BBC DOCUMENTARY: RWANDA'S UNTOLD STORY
This
World Rwanda's Untold Story BBC Documentary 2014
Twenty
years on from the Rwandan genocide, This World reveals evidence that challenges
the accepted story of one of the most horrifying events of the late 20th
century. The current president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, has long been portrayed
as the man who brought an end to the killing and rescued his country from
oblivion. Now there are increasing questions about the role of Kagame's Rwandan
Patriotic Front forces in the dark days of 1994 and in the 20 years since.
The
film investigates evidence of Kagame's role in the shooting down of the
presidential plane that sparked the killings in 1994 and questions his claims
to have ended the genocide. It also examines claims of war crimes committed by
Kagame's forces and their allies in the wars in the Democratic Republic of
Congo and allegations of human rights abuses in today's Rwanda.
Former
close associates from within Kagame's inner circle and government speak out
from hiding abroad. They present a very different portrait of a man who is
often hailed as presiding over a model African state. Rwanda's economic miracle
and apparent ethnic harmony has led to the country being one of the biggest
recipients of aid from the UK. Former prime minister Tony Blair is an unpaid
adviser to Kagame, but some now question the closeness of Mr Blair and other
western leaders to Rwanda's president.
Related
Stories:
By
Producer Director John Conroy.
Filming
a political dissident who has been the target of four assassination attempts
presents some difficulties. Once President Kagame’s right-hand man, General
Kayumba Nyamwasa is now seen by many as one of the few people who could present
a credible threat to Rwanda’s leader. The Rwandan Government has denied any
link to the attempts on Nyamwasa’s life but the General has no doubt as to who
is responsible. The Judge sentencing the men accused of the last attempt on his
life concluded that the attack was ‘politically motivated’ and emanated 'from a
certain group of people from Rwanda'.
Firstly
we had to assume that his e-mails and phone calls we being monitored by both
the Rwandans and the South African authorities who have given him asylum and
were providing him with protection. This meant trying to organise a meeting
with a man who cannot tell you directly where or exactly when to meet.
Consequently, from the first moment I spoke to Nyamwasa in December 2013 to our
meeting in the spring of 2014, communications relied upon a necessarily
torturous and opaque loop via a myriad of intermediaries discussing his
willingness to be met and talk on camera.
As
dates were being locked down and time was running out promises in principle had
to be replaced with a commitment but after the recent assassination of Patrick
Karegeya, General Nyamwasa’s closest dissident ally in South Africa, the
General and his guards were extremely cautious. We finally received word after
weeks of waiting that one forty-eight hour window was possible. We flew to
South Africa. It was our only chance. We were given a mobile number and I was
told to ring when we arrived. We knew nothing more than to be in Johannesburg
and to ring by 11am and everything would fall into place. We did not sleep on
the flight through a mixture of anxiety that we were finally meeting a key
interviewee and the awareness that our only link with him was a single phone
number. On arrival we couldn’t even tell our driver where we were going. I
rigged the camera anticipating an immediate start. I rang the number and it
went to an answer phone, I rang three more times in succession and nothing.
Reporter
Jane Corbin and I decided to head downtown to film links for the film, material
to cut in and set up the interview. Seven hours passed from our agreed time to
call. The evening drew in. Ten messages left and no response. As we finished
our last set up, the hesitant voice of one of Nymwasa’s people confirmed the
interview could go ahead the next day. Strict security was insisted upon; we
had to wait in an anonymous suburban car park, we couldn’t have any security
guards, our identities were checked, we then had to follow a car along miles of
motorway and city streets to ensure we were not being followed until we arrived
at a deserted hotel surrounded by razor wire with armed body guards in every
bush and doorway. Curtains were closed and we began our interview. Over the
next 12 weeks we crossed three continents to interview 12 people in total.
But
it was our last interviewee in that really stuck with me. She had never spoken
publicly at length about her experiences. Marie Bamutese was one of hundreds of
thousands of Hutu refugees brutalized and chased across Rwanda and into the
Congo by forces allied to Paul Kagame. I had contacted her husband, Peter
Verlinden about access to television archive material. In passing he mentioned
that Marie had briefly appeared on Flemish television describing her ordeal,
which Peter had described in his book on the war. I asked if she would be prepared
to do a full interview about her experiences. Such were the horrors she had
experienced that Marie was afraid of recounting them publicly particularly in a
foreign third language, English. She was fearful that she would not be able to
accurately communicate exactly what happened to her but wanted to go ahead with
the interview.
We
met at our hotel. Marie sent Peter away; she wanted to tell this story alone.
The story was so awful and extreme that she had only recently told Peter the
full detail of what she was about to tell us, years after being smuggled out of
the Congo. He did not hear it again and she did not need him to witness her
telling it. We decided with Marie that she should speak in French; she would be
able to more freely express herself and be certain that she said what she
meant. The interview was one awful account of death and torture after another.
Marie was just a young girl when she witnessed the repeated bombing of Hutu
refugee camps by Kagame’s artillery and the remains of Hutu refugees piled upon
one another forming a hillside. She saw her own grandmother die of physical and
moral exhaustion in front of her and her mother cry inconsolably. Marie could
not hold her own tears back when she told us how her own seven year old cousin,
Elodie, died on her back as she carried her though the forests to escape the
massacres. She described how death had become a friend, the only constant and
certain thing around her in the hell of the Congolese forests. She broke down
again when she remembered how her own mother was forced to do a deal with a
local family; her daughter Marie would be raped in exchange for the family’s
safety. By the end of the interview Marie’s tears had been replaced by anger
and by what seemed to be cathartic relief. She was anxious to ensure that
people knew that massacres were committed by all sides - including Kagame’s
Rwandan Patriotic Front, who until today have been viewed largely as the heroes
of 1994. The family members Marie lost in the Congo were amongst the estimated
5 million people who died in the African wars which followed the Rwandan
genocide of 1994.
posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 5:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home