AfroAmerica Network
Kampala, Uganda
05.03.01
Disappearance, rape, mutilation, cutting with machetes or bayonets, assassinations are some of the practices the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) learned and perfected in Uganda. These practices have become now part of the culture of violence prevailing in Rwanda.
The AfroAmerica Newtwork correspondent in Kigali has spent sometime looking into RPF killing practices. He reports that when a well known person disappears, the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) locks up the person in a container or in the bathroom of a private house. When there is no campaign or pressure from the international community to release him, the person is either shot or tied up hands crossed behind his elbows and struck with a used hoe on the head. When the international community gets involved, for instance when the United States ambassador gets involved in the case, then the person is released. During the Clinton Administration, the United States was the main supporter of the RPF.
These killing practices were the trademark of RPF members when they were still active in the National Resistance Army (NRA), the current Ugandan army whose commander in chief is President Museveni. When the NRA sent Rwandan soldiers to put down a rebellion in Acholi, Teso, Lango, Kasese, and West Nile, Rwandans regarded their mission as a training opportunity.
A witness who saw them in Gulu suggests that it is during such military campaign that they perfected killing practices. A Ugandan History Professor Ogenga Otunnu quotes this witness as saying: "These people (some of them Ugandans) are quite excited about the armed conflict in Acholi almost anybody they see during their operation they shoot at or cut with their machetes or bayonets. These Rwandese use the most unacceptable counter-insurgency strategies: they herd women, children and old people into houses and set the house on fire: they rape women in the presence of their male relatives, and at times, they force the male relatives to sleep with those women after {the soldiers} have exhausted their sexual desire. These people are determined to spread slim {HIV} to the Acholi."
After the RPF invaded Rwanda from it military bases in southern Uganda, many Rwandan Hutu fled as the RPF advanced. Some academics and international news organizations attributed the massive flight of people to Habyarimana's regime propaganda. When the RPF hit squads killed Gikongoro MDR President Emmanuel Gapyisi, senior MRND official Fidele Rwambuka, PSD Executive Secretary Felicien Gatabazi, and other individuals, academics, human rights organizations and international news organizations attributed these assassinations solely to Habyarimana's hit squads.
Since the RPF took over in 1994, its leaders have attributed disappearances, assassinations, murders, and rape to interahamwe or unidentified gunmen. When such cases raise the eyebrow of its financial backers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the RPF reacts by promising investigations. These investigations do not lead anywhere. Former Butare Governor Pierre Claver Rwangabo was assassinated in 1995 and former Kibuye Governor Assiel Kabera was gunned down in 2000. No suspect in these murders has ever been brought to justice.
A western diplomat who has asked not be identified says: "The RPF is a very secretive organization. When it was waging war against the Habyarimana's regime, we thought it was a liberation movement. It is clear today that it is a criminal organization whose leaders should be rounded up and sent to prison. But what can we do? Millions of people have already died."
(c)AfroAmerica Network, May, 2001.
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Soon to come: Coverage on Rwandan Refugees in the Republic of Congo.