World
"The dead can no longer be counted"
January 16, 1998
Rwanda may be on the threshold of a new wave of violence after thousands of killings in recent months, warns the United Nations.
Since October 1997, armed opposition groups have carried out increasingly violent attacks in the north-western prefecture of Gisenyi.
"The dead can no longer be counted," said one resident.
The armed groups are believed to include members of the former Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) and Interahamwe - extremist Hutu militia who participated in the 1994 genocide.
The official Rwandese Patriotic Army is also accused of violence against civilians. During their searches for the armed groups of insurgents, RPA soldiers have burned houses and crops and carried out widespread looting.
Omar Bahket, the UN Representative to Rwanda, said: "The situation is very precarious. The worst case scenario is that (the events of) 1994 will look like a children's game."
Then, centuries of rivalry between the Hutu majority and their former feudal overlords, the Tutsi, exploded into a genocidal campaign during which the ruling Hutu regime systematically killed Tutsi civilians and political opponents.
Up to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus are thought to have died.
The Hutu government was subsequently overthrown by an invading army dominated by Tutsis but the problems did not stop.
In December 1997, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, attacked the government of Rwanda over the army's record on human rights.
She accused the authorities of carrying out arbitrary arrests and detentions and allowing serious overcrowding in prisons - findings from her three-day fact-finding mission to Rwanda.
Colonel Kayumba Nyamwasa, the military Chief of Staff effectively in charge of military operations in the north-west, accepts there have been transgressions.
But he remains committed to crushing military insurgents.
He said: "We have the means. We have the will. We will kill until they (the Hutu militias) lose their appetite for war."
Throughout October, November and early December in 1997, Amnesty International received reports of killings of unarmed civilians by Hutu militia in Rwanda almost daily.
On December 11, 1997, non-government organisations operating in Gisenyi, north-west Rwanda, reported killings of around 1,000 people in a Hutu attack on a refugee camp.
It was the second horrific massacre at Mudende refugee camp in Gisenyi prefecture. The figures were never confirmed by officials in the region.
In November and December, armed opposition groups freed hundreds of political prisoners from detention centres in and around Gisenyi prefecture. An unknown number of people were reported to have died during these attacks.
In early November, fighting between armed opposition groups and RPA soldiers in Matyazo secteur, Satinsyi commune, Gisenyi, lasted for three days.
In order to escape the persistent violence, thousands of people have fled across the border from Rwanda into the Democratic Republic of Congo since October.
However, many are rounded up by Congolese soldiers and forced to return to Rwanda within weeks or even days.
Around 4,500 Rwandese refugees were expelled from Congo in this way between early October and early December 1997.
In December, most of the estimated 540,000 Rwandese refugees in Tanzania were also forced to return to Rwanda, following a joint statement issued by the Tanzanian Government and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that all Rwandese refugees were expected to leave by December 31.
The inaccessibility of north-west Rwanda, where most of the killings are taking place, makes independent investigations into reported deaths difficult and time-consuming. These difficulties appear to be intensifying.
Related Materials:
Rwanda: Government searching for fugitive General Kayumba Nyamwasa
Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa Escapes to Uganda
Rwanda: Kagame's failed assassination attempt
Thanks for the posting.
ReplyDeleteThis is the killer of my father. In 1996 General Kayumba was chief of operation in Ruhengeri and Gisenyi fighting abacunguzi insurgents. He established his Headquarters at the former Sous Prefecture of Busengo. Using heavy artillery and helicopter gunships Kayumba and his men killed people like flies. He decimated my family killing my father and my brothers. They even burned down my house. In fact he was killing people indiscriminately in their homes and only those who managed to hide under plantation for months survived the carnage. This is the same guy who killed Canadian father Pinard and the Spanish Missionaries in Ruhengeri. Now that he has fled to Uganda and is no longer under the protection of his Boss Kagame, I hope that he is not going to find another safe heaven under the protection of his cousin M7 and that the long hand of justice will be able to reach out to him.
Augustin.
Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteDuring that time, My dad was stabbed to death. My sister was killed along with her 4 little children, I can go on and on... relatives, friends, the list is long,... innocent peasants who had nothing to do with politics. Hopefully, justice will prevail.
well, i thank you all for presenting your world views about the man, i lost my brothers and so many other relatives, but i still think that hanging such people for the sake of justice, who fought the war will not bring peace and justice at all.
ReplyDeleteRwanda will never have peace if we are trying to bring peace shading dark colours to others.