AfroAmerica Network
Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo
10.28.00
On March 1, 1999 six American and European tourists were cowardly and brutally massacred while visiting the Buindi National Park in Uganda.
Following the massacres, Hutu rebels, usually labeled Interahamwe were quickly and without clear evidences accused by the Government of Uganda, which had failed to provide adequate protection. The Rwanda Government, led by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, was also quick to accuse Interahamwe and apparently overjoyed to confirm Ugandan version. The international media and Western governments have since followed this lead.
Recently new revelations pointing to the Rwandan Patriotic Army troops' responsibility for the Buindi massacres surfaced. Sources of the revelations confirm that the tourists were murdered by rogue soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army, in search of food, money and clothing. The sources say that most soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army are usually forcefully sent to battlefields in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and may spend three to six months without pay or any supply. This situation has led to looting, armed robberies and other violent crimes by the soldiers in order to survive.
The Rwandan Patriotic Army soldiers, who were led by the young lieutenant Gatoto were in such dire conditions. The new revelations allege that Lieutenant Gatoto and his soldiers are responsible for the massacres.
The sources point not only to the lack of supply and pay, but also to the persisting rift within the Rwandan Patriotic Army between officers from Uganda, cronies of or close to General Kagame and those, mostly survivors of the 1994 inter-ethnic massacres, followers of the former Rwandan king, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa.
The new revelations seem very credible. Troops under Lieutenant Gatoto were all removed from the field of military operations following these massacres. Lieutenant Gatoto himself may have been tortured to death by the Department of Military Intelligence (DMI) of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
Rwandan exiled opposition has often accused the Rwandan Government of using the murders of tourists to boost the sympathy and generosity of the US Government as well as using "the genocide of Tutsi" as a commercial fund.
Rwandan opposition in Congo declared to AfroAmerica Network that "the Rwandan government has acquired the criminal habit of committing crimes and then to attribute them to the opposition. This was the case with the shooting down of Juvenal Habyarimana's plane as it is with the on going killings of innocent civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where these massacres are attributed to imaginary scapegoats ."
AfroAmerica Network (c) October 2000.
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