AfroAmerica Network Correspondent
Gisenyi, Rwanda
12.25.99
Following a series of brazen attacks, the Armee de Liberation du Rwanda (ALIR) has striken on several military targets in Northwestern Rwanda in the last three months.
On December 23, 1999, ALIR mounted yet another bold raid, occupying the Bigogwe military camp, a very notorious military training camp in Rwanda, for hours.
Several RPA soldiers were killed by a battalion of rebels armed with automatic and heavy weapons according to government soldiers, who were sent in for reinforcement.
The military barracks were ransacked and several houses were burned to the ground by ALIR soldiers before they withdrew. A large quantity of ammunitions and light and heavy weapons were looted. Several trucks were burnt.
In the previous months, similar raids were successfully conducted on the Mukamira military camps, situated at about 10 miles from the Bigogwe camp. According to independent sources, ALIR freed several prisoners, and killed more than 100 government soldiers. A significant military equipment, including weapons, ammunitions, and hand-held rocket launchers were looted.
Local military commanders and political leaders admit that the latest raids are consistently well coordinated, swift, and successful. The military officials have minimized the extent of these attacks. In a briefing to the press after the Bigogwe attack, these officials have only stated that the "Hutu rebels have killed some thirty civilians during an attack on a government resettlement camp housing hundreds of ethnic Tutsi civilians".
"This is propaganda. We never attacked civilians. You yourself can go and verify. The truth is that we attacked the Bigogwe military camp, killed around 200 Rwandan Patriotic Army Soldiers, and seized a large quantity of weapons", says an ALIR commander showing off several brand new AK-47, grenades, uniforms, and several rounds of ammunitions looted from the camp.
These raids constitute a blow to the government's attempts to quell the insurgency, especially as it came back in the heart of the country, while the front line of the Rwandan invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is thousands of miles away, suggesting that ALIR rebels feel confident enough to move around at will. Meanwhile, Rwandans including Hutu and influential Tutsis are fleeing the country in large numbers for Europe, America and other countries in Africa.
Hutu leaders who do not flee the country are uncertain about their future. More than 150,000 Hutu mostly elite, business people, clergy, and social leaders have been kept in jail for more than five years without trial.
These Rwandan prisons have arguably become the most crowded, most dangerous, and most inhumane prisons in the World. Hundreds of thousands of people are held in truck containers, disused factories, old bathrooms, wet or leaking dungeons, or anywhere things can be confined. Crowded cells serve as toilets, sleeping, and living rooms. Prisoners are regularly tortured. Thousands have lost limbs, developed skin diseases, or caught recurrent or terminal illnesses.