingabo za East African Community zaza gufasha abaturage kurinda ubusugire bw’igihugu n’umutekano igihe cy’umwaka, no gufasha mu gushyiraho igipolisi cyo kurinda umutekano mu gihugu.
Gusaba abasoda, abapolisi, inkeragutabara gusubira mu bigo byabo.
Uyoboye umurenge ni nawe ugomba gushaka uko umutekano wa buri muturage wubahirizwa( Abaturage nibo bagomba kwishyiriraho inzego z’umutekano wabo).
Bamwe mu basirikare bakuru na polisi bataranzweho kwica cyane kuko bose ubundi ari abicanyi ukurikije ibyabereye mu Rwanda na Congo, bashobora guhura na komite igizwe n’abantu 3 bavuye muri buri murenge, abantu babiri bavuye muri buri shyaka ryo hanze y’igihugu, 2 bavuye muri buri shyaka ry’imbere bakumvikana uko bashyiraho inzego zihamye z’umutekano zafatanya na kiriya gisoda cya EAC.
Aba bo hejuru bahita banareba uko amatora yo gushyiraho inzego z’ubuyobozi bw’ibanze mu gihugu yakorwa.
Gushyiraho Leta y’agateganyo imara amezi 6 gusa. Iyi niyo yafatanya n’inzego za Loni, n’Afrika Yiyunze ( African Union) na East African community kureba uko hashyirwaho itegeko nshinga rirengera buri munyarwanda; n’amatora y’abadepite(Ay’abasenateri ntiyaba yihutirwa).
Gusaba Loni gukora anketi muri ibi bikurikira: a) Uko Jenoside yo muri 1994 yateguwe no guhana abayigizemo uruhare bose. b) Guhana abantu bose bo mu gisoda bagize uruhare mu kwica impunzi i Kibeho, mu Ruhengeri, Gisenyi, na Byumba na RDC. c)Gushyiraho urukiko rwemeza cyangwa rugahakana ko ubwicanyi bwakorewe abahutu muri Republika iharanira rubanda ya Congo ari Jenoside; maze hakabaho Arusha II yo gucira imanza abahamwa n’icyaha.
Gushyiraho ingabo z’igihugu zihuriwemo n’amoko yose kuva hasi kugeza hejuru, no gusezerera ingabo za East African Community.
UMWANZURO
FPR igiye idusigiye akaga katazibagirana mu mateka y’u Rwanda n’isi yose: miliyoni z’abacu twabuze, imfubyi zitagira kirera, abapfakazi, n’ibirema , urwango ibindi bihugu byanga abanyarwanda kubera ubwicanyi n’ubusambo bakeka ko twese duhuriyeho n’abategetsi bacu. FPR ariko nanone igiye idusigiye isomo ko ntawe ukwiye kwiheba mu buzima, wa mugani ngo ntawiheba agihumeka, ko ushobora kuzunguza ipaki imwe y’isigara n’agapaki k’ubunyobwa ejo ukagura indege, ukubaka imiturirwa, amabanki n’ibindi ariko byose ukazabibamo nabi ukanabisiga nabi nta wawe ubiriyeho kubera kubigeraho uri inkirabuheri, ibona buri wese ko ari injiji, icyontazi, amabyi n’ibigarasha! Aha rero ba bandi bavuga ko ikilo cy’amahirwe kiruta ibilo jana by’ubwenge niho babonye ko bibeshyaga.
Ikindi ihirima rya FPR risigiye abanyarwanda, ni uko nta muntu uzongera kubeshya abanyarwanda ngo ateye aje kurenganura ubwoko ubu n’ubu. Ubutaha ushaka kwiyibira azajye aza ninjoro asahure agwe ku gahinga atabeshya ko aje kuvuganira ubwoko bwe, ba Musa b’ibisambo n’abicanyi turabarambiwe. Uku kuvumbura izi nyangabirama gushobora kuzatuma habaho ubumwe n’ubwiyunge nyakuri igihe hazaba habayeho ubutabera: abicanyi bose bashyikirijwe ubutabera. Umuntu nanone ntiyarangiza atagiriye inama bariya barwaye indwara yo kumva ko bavukiye gutegeka; gushaka ukuntu bakumvikana bo n’imiryango yabo maze iyi ndwara ikavurirwa mu ngo zabo, nk’umugabo akaba umwami cyangwa perezida icyumweru mu rugo rwe, umugore nawe akaba ministri w’intebe, hashira ukwezi bakagurana bityo bityo kugeza batashye kwa Rurema.
Rwose bagenjeje batyo nta maraso yazongera kumeneka mu Rwanda. Utagira umugore nawe ufite iyo ndwara, ashobora kubikora n’umuboyi we cyangwa umuyaya! Abanyarwanda bagomba kubahwa nk’ibiremwamuntu, bizi gutekereza nk’abandi baturage b’isi maze icyo bihitiyemo kikubahirizwa na buri wese. Turambiwe kumva ko u Rwanda kuva rwabaho rwagiwe ruyoborwa n’abantu b’abicanyi cyangwa se abazi ubutiriganya kurusha abandi. Niyo mpamvu rero abaturage bagiye gusezerera abo bose bari bafite ibisigisigi bya gihake bakoresheje revolisiyo IKARAMU itamena amaraso kandi izazana amahoro arambye kuri buri wese, mu Rwanda hose kandi y’igihe cyose.
Narangiza rero mbaza uriya ushaka gusubira mu ndaki, impamvu ashaka kubikora. Ko uvuga ko watowe +90% ibyo bikaba byerekana ko intore zose zigukunda ni ikihe kigarasha, amabyi, ikiyobyabwenge , bihwahwa kiguhungese ukumva ko ugomba gusubira mu ndaki mutware? Ese ziriya ndege, na ya miturirwa, na ya magorufa, na ya mabanki, na za nganda, na ya mafamu, waraye amajoro udasinziriye ubikorera imipango nabyo urabijyana? Wakwerekanye ko uri intwari, wenda abawe bakazagira icyo baramira muri ibyo mvuze hejuru, ugakora nka Mbarushimana Callixte ukajya kwitanga mu rukiko Mpanabyaha Mpuzamahanga i La Haye, ukiyeza ukaza ukayobora u Rwanda mu mahoro na FPR yawe, n’ejo wenda ukazayobora Isi dore ko ngo wavukiye gutegeka gusa! Mu kinyarwanda babwira usamba amagambo meza yo kumusezeraho bati: “ugende amahoro kandi neza” ibi ni ukugirango umuzimu we atazagaruka kubadurumbanya. Nawe FPR ugende amahoro kandi neza. REVOLISIYO IKARAMU nitubohore twese twese, maze umwicanyi, isiha rusahuzi FPR igende nk’ifuni iheze!
Nkusi Joseph Shikama ku Kuri na Demukarasi (SKUD) ____________________________________________________ Iyi nyandiko yatangajwe bwa mbere kuri :1. Urubuga Umuhanuzi (leprophete) :www.leprophete.fr mu Kuboza 2012 2. Radio Ijwi rya Rubanda : 13.1.2013
For years, UN investigators secretly compiled evidence that implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame and other high-level officials in mass killings before, during and after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The explosive evidence came from Tutsi soldiers who broke with the regime and risked their lives to expose what they knew. Their sworn testimony to a UN court contradicted the dominant story about the country’s brutal descent into violence, which depicted Kagame and his RPF as the country’s saviours.
Despite the testimonies, a UN war crimes tribunal — on the recommendation of the United States — never prosecuted Kagame and his commanders. Now, for the first time, a significant portion of the UN evidence is revealed, in redacted form.
In early July 1994, as the genocide in Rwanda was nearing its end, Christophe, whose real name and location are being withheld for safety reasons, was recruited by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
Christophe, a medical student before the war, was assigned to care for wounded RPF soldiers in Masaka, a neighborhood in the southeast of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.
The RPF was on the brink of winning the war. It was the culmination of a bloody campaign that began in 1990 when its forces invaded Rwanda from their base in Uganda, where their Tutsi families had been forced into exile for three decades.
Their struggle for political power in Rwanda took a drastic turn on 6 April 1994, when a plane carrying Rwanda’s then president Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down in Kigali, killing everyone aboard, and abruptly ending a power-sharing deal that was supposed to end three-and-a-half years of violence. The plane attack set off a killing spree that left hundreds of thousands of Tutsis dead, mostly at the hands of their Hutu countrymen. By mid-July, the RPF had routed the former Hutu government, and purportedly put an end to the massacres.
Blame game: RPF soldiers investigate the site of the plane crash that killed then Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana in 1994. One theory suggests that Hutu hardliners shot down the plane, but RPF informants have told the ICTR that the RPF planned and executed the attack. (Photo: Scott Peterson/Liaison)
From his battle clinic in Masaka, though, Christophe saw that the killings were continuing. “People were disappearing,” he recently told the Mail & Guardian. Many of the new recruits Christophe treated began to share sobering details about what they were being ordered to do to Hutu civilians — men, women and children who had no apparent connection to the killing of Tutsis. These Hutus were being arrested in different areas of the capital by RPF officials, they said, and brought to a nearby orphanage called Sainte Agathe, where they were summarily executed.
The young recruits told Christophe that they were being forced by their RPF superiors to tie up civilians and kill them with hammers and hoes, before burning the victims on site and burying their ashes. It was grisly, traumatising work conducted daily, they told him.
Many of the soldiers asked Christophe to provide them with a sick leave note to avoid taking part in the killings. “They didn’t want to kill anybody,” he said. One of the recruits told Christophe that over a mere five days, more than 6 000 people were slaughtered at the orphanage.
In late July, the RPF sent Christophe and thousands of other recruits to Gabiro, a military training camp located in eastern Rwanda, on the edge of the vast wilderness that made up Akagera National Park. The rebel army had established a base there earlier in the war, and it was off limits to international nongovernmental organisations, United Nations personnel, and journalists.
The RPF had begun to recruit Hutu men, promising them safety if they joined the RPF cause. Many heeded the call. But at Gabiro, Christophe saw that these new Hutu recruits had been deceived. Instead of receiving training, on arrival they were screened by military intelligence agents, taken to a field and shot.
Even Tutsi recruits from Congo, Burundi and Uganda, whom military intelligence considered disloyal or suspect, were disappearing, he said.
Even more chilling, though, were the truckloads of Hutu civilians Christophe witnessed arriving in another part of the camp, in an area he could see from a distance. Every day, for months on end, he said, RPF soldiers killed these Hutus and then burned the bodies. Backhoes — which Christophe referred to by their brand name, Caterpillar — worked day and night burying their remains. “You could see the trucks, you could see the smoke. You could smell burning flesh,” Christophe told M&G. “All those lorries were bringing people to be killed. I saw the Caterpillar and could hear it. They were doing it in a very professional way.”
As the massacres continued, Christophe became worried that as a witness he, too, could be a target. Some soldiers, traumatised by what they were forced to do, tried to escape Gabiro. But they were caught and executed, he said. To his relief, in April 1995, he was transferred out of Gabiro, and a week later, he fled Rwanda and never returned.
Several years after leaving, Christophe began speaking to investigators from the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The tribunal, set up in the aftermath of the genocide, was tasked with prosecuting the most serious crimes committed in 1994. Publicly, the tribunal focused exclusively on prosecuting high-level Hutu figures suspected of organising and committing genocide against Tutsis. But privately, a clandestine entity within the ICTR, known as the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), gathered evidence of crimes committed by the RPF. By 2003, investigators at the SIU had recruited hundreds of sources, with dozens giving sworn statements.
According to a summary report submitted to the ICTR’s chief prosecutor in 2003, the SIU’s investigative team had gathered explosive evidence against the RPF. Numerous witnesses corroborated Christophe’s testimony that the RPF had engaged in massacres of Hutu civilians in Gabiro and elsewhere before, during, and after the genocide. Sources testified to the SIU that the RPF was behind the 6 April 1994 attack on Habyarimana’s plane.
Former soldiers even told investigators that RPF commandos undertook false flag operations. Some commandos, operating in civilian clothes, had allegedly infiltrated Hutu militias, known as Interahamwe, to incite even more killings of Tutsis in a bid to further demonise the Hutu regime and bolster the RPF’s moral authority in the eyes of the international community.
In the report, UN investigators listed potential RPF targets for indictment, including President Paul Kagame himself. But when the tribunal officially wound down in 2015, the more than 60 individuals who were convicted and jailed for genocide and other war crimes were all linked to the former Hutu-led regime. Not a single indictment of the RPF was ever issued by the UN; all evidence of RPF wrongdoing was effectively buried.
Christophe met with investigators three times, and provided a written, sworn testimony to the tribunal, but for nearly two decades, his testimony, together with that of dozens of other RPF soldiers who witnessed RPF crimes, have remained sealed in the tribunal’s archive.
Behind bars: A crowd of prisoners stand at mealtime in the Giterama prison in Rwanda. The prison, 50km outside Kigali, was built to house 1 000 people, but in 1995 held 6 000 men and women accused by the RPF of complicity in the 1994 genocide. (Photo: Malcolm Linton/Liaison)
In this exclusive report, the Mail & Guardianis publishing 31 documents based on testimonies the witnesses provided to UN investigators. The documents were leaked to M&G by various sources with extensive experience at the tribunal. The witness statements, which contain identifying information, have been redacted by the tribunal and by the M&G to protect the informants’ privacy and safety.
The informants who testified against the RPF to the tribunal faced serious risks, and some were kidnapped, according to the investigators. However, it is widely believed by our sources that the unredacted witness statements are already in the possession of the RPF. One statement is unredacted because the witness died in 2010.
Since 1994, many human rights researchers, journalists, academics and legal experts at the ICTR have contended that the crimes committed by the RPF were not comparable in nature, scope, or organisation to the Hutu-led atrocities against Tutsis.
The Rwandan government has asserted that any crimes committed by members of the RPF were only acts of revenge that have already been tried by the competent Rwandan authorities.
These testimonies, which include gruesome details about RPF massacres — often from soldiers who directly participated in the killings — challenge that understanding. Although these accounts do not in any way prove culpability, they may constitute prima facie evidence needed for indictments.
Taken as a whole, the evidence collected by the SIU suggests that RPF killings were not a reaction to the killing of Tutsis but instead were highly organised and strategic in nature. If proven by a court, the RPF not only played a seminal role in triggering the genocide by shooting down Habyarimana’s plane; its senior members also engaged in widespread, targeted massacres of civilians before, during and after the genocide.
Many of the RPF commanders implicated in the crimes documented by the SIU have held, or continue to hold, important positions in the Rwandan government and military. Kagame, who was the leader of the RPF at the time of the 1994 genocide, has been the president of Rwanda since 2000 and remains a close ally of the United States.
General Patrick Nyamvumba, who was head of the Gabiro training camp, served as the head of the Rwandan military from 2013 until 2019, and before that, from 2009 until 2013, as commander of Unamid, the joint UN-Africa Union peacekeeping force in Sudan. He was also minister of internal security until April 2020.
Lieutenant Colonel James Kabarebe, whom witnesses cited for his leading role in massacres in northern Rwanda and in planning the assassination of Habyarimana, was Rwanda’s minister of defence from 2010 until 2018 and remains a senior adviser to Kagame. General Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was head of the RPF’s military intelligence during the genocide, is alleged to have conceived and organised the RPF infiltration of Hutu militia and the mass killings of Hutu civilians throughout Rwanda. Nyamwasa fled the country in 2010 and is a major figure in the Rwandan opposition in exile.
Neither the RPF, the Rwandan president’s office, the Rwandan Media High Council, nor Nyamwasa responded when asked for comment on the documents. On Twitter, Yolande Makolo, an adviser to Kagame, dismissed an M&G query about the documents and called the questions “ridiculous”.
Filip Reyntjens, a Belgian political scientist who has spent decades studying Rwanda and provided expert testimony to the ICTR, said the RPF’s legitimacy is based on saving Tutsis and stopping the genocide, and that any critical examination of its real record would undermine that official narrative.
“The legitimacy of the RPF is in large part based on its image as representing and defending the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. They are the ‘good guys.’ Any evidence that points to the RPF committing massive crimes or having a role in shooting down the presidential plane, an act that sparked the genocide, challenges that legitimacy, which is why they have to fight it tooth and nail,” Reyntjens told the M&G.
Christophe, whose statements and interviews with the M&G are corroborated by other witnesses who offered similar testimony, said he believed the killings that he witnessed at Gabiro could not have been carried out as revenge for the crimes individual Hutus committed during the genocide.
The killings by the RPF went on “for too long [ and] were too programmed and well organised,” to amount to retaliation, he said.
The Gabiro massacres
Other witnesses bolstered Christopher’s account, providing testimony that the RPF began killing at Gabiro in April 1994, shortly after Habyarimana was assassinated. Speaking to investigators in French, one witness, a former soldier who joined the RPF in 1992, told investigators that displaced Hutu civilians from villages in northern Rwanda were brought to Gabiro aboard tractor-trailer trucks, and left at a residential complex called the House of Habyarimana, 3km from the military camp.
The intelligence officer selected the intelligence staff and instructors to execute the people brought by trucks … The soldiers tied their elbows behind their backs, and one by one, made them walk to a ‘grave site’ above the House of Habyarimana, where they were shot … These summary executions were done day and night between four and five weeks that I was there … By the end of April, early May, after two weeks of summary executions, the smell of corpses reached the Gabiro camp. Two bulldozers were used to bury the bodies.
The witness said he participated in burning bodies using a mixture of oil and gasoline to turn the corpses into ash in a forest near another training camp called Gako. The soldier in question said a lieutenant called Silas Gasana who was in charge of security for a man referred to as “PC-Afandi”, oversaw the killings at Gabiro. “PC-Afandi” is a military moniker for Kagame, according to former members of the RPF who were separately interviewed on the topic.
The witness told investigators that Gasana was in communication with Nyamvumba, who at the time was the operations commander and chief instructor at Gabiro.
Another former RPF soldier who was sent to Gabiro in mid-April 1994 told the tribunal:
Many trucks came from different regions around the camp. Recruits who went to get firewood could see these trucks pass. In two instances, while I was about a kilometre from our camp looking for wood, I personally observed these trucks. They were tractor-trailers, or semi-trailers. The vehicles had 18 or 24 wheels with no licence plates. They drove past me, very close. They were full of men, women, children and old people. They were brought to an area near the houses of the former head of state, near the Gabiro airstrip, and massacred.
The witness said the victims were from northern areas of Rwanda and were killed so that Tutsi refugees living in Uganda could acquire their land. The testimony highlighted the RPF’s alleged practice of falsely blaming Hutus for atrocities they didn’t commit.
The main objective of these massacres … was to prepare the land and pastures for the people who had been [Tutsi] refugees in Uganda and who were repatriated. Until today, anyone [that is Hutus] who might think of living there without having returned from Uganda, would run the risk of being accused of being an Interahamwe.
Other witnesses spoke of killings at the military camp on the edge of the park. A former intelligence officer described Gabiro as a main “killing hub”.
The officer took part in operations in Giti, in northern Rwanda, from April 1994, in an area where no Tutsis had been killed during the genocide. Despite the commune being safe for Tutsis, RPF special forces killed up to 3 000 Hutus there, he testified.
Between two and three thousand [civilians] were executed in the commune of Giti, and were buried in mass graves and latrines. Thousands of other victims were brought to Gabiro. It was a killing hub, above all isolated and near Akagera Park … At one point, victims from areas surrounding Giti began to arrive in military trucks, on their way to Gabiro, where they were simply eliminated.
Massacres in northern Rwanda before the Genocide
Anumber of former RPF soldiers testified that Hutu civilians were attacked prior to the genocide, in particular in northern Rwanda.
One soldier said that as soon as the RPF seized an area — which he referred to as a “liberated zone” — Hutus living there were systematically slaughtered.
The [RPF] was convinced that Hutus were uncontrollable, so it was better to get rid of them. That’s why a systematic ethnic cleansing was organised in these ‘liberated zones’. Two methods were used to achieve this goal. The RPF would organise murderous attacks, where hundreds of Hutu peasants were killed. The survivors would then flee and empty the zone. The RPF would also spread rumours about imminent attacks, a tactic that would cause peasants to flee.
A RPF soldier who served in the northwestern region near Ruhengeri testified that in 1993, the purpose of his unit was to “kill the enemy and bury or burn their corpses.” The soldier said he was part of this unit until August 1994.
The goal of our group was to kill Hutus. That included women and children. We killed many people, maybe 100 000. Our unit killed on average between 150 and 200 people a day. People were killed with a cord [around their neck], a plastic bag [over their head], a hammer, a knife, or with traditional weapons [machete, panga]. The bodies were then put into mass graves or sometimes burned.
In their summary report, SIU investigators cited a host of methods used by the RPF to kill victims, including strangling them with cords, smothering them with bags, pouring burning plastic on their skin, and hacking Rwandans with hoes and bayonets.
The RPF infiltration of Interahamwe
According to three testimonies, RPF soldiers wore uniforms seized from the [Hutu government] Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and used government-issued weapons to commit crimes in false flag operations. One former RPF soldier described the logic behind RPF attacks against civilians in a demilitarised zone before the genocide:
The most important task was to destabilise the regime by killing civilians. Once they [the RPF] withdrew, they spread the rumour that the [Habyarimana] regime was incapable of protecting civilians.
These RPF commandos, known as “technicians”, embedded within the Interahamwe, were stationed in zones controlled by the Interahamwe and participated in killing civilians at road blocks during the genocide, according to the witness. “They even killed Tutsis,” said one former RPF soldier.
Coalition: Then Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu and his deputy, Paul Kagame, in July 1994. Photo: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images
Another former RPF soldier, who was based in Kigali from April to July 1994, witnessed similar events. He told investigators that RPF commandos dressed up as government soldiers or disguised themselves as members of the Interahamwe, and used machetes to kill Tutsi civilians at roadblocks. The witness claimed the RPF deployed more than two battalions of these commandos in the capital alone.
They checked IDs [and] killed people by machete exactly like the Interahamwe, so no one would be suspicious.
False flag operations continued until well after the end of the genocide, according to various testimonies.
Triggering the bloodbath
Early on in the genocide, it was widely believed that Hutu hardliners were responsible for shooting down the president’s plane in a bid to hold on to power. The belief in this hypothesis remains widespread. However, RPF informants told the tribunal that the RPF planned and executed the attack on Habyarimana’s plane.
A number of former RPF soldiers said the RPF unearthed secret weapons caches immediately preceding the 6 April attack to prepare for battle. Sources told the SIU that Kagame and his senior commanders held three meetings to prepare the attack. In the summary report, UN investigators “confirmed” the existence of a RPF team in charge of surface-to-air missiles, which were allegedly transported to Kigali from the RPF’s military headquarters in northern Rwanda, near the Ugandan border. SIU documents named the individuals who allegedly brought the missiles into the capital, hid them and fired them on April 6, 1994, and included Kagame and Nyamwasa as potential targets for indictment.
One witness testified that before the attack on the plane, on the night of 6 April, RPF soldiers were told to get ready:
On 6 April 1994 at 19:00 hours, the order was received from Kayonga to be on ‘stand-by one’. This meant to be in full battle dress and ready for an attack. All the companies moved outside the camp into the trenches … At approximately 20:30 hours, I saw the president’s plane crash.
Another witness was later told by an intelligence agent that the RPF was indeed behind the plane attack:
He told me that it was the RPF who shot down Habyarimana’s plane. When he realised his indiscretion, he threatened me with reprisals if I didn’t keep it to myself.
The testimonies support the work of an earlier investigation undertaken in 1997 by the ICTR, by a lawyer called Michael Hourigan, who collected evidence indicating that the RPF was behind the plane attack. Louise Arbour, the UN tribunal’s chief prosecutor at the time, shut down the probe and told Hourigan that she did not have the mandate to investigate acts of terror, according to a number of interviews Hourigan gave after he quit his job in frustration with her decision. In later years, Arbour told The Globe and Mail newspaper that Kagame’s government blocked efforts to investigate RPF crimes and the tribunal did not have the resources to carry out such an inquiry safely.
In 2000, Carla Del Ponte, who took over after Arbour, made it clear she intended to indict the RPF. “For me, a victim is a victim, a crime falling within my mandate as the [Rwanda tribunal’s] prosecutor is a crime, irrespective of the identity or ethnicity or the political ideas of the person who committed the said crimes,” she said in a speech in 2002. “If it was Kagame who had shot down the plane, then Kagame would have been the person most responsible for the genocide,” she later said at a symposium organised by the French Senate.https://www.youtube.com/embed/mzSGKIF2rYs?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1
But in 2003, the US government warned Del Ponte that if she went ahead with her plans to indict the RPF, she would be fired, according to her memoir. Within a few months of a tense meeting she had with Pierre-Richard Prosper — then US Ambassador for War Crimes Issues, who had served as a prosecutor for the ICTR from 1996 to 1998 — Del Ponte was removed from the ICTR.
According to this leaked memo, dated 2003, Prosper struck a deal with the court to transfer jurisdiction for prosecuting RPF crimes — and evidence of RPF crimes collected by UN investigators — from the UN tribunal to the Rwandan government.
Prosper is currently a partner at Arent Fox, where he advises and represents the Rwandan government in international arbitration and litigation, according to the firm’s website . Prosper did not respond to our request for comment.
Hassan Jallow, Del Ponte’s successor, who oversaw the court’s prosecution until it closed in 2015, was ultimately unwilling to indict the RPF. In 2005, he defended the ICTR’s decision not to prosecute the RPF, writing that Kagame’s army had “waged a war of liberation and defeated the Hutu government of the day, putting an end to genocide.”
Since 1994, several other UN agencies have investigated RPF attacks on Hutu civilians, both inside Rwanda and in neighbouring countries. These reports were also suppressed, or became the focus of vigorous denials from Kigali. Although they address other alleged crimes of the RPF, they corroborate the SIU’s general findings that the RPF committed widespread, targeted crimes against Hutus.
Robert Gersony, a US consultant, was hired by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the summer of 1994 to assess whether it was safe for Hutu refugees who had fled Rwanda to neighbouring countries to return home. Gersony’s 1994 report was never officially made public, but according a version that was leaked in 2010, investigators concluded that the RPF killing of Hutus during the genocide was “systematic” and resulted in the death of tens of thousands of civilians.
Taking the capital: RPF soldiers gather on a road on 26 May 1994 to prepare to march into Kigali. Photo: Scott Peterson/Liaison
A senior official of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Rwanda said Gersony gave a verbal briefing in which he put forward evidence that the RPF had carried out a “calculated, pre-planned and systematic genocide against the Hutus.”
The UN Mapping Report, which investigated abuses committed by pro-Rwandan forces in the DRC between March 1993 and June 2003, concluded that attacks against Hutu civilians in that country, “if proven before a competent court, could be characterised as crimes of genocide.”
Efforts by France to investigate the shooting down of Habyarimana’s plane have similarly failed to establish any accountability. In 2006, after a lengthy investigation, a French judge issued arrest warrants for several RPF officials in connection with the assassination of the Rwandan president, a move that triggered a diplomatic row between Kigali and Paris.
Supporters of incumbent President Paul Kagame carry a large photograph of him during the campaign’s closing rally in Kigali, on August 2, 2017. (Marco Longari/AFP)
In December 2018, a court dismissed the case against the RPF, citing insufficient evidence to proceed to a trial and, on 3 July this year, an appeals court in Paris confirmed the decision and agreed not to reopen an investigation.
Researchers have recently attempted to estimate the number of victims of violence, both Tutsi and Hutu. In January, the Journal of Genocide Researchpublished several studies that estimated between 500 000 to 600 000 Tutsis were killed during the genocide, and between 400 000 and 550 000 Hutus lost their lives in the 1990s.
Marijke Verpoorten, an academic at the University of Antwerp, says it remains impossible to establish a reliable death toll of the killings of Hutus. Instead, she attempts to estimate how many Hutu lives were lost in the 1990s, either as a direct result of violence, or indirectly, after the rapid spread of contagious diseases in refugee camps, and the dire war conditions. She arrives at a “guesstimate” of 542 000, although admits there is a very large uncertainty interval.
Yet only one ethnic group has been internationally recognised as victims. Inside Rwanda, community-based gacaca courts tried more than 1.2-million alleged perpetrators of the Tutsi genocide. An official genocide survivor fund does not recognise Hutus who were killed, even if they lost their lives trying to protect Tutsis. Hutus are not allowed to publicly grieve their loved ones or request justice for RPF crimes in Rwanda.
After formally closing, the ICTR became a residual tribunal — now called the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT) — and continues to search for high-profile, alleged Hutu génocidaires. In May, French police arrested 87-year-old Félicien Kabuga, who had lived in hiding for 26 years. He stands accused of financing the genocide against Tutsis by funding an extremist radio station. Kabuga has denied the allegations and is currently in the Hague awaiting a trial.
The MICT did not respond when asked for comment on prosecuting RPF officials.
Never indicted: Rwandan President Paul Kagame greets a crowd after addressing supporters at the closing rally of his presidential campaign in Kigali in August 2017. (Photo: Marco Longari/AFP)
By Andrew Harding Africa correspondent, BBC NewsPublished6 hours ago
image captionThe footage, which the BBC has chosen to blur, shows members of the group promising to fight “enemies” of Rwanda
Leaked footage of a controversial “oath” ceremony at the Rwandan High Commission in London has fuelled allegations of an aggressive global crackdown on dissent by the authoritarian government of the small East African nation, dubbed the new “North Korea” by its critics.
Members of the Rwandan diaspora have told the BBC that such ceremonies are commonplace and designed to instil fear and obedience.
One man said his relatives back in Rwanda had been abducted and possibly killed to punish him for refusing to co-operate. The Rwandan authorities have dismissed the allegations as false and unsubstantiated.
In the video footage, recently circulated on WhatsApp, more than 30 individuals can be seen standing in a crowded conference room at the Rwandan embassy in the UK, raising their hands and pledging loyalty to the governing party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
“If I betray you or stray from the RPF’s plans and intentions, I would be betraying all Rwandans and must be punished by hanging,” the group says, in Kinyarwanda, while also promising to fight “enemies of Rwanda, wherever they may be”.
The RPF’s use of an embassy – which in London is close to Marylebone Station – for an overtly political pledge is, in itself, noteworthy.
‘They’re terrified’
But, while some of those attending the ceremony – understood to have taken place in 2017 – may well have been genuine supporters of the governing party, now living abroad, others have told the BBC that many attendees were there under duress.BBC”This is what happens everywhere. It’s routine. Either you take [the oath] or you are [the] enemy. It is black and white”David Himbara Ex-adviser to President Kagame
“I am certain the majority of people taking that oath did not believe it. We were lying to protect ourselves and our families back in Rwanda,” said one person who was – according to our investigation – present at the ceremony, but who asked us not to reveal their name for fear of reprisals.
“This is what happens everywhere. It’s routine. Either you take [the oath] or you are [the] enemy. It is black and white,” said David Himbara, who was once a senior adviser to Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.
He is a Canadian citizen, academic and activist who says his life has repeatedly been threatened by Rwanda’s security services.
“The vast majority go because they’re terrified. They think that if they don’t go, something will happen to their family [in Rwanda],” said Rene Mugenzi, a British-Rwandan human rights activist, who was recently convicted of theft in the UK and jailed.
“You need to be active [in the RPF]. Even if you are neutral… they suspect you to be supporting opposition groups,” he said.
Asked about the “oath” ceremony, the Rwandan High Commission replied, by email, that members of the diaspora used its conference room for a variety of cultural engagements and that participation in an RPF loyalty pledge was legal and “entirely of their own choice and no-one is forced to do so”.
‘My brothers were abducted’
But the BBC has heard new evidence that Rwanda’s government has not only sought to threaten members of the diaspora seen as disloyal, but also that it seeks to punish such people by targeting their relatives still living in Rwanda.
image captionFamily photos of Jean Nsengimana (L) and Antonine Zihabamwe (R), who have been missing for more than a year
“In order to intimidate me, they abducted my two brothers. They were never involved in politics. They were on Rwanda soil. Why should they be paying such a heavy price for doing nothing?” asked an emotional Noel Zihabamwe, from his home in Australia.
Mr Zihabamwe is a prominent member of the Rwandan diaspora in Sydney, who came to the country as a refugee in 2006, seeking to escape what he saw as an increasingly stifling and repressive political climate.
He says his refusal to actively support the RPF government prompted a public death threat from a visiting Rwandan diplomat in late 2017, which he reported to the Australian authorities.Noel ZihabamweThey often use this kind of kidnapping or murdering family members. This has to stop. We have had enough”Noel Zihabamwe A Rwandan living in Australia
That was followed by the alleged abduction of his two brothers, Jean Nsengimana and Antonine Zihabamwe, who were reportedly taken off a bus by police officers near the Rwandan town of Karangazi in September 2019 and have not been seen again.
“They often use this kind of kidnapping or murdering family members. This has to stop. We have had enough,” Mr Zihabamwe said.
“We would like to see the Rwandan government restore democratic rights to all citizens, cease targeted killings, kidnappings, illegal arrests and campaigns of intimidation of former citizens, like me, who are living overseas,” added Mr Zihabamwe, who now believes his brothers are probably dead and has decided to speak out in public, despite what he believes are considerable risks for himself and his extended family.
“Why can’t they let the family know where their bodies are, so we can organise a formal funeral? There are many Rwandans outside who have lost or missed their beloved ones.
“I want to speak against injustice. We need leadership that can stand for everyone, not for some,” he told the BBC.
‘No basis to allegations’
The Rwandan High Commission in London dismissed Mr Zihabamwe’s allegations as “tired and recycled” falsehoods and a “cheap ploy by political detractors to get free media attention”.
But allegations such as these are considered credible by many researchers, human rights groups and foreign diplomats, who say the Rwandan authorities appear to have calculated that – despite provoking some criticism from Western governments – such actions, which have included several targeted assassinations abroad, never appear to result in any long-term damage to Rwanda’s international relations.
The Rwandan government has received widespread global praise and financial support, over decades, for its hugely successful development agenda, which has helped to combat poverty and transformed Rwanda into one of the continent’s most impressive economies.
“Their view is – we can do what we like, kill who we like,” said one source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The death earlier this year, in police custody, of the popular gospel singer Kizito Mihigo also stirred huge anger.
image captionGospel singer Kizito Mihigo was found dead earlier this year, at the age of 38, in a police cell
Kizito, as he was popularly known, had tried to cross Rwanda’s border illegally, the authorities said. They say he killed himself – a version which is widely disputed in the diaspora and by many analysts.
“If you’re Rwandan, it’s simply safer to stay silent,” said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s deputy director for East Africa.
“The Rwandan authorities have a whole toolbox of tactics that they use to supress dissent at home and abroad, ranging from harassment to threats to illegal detention, disappearances, torture, and even extending to returning Rwandan dissidents from other countries back to Rwanda without going through extradition proceedings… and to threatening family members too.”
The Rwandan High Commission in London said such allegations had no basis, and were being spread by a “handful of opponents… in order to damage the image and continued development journey of Rwanda”.
‘Totalitarianism’
President Kagame officially secured almost 99% of the vote in Rwanda’s last presidential election in 2017.
In London, Abdulkarim Ali, an official in the opposition Rwandan National Congress, said: “Either you pay allegiance to the RPF or… you become an enemy of the state. We normally compare it to North Korea.”
In Canada, Mr Himbara described the Rwandan government’s ideology as one of “totalitarianism – a government that wants to control all aspects of the Rwandan people, even in the diaspora”.
The Rwandan High Commission in London said the government’s main focus was to lift Rwandans out of poverty and create a good quality of life and opportunities for all of them.
“The focus of the High Commission is not on a handful of opponents who consistently spread false information in order to damage the image and continued development journey of Rwanda.”
Inkuru igezweho ni iy’umugabo Adham Amin Hassoun ukomoka muri Libani ubu waaze kugezwa mu Rwanda ngo ahature nyuma y’uko arangije ibihano by’ibyaha byamuhamye. Ibyo byaha by’iterabwoba, byakorewe ku butaka bwa Leta zunze ubumwe z’Amerika maze mu rubanza rwarangiye mu mwaka wa 2007, uyu mugabo Adham Amin Hassoun akatirwa igihano cy’imyaka 15 y’igifungo. Aho atangirije igihano , igihugu cya Leta zunze ubumwe z’Amerika cyanze ko aguma ku butaka bwacyo maze kimuha u Rwanda, na rwo rwemera kumwakira. Ni mu gihe igihugu cye cya Libani cyari cyamwanze cyane cyane ko igihugu cya Isiraheli kimufata nk’umuterabwoba, bityo uwamwakira wese yaba ahanganye na Isiraheli. Kumuzana mu karere k’ibiyaga bigari bivuze iki?
Mu mibanire y’ibihugu habamo guharanira no kurinda inyungu. Ibihugu by’ibihangange ntibijya byibeshya ngo bitsimuke kuri uyu murongo. Nyamara ibihugu bikishakisha akenshi byubakiye ku butegetsi bw’ikandamiza, butagira demokarasi, bihura n’ingorane kuri iyi ngingo. Usanga abategetsi bareba inyungu za bo nk’abantu aho kureba inyungu z’abenegihugu muri rusange.
Bene aba bategetsi barenga ku mategeko bishyiriyeho, kenshi bagasinya amasezerano adafitiye abenegihugu akamaro bagamije gushimisha ibihugu by’ibihangange. Kuzana uyu Adham Amin Hassoun mu karere k’ibiyaga bigari byareberwa muri iyi ndorerwamo. Abenshi bamenyereye ibijyanye na géopolitique barabona ko uyu mugabo afite mission imuzanye, ishobora kuba ijyanye no kubiba intambara izatuma ubukungu bwo mu karere busahurirwa mu nduru.
Mu mateka ya hafi, Leta zunze ubumwez’Amerika zikoresha abantu nk’uyu Adham Amin Hassoun mu ntambara nk’izo. Abazwi cyane ni nka Charles Tylor, Paul Kagame, n’abandi. Reka tuvuge kuri Charles Taylor na Paul Kagame.
Charles Taylor
Charles Taylor
Yafashije Samuel Doe mu gukora cou d’Etat muri Liberia mu mwaka wa 1980. Coup d’Etat irangiye, Charles Taylor yagizwe umuyobozi mukuru wa General Service Agency (GSA) ikigo cyari gishinzwe kugura ibikoresho bya Guvernoma. mu mwaka wa 1983, Tayolor yarirukanywe azira kurigisa amadolari miliyoni y’amanyamerika. Icyo gihe yahise ahungira muri Leta zunze ubumwe z’Amerika. Samuel Doe na Leta ye bakoze ibishoboka byose ngo bagarure Taylor ariko USA yanga kumutanga. Taylor yafungiwe muri Gereza ifite umutekano ukajije yitwa Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Mu mwaka wa 1985, abifashijwemo n’abakozi na CIA, Charles Taylor yatorotse gereza anyura Newa York nyuma aburirwa irengero. Mu mwaka wakurikiyeho, yagaragaye muri Libya afite umutwe urwanya Liberia waje no kumugeza ku butegetsi. Byose byari mu mipango ya USA. Amaze kugera ku butegetsi Abanyamerika babonye uko bakoza intoki kuri zahabu ya Liberia. Nyuma Taylor yaje kwegura ku butegetsi, arahunga, biranga arafatwa aregwa ibyaha by’intambara mu rukiko mpuzamahanga akatirwa imyaka 50 mu rwego rwo kumubuza kuzamena amabanga ya CIA.
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Nk’impunzi y’umunyarwanda yari afite ubwenegihugu bwa Uganda, Kagame yageze muri Amerika agiye kwiga mu ishuri rya gisirikare aho bivugwa ko yahuriye na CIA igatangira kumuha mission. Mu gihe u Rwanda rwaterwaga na FPR Inkotanyi, Paul Kagame yoherejwe kuyobora urugamba. Kugora ngo azabigereho nta nkomyi, Kagame yishe abasirikare bamurushaga ubuhanga, kumenywa no gukundwa mu Nkotanyi: Rwigema, Bunyenyezi, Kayitare, Bayingana, n’abandi bari bagifite gahunda ya gi komunisiti mu mitwe yabo. Aba bari bari barakuriye mu ntambara zashyiraga imbere amatwara ya gikomunisti yari ateye ubwoba Abanyamerika.
Hashize imyaka ine, Kagame yaje gufata ubutegetsi mu Rwanda amaze kwica abaperezida babiri, uw’u Rwanda n’uw’u Burundi mu gikorwa cy’iterabwoba cyabaye tariki ya 6 Mata 1994. Abanyamerika bakoze ibishoboka byose barinda Kagame inkiko mpuzamahanga zimurega kuba yarishe abantu abatagira ingano. Kubera Kagame mu Rwanda, Abanyamerika bemerewe kuzana ingabo zabo mu Rwanda, ibintu Kayibanda na Habyarimana bari baranze. Ndetse na Mobutu, Kabila père bari barabyanze. Muri make nta kintu Kagame yahakanira Abanyamerika (CIA) kuko azi ko bazamwica byanze bikunze. It’s a matter of time.
Kuzana Adham Amin Hassoun mu Rwanda biragaragaza ko hari ibintu birimo gutegurwa mu karere. Twabibutsa ko uyu mugabo bamuzanye hashize iminsi mikeya igihugu cy’u Burundi cyanze kwakira abantu Amerika yashakaga koherezayo ibita ko ari Abarundi. Kugira ngo wumve uburemere bwabyo, Amerika yafatiye ibihano igihugu cy’u Burundi ngo kuko cyanze kwakira abo bantu, cyakora Leta y’u Burundi yihagazeho.
Adham Amin Hassoun
Uyu Adham Amin Hassoun aje asanga undi uzwi mu ntambara zo muri Saheli witwa Moustapha Ould Lima wibera i Kigali. Bombi bafitanye umubano n’igihugu cya Qatar kimaze gushora amafranga menshi mu bukungu bw’u Rwanda, ku buryo gisa n’icyaguze igihugu! Icyo Paul Kagame azatuzanira tuzagifatisha yombi. Hejuru ya jenoside ni nde koko wari uzi ko hashobora kuba ibiyirenze? Uretse ko ngo Magayane yabivuze!
Moustapha Ould Lima (ibumoso) arasuhuza Emir wa Qatar
Reka dukomeze tubitege amaso, ntiduheranwe n’ubwoba ahubwo twishakemo imbaraga zo kurwanya ubutegetsi budashyira imbere inyungu za Rubanda.
Kenya Forest Service evicts 300 Ogiek families from their homes in the Mau Forest. Despite the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights 2017 ruling that the Ogiek should not be evicted.
In May 2017, the Ogiek Indigenous People won an important land rights victory at the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Court ruled that the Ogiek have the right to live in the Mau Forest and that the government of Kenya was wrong to evict them. At the end of June 2020, 100 officers from the Kenya Forest Service and Kenya Police Service started evicting the Ogiek and demolishing their homes.
On 7 July 2020, Kenya Forest Service guards evicted 300 families from the Ogiek community. According to the Star, as many as 30,000 Ogiek families could end up homeless.
The evictions are taking place despite a moratorium on forced evictions issued by the government only one month ago.
On 11 May 2020, Fred Matiangi’i, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government, went on national television to announce a moratorium on forced evictions during the coronavirus evictions.
Although the Environment and Land Court on Friday halted any pending evictions, the government’s record in obeying court orders offers no respite for the homeowners.
Kenya’s Ministry for Environment and Forestry had set up a taskforce to advise the government on how to implement the Ogiek judgement.
In the Preface to the report Daniel Kobei, Executive Director of the Ogiek Peoples Development Program, writes,
This taskforce, like colonial rule in Kenya in times past, did not include representation of our community even though the deliberations directly concerned us. We understand its mandate ended on 24 January 2020 but its report has not been made public despite our attempts to seek disclosure. The Ogiek community made submissions to the taskforce seeking complete restitution of our ancestral land, with at least seven non-transferable community titles.
Lucy Claridge, Senior Counsel at the Forest Peoples Programme, summarises the key findings of the Ogiek judgement in the report. The Court recognised the Ogiek as an Indigenous community and that the Mau Forest is their ancestral home. For centuries the Ogiek have depended on the Mau Forest as a source of livelihood.
Article 14, of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, states that “The right to property shall be guaranteed”. The Court recognised the Ogiek’s “right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use”, as stated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Claridge writes that,
Importantly, the Court recognized that such rights ‘do not necessarily entail the right of ownership in its classical meaning, including the right to dispose thereof ’, recognizing that, unlike other property rights, indigenous rights over their ancestral lands are inalienable: they cannot be transferred or taken away. Since the government had not disputed that the Ogiek have occupied lands in the Mau Forest since time immemorial, the Court ruled that they have the right to occupy, use and enjoy their ancestral lands. Further, although the Court accepted that the right to property under Article 14 can be restricted in the public interest where necessary and proportionate, it found that the degradation of the Mau Forest could neither be attributable to the Ogiek nor did the preservation of the ecosystem justify their eviction. Accordingly, the expulsion of the Ogiek from their ancestral lands against their will, without prior consultation, constitutes a violation of Article 14.
Instead of respecting the ruling of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights the Kenyan government is destroying the homes of the Ogiek Indigenous communities. It is also evicting Sengwer Indigenous communities. These evictions are taking place during the coronavirus pandemic. Making people homeless makes them more at risk from the coronavirus. And all of this is taking place in the name of conservation.
Ni inama yahawe izina rya Rwanda Bridge Builders. Yabaye kuwa 23 kugeza kuwa 24 Gicurasi 2020. Yahuje abari hafi 60 harimo amashyaka ya politiki atavuga rumwe na FPR ndetse n’imiryango itegamiye kuri Leta yita ku bibazo by’u Rwanda.
GAHUNDE 