Tag Archives: genocide

Erega njye “si ndi Umunyarwanda, ndi Umuhutu”J de Dieu MUSEMAKWELI

Kimwe mu byarangaga Umunyarwanda harimo kwanga umugayo. Kandi si Umunyarwanda gusa, ahubwo yari umuntu wese w’imfura, dore ko “ubupfura butagira ubwoko” nk’uko muri buri bwoko haba inyanda, imfunya n’imfura mbi. Kimwe mu byerekana ko Abanyarwanda bamwe batacyanga umugayo ni ziriya mbabazi abategetsi b’Abahutu bategetswe na Kagame gusaba ngo mu izina ry’Abahutu bose, kuberako ngo ari abicanyi kuva mu gisekuruza kugera mu kindi.

Ubona koko habure n’umwe, babiri se cyangwa batatu batinyuka kubwira Kagame bati “Oya ntitubikora, kubera ko ari amafuti, nushaka utuvane ku kazi, udufunge cyangwa se utwice” ? Rwose, habure n’umwe ? Ni akaga, ni ishyano u Rwanda rugushije. Nyamara mu mateka y’u Rwanda n’ayo mu bindi bihugu byo ku isi, ntihabuze ingero bari kwibuka, bikabatera ubutwari bwo kuzikurikiza, rwose bakavanira Kagame inzira ku murima izuba riva.

Ese ntibabona ko mu maso ya Kagame icyaha cy’Umuhutu ari uko ari Umuhutu nyine ? Bisubiye nk’uko byari bimeze ku ngoma ya gihake na gikolonize mu Rwanda, nk’uko Gashakabuhake wo muri Afurika y’Epfo yazizaga Abirabura ko ari Abirabura, nk’uko Hitler yazizaga Abayahudi ko ari Abayahudi. Iryo ni ryo rondakoko ry’ukuri, ngicyo ahubwo icyaha cy’inkomoko, ureke ibindi.

Gusaba imbabazi umuntu ukuziza icyo uri cyo ni uguta igihe no kumwoshya kuko ahubwo bituma akeka ko ari mu kuri. Iyo umaze gutuma akeka ko ari mu kuri, noneho “asya atanzitse”. Kera abagabo bagikubita abagore, hari abagore bamwe wumvaga bavuga bati “nankubite nyine, none se ko yankoye, byagenda bite ?”. Haba n’imvugo yabaga mu muco w’Abashinwa yagiraga iti “Kubita umugore, niba utazi icyo umuhora, we aba akizi”. Imitekerereze nk’iyo ikomoka ku myumvire mibi y’icyo bivuga kuba umwari, umutegarugori, umusore, umugabo no ku myumvire mibi y’uko abashakanye bagomba kubana. Icyo gihe rero ntacyabuza umugabo gukomeza guhonda umugore, ndetse yashaka akamwica.

Iby’Abahutu mu Rwanda ni aho bigana. Ku ngoma ya gihake na gikolonize mu Rwanda, kwica Umuhutu cyangwa kumwambura ibye nticyari icyaha. Igihe Abarabu n’Abazungu batundaga Abirabura bakajya kubagira abacakara (traite négrière, commerce des esclaves), abo Birabura bashoboraga gupfa uko bashatse, bagatumba bubeba (nk’imbeba), ibyo ntacyo byabaga bivuze. Ngaho rero aho Abahutu bo mu Rwanda bagiye gusubira.

Tugarutse ku bagore bakubitwaga n’abagabo, hari n’uwamaraga gukubitwa, umugabo akamubaza ati “wandakariye ?”. Umugore agasubiza ati “Nabarakarira nte se kandi mwankonsoraga ?” Iby’Abahutu bo mu Rwanda ni aho bigana. Kuva ubu ingoma ya Kagame izajya ifata Abahutu, ibakorere ibibi byose bishoboka, ivuge ngo iri kubakosora ubusembwa karande bavukana cyane cyane ubwo kuba abajenosideri. Abahutu bagiye gusubizwa kuri ya mvugo ya kinyarwanda ngo “Umwami yica so, ukamutura” kugirango nawe atakwica. Kandi koko ni ko byagendaga. Mu Rwanda no mu Burundi, iyo wajyaga gufata umurambo w’uwawe wiciwe ibwami, wagombaga kugenda useka kandi witwaje inka yo gushima, hato batavuga ngo warakariye umwami. Ngaho rero aho u Rwanda rusubiye.

Icyakora hari abandi bagore bihagararagaho, bakanga gukubitwa bakabwira abagabo bati “Urashaka kunkubita, aha ngo urankosora ? Uragakosorwa n’inkuba !” Ngicyo igisubizo kigomba guhabwa ingoma ya Kagame.

Ku ngoma ya gihake na gikolonize mu Rwanda, Abahutu barakubitwaga kakahava. Ikiboko cyararishaga. Ubwo kandi bakubitwaga ku kibuno, baryamye bubitse inda, bamanuye ikabutura, ipantalo cyangwa akenda babaga bambaye. Hari n’abakubitirwaga imbere y’abagore n’abana babo. Bamwe bahitagamo guhunga bakajya muri Uganda no muri Tanzaniya kuko ari ibihugu byakolonizwaga n’Abongeleza. Ntibajyaga i Burundi cyangwa muri Congo kuko naho hategekwaga n’Ababiligi’ kandi Ababiligi n’Abatutsi, “umwe yabaga ari icyitso, undi ari gatozi”. Igihe cyarageze ariko, Gahutu yanga gukomeza gukubitwa. Urebye uko ibintu biri kugenda bihindagurika mu Rwanda, noneho si ugukubitwa gusa, ahubwo agiye gusubira ku ngoyi, ayirambeho.

Muri uko gukubitwa kwabo, hari abandi bagore wumvaga bagira bati “ankubite se, ankubite igitenge, ankubite se akanyama ?” Kuba umugabo ahahira urugo bimuha uburenganzira bwo gukubita umugore no kubuza abana amahoro ? Oya rwose, habe na busa. Niba umugabo ari umutwe w’urugo, umugore ni umutima warwo. Kimwe kiryamiye ikindi, umubiri wose wahababarira, ndetse bikaba byawuviramo n’urupfu. U Rwanda rero ni ho rugana.

Iriya gahunda “Ndi Umunyarwanda” igejeje u Rwanda aho benshi mu Batutsi bumva ko aribo Banyarwanda bonyine. Umuhutu azajya aba umunyarwanda ari uko Abatutsi babimwemereye. Icyo gihe kandi nabwo, azaba ameze nk’inyana y’insindirano. Ngo “Ironka, ntitsimba”. Abatutsi bazajya bamugerera, bamuhe utuvungukira ku byiza by’u Rwanda, batumukubitireho, bagerekeho n’inshyuro aka wa mugani wa kinyarwanda ngo “Umwana w’umuja akubitirwa ku mazi nyina yavomye”.

Ni byo Kagame yatangiye avuga ko “u Rwanda rubana n’abarwishe”, ko muri leta ye harimo abajenosideri, ko nta kundi gufungura urubuga rwa politiki kuruta ibyongibyo. Ubu rero kugirango Umuhutu azabone ishuri cyangwa akazi mu Rwanda, kabone n’ubwo kwaba ari ukwikorera ku giti cye, kugirango azabone uburenganzira nk’ubw’Abanyarwanda b’ukuri, ni ukuvuga Abatutsi, ni ineza azaba agiriwe. Ibyo nabyo si iby’ubu kuko ariyo mitekerereze dusanga mu mabaruwa 2 y’abagaragu b’ibwami yo mu w’1958, mu migambi n’imigabo (statuts) y’ishyaka rya UNAR, akaba ari nayo mitekerereze mu by’ukuri ya FPR-Inkotanyi.

Ngaho rero aho u Rwanda rugana. Kera Abatutsi n’Abahutu banenaga Abatwa. Bivugwa ko Umutwa yigeze kunyura munsi y’urugo rw’abandi bugorobye mu kabwibwi, nyiri urugo amwumvise arabaza nk’uko byagendaga mu muco wa kinyarwanda ati “Yewe muntu utambuka uri nde ?”. Undi arasubiza ati “Erega sindi umuntu, ndi Umutwa”. Igihe kiregereje rero ngo Umuhutu w’i Rwanda ajye avuga ati“Erega sindi umunyarwanda, ndi Umuhutu”. Kuri radiyo, televiziyo n’ibinyamakuru byo mu Rwanda, bazajya bavuga amakuru y’ahabaye impanuka y’imodoka bagira bati“Hakomeretse Abanyarwanda batatu n’Abahutu umunani”

Umwanzuro

Niba hatabonetse bwangu abanyapolitiki bitanga ngo babogore uru Rwanda, nta handi Kagame arwerekeza hatari kuri mteremko ! Mu minsi mike iri imbere aha ibintu ntibizaba bigifite igaruriro.

Niba idaharitswe , iyi gahunda ya “Ndi Umunyarwanda” irasiga yoretse u Rwanda izuba riva.

Jean de Dieu MUSEMAKWELI

Kigali

FPR irusha ubugome abazima n’abapfuye: ibihangano bya Kizito byaciwe mu Rwanda!

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Ikirango cya KMP( Kizito Mihigo for Peace Foundation)

Mu ibaruwa Havugimana Aldo, umuyobozi wa Radiyo Rwanda yandikiye abayobozi b’ibiganiro ku maradiyo ya RBA yose yabasabye kuba bahagaritse ibihangano bya Kizito Mihigo ubu ufunze akekwaho guhungabanya umutekano w’igihugu no gushaka kwica abayobozi bakuru b’igihugu.

Mu ibaruwa yabandikiye, Umuryango wabashije kubonera kopi, yagize ati :” Nshingiye ku itangazo ryashyizwe ahagaragara na Polisi taliki 14/4/2014, rihishura ko uwitwa Kizito Mihigo ari mu bantu batawe muri yombi bakurikiranweho ibyaha birimo guhungabanya umutekano w’igihugu, mutegetswe guhera none uyu munsi taliki 14/4/2014 kuba muhagaritse gucuranga kuri radiyo ibihangano bya Kizito Mihigo . Ibi bihangano ni ukuvuga ibiganiro , indirimbo aririmba cyangwa acuranga ku giti n’izo afatanyije n’abandi”.

Indirimbo za Kizito Mihigo zirimo izijyane n’idini rye rya gatulika ndetse n’izo yaririmbye zijyanye n’icyunamo. Mu minsi ijana u Rwanda rwibukamo buri mwaka jenoside yakorewe abatutsi (ari nayo twatangiye kuri 7 Mata) usanga indirimbo ze zumvikana hirya no hino haba ku maradiyo na televiziyo binyuranye ndetse no ku biriyo aho bashyinguye mu cyubahiro imibiri y’abishwe muri jenoside yakorewe abatutsi.

Iki cyemezo cya RBA n’abandi bashobora kucyicyiriza ntihagire indirimbo ya Kizito Mihigo yongera gucurangwa mu buryo bweruye ku butaka bw’u Rwanda.

Ibi nkaba mbivuga nshingiye ko na Minisitiri Mitali, ubwo yari mu muhango wo gushyingura imibiri y’abazize jenoside yakorewe abatutsi I Rusororo kuri uyu wa kabiri taliki 15/4/2014, yasabye abari aho n’abanyarwanda muri rusange kudakomeza gufata Kizito Mihigo nk’umuntu uzwi cyane “Star” kuko ngo ibye byamenyekanye.

Yagize ati :“Ubundi twakoranaga (Kizito) twibwira ko dukorana neza no muri gahunda nk’izi zo kwibuka. Ntabwo Kizito Mihigo uyu munsi akwiye gukomeza kuba umusitari, yari umusitari mu ndirimbo, mu buhanzi bwe, ariko ntakomeze kuba umusitari kuko yafashwe, ni mumufate nk’umugizi wa nabi nk’abandi bose.”

Kizito Mihigo kandi, muri iyi minsi ijana yo kwibuka jenoside yakorewe abatutsi, cyabaga ari igihe kiza cyo gukorera amafaranga yifashishije indirimbo ze zijyane n’iki cyunamo. Henshi aho bashyinguraga babaga bifuza bikomeye kumutumaho ngo abaririmbire ndetse henshi banateranyaga amafaranga ngo babashe kumwigondera.

Umwe mu bigeze kuba ari mu bakuriye imihango yo gushyingura mu gace atifuje ko dutangaza cyangwa ngo nawe tuvuge izina rye, yadutangarije ko ubwo bamutumagaho ( Kizito Mihigo) ngo abaririmbire yabaciye amafaranga ibihumbi 500 y’amanyarwanda barayamwishyura.

Inkuru dukesha Umuryango .com 15/04/2014

“Ubuhanzi bwa Kizito bwari bugamije ikibi….” Mitali

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Mu mbwirwaruhame yagejeje kubari bitabiriye umuhango wo gushyingura no kwibuka abazize Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi i Ruhanga, mu Murenge wa Rusororo, mu Karere ka Gasabo, Minisitiri w’Umuco na Siporo Mitali Protais yasabye Abanyarwanda kudakomeza gufata Kizito Mihigo nk’umuntu w’umusitari ahubwo batangira kumufata nk’umugizi wa nabi, wagiriye nabi igihugu.

Mu mbwirwaruhame ye, Minisitiri Mitali yagarutse kenshi ku banyapolitiki bakorera hanze y’igihugu ariko ngo ugasanga nta cyiza bashakira Abanyarwanda uretse kongera kubabibamo amacakubiri n’inzangano nk’ibyo bahozemo, ari nabo ngo bagushije Kizito Mihigo mu mutego.

Benshi muri abo banyapolitiki kandi ngo baracyafite umugambi wo gupfobya Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi.

Yagize ati “Abafite umugambi wo kuyipfobya, igihe ubwacyo kizagenda kibereka ko nta gaciro, nta n’umwanya nta n’uruvugiro bafite haba mu Rwanda haba no ku Isi yose.”

Abanyapolitiki Minisitiri Mitali yatungaga agatoki barimo nk’abo mu mutwe urwanya Leta y’u Rwanda wa “FDLR” na RNC n’ubwo we ngo abifata nk’imitwe y’iterabwoba.

Ygize ati “Bariya bose ni ayanda, ni amaco y’inda, ni bya bindi bya mpemuke ndamuke ariko ikibabaje ni uko hari ababumva kandi bitari bikwiye.”

N’ubwo aba yita Abanyapolitiki bagifite ibitekerezo bibi ngo barwanywa, ariko haracyari ibisigisigi by’imbuto mbi babibye.

Ati “Hari abo inyigisho z’urwangano zacengeye bananirwa kuzigobotora, n’ubu bumva iturufu y’amoko ariyo bashyira imbere ngo bagere ku nyungu zabo.”

Muri abo babumva, bakemera gukorana nabo yatanze urugero rw’abaherutse gufatwa barimo n’umuhanzi Kizito Mihigo.

Mitali ati “Ubundi twakoranaga (Kizito) twibwira ko dukorana neza no muri gahunda nk’izi zo kwibuka.

Ntabwo Kizito Mihigo uyu munsi akwiye gukomeza kuba umusitari, yari umusitari mu ndirimbo, mu buhanzi bwe, ariko ntakomeze kuba umusitari kuko yafashwe, ni mumufate nk’umugizi wa nabi nk’abandi bose.”

Minisitiri Mitali kandi ngo asanga n’ubuhanzi bwa Kizito bwari bugamije ikibi gusa.

Yagize ati “Na buriya buhanzi bwe, muby’ukuri uko bigaragara wari umwitozo cyangwa inzira yo gushaka kumenyekana cyane kugira ngo bazagere ku mugambi wabo wo kuyobya bamwe mu Banyarwanda.”

Minisitiri Mitali kandi arahumuriza buri we wese ushobora gukeka ko wenda byaba bidafatika.

Ati “Inzego z’umutekano zacu ntabwo zihubuka, amakuru zatangaje ni uko zifite gihamya ko hari agatsiko k’abantu nawe (Kizito) arimo bamaze igihe kitari gito bakorana n’aba bagizi ba nabi navugaga.”

Minisitiri w’umuco kandi arakebura Abanyarwanda kutajya bibeshya ku muntu uwo ariwe wese ngo ni uko yarokotse cyangwa yari mubahagaritse Jenoside kuko ngo bitavuze ko atahindukira ngo nawe kubera inyungu z’inda nini nawe abe umwanzi w’igihugu nk’uko na ba Kizito byagenze.

Ati “Birababaje kubona abana b’u Rwanda, birababaje kumva umwanzi agira amayeri yo gukoresha abantu nka bariya bazwi cyane, bari bafite ababibonamo batari bacyeya kugira ngo bagere ku migambi mibisha harimo no guhungabanya umutekano w’igihugu.”

Minisitiri Mitali asaba buri wese ko mu bihe nk’ibi byo kwibuka, ibyabaye bidakwiye kubahungabanya ahubwo ngo bitume barushaho kuba maso.

Ati “Tumenye ko abagome bagira amayeri menshi, cyane cyane kandi bakanyura ahoroshye, mu bantu bafite amaroso ashyushye, mu rubyiruko.”

Mitali avuga ko ubundi urubyiruko rw’u Rwanda rufite imyumvire myiza ariko ntihaburamo bacyeya bashobora gushukishwa indoke zitazaramba bakaba bashorwa mu bikorwa bibi nk’ibyo Kizito na bagenzi be bari bamazemo iminsi.

Minisitiri Mitali asaba Abanyarwanda ko batakomeza guta umwanya ku bantu we avuga ko batannye bagata umurongo, ahubwo ngo barusheho kuba maso no gukangura ubugizi bwa nabi n’aho bwava hose.

Ati “Uru ni urugero rufatika rw’uko twese tugomba kwisuzuma kugira ngo buri wese yumve niba ahagaze neza mu myemerereye, mu kugendana n’igihe, mu guhangana n’ikibi, mu gutera umugongo ikibi aho cyaturuka hose, uwakivuga uwo ariwe wese, isano mwaba mufitanye iyo ariyo yose.”

Mitali yemeza ko u Rwanda rumaze intambwe ishimishe bityo ntawukwiye gukomeza guha umwanya abantu bashaka gusenya kugira ngo batazarusubiza inyuma.

Vénuste Kamanzi
UMUSEKE.RW

Theogene Rudasingwa VS Paul Kagame on Habyarimana’s plane.

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Since Rudasingwa and Kagame fell out about four years ago, the first has tirelessly repeated that Habyarimana’s presidential plane was shot down on orders given by current President of Rwanda, and then commander of RPF Paul Kagame. Although no investigations were done concerning this terrorist attack, the international community and diverse Non Governmental Organizations, legal and political organizations as well as independent reporters and members of academia confirmed that the shooting sparked genocide. Of course it is somehow dubious, but strong enough to try convince us why mass killings started after Habyarimana was shot down, and not before. Therefore genocide is hereby understood as a reaction or a consequence of the shooting down of the presidential plane.

Yet what remains a puzzle is the silence over that critical matter in Rwanda’s history. It is not because the UN or key players in international decision-making bodies ignore the importance of this case. Many times this case was raised in different courts of law but was turned down for unknown reasons.

While one would be pushed to think the case was avoided because it would have been very difficult to gather evidence especially after the black box “disappeared” within the UN Secretary General office, Dr Theogene Rudasingwa has come out to make the task easier. “Kagame is the man you want” Theogene’s testimony resonates.

But again, why this former lieutenant and comrade of Kagame’s seems taking pleasure in speaking out? Views on this question differ tremendously. For some, Rudasingwa was fired by Kagame and he is trying to revenge. For others, he ( Rudasingwa) wants to take over RPF after it will have been decapitated of Kagame and other key politicians, and yet for others Rudasingwa is taking advantage of time given unto him by the situation to do a good job for his motherland, Rwanda; by telling the truth and providing his contribution towards the long-lasting peace. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8, 32.

Kagame never said he did not give the order to shoot. He was heard saying that it was the war time, that Habyarimana was his enemy, and that even Habyarimana would have wanted him to die,… but he did not explicitly accept his role. For this unclear position of Kagame’s, Rudasingwa gives another medication: Let Kagame take a lie-detector test. Wow! That is interesting, isn’t? Rudasingwa goes on to say that he is willing to take it as well. Following is his statement:

INVITATION TO PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME TO TAKE A LIE-DETECTOR TEST (POLYGRAPH)

I am inviting President Paul Kagame to join me in taking a lie-detector ( polygraph) test, under international supervision, on the question of who shot down President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane in 1994.

In April 2012, I testified before the French Judge, Marc Trevidic, to confirm that President Paul Kagame is responsible for the shooting down of the aircraft in which President Habyarimana of Rwanda, President Ntaryamira of Burundi and all others on board perished.

Both of us could take the test under the auspices of a joint panel of investigators constituted by the African Union and the United Nations.

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa
Washington DC
USA

10/23/2013

What do you think will be Kagame’s reaction? Please let me hear you.

Chaste Gahunde

Simeon Musengimana vs Noble Marara: Uko mbibona.

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Ihangana hagati ya Simeon Musengimana w’ijwi rya rubanda n’ikinyamakuru Inyenyeri news.com cya Noble Marara

Mu minsi ishize abasoma ndetse bagakurikirana amakuru ku mbuga za internet, bakurikiranye iterana ry’amagambo hagati y’umugabo Simeon Musengimana uyobora Radio Ijwi rya Rubanda n’ikinyamakuru Inyenyerinews.com kiyoborwa na Noble Marara. Mu by’ukuri ihangana hagati y’aba bagabo bombi si irya none kuko hari hashize ighe bagaragaza ko batumva ibintu kimwe, ibi bikaba nta kibazo kibirimo kuko muri Demukarasi twese duharanira umuntu agira uburenganzira bwo kumva ndetse no gutangaza uburyo we abona ibintu. Muri ubu buryo bwa demukarasi, kirazira kugira uwo uhutaza, ubeshyera cyangwa se uhimbira kuko ibi byo bihanwa n’amategeko. Ikindi kidatangaje ni uko iyo bigeze ku mateka y’u Rwanda abantu benshi bayabona uburyo butandukanye kandi akenshi usanga buri wese ashaka ko amateka ye ariyo agira ireme. Nanone ariko nk’uko nigeze kubigarukaho muri zimwe mu nyandiko zanjye, nta kuri kubiri kubaho ku kintu kimwe. Iyo abantu babiri cyangwa abarenzeho bavuga inkuru imwe ntibabashe guhuza ibyo bavuga ni ukuvuga ko haba harimo ubeshya. Muri iyi nyandiko ndagerageza kwerekana uko njye mbona ririya hangana hagati ya Musengimana na Marara, impamvu zaryo n’ingaruka rishobora kugira ku Banyarwanda twese.

Ihangana n’Impamvu zaryo.

Iyo urebeye hafi ibintu, usanga aba bagabo bombi biyemerera ko bahuriye ku kintu kimwe: guharanira demokarasi, ariko bagera ku buryo (methodologies) banyuzamo ibikorwa byabo ugasanga ari ho ibibazo bituruka. Noble Marara yiyemerera ko rwose yahagurukiye kurwanya ubutegetsi bwa Paul Kagame ashingiye ko Kagame abangamiye ubumwe n’ubwiyunge bw’Abanyarwanda bityo agasanga Abanyarwanda bagomba kwisuganya bakarwanya ubutegetsi buyobowe n’uwo mugabo Kagame. Musengimana na we ibyo niko abibona ariko akongeraho ko kugira ngo abantu bagire icyo bageraho hagomba kugira conditions zubahirizwa. Conditions Simeon atanga ni ukubanza gushakisha uko abantu bose bakoze ibyaha mu ntambara zabaye mu Rwanda bahanwa. Uko njye mbibona, ikibazo gituruka aha: Simeon aravuga ati ubucamanza bwakorewe Abanyarwanda bwarabogamye bucira imanza z’ukuri n’iz’ibinyoma Abanyarwanda bo mu bwoko bw’Abahutu, bityo akemeza ko kugira ngo ibintu bigende neza Abanyarwanda bo mu bwoko bw’Abatutsi na bo bakoze ibyaha kandi hakaba hari ibimenyetso bifatika bashyikirizwa ubucamanza.

Simeon akunda kugaruka ku bantu bahoze mu gisirikare cya FPR mu gihe ibi byaha byakorwaga na (Marara Noble yahozemo) cyane cyane akibanda kuri Nyamwasa wahoze ari chief of Staff muri Ministeri y’ingabo mu gihe cya FPR ndetse akaba yarabaye no muri bakeya bayoboraga imirwano mu ntambara ya FPR. Abandi Simeon abona bakwiye kubazwa ibyo bakoreye u Rwanda ni Colonel Karegeya Patrick, Major Rudasingwa Theogene na Gahima Gerard. N’ubwo Simeon adahagararira kuri aba bonyine, by’umwihariko aba basangiye ko bafite n’Ishyaka rya Politiki(Rwanda National Congress-RNC riharanira impinduka mu Rwanda bityo bamwe mu barwanashyaka baryo bagakeka ko Simeon atarwanya icyaha ahubwo ko yaba arwanya abakekwaho icyaha. Kubwa njye iriya nyandiko nayo yabarizwa muri iki cyiciro.

Abantu bamwe twaganiriye bakeka ko Simeon ashobora kuba yanga Abatutsi cyakora ku bwanjye nk’umuntu waganiriye na Simeon haba kuri radio ndetse n’imbonankubone, nasanze Simeon atagira ikintu cyo kwanga umuntu ngo ni uko ari Umututsi cyangwa se ari Umuhutu. Ibi bigaragazwa n’uko hari Abatutsi benshi Simeon yahaye ikaze kuri Radio ye kandi ndakeka n’ubu ariko bikimeze. Hari n’abandi bemeza kandi bashyigikiye ibyo Simeon avuga ariko bagatinya kubivugira ahagaragara kubera ubwoba. Hari n’abakeka ko Simeon akoresha imvugo ikakaye iyo yamagana ubwo bwicanyi n’ababukoze. Abandi bo bakavuga ko ibyo Simeon avuga bishobora kubangamira ugushyira hamwe kw’Abarwanya ingoma ya Kigali. Gusa rero umuntu akanibaza impamvu abantu bahatira Simeon kuvugisha imvugo yoroheje kugira ngo yamagane ibikomeye! Ikigaragara ni uko Simeon ari umwe mu bantu batinyuka gushyira ahagaragara ibiri mu mitima ya benshi, ntawe ukwiye kubimuziza.

2. Ingaruka

Zimwe mu ngaruka zo kutumva ibintu kimwe mu bihugu bitaretera intambwe igaragara muri Demukarasi nk’u Rwanda ni urwango. Urugero umuntu asomye yitonze inyandiko yasohotse ku rubuga Inyenyerinews ashobora gukeka ko harimo urwango. Inyandiko itangira yemeza ko Simeon yasahuye mu gihe cya jenoside ariko nta kimenyetso itanga. Ahajya gusa n’ahari ikimenyetso ni aho inyandiko ivuga ko Leta yategetse GACACA gukatira Simeon. Ibi biteye urujijo kuko mu gihe Abarwanya Leta ya Kagame benshi bazi kandi bakemeza ko ziriya nkiko Gacaca zagizwe igikoresho cyo gucecekesha benshi mu Bahutu, noneho harimo bamwe bagendera ku myanzuro y’izo nkiko ngo bashinje abandi ibyaha.

Niba koko ibyo Simeon avugwaho ari ukuri, jye simbona impamvu uwabyanditse atajya ahagaragara ngo a defende ibyo ubushakashatsi bwe bwagezeho, keretse nyine niba hari icyo ahisha. Ubundi ukuri guca mu ziko ntigushye kandi amaherezo kujya ahagaragara.

Indi ngaruka ni uko inyandiko nka ziriya mu gihe zitabashije gutanga ibimenyetso bifatika zizajya zifatwa nk’iziba zigamije kwangisha umuntu abandi. Iyo rero hagize umusomyi uzibona akagira kwicecekera aba ahaye urwaho ikinyoma aho kigaragara. Hari abantu bashobora kwibwira ko bitabareba bityo bakaruca bakarumira. Nyamara ruriye abandi rutabibagiwe.

Hakozwe ama listes y’ “Abajenosideri” (kubwanjye asa n’inyandiko nk’izi) adafite icyo ashingiyeho uretse kuba abayashyirwaho badahari. Amayeri n’uburyarya byakurikiragaho byatumaga utayashyizweho ahita acira urubanza abayariho. Henshi mu Rwanda, Abasirikare ba FPR bakimara kuhagera bakoreshaga inama bagatera ubwoba abaturage bati niba atari mwebwe mugomba kutubwira abishe Abaturanyi banyu. Umwe mu baturage kubera kugira ubwoba ati ababishe barahunze. Kuva uwo mwanya uwahunze akaba abaye Interahamwe, bahera ku murongo aho gukora liste y’abakekwaho ubwicanyi hakorwa liste y’abahunze kuko nyine “guhunga” byabaye “kwica”. Icyakurikiyeho ni uko uwahungutse wese yahitaga ajyanwa muri gereza nta kindi abajijwe ngo kuko ama listes yakozwe!

Kugeza n’uyu munsi Abanyarwanda tubana n’ingaruka z’iyo myitwarire. Benshi bahisemo kwigira mu myobo barihisha kuko bakeka ko baramutse bavuze bashyirwa ku rutonde rw’abicanyi cyangwa bagasohoka mu nyandiko nk’iriya yakozwe kuri Simeon. Bityo rero inyandiko nka ziriya zifatwa nk’iterabwoba ryo gucecekesha abo mudahuje ibitekerezo. Ibi nta we ukwiye kubifata nk’ibyoroshye, ni ikintu tugomba kwamaganira kure kuko inkoni ikubise mukeba bayirenza urugo.

3.Umwanzuro:

Ubundi kutumva ibintu kimwe byari bikwiye gufatwa nk’ubukungu aho kugira ngo umuntu bamurebe nabi ko yatanze ibitekerezo uburyo bo batabitanga ahubwo agashimwa. Ibi byatuma Abanyarwanda bamenya kuganira bakavugisha ukuri yewe kabone n’iyo kwaba ari kwa kundi kuryana. Buri wese wageze mu rubuga mpuzabitekerezo ntacyo aba agomba gutinya yemere bamujoge bamuhate ibibazo na we agire ubutwari bwo kubisubiza. Uregwa ibyaha yisobanure imbere ya rubanda cyangwa se akoreshe iri tangazamakuru n’itumanaho rigezweho, dufite amahirwe ntitukiri muri 1994. Abafite amakuru nyayo bayatange kandi bajye imbere ya rubanda badatitira ukuri kuganze, ikinyoma gikubitirwe ahareba I Nzega.

N’ubwo u Rwanda n’Abanyarwanda twakubititse tugomba kugira uburyo bunoze bwo guhangana n’ibibazo ari nako tubishakira ibisubizo, ariko guceceka ibyabaye byo nkeka ko kwaba ari ukuvura ibimenyetso by’indwara wirengagije icyayiteye. Nibiba ngombwa abantu bumvikane ku muti urura twanywa kugira ngo dukire ariko twirinde kunywa umuti ushobora kugira side effects zaduhitana.

“Sinzateshuka ku ntego niyemeje” Miss Social Media, Sandrine De Vincent

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Miss Social Media Sandrine M. De Vincent

Kuwa 24 Kanama 2013 mu mujyi wa Toronto harangiye ku nshuro ya 15 irushanwa ryiswe Miss Africanada rihuza abari bafite inkomoko muri Africa ariko batuye mu gihugu cya Canada. Mu barushanwaga hagaragayemo babiri bakomoka mu Rwanda ndetse akaba ari bo baje mu myanya ya mbere. Mu gihe Sandrine Manirere De Vincent ari we wahabwaga amahirwe menshi, undi munyarwandakazi witwa Sharamanzi Temahagari Marie France ni we waje kwegukana ikamba hanyuma Sandrine aza amukurikiye anegukana igihembo cya Miss Social Media gihabwa uwakoresheje itangazamakuru ry’imbuga mpuzambaga bita.

Madamazela Temahagari mu kwiyamamaza yavugaga ko intego ye ari ugukumira amakimbirane cyane cyane akita ku kurwanya akarengane kajyana n’ubusumbane mu benegihugu kuko asanga aribyo byakuruye genocide yo muri 1994. Ku rubuga rwe rwa facebook yagize ati: “ Nemera ntashidikanya ko kwigisha uburinganire (equality) abana batoya mu mashuri, mu by’ukuri bikabacengera, bizatuma dukumira makimbirane ashingiye cyane cyane ku busumbane. Ndifuza ko aya masomo yigishwa bwa mbere mu gihugu cyanjye cy’amavuko u Rwanda kubera ko mu myaka 19 ishize habaye genocide nyarwanda ikaba yaraturutse ku busumbane. Ndashaka ko ibyo njyewe n’umuryango wanjye twanyuzemo nta wundi bizongera kubaho ukundi”.

Sharamanzi Temahagari Marie France ni we wahawe ikamba rya Miss Africanada 2013

Ubu butumwa rero Temahagari abutanze mu gihe mu Rwanda hari ubusumbane buri ku gipimo gikabije ku buryo inzego zishinzwe statistics zitakirirwa zipima icyitwa gini coefficient. Ababikurikiranira hafi basanga hafi 10% by’abaturage b’u Rwanda aribo bafite ubutunzi bungana na 90%. Ni ukuvuga ko ku bantu ijana, 90 basaranganya ibyari bigenewe abantu 10 ibindi byose bikikubirwa n’agatsiko gatoya k’abantu 10 batunze ibya babandi 90! Nk’uko uyu mwari Temahagari abivuga rero niba ubusumbane aribwo bwatumye habaho genocide yo muri 1990, ni ukuvuga ko hatagize igikorwa ubu nta kabuza u Rwanda rwakongera rugacura imiborogo. Sharamanzi rero akaba afite akazi katoroshye ko kumvisha ubutegetsi bwa Leta ya Kigali ko kwimakaza ubusumbane mu bana b’igihugu ari ugutegura genocide mu buryo buziguye.

Gusa rero, mu kwishimira intsinzi mu nkuru yasohotse mu kinyamakuru http://www.huffingtonpost.ca igira iti:urugendo ruhamye kuva k’uwarokotse genocide kugera ku mwenegihugu w’ikitegererezo( A determined Journey from Genocide survivor to Model citizen), Madamazela Sharamanzi Temahagari ntiyongeye kuvuga u Rwanda ahubwo yavuze ko agiye gushyigikira Miss Africanada 2012 Kitoko Christine w’umunyacongo na ONG ye Hands for the Hearts yita ku bari n’abategarugori bo muri Congo. Aha umuntu akibaza impamvu Sharamanzi adahisemo guhera ku bari b’Abanyarwanda haba abari mu Rwanda cyangwa se abanyanyagiye mu buhungiro, cyane cyane ko muri platform yakoresheje yiyamamaza yavuze ko ashaka guhera i Rwanda!.

Iyo urebye ubutumwa bwa Miss Africanada Sharamanzi n’ubutumwa bwa Miss Social Media Sandrine Manirere usanga hari aho bufitanye isano. Mu gihe Sandrine arwanira ishyaka impunzi, Sharamanzi arwanya ubusumbane kandi akenshi ubu busumbane ni nabwo nyirabayana w’ubuhunzi.

Sandrine we ngo ntazateshuka ku ntego yiyemeje.

Ibi yabitangarije ubwanditsi bwa blog mu gihe yari abajijwe uko agiye gukoresha umwanya yatsindiye. Yagize ati: “sinzateshuka ku ntego nziza nihaye yo kuvugira abatagira kivugira. Kuri iyi si hari abantu bababaye benshi kandi banyuze mu ngorane ndengakamere, ariko ikibazo ni uko bamwe batagira kivugira”. Agasanga impunzi cyane cyane abari n’abategarugori batagira ubavugira bityo agasanga agiye gukora ku buryo afatanyije n’abandi bafite umutima mwiza bakumvikanisha ibibazo by’ubuhunzi kandi hakitwabwa ku burezi bw’abari n’abategarugori baba mu buhungiro. Sandrine yashoje asaba abantu bose gufatanyiriza hamwe ngo iyi ntego igerweho kuko twese bitureba.

Tumwifurije amahirwe masa.

What really happened in Rwanda in 1994?

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Researchers Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam say the accepted story of the mass killings of 1994 is incomplete, and the full truth — inconvenient as it may be to the Rwandan government — needs to come out.

The accepted story of the mass killings of 1994 is incomplete. The full truth — inconvenient as it may be to the Rwandan government — needs to come out. (wikipedia.org)

October 6, 2009 • By Christian Davenport and Allan C. Stam • 27 Comments and 0 Reactions

In 1998 and 1999, we went to Rwanda and returned several times in subsequent years for a simple reason: We wanted to discover what had happened there during the 100 days in 1994 when civil war and genocidekilled an estimated 1 million individuals. What was the source of our curiosity? Well, our motivations were complex. In part, we felt guilty about ignoring the events when they took place and were largely overshadowed in the U.S. by such “news” as the O.J. Simpson murder case. We felt that at least we could do something to clarify what had occurred in an effort to respect the dead and assist in preventing this kind of mass atrocity in the future. We were both also in need of something new, professionally speaking. Although tenured, our research agendas felt staid. Rwanda was a way out of the rut and into something significant.

Although well-intentioned, we were not at all ready for what we would encounter. Retrospectively, it was naïve of us to think that we would be. As we end the project 10 years later, our views are completely at odds with what we believed at the outset, as well as what passes for conventional wisdom about what took place.

We worked for both the prosecution and the defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, trying to perform the same task — that is,to find data that demonstrate what actually happened during the 100 days of killing. Because of our findings, we have been threatened by members of the Rwandan government and individuals around the world. And we have been labeled “genocide deniers” in both the popular press as well as the Tutsi expatriate community because we refused to say that the only form of political violence that took place in 1994 was genocide. It was not, and understanding what happened is crucial if the international community is to respond properly the next time it becomes aware of such a horrific spasm of mass violence.

Like most people with an unsophisticated understanding of Rwandan history and politics, we began our research believing that what we were dealing with was one of the most straightforward cases of political violence in recent times, and it came in two forms: On the one hand was the much-highlighted genocide, in which the dominant, ruling ethnic group — the Hutu — targeted the minority ethnic group known as theTutsi. The behavior toward the minority group was extremely violent — taking place all over Rwanda — and the objective of the government’s effort appeared to be the eradication of the Tutsi, so the genocide label was easy to apply. On the other hand, there was the much-neglected international or civil war, which had rebels (the Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF) invading from Uganda on one side and the Rwandan government (the Armed Forces of Rwanda or FAR) on the other. They fought this war for four years, until the RPF took control of the country.

We also went in believing that the Western community — especially the United States — had dropped the ball in failing to intervene, in large part because the West had failed to classify expeditiously the relevant events as genocide.

Finally, we went in believing that the Rwandan Patriotic Front, then rebels but now the ruling party in Rwanda, had stopped the genocide by ending the civil war and taking control of the country.

At the time, the points identified above stood as the conventional wisdom about the 100 days of slaughter. But the conventional wisdom was only partly correct.

The violence did seem to begin with Hutu extremists, including militia groups such as the Interahamwe, who focused their efforts against the Tutsi. But as our data came to reveal, from there violence spread quickly, with Hutu and Tutsi playing the roles of both attackers and victims, and many people of both ethnic backgrounds systematically using the mass killing to settle political, economic and personal scores.

Against conventional wisdom, we came to believe that the victims of this violence were fairly evenly distributed between Tutsi and Hutu; among other things, it appears that there simply weren’t enough Tutsi in Rwanda at the time to account for all the reported deaths.

We also came to understand just how uncomfortable it can be to question conventional wisdom.

We began our research while working on a U.S. Agency for International Development project that had proposed to deliver some methodological training to Rwandan students completing their graduate theses in the social sciences. While engaged in this effort, we came across a wide variety of nongovernmental organizations that had compiled information about the 100 days. Many of these organizations had records that were detailed, identifying precisely who died where and under what circumstances; the records included information about who had been attacked by whom. The harder we pushed the question of what had happened and who was responsible, the more access we gained to information and data.

There were a number of reasons that we were given wide-ranging access to groups that had data on the 100 days of killing. First, for their part of the USAID program, our hosts at the National University of Rwanda in Butare arranged many public talks, one of which took place at the U.S. embassy in Kigali. Presumably put together to assist Rwandan NGOs with “state-of-the-art” measurement of human rights violations, these talks — the embassy talk, in particular — turned the situation on its head. The Rwandans at the embassy ended up doing the teaching, bringing up any number of events and publications that dealt with the violence. We met with representatives of several of the institutions involved, whose members discussed with us in greater detail the data they had compiled.

Second, the U.S. ambassador at the time, George McDade Staples, helped us gain access to Rwanda government elites —directly and indirectly through staff members.

Third, the Rwandan assigned to assist the USAID project was extremely helpful in identifying potential sources of information. That she was closely related to a member of the former Tutsi royal family was a welcome plus.

Once we returned to the U.S., we began to code events during the 100 days by times, places, perpetrators, victims, weapon type and actions. Essentially, we compiled a listing of who did what to whom, and when and where they did it — what Charles Tilly, the late political sociologist, called an “event catalog.” This catalog would allow us to identify patterns and conduct more rigorous statistical investigations.

Looking at the material across space and time, it became apparent that not all of Rwanda was engulfed in violence at the same time. Rather, the violence spread from one locale to another, and there seemed to be a definite sequence to the spread. But we didn’t understand the sequence.

At National University of Rwanda, we spent a week preparing students to conduct a household survey of the province. As we taught the students how to design a survey instrument, a common question came up repeatedly: “What actually happened in Butare during the summer of 1994?” No one seemed to know; we found this lack of awareness puzzling and guided the students in building a set of questions for their survey, which eventually revealed several interesting pieces of information.

First, and perhaps most important, was confirmation that the vast majority of the population in the Butare province had been on the move between 1993 and 1995, particularly during early 1994. Almost no one stayed put. We also found that the RPF rebels had blocked the border leading south out of the province to Burundi. The numbers of households that provided information consistent with these facts raised significant questions in our minds regarding the culpability of the RPF relative to the FAR for killing in the area.

During this period, we confirmed Human Rights Watch findings that many killings were organized by the Hutu-led FAR, but we also found that many of the killings were spontaneous, the type of violence that we would expect with a complete breakdown of civil order. Our work further revealed that, some nine years later, a great deal of hostility remained. There was little communication between the two ethnic groups. The Tutsi, now under RPF leadership and President Paul Kagame, dominated all aspects of the political, economic and social systems.

Lastly, it became apparent to us that members of the Tutsi diaspora who returned to Rwanda after the conflict were woefully out of touch with the country that they had returned to. Indeed, one Tutsi woman with whom we spent a day in the hills around Butare broke down in tears in our car as we drove back to the university. When asked why, she replied, “I have never seen such poverty and destitution.” We were quite surprised at the degree of disconnect between the elite students drawn from the wealthy strata of the Tutsi diaspora, who were largely English-speaking, and the poorer Rwandans, who spoke Kinyarwanda and perhaps a bit of French. It was not surprising that the poor and the wealthy in the country did not mix; what struck both of us as surprising was the utter lack of empathy and knowledge about each other’s condition. After all, the Tutsi outside the country claimed to have invaded Rwanda from Uganda on behalf of the Tutsi inside — a group that the former seemed to have little awareness of or interest in. Our work has led us to conclude that the invading force had a primary goal of conquest and little regard for the lives of resident Tutsis.

As the students proceeded with the survey, asking questions that were politically awkward for the RPF-led government, we found our position in the country increasingly untenable. One member of our team was detained and held for the better part of a day while being interrogated by a district police chief. The putative reason was a lack of permissions from the local authorities; permissions were required for everything in Rwanda, and we generally had few problems obtaining them in the beginning. The real reason for the interrogation, however, seemed to be that we were asking uncomfortable questions about who the killers were.

A couple of weeks later, two members of our team were on a tourist trip in the northern part of the country when they were again detained and questioned for the better part of a day at an RPF military facility. There the questioners wanted to know why we were asking difficult questions, what we were doing in the country, whether we were working for the American CIA, if we were guests of the Europeans and, in general, why we were trying to cause trouble.

On one of our trips to Rwanda, Alison Des Forges, the pre-eminent scholar of Rwandan politics who has since died in an airplane crash, suggested that we go to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Tanzaniato seek answers to the questions we were raising. Des Forges even called on our behalf.

With appointments set and with Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance, we arrived in Arusha, Tanzania, for our meeting with Donald Webster, the lead prosecutor for the political trials, Barbara Mulvaney, the lead prosecutor for the military trial, and others from their respective teams. As we began to talk, we initially found that the prosecutors in the two sets of cases — one set of defendants were former members of the FAR military, the other set of trials focused on the members of the Hutu political machine — had great interest in our project.

Eventually, Webster and Mulvaney asked us to help them contextualize the cases that they were investigating. Needless to say, we were thrilled with the possibility. Now, we were working directly with those trying to bring about justice.

The prosecutors showed us a preliminary database that they had compiled from thousands of eyewitness statements associated with the 1994 violence. They did not have the resources to code all of the statements for computer analysis; they wanted us to do the coding and compare the statements against the data we had already compiled. We returned to the U.S. with real enthusiasm; we had access to data that no one else had seen and direct interaction with one of the most important legal bodies of the era.

Interest by and cooperation with the ICTR did not last as long as we thought it would, in no small part because it quickly became clear that our research was going to uncover killings committed not just by the Hutu-led former government, or FAR, but by the Tutsi-led rebel force, the RPF, as well. Until then, we had been trying to identify all deaths that had taken place; beyond confidentiality issues, it did not occur to us that the identity of perpetrators would be problematic (in part because we thought that all or almost all of them would be associated with the Hutu government). But then we tried to obtain detailed maps that contained information on the location of FAR military bases at the beginning of the civil war. We had seen copies of these maps pinned to the wall in Mulvaney’s office. In fact, during our interview with Mulvaney, the prosecutor explained how her office had used these maps. We took detailed notes, even going so far as to write down map grid coordinates and important map grid sheet identifiers.

After the prosecution indicated it was no longer interested in reconstructing a broad conception of what had taken place —prosecutors said they’d changed their legal strategy to focus exclusively on information directly related to people charged with crimes — we asked the court for a copy of the maps. To our great dismay, the prosecution claimed that the maps did not exist. Unfortunately for the prosecutors, we had our notes. After two years of negotiations, a sympathetic Canadian colonel in a Canadian mapping agency produced the maps we requested.

As part of the process of trying to work out the culpability of the various defendants charged with planning to carry out genocidal policies, the ICTR conducted interviews with witnesses to the violence over some five years, beginning in 1996. Ultimately, the court deposed some 12,000 different people. The witness statements represent a highly biased sample; the Kagame administration prevented ICTR investigators from interviewing many who might provide information implicating members of the RPF or who were otherwise deemed by the government to be either unimportant or a threat to the regime.

All the same, the witness statements were important to our project; they could help corroborate information found in CIA documents, other witness statements, academic studies of the violence and other authoritative sources.

As with the maps, however, when we asked for the statements, we were told they did not exist. Eventually, defense attorneys —who were surprised by the statements’ existence, there being no formal discovery process in the ICTR — requested them. After a year or so, we obtained the witness statements, in the form of computer image files that we converted into optically readable computer documents. We then wrote software to search through these 12,000 statements in our attempts to locate violence and killing throughout Rwanda.

The first significant negative publicity associated with our project occurred in November 2003 at an academic conference in Kigali. The National University of Rwanda had invited a select group of academics, including our team, to present the results of research into the 1994 murders. We had been led to believe that the conference would be a private affair, with an audience composed of academics and a small number of policymakers.

As it turned out, the conference was anything but small or private. It was held at a municipal facility in downtown Kigali, and our remarks would be simultaneously translated from English into French and the Rwandan language, Kinyarwanda. There were hundreds of people present, including not just academics but members of the military, the cabinet and other members of the business and political elite.

We presented two main findings, the first derived from spatial and temporal maps of data obtained from the different sources already mentioned. The maps showed that, while killing took place in different parts of the country, it did so at different rates and magnitudes — begging for an explanation we did not yet have. The second finding came out of a comparison of official census data from 1991 to the violence data we had collected. According to the census, there were approximately 600,000 Tutsi in the country in 1991; according to the survival organization Ibuka, about 300,000 survived the 1994 slaughter. This suggested that out of the 800,000 to 1 million believed to have been killed then, more than half were Hutu. The finding was significant; it suggested that the majority of the victims of 1994 were of the same ethnicity as the government in power. It also suggested that genocide — that is, a government’s attempts to exterminate an ethnic group — was hardly the only motive for some, and perhaps most, of the killing that occurred in the 100 days of 1994.

Halfway into our presentation, a military man in a green uniform stood up and interrupted. The Minister of Internal Affairs, he announced, took great exception to our findings. We were told that our passport numbers had been documented, that we were expected to leave the country the next day and that we would not be welcomed back into Rwanda — ever. Abruptly, our presentation was over, as was, it seemed, our fieldwork in Rwanda.

The results of our initial paper and media interviews became widely known throughout the community of those who study genocides in general and the Rwandan genocide in particular. The main offshoot was that we became labeled, paradoxically, as genocide “deniers,” even though our research documents that genocide had occurred. Both of us have received significant quantities of hate mail and hostile e-mail. In the Tutsi community and diaspora, our work is anathema. Over the past several years, as we have refined our results, becoming more confident about our findings, our critics’ voices have become louder and increasingly strident.

Of course, we have never denied that a genocide took place; we just noted that genocide was only one among several forms of violence that occured at the time. In the context of post-genocide Rwandan politics, however, the divergence from common wisdom was considered political heresy.

Following the debacle at the Kigali conference, the ICTR prosecution teams of Webster and Mulvaney let us know in no uncertain terms that they had no further use of our services. The reasons for our dismissal struck us as somewhat outrageous. From the outset, the prosecution claimed it was not interested in anything that would prove or disprove the culpability of any individuals in the mass killings. Now, they said, the findings we’d announced in the Kigali conference made our future efforts superfluous.

Shortly after our dismissal, however, Peter Erlinder, a defense attorney for former members of the FAR military who were to be tried, contacted us. This was after several others from the defense had also attempted to contact us, with no success.

We had misgivings about cooperating or working with the defense, the gravest being that such work might be seen as supporting the claim we were genocide deniers. After months of negotiating, we finally met Erlinder at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, Pa. The defense could have made a better choice for roping us in. Erlinder, a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law, was an academic turned defender for the least likable suspects.

After we obtained lattes and quiet seats in the back of the coffee shop, Erlinder came straight to the point: He was, of course, interested in establishing his client’s innocence, but he felt it would help the defense to establish a baseline history of what had taken place in the war in 1994. As he explained, “My client may be guilty of some things, but he is not guilty of all the things that any in the Rwandan government and military during 1994 is accused of. They have all been made out to be devils.”

What he asked was reasonable. In fact, he made the same essential offer the prosecution had: In exchange for our efforts at contextualizing the events of 1994, Erlinder would do the best he could to assist us in getting data on what took place. With Erlinder’s assistance, we were able to obtain the maps we’d seen in Mulvaney’s office and the 12,000 witness statements. With this information, we were able to better establish the true positions of both the FAR and RPF during the civil war. This greater confidence of the location of the two sides’ militaries made — and makes — us more certain about the culpability of the FAR for the majority of the killings during the 100 days of 1994. At the same time, however, we also began to develop a stronger understanding of the not insignificant role played by the RPF in the mass murders.

About this time, we were approached by an individual associated withArcview-GIS, a spatial mapping software firm that wanted to take the rather simplistic maps that we had developed and improve them, thereby showing what the company’s program was capable of. Our consultant at Arcview-GIS said the software could layer information on the map, providing, among other things, a line that showed, day by day, where the battlefront of the civil war was located, relative to the killings we had already documented.

This was a major step. In line with the conventional wisdom, we had assumed that the government was responsible for most all of the people killed in Rwanda during 1994; we initially paid no attention to where RPF forces were located. But it soon became clear that the killings occurred not just in territory controlled by the government’s FAR but also in RPF-captured territory, as well as along the front between the two forces. It seemed possible to us that the three zones of engagement (the FAR-controlled area, the RPF-controlled area and the battlefront between the two) somehow influenced one another.

In his book, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention, Alan Kuperman argued that given the logistical challenges of mounting a military operation in deep central Africa, there was little the U.S. or Europe could have done to limit the 1994 killings. To support his position, Kuperman used U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency information to document approximate positions of the RPF units over the course of the war. We updated this information on troop locations with data from CIA national intelligence estimates that others had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and then updated it again, incorporating interviews with former RPF members, whose recollections we corroborated with information from the FAR.

Our research showed the vast majority of the 1994 killing had been conducted by the FAR, the Interahamwe and their associates. Another significant proportion of the killing was committed not by government forces but by citizens engaged in opportunistic killing as part of the breakdown of civil order associated with the civil war. But the RPF was clearly responsible for another significant portion of the killings.

In some instances, the RPF killings were, very likely, spontaneous retribution. In other cases, though, the RPF has been directly implicated in large-scale killings associated with refugee camps, as well as individual households. Large numbers of individuals died at roadblocks and in municipal centers, households, swamps and fields, many of them trying to make their way to borders.

Perhaps the most shocking result of our combination of information on troop locations involved the invasion itself: The killings in the zone controlled by the FAR seemed to escalate as the RPF moved into the country and acquired more territory. When the RPF advanced, large-scale killings escalated. When the RPF stopped, large-scale killings largely decreased. The data revealed in our maps was consistent with FAR claims that it would have stopped much of the killing if the RPF had simply called a halt to its invasion. This conclusion runs counter to the Kagame administration’s claims that the RPF continued its invasion to bring a halt to the killings.

In terms of ethnicity, the short answer to the question, “Who died?” is, “We’ll probably never know.” By and large, the Hutu and the Tutsi are physically indistinct from one another. They share a common language. They have no identifiable accent. They have had significant levels of intermarriage through their histories, and they have lived in similar locations for the past several hundred years. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Belgians, in their role as occupying power, put together a national program to try to identify individuals’ ethnic identity through phrenology, an abortive attempt to create an ethnicity scale based on measurable physical features such as height, nose width and weight, with the hope that colonial administrators would not have to rely on identity cards.

One result of the Belgian efforts was to show — convincingly — that there is no observable difference on average between the typical Hutu Rwandan and the typical Tutsi Rwandan. Some clans — such as those of the current president, Paul Kagame, or the earlier Hutu president,Juvenal Habyarimana — do share distinctive physical traits. But the typical Rwandan shares a mix of such archetypal traits, making ethnic identity outside of local knowledge about an individual household’s identity difficult if not impossible to ascertain — especially in mass graves containing no identifying information. (For example, Physicians for Human Rights exhumed a mass grave in western Rwanda and found the remains of more than 450 people, but only six identity cards.)
In court transcripts for multiple trials at the ICTR, witnesses described surviving the killings that took place around them by simply hiding among members of the opposite ethnic group. It is clear that in 1994, killers would have had a difficult time ascertaining the ethnic identity of their putative victims, unless they were targeting neighbors.

Complicating matters is the displacement that accompanied the RPF invasion. During 1994, some 2 million Rwandan citizens became external refugees, 1 million to 2 million became internal refugees, and about 1 million eventually became victims of civil war and genocide.

Ethnic identity in Rwanda is local knowledge, in much the same way that caste is local knowledge in India. With the majority of the population on the move, local knowledge and ethnic identity disappeared. This is not to say that the indigenous Tutsi were not sought out deliberately for extermination. But in their killing rampages, FAR, the Interahamwe and private citizens engaged in killing victims of both ethnic groups. And people from both ethnic groups were on the move, trying to stay out in front of the fighting as the RPF advanced.

In the end, our best estimate of who died during the 1994 massacre was, really, an educated guess based on an estimate of the number of Tutsi in the country at the outset of the war and the number who survived the war. Using a simple method —subtracting the survivors from the number of Tutsi residents at the outset of the violence — we arrived at an estimated total of somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 Tutsi victims. If we believe the estimate of close to 1 million total civilian deaths in the war and genocide, we are then left with between 500,000 and 700,000 Hutu deaths, and a best guess that the majority of victims were in fact Hutu, not Tutsi.

This conclusion — which has drawn criticism from the Kagame regime and its supporters — is buttressed by the maps that we painstakingly constructed from the best available data and that show significant numbers of people killed in areas under control of the Tutsi-led RPF.

One fact is now becoming increasingly well understood: During the genocide and civil war that took place in Rwanda in 1994, multiple processes of violence took place simultaneously. Clearly there was a genocidal campaign, directed to some degree by the Hutu government, resulting directly in the deaths of some 100,000 or more Tutsi. At the same time, a civil war raged — a war that began in 1990, if the focus is on only the most recent and intense violence, but had roots that extend all the way back to the 1950s. Clearly, there was also random, wanton violence associated with the breakdown of order during the civil war. There’s also no question that large-scale retribution killings took place throughout the country — retribution killings by Hutu of Tutsi, and vice versa.

From the beginning, the ICTR’s investigation into the mass killings and crimes against humanity in Rwanda in 1994 has focused myopically on the culpability of Hutu leaders and other presumed participants. The Kagame administration has worked assiduously to prevent any investigation into RPF culpability for either mass killings or the random violence associated with the civil war. By raising the possibility that in addition to Hutu/FAR wrongdoing, the RPF was involved, either directly or indirectly, in many deaths, we became in effect persona non grata in Rwanda and at the ICTR.

The most commonly invoked metaphor for the 1994 Rwandan violence is the Holocaust. Elsewhere, we have suggested that perhaps the English civil war, the Greek civil war, the Chinese civil war or the Russian civil war might be more apt comparisons because they all involved some combination of ethnic-based violence and the random slaughter and retribution that can occur when civil society breaks down altogether.

Actually, though, it is difficult to make authoritative comparisons when it remains unclear exactly what happened in the Rwandan civil war and genocide.

Contemporary observers — including Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the ineffective U.N. peacekeeping force for Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 — claim that much of the genocidal killing had been planned by the Hutu government as early as two years in advance of the actual RPF invasion. Unfortunately, we have not been able to gain access to the individuals who have information on that score to either corroborate or to refute the hypothesis. The reason? Convicted genocidaires who have been implicated in the planning of the slaughter now reside out of contact with potential interviewers in a U.N.-sponsored prison in Mali.

We wanted to put questions to these planners, specifically to ask them what their goals were. Was the genocide plan an attempt at deterrence, an effort that the FAR leadership thought might keep the RPF at bay in Uganda and elsewhere? Did the FAR government actually hope for war, believing — incorrectly as it turned out — that it would win? Was the scale of the killing beyond its expectations? If so, why do FAR leaders believe events spun so badly out of control, compared to previous spasms of violence in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s?

Unfortunately, the U.N. prosecutors in Tanzania told us they could not arrange a meeting with the convicted planners and killers, but we were free to go to Mali on our own. We were told we would probably get in to see the prisoners, but the prison is in the middle of nowhere, in a country where we had no contacts. We had to let go.

Even without access to convicted genocidaires, we continued to piece together what had happened in 1994 with the help of a grant from theNational Science Foundation. The grant allowed us to be more ambitious in our pursuit of diverse informants who started popping up all over the globe, to refine our mapping and to explore alternative ways of generating estimates about what had taken place. While our understanding has advanced a great deal since our first days in Kigali, it is hard not to see irony in a current reality: Some of the most important information about what occurred in Rwanda in 1994 has been sent — by the very authorities responsible for investigating the violence and preventing its recurrence, in Rwanda and elsewhere — to an isolated prison, where it sits unexamined, like some artifact in the final scene of an Indiana Jones movie.

Source:http://www.psmag.com/politics/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-3432/