A Candle For Remembering
May this memorial candle lights up the historical past of our beloved Country: Rwanda, We love U so much. If Tears could build a stairway. And memories were a lane. I would walk right up to heaven. To bring you home again. No farewell words were spoken. No time to say goodbye. You were gone before I knew it And. Only Paul Kagame knows why. My heart still aches with sadness. And secret tears still flow. What It meant to lose you. No one will ever know.
Why did Kagame this to me?
Can't forget. He murdered my mother. What should be my reaction? FYI: the number of orphans in Rwanda has skyrocketed since the 1990's Kagame's invasion. Much higher numbers of orphans had and have no other option but joining FDLR fighters who are identified as children that have Lost their Parents in Kagame's Wars inside and outside of Rwanda.If someone killed your child/spouse/parent(s) would you seek justice or revenge? Deep insight: What would you do to the person who snuffed the life of someone I love beyond reason? Forgiving would bring me no solace. If you take what really matters to me, I will show you what really matters. NITUTIRWANAHO TUZASHIRA. IGIHE KIRAGEZE.If democracy is to sell one's motherland(Africa), for some zionits support, then I prefer the person who is ready to give all his live for his motherland. Viva President Putin!!!
RPF committed the unspeakable
The perverted RPF committed the UNSPEAKABLE.Two orphans, both against the Nazi world. Point is the fact that their parents' murder Kagame & his RPF held no shock in the Western world. Up to now, the Rwandan Hitler Kagame and his death squads still enjoy impunity inside and outside of Rwanda. What goes through someone's mind as they know RPF murdered their parents? A delayed punishment is actually an encouragement to crime, In Praise of the ongoing Bloodshed in Rwanda. “I always think I am a pro-peace person but if someone harmed someone near and dear to me, I don't think I could be so peaceful. I would like to believe that to seek justice could save millions of people living the African Great Lakes Region - I would devote myself to bringing the 'perp' along to a non-happy ending but would that be enough? You'd have to be in the situation I suppose before you could actually know how you would feel or what you would do”. Jean-Christophe Nizeyimana, Libre Penseur
Hutu Children & their Mums
Look at them ! How they are scared to death. Many Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi, Foreign human rights advocates, jounalists and and lawyers are now on Death Row Waiting to be murdered by Kagame and his RPF death squads. Be the last to know.
Almighty God :Justice for US
Hutu children's daily bread: Intimidation, Slavery, Sex abuses led by RPF criminals and Kagame, DMI: Every single day, there are more assassinations, imprisonment, brainwashing & disappearances. Do they have any chance to end this awful life?
Killing Hutus on daily basis
RPF targeted killings, very often in public areas. Killing Hutus on daily basis by Kagame's murderers and the RPF infamous death squads known as the "UNKNOWN WRONGDOERS"
RPF Trade Mark: Akandoya
Rape, torture and assassination and unslaving of hutu women. Genderside: Rape has always been used by kagame's RPF as a Weapon of War, the killings of Hutu women with the help of Local Defense Forces, DMI and the RPF military
The Torture in Rwanda flourishes
How torture flourishes across Rwanda despite extensive global monitoring
Fighting For Our Freedom?
We need Freedom, Liberation of our fatherland, Human rights respect, Mutual respect between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority
Friday, July 31, 2015
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]- Libye : ils vont déposer plainte contre Sarkozy pour "crimes contre l'humanité"
- Scandale en Belgique : Plus de 300 millions d’euros détournés par le Commissaire européen Louis Michel
Ejo tariki ya 30-07-2015, nibwo abanyapolitiki benshi b’abarundi bari basesekaye Addis Abeba, mu murwa mukuru wa Ethiopiya, aho bari bagiye gukora inama ikomeye cyane yo gushinga umutwe wo kurwanya leta y’Uburundi, bise « CONSEIL NATIONAL DE TRANSITION ». Amakuru yageze ku IKAZE IWACU, yemeza ko iyi nama itabaye, ahubwo inzego z’umutekano za Ethiopiya zirukanye kitaraganya abo barundi bari bamaze kugera Addis, babwirwa ko iyo nama yabo itemewe n’amategeko
Aya makuru akomeza avuga ko bamwe muri abo banyapolitiki b’ababarundi bangiwe kwinjira muri Ethiopiya, bageze ku kibuga, ejo ku wa kane mu gitondo, abari baturutse mu Bubiligi nabo bahise basabwa kuva ku butaka bwa Ethiopiya. Ariko ngo bigeze ku mugoroba, nibwo abayobozi ba Ethiopiya bafashe icyemezo gikomeye, cyo guhagarika burundu iyo nama yo gushinga Conseil National de Transition.
Abayobozi ba Ethiopiya bamenyesheje abo banyapolitiki b’abarundi bari bacumbitse muri Hotel Hilton ko Ethiopiya ihagaritse inama bari bajemo, kubera ko itemewe n’amategeko, maze babasaba ko baba bavuye ku butaka bwa Ethiopiya bitarenze mu gitondo cyo ku wa gatanu, tariki ya 31-07-2015. Ikindi bababujije ni ukudakora itangazo na rimwe cyangwa ngo bahure n’abanyamakuru, bakiri muri Ethiopiya.
Iki cyemezo ngo cyahise kigezwa vuba no ku buyobozi bwa Hotel Hilton, yari icumbikiye abo banyapolitiki bageraga kuri 20. Mu bari bacumbitse muri Hotel Hilton twavuga nka:
- Ambasaderi Hassan Rukara
- Léonce Ngendakumana
- Domitien Ndayizeye
- Marina Barampama
- William Munyembabazi
- Manasse Nzobonimpa
- Jérémie Ngendakumana
- Gervais Rufyikiri
- Issa Ngendakumana
- Pompon Mudugu
- Julien Nahayo
- Jean Paul Nyirubutama
- Nephtalie Ndikumana
- Pie Ntavyohanyuma
- Frederic Bamvuginyumvira
- Audifax Ndabitoreye
- Pancras Cimpaye
- Felix Ndayisenga
- Jean Minani
- Fred Ngamiye
- Geneviève Kanyange
- Onésime Nduwimana
- Sylvestre Ntibantunganya
Iki cyemezo Ethiopiya yafashe cyo kuburizamo iyi nama cyongeye kwerekana ko aba banyapolitiki b’abarundi barwanya leta iherutse gutorwa n’abaturage nta mpamvu ifatika bafite yo gukora intambara, ahubwo bo n’ibikoresho by’abazungu bashaka gusenya Uburundi no gusahura umutungo kamere wabwo ndetse n’uw’akarere k’ibiyaga bigari. Aha twavuga cyane nka Louis Michel wagiye avuga kumugaragaro ko atazigera yemera leta izava mu matora yo mu Burundi.
Iyi Conseil National de Transition bashaka gushinga kandi inerekana ko aba banyapolitiki bose ntacyo bahuriyeho mu ngengabitekerezo, ahubwo n’imyanya y’ubutegetsi bakeka ko bazahabwa nyuma yo kurangiza ikiraka cya ba mpatsibihugu. Iri burizwamo ry’iyi nama kandi rije mu gihe za nyeshyamba za Gen Niyombare zimaze iminsi zicengera mu Burundi zinyuze mu Bugarama no mu Bweyeye, zahuye n’isanganya zikicwamo nyinshi none ubu abaziyoboye bakaba barazihaye amategeko yo kugaruka mu Rwanda.
Amakuru agera ku IKAZE IWACU avuga ko ubu zuzuye mu Bugarama, aho zimwe ziri kuvurwa ibikomere, izindi zirunze muri Nyungwe hafi yo mu Bweyeye. Iyi ntambara bashaka izabagora cyane.
Amakuru agera ku IKAZE IWACU avuga ko ubu zuzuye mu Bugarama, aho zimwe ziri kuvurwa ibikomere, izindi zirunze muri Nyungwe hafi yo mu Bweyeye. Iyi ntambara bashaka izabagora cyane.
Ibi byabaye kuri bariya banyapolitiki b’abarundi, byari bikwiye kubera isomo abanyapolitiki b’abanyarwanda barwanya leta ya FPR, birengagiza kwegera abanyarwanda, ahubwo bakirirwa bicaye mu byumba bya ba LOUIS MICHEL na BILL CLINTON, basaba ngo bazabahe ubutegetsi. Baribeshya kuko ibihe byarahindutse, ntabwo abo bazungu bagipfa kugera ku byo bashaka byose nka cyera. Icyo abo bazungu bazabafasha gusa ni ukwica benewanyu, noneho nyuma namwe bakazabakanira urubakwiye.
Monday, July 20, 2015
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
Ms. Ingabire Victoire is tortured and kept confined to her dark cell twenty-four hours => Sick torture Kagame's tactics
-JULY
19, 2015
This story is
included with an NYT Opinion subscription.
Gen.
Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, the head of the Rwandan intelligence services who is
now free on bail in London pending an extradition hearing in October, is an
exemplar of the tightly knit group of diaspora Tutsis that ousted Rwanda’s
Hutu-dominated government and rose to power during the 1994 genocide. Once a
victim of human rights abuses, he now stands accused as a perpetrator. He is
also a hostage — not of any justice system, but of an increasingly lone and
erratic dictator, President Paul Kagame, who uses and abuses his inner circle
as he grows more desperate to stay in power. General Karake was arrested on
June 20 at Heathrow airport on charges brought by a Spanish investigative
judge, who accuses him of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed
between 1990 and 2002 in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In particular,
he is suspected of ordering the killing, in 1997, of three Spanish nationals
working for the relief organization Medicos del mundo.
The fact
that General Karake was arrested in Britain, a country he has visited with
impunity for years, and hitherto one of post-genocide Rwanda’s staunchest
allies, suggests that Mr. Kagame himself is no longer beyond the reach of
international justice. It also shows that the fate of the two men, so close for
many years, is inextricably linked. General Karake has nothing to gain from a
break with Mr. Kagame, beyond a stiff sentence from a foreign tribunal. But the
reverse is equally true. Both men can only be free and powerful in Rwanda. The
arrest was only the latest twist in the wandering life of Mr. Kagame’s spy
chief. Both men were raised in Uganda, where their parents sought refuge after
a revolution in 1959 led to the creation of a Rwandan “Hutu Republic.”
The young Mr. Karake earned degrees in business and international studies from universities in Uganda and Kenya, and an M.B.A. from the University of London before joining the Rwandan Patriotic Front, fighting to reclaim power in Kigali. The civil war, started in 1990 by the RPF, culminated in the massacre by Hutu extremists in 1994 of an estimated 800,000 civilians — mainly Tutsis but also Hutus who opposed the killing.
After the rebels took Kigali, Mr. Karake became a member of Mr. Kagame’s inner circle — mostly English-speaking Tutsi returnees from Uganda — that now rules Rwanda. But even as the new government won the favor of a Western leadership riddled with guilt for failing to halt the genocide, Mr. Kagame and his men orchestrated revenge killings. During the second half of 1994, at least 40,000 Hutus were killed inside Rwanda. Between October 1996 and May 1997, another 200,000 perished as they fled across Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many died of hunger or disease or at the hands of RPF fighters and their Congolese rebel allies, whom a U.N. investigation accuses of crimes against humanity and possibly “acts of genocide.”
The young Mr. Karake earned degrees in business and international studies from universities in Uganda and Kenya, and an M.B.A. from the University of London before joining the Rwandan Patriotic Front, fighting to reclaim power in Kigali. The civil war, started in 1990 by the RPF, culminated in the massacre by Hutu extremists in 1994 of an estimated 800,000 civilians — mainly Tutsis but also Hutus who opposed the killing.
After the rebels took Kigali, Mr. Karake became a member of Mr. Kagame’s inner circle — mostly English-speaking Tutsi returnees from Uganda — that now rules Rwanda. But even as the new government won the favor of a Western leadership riddled with guilt for failing to halt the genocide, Mr. Kagame and his men orchestrated revenge killings. During the second half of 1994, at least 40,000 Hutus were killed inside Rwanda. Between October 1996 and May 1997, another 200,000 perished as they fled across Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many died of hunger or disease or at the hands of RPF fighters and their Congolese rebel allies, whom a U.N. investigation accuses of crimes against humanity and possibly “acts of genocide.”
In 2007, General Karake was appointed deputy commander of the African Union peacekeeping force in the Sudanese province of Darfur. Though he was promoted deputy commander of the larger U.N. mission in Darfur in January 2008, the United Nations was embarrassed by allegations by Human Rights Watch that forces under his command had massacred Congolese civilians in the battle for Kisangani in 2000. Nevertheless, the U.N. extended the general’s tenure beyond its expiry in October 2008 after Mr. Kagame threatened to pull the Rwandan contingent out of Darfur. Both the United States and Britain, which have praised Mr. Kagame for his efforts to lift Rwanda out of atavistic poverty, also exerted pressure on the United Nations.
 |
| Ms. Ingabire Victoire regularly tortured and brutalized in her dark and dirty cell |
Since then,
in the face of an increasingly vindictive and megalomaniac leader, the phalanx
controlling Rwanda has broken up. Many of Mr. Kagame’s closest supporters have
opposed the president’s iron-fisted methods on the grounds that they jeopardize
not only their own future but the future of the minority Rwandan community.
Rebuked and punished by Mr. Kagame, several of his former associates have fled
into exile. Some have been assassinated, including one of General Karake’s
predecessors, Col. Patrick Karegeya, who was murdered in a Johannesburg hotel
room on Jan. 1, 2014. General Karake fell from grace in April 2010 when he was
arrested for “immoral conduct.” Like many colleagues, he was cashiered and
detained, but eventually rehabilitated after he was made to understand that his
destiny is entangled with that of his boss. Mr. Kagame can’t leave office without risking arraignment by the International Criminal Court, a threat from which even a trusted successor could not shield him — and Mr. Kagame no longer trusts anyone. Ignoring constitutional limits, he is orchestrating a “popular” movement to seek another term in 2017. Another election “victory” lies ahead, unless justice catches up with him. Thus the president is defending General Karake as if he himself were being forced to remain in London. He has denounced his spy chief’s arrest as a continuation of “colonialism” and accused the British of “arrogance and contempt” for complying with what is in fact a legal obligation. Mr. Kagame has also called on his foreign allies for support. Cherie Booth, former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife, leads the Karake defense team. Two of the Rwandan leader’s most steadfast supporters have been Mr. Blair and Bill Clinton, who has said that one of his greatest regrets as president was not intervening to stop the genocide in 1994.
The
post-genocide regime in Rwanda has many friends around the world for understandable
— and in most cases, honorable — reasons. Horrified as we were by the bloodbath
in 1994, and ashamed by our inability to prevent or stop it, who would want to
believe that the good face Mr. Kagame has put on Rwanda — creating an image as
a prospering and healing nation — is in fact a lie? Today, opposition voices in
Rwanda have been completely silenced.
Yet, it is
precisely the outside world’s need for a soothing moral tale — for a Manichean
narrative to believe in — that betrays the reality in post-genocide Rwanda and
renders us complicit, yet again, in more bloodshed. In a place where the
absence of democracy and gross violations of human rights have already led to
the ultimate collective crime, we simply cannot afford to continue to avert our
gaze from Mr. Kagame’s violent and arbitrary rule.
General
Karake’s case is a searing reminder of the need to hold Mr. Kagame accountable.
He too belongs in the dock, standing trial before the International Criminal
Court in the Hague.
Stephen W.
Smith, is professor of African studies at Duke University and a former Africa
editor of Le Monde and Libération.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Saturday, July 18, 2015
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
Ibuka nanjye Nibuke
By Sam Greenhill for the Daily Mail
Now Cherie says Rwandan client accused
of war crimes is a hero: Mrs Blair heads battle to stop intelligence chief
being deported to Spain to face charges he arranged massacres.
·
Karenzi Karake is battling extradition to Spain for alleged war crimes
·
Accused of ordering massacres while head of military intelligence
· Top
barrister said the charges he is facing as 'outrageous' and 'inaccurate'
· Mrs Blair claimed 54-year-old was a
'hero' to his people in Rwanda. Cherie Blair described the Rwandan spy chief
who was arrested in London for alleged war crimes as a ‘hero’ to his people
last night.
 |
| Cherie, the wife of of former prime minister Tony Blair and current Rwandan Kagame's top advisor |
Her involvement came to light last month when she
secured £1million bail for her client at Westminster Magistrates’ Court when
Karake, wearing his prison jumpsuit, appeared in the dock following his arrest
at Heathrow airport on June 20.Last night, Mrs Blair told BBC Radio 4’s The
Report programme the charges were politically motivated, adding:
‘To the Rwandan people and government, the general is
a hero. They see this very much as a personal attack on Rwanda itself and they
very much want him home as soon as possible. He’s had to surrender his
passport, he can’t go beyond the M25 boundaries, he has to stay at a particular
address between 8pm and 8am every day and he has to report to a particular
police station every day and he has to wear an electronic tag.
Will Rwanda try to close BBC Radio 4 after another damaging report broadcasted on 7/16/2015?
Will Rwanda try to close BBC Radio 4 after another damaging report broadcasted on 7/16/2015?
The 54-year-old is accused of ordering massacres while head of military
intelligence following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and ordering the killing
of three Spaniards from the charity Medicos del Mundo. But Mrs Blair insisted
that the charges were ‘outrageous and inaccurate’ and ‘a bloated political
tract’. Referring to the Spanish indictment, she said: ‘I hesitate to call it a
legal document actually; it is in fact a political tract. She said the proper
place for Karake’s alleged crimes to be investigated was not in Britain or
Spain, but in Rwanda itself – even though he is the country’s spy chief and a
close ally of President Paul Kagame. Tony Blair has been one of the strongest
supporters of Rwanda and its autocratic president, but Gordon Brown and David
Cameron have also cultivated close ties with the country. Britain gives Rwanda
£90million a year, despite documented allegations that Mr Kagame sends hit
squads to murder opponents around the world.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a "time", yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
Saturday, July 4, 2015
[Since 1994, the world witnesses the horrifying Tutsi minority (14%) ethnic domination, the Tutsi minority ethnic rule with an iron hand, tyranny and corruption in Rwanda. The current government has been characterized by the total impunity of RPF criminals, the Tutsi economic monopoly, the Tutsi militaristic domination, and the brutal suppression of the rights of the majority of the Rwandan people (85% are Hutus)and mass arrests of Hutus by the RPF criminal organization =>AS International]
 |
| Judi Rever, Montreal journalist and author |
RWANDA - Over the last two decades, Emmanuel Karenzi Karake has cut a striking figure in the world of Rwandan intelligence, having navigated the corridors of power with intellectual prowess.
His former colleagues describe him first and foremost as a master at exploiting weakness, a man able to target enemies with astounding precision and never missing his mark. He understood on a visceral level what Paul Kagame wanted to accomplish in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide and knew on a cerebral level how it should be done.
“Quite simply, Karake is the most brilliant officer that Kagame has ever had,” said an ex-colleague now in exile.
“He is observant and careful. Kagame trusted him most of the time…except when he suspected Karake might be building his own power base,” the officer explained.
Another officer who worked with Karake for years said his boss excelled in organizing “abductions, targeted killings and mass killings.”
“At the planning and killing level, he is more shrewd than most. It is hard to escape his traps. Karenzi doesn’t miss a target,” the source explained.
Raised by Tutsi refugee parents in the Congo, Karake was schooled in Uganda and underwent military training in Tanzania before becoming a civil intelligence officer at Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s office following the ouster of dictator Idi Amin in the 1980s.
In the early 1990s, after Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) invaded Rwanda and unleashed a civil war, Karake became a member of an African Union military observer group before becoming a key liaison officer for the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in its dealings with the United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNAMIR.
 |
| Lt Gen. Karenzi karake Kagame's Spy chief and mass-murderer |
Karake’s ability to move freely throughout Rwanda with internationally sanctioned military missions enabled him to gather crucial information at opportune moments: “It was a golden opportunity to see every corner of the country. He gathered really good intelligence for the final assault on Kigali.”
The experience put Karake in good stead when the RPF swooped into the capital, swore in a new government and promised to rebuild Rwanda from its ashes.
Having a predilection for socializing and enjoying the company of women, Karake is the polar opposite of socially austere Kagame. Unlike his boss, he is actually popular with Tutsi officers and soldiers, even among the lowest rank.
His only real nemesis, colleagues pointed out, was Kayumba Nyamwasa, his predecessor who headed the notorious Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) before and during the genocide.
Just what was the role of DMI, an institution led by Karake for nearly three years after the genocide? Rwandans have variously described DMI as a repository of malevolence and pain.
Investigators at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set out to discover what DMI did during and after the genocide. Their findings were compiled in a confidential report submitted to Prosecutor Hassan Bubacar Jallow and accessed by this journalist.
“The Directorate of Military Intelligence was created in late 1990 as part of the RPA military structure. From its creation and until the end of the war in 1994, Colonel Kayumba Nyamwasa was in charge of this directorate. The DMI is hated and feared by most of the Rwandan population, inside and outside of Rwanda due to its reputation for cruelty and killing operations. Most of the massacres attributed to the RPA were committed by the DMI,” the document states.
The report emphasizes that Nyamwasa was DMI chief until the formation of the RPF government and “‘nothing was done without his knowledge.” Investigators later state that Nyamwasa “was replaced by Lt Colonel Karenzi Karake.”
The report—written by the ICTR’s Special Investigations Unit that looked into crimes committed by the RPF—goes on to say that DMI representatives were in every military unit, and that special DMI forces were under the control of DMI headquarters, and special agents called ‘technicians’ were part of DMI operations.
The report states that technicians were trained to use pharmaceutical products to kill and poison water; they were given courses on how to murder with ropes and hoes, how to smother people with plastic bags, how to inject oil from syringes into victims’ ears, and how to tie people’s elbows behind their backs and bind their feet as a means of torture. The technicians were also instructed to use bayonets, guns and grenades, in addition to laying landmines.
Karake’s reign of terror at the helm of DMI
Immediately after Kagame’s troops seized the capital and in the smoky weeks before being named DMI chief, Karake directed a series of operations from all over Rwanda that lured and screened young male Hutus into the RPA, in schemes that brought them to killing centers, mainly in remote areas of Akagera Park which was off limits to the UN and NGOs, sources said. He worked closely at the time with Patrick Nyamvumba, who headed the Training Wing and is now Rwanda’s chief of defense staff.
The practice of screening Hutus and transporting them to execution sites started during the genocide but was implemented in earnest afterward, entrenching a deadly policy that continued, in varying degrees, for years to come.
From testimony collected from witnesses, investigators stipulated that “after the war, the Hutu population were arrested by DMI agents in given places and eliminated at a great rate. The bodies were incinerated and ashes were buried.” Sports grounds and military camps were often created over common graves.
“Places where massacres executed by agents of the DMI sometimes with the assistance of soldiers were: Gabiro, Kami, Masaka, Giti, Nyamirambo, Kidaho, Butaro, Kirambo, Ruhengeri city, Kinihira, Nyungwe Forest, Kabutare, Butare Aboretum, Save, Gikomero, Ndera, Runda, Musambira City, Rambura, Muhura-Buyumba City,” investigators wrote.
“It appears that the principal heads of the DMI are responsible not only because of their personal actions but also because of the orders given. They are also accountable on the basis of the responsibility of the superior hierarchy,” the investigators concluded.
Camp Kami: a slaughterhouse
One of the preferred killing grounds under the authority of DMI was Camp Kami, a sprawling base on the outskirts of Kigali adjacent to bush. ICTR investigators discovered that “thousands of civilians who had taken refuge in the camp were executed. In May 1994, military prisoners would dig graves during the day, and during the night the bodies of the executed persons would be buried in these mass graves. For many years Camp Kami continued to be used by the DMI as an execution site.”
One of Karake’s close colleagues confided that while Kayumba held sway at Kami for two months, it was Karake that transformed the military camp into “a true slaughterhouse.”
“No one knows how many Hutus were slaughtered at Kami. Those who returned from Zaire and others were killed there,” the Tutsi officer said. “Even Tutsis were slaughtered at Kami, but for Tutsis there had to be a reason for being killed.”
He said one day in August 1994, at about 5:30 pm, he was heading to Kami just as a soldier was leaving. The soldier said he was exhausted after killing Hutus for eleven hours straight. “There are still many and Afandi KK (Karenzi Karake) wants the job to be completed before tomorrow,” the soldier told him.
The Tutsi officer arrived on site and found hundreds of Hutu men “screaming and agonizing,” their arms tied behind them and legs bound. “It was horrible,” he recounted, adding that soldiers were looking for hoes to bury them alive.
He said Karake visited the camp that night, was pleased with the scene and quickly retreated to DMI headquarters, which was called Ku Kabindi (the Calabash) because it was next to a building with a calabash and straw.
Karake’s Achilles Heel, shared by many upper echelon members of the RPF, was his antipathy toward Hutus.
“He hated Hutus. He would kill a person just because he or she was Hutu,” the officer said.
And yet many years ago, Karake fell in love with a Hutu girl who was very beautiful. But for a senior ranking Tutsi officer it was unheard of—and even dangerous—to contemplate marrying a Hutu woman.
“He had to drop her and it killed his heart. He became emotionally challenged after that.”
Another colleague had a different view. “It wasn’t so much that Karake hated Hutus more than other RPF officers did. It was just that killing Hutus was the policy. It was part of the program.”
The RPF’s Hutu extermination policy reached its apotheosis under Karake’s tenure, when DMI supervised with great precision the 1996 invasion of Zaire and the mass killings of Congolese and Rwandan Hutu refugees.
The killing squads in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, were supervised by DMI and instructed by Karake, according to an officer involved in operations.
“No intelligence officer could operate without orders from KK. All intelligence officers from all units and sub-units were provided by DMI and could be replaced by DMI,” he said, adding that DMI worked closely with the gendarmerie, military police and external intelligence.
In an interview, a former soldier from a mobile DMI unit recounted killing Hutus in the Congo in November 1996.
“We stopped in Kasindi (in Zaire) and conducted ‘clean up’ operations throughout the area. We got rid of everyone considered an enemy: that meant all Hutus. We found the refugees in the forest. There were starving and sick. There was no water or food for these people. But we were told to eliminate them. So we killed them all. We even killed those who were dying, with perhaps only a few minutes to live. We didn’t use guns on the weakest. We used traditional weapons like agafuni (hoes) to finish them off.
“Most of the killings of refugees took place in the jungle. But if refugees tried to hide in towns, we went after them and identified them.
“At this stage, there were no ex-FAR (Hutu soldiers) in the area. There were only civilians.”
By the time Rwandan troops reached Bafwasende near Kisangani in January 1997, many refugees, more than ten thousand, were killed, the soldier said.
“I was part of a team that unearthed corpses from mass graves. We worked day and night for a long time to take bodies to other locations to be incinerated. It was about the time when people were calling for an investigation to confirm whether indeed there had been massacres of Hutu refugees in the area. Rwanda of course was denying the allegations and we had to destroy the evidence. We needed to hide the proof.
“Bodies were decomposing. It was shocking to be forced to carry out such operations. We did this with our own hands, with no protection or gloves. Our superiors were behind us. These commanders hit us from time to time. It’s hard for you to imagine but we had to put corpses on our backs and dump them onto trucks. When we were discouraged they would beat us and force us to carry on. It was forced labor. I became ill afterward.”
In 2010, an investigation by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that Rwandan troops committed crimes against humanity and possibly genocide in the former Zaire.
The author of that report, a war crimes prosecutor from Montreal named Luc Coté, said that Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus—men, women and children—in the DRC.
Coté previously worked in the ICTR’s Office of Prosecutor and was responsible for indicting Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, considered the architect of the 1994 genocide against Tutsis.
In the first disordered weeks of the Rwandan invasion of Zaire, several hundred thousand Rwandan refugees headed eastward back home, while another mass of humanity fled deeper west into the jungle, chased by RPA forces. Mainstream media, channeling officials in Kigali, declared the forced return of Hutus as a victory against genocidal forces that had used the camps in Zaire as rear bases to mount attacks against Rwanda. What journalists did not say was that thousands of Hutu men were systematically separated from their families after crossing the border in late 1996, only to be transported in trucks and killed in Nyungwe Forest, Akagera Park, Camp Kami and other execution sites, according to dozens of Tutsi officers familiar with operations and families of Hutu men who disappeared.
The coordinated killings of Hutu refugees inside Zaire and the elimination of Hutu men that returned home also coincided with a brutal counterinsurgency campaign the RPA had begun to wage in areas along the western border, particularly in Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. The RPA was accused of going house-to-house, slaughtering civilians, burning huts, and of targeting local critics who dared to raise their voices.
It was during that time that Kagame and Karake made a strategic error of epic proportions, their critics say. They decided to target witnesses—several of them foreign nationals working for NGOs—who knew what was going on in the area. On January 18, 1997, three Spanish nationals working for Doctors of the World were murdered in Ruhengeri. The Spanish court holds Karake responsible for the massacre.
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| General P. Kagame The Rwandan Genocide Mastermind but Still President of Rwanda |
An individual who worked with Karake said he indeed organized and monitored the killings of the Spanish humanitarian workers and the murder of Guy Pinard, an outspoken Québecois priest who openly condemned RPA atrocities against civilians during his sermons.
According to a source with knowledge of the operations against the Spanish and the priest, which occurred within two weeks of each other, the killings were organized by DMI in conjunction with the Gendarmerie. The DMI departments involved were Counter Intelligence led by Charles Karamba and the Criminal Investigation & Prosecution, led by Joseph Nzabamwita.
Father Guy Pinard was shot in the back on February 2, 1997 in front of parishioners while giving communion. His attacker, a Tutsi with connections to the RPF, fled the scene and was never charged. Unlike Spain, Canada did not investigate or seek justice.
ICTR investigators collected testimony indicating that RPA troops had temporarily occupied the Catholic Church in Ruhengeri, Father Pinard was in charge of the church when 20 bodies were found in a latrine pit on the premises, after the RPA vacated the site. Pinard was killed shortly thereafter. The priest who was in charge of exhuming the bodies was also murdered, according to the ICTR document.
Absent from the Spanish indictment is the role that DMI, under Karake, played in the murder of another Canadian priest, Claude Simard on October 17, 1994.
Simard, who was beaten to death with a hammer in his home in Butare, had been gathering evidence of RPA killings in the form of audio recordings that he planned to hand over to the international community.
A UN civilian police report concluded that the army had learned of Father Simard’s plans to give the recordings to the United Nations.
“From all indications, Father Claude Simard was murdered by the RPA,” the UN report said. “The image of the RPA was at stake and they could not simply sit by. Father Claude Simard was about to expose them with a recorded cassette of their crimes.”
Spain demands justice
Karake is currently director general of Rwanda’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), an umbrella spy agency that oversees intelligence gathering in civilian and military spheres.
Karake’s formidable and horrifically violent reign as military intelligence chief after the genocide, and his role in murdering three Spanish nationals led to his arrest on June 20 in London under a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Spanish government. He faces an extradition hearing in October.
In 2008, Judge Fernando Andreu Merelles indicted Karake and 39 other RPA commanders on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and other offenses that include terrorism in a case of universal jurisdiction. Since then, the Spanish court has collected additional evidence against Karake and other RPF officers, a Spanish lawyer handling the case confirmed.
If the 1994 genocide against Tutsis stands as the most depraved and tragic chapter in Rwanda’s history, its corollary is certainly the three years that followed in which a slower, largely hidden campaign of abject cruelty was meted out against Hutu civilians in Rwanda and the DRC, with barely a whimper of international outcry.
If extradited to Spain, Emannuel Karenzi Karake could become the jewel in the crown of witnesses against Kagame’s two-and-a-half decades of crime. He was, by all indications, the most successful of Kagame’s willing executioners.
And yet Karake’s friends insist his culpability is complex. “Yes he was at the center of killing operations in Rwanda for years. But he’s been humiliated too, and was aware that things were not going well,” said one friend.
“Many bad decisions were taken. But what Kagame wants, Kagame gets,” the friend said.
“If Karake is as smart as we think he is, he will not save Kagame this time. He’ll tell the truth. It’s what Rwanda needs.”
Judi Rever
Judi Rever is a Montreal-based freelance journalist, formerly with Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale. She has reported from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and the Middle East. She specializes in human rights issues, and is currently doing research for a book that would explore war crimes committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its army.
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