AfroAmerica Network in collaboration with Clarisse Mwambali in Kigali, Rwanda
San Jose, California
09.22.00
On September 3, Professor Alexander Kimenyi, the longtime eminence grise and ideologist of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Joseph Nsengimana, the President and Augustine Kamongi, the Vice president of the RPF in the US resigned and quit the RPF during a convention in Detroit, Michigan.
These three RPF members charged the RPF of being a corrupt and criminal organization. They cited numerous cases of human rights violations such as assassinations and torture of prisoners, including Tutsi survivors of the 1994 Rwandan inter-ethnic massacres; the selling off of stated owned companies to RPF supporters and South African companies; and the concentration of power into the hands of a group of Tutsi colonels who grew up in the Ugandan army.
Since the resignation, the Rwandan Government and, especially, the Rwandan President General Kagame has vented their anger upon Mr. Alexander Kimenyi, accusing him of being a traitor, an opportunist, and even a member of the notorious Interahamwe. General Kagame's comments, pursuing his failed visit to the United States, have since raised heated debates on the personalities of both Kimenyi and General Kagame.
Alexander Kimenyi, who is now in his late early 50's, was born into a Tutsi family, in Nyanza province, under the Rwandan monarchy. The region now spans parts of the Prefectures of Butare, Gikongoro, and Gitarama. Nyanza was the Capital of the Monarchy, while Kigali was erected the administrative capital by Germany and later Belgium, by the Colonial powers.
He graduated from College Christ Roi of Nyanza, an elite high-school where Tutsi aristocrats and a few Hutu were admitted until the Rwandan Independence. Canon Ernotte, the Rector of the school, and Father Andriatis were instrumental in the creation and organization of Hutu opposition to the Monarchy. Upon High-School graduation and after an unsuccessfully application to the Rwandan Army Academy, he was admitted at the Institute Pedagogique National (IPN), a Higher Education institution, dedicated to educate Teachers.
In 1971, Kimenyi was among a handful of Rwandans to be granted government scholarships to study abroad. He chose to study at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He graduated with a Masters' in Ethnic Studies in 1973. The events in Rwanda in 1973, during which the Government of Mr. Gregory Kayibanda, the first elected Rwandan President was overthrown by General Habyalimana, after bloody ethnic and regional conflicts, forbade Alexander Kimenyi to return to Rwanda. He chose to stay in the USA and finished a doctoral program in Ethnic Studies. He now teaches Ethnic Studies at California State University in Sacramento.
Habyalimana's government included several of Kimenyi's friends and former classmates, including Augustin Nduwayezu the head of Intelligence, Colonel Rusatira, Secretary General at the Ministry of Defense, Pierre Claver Karenzi, a member of the Executive Committee of the ruling party, MRND. Thus, Kimenyi was able to create a network of friends that went up to Habyalimana's inner circle members.
After the 1973 events in Rwanda, several Tutsi fled the country and joined those who fled in 1959-1960. Alexander Kimenyi came into contact with some them, especially Mr. Wallis Shalita, Charles Murigande, Gerard Gahima, Ms. Inyumba and Theogene Rudasingwa. Most of these Tutsis were very upset about the Rwandan events, others were simply trying to build a network that would later become the Rwandan Patriotic Front. From a recruit, Kimenyi quickly quickly became the rallying voice and the torch bearer of exiled Tutsi opposition. He held meetings and organized fundraisings campaigns on the behalf of the new underground resistance organization. He founded an extremist news letter called IMPURUZA (the Call to Fight), with Munyandamutsa, Rubagumya, Karasanyi, and Birasa on the Editorial Board.
During that time, the government of Habyalimana was working with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees was inviting Rwandan Refugees to return home. Those who volunteered were given Rwandan passports. Alexander Kimenyi was one of them, but at the last minute he decided to stay in the USA, after receiving the passport in 1987. The official reason for this last minute change of heart was that the conditions advanced by the Rwandan Government were too constraining. However, it appeared that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) of Uganda, which was mostly composed of Rwandan Tutsi exiles, had just won war in Uganda, and promised the Tutsi to help them overthrow the Habyalimana's Government. The Rwandan Patriotic Army was already reorganizing, recruiting, and training in secret. Tutsis who were willing to return to Rwanda were intimidated by intelligence squads. In 1989, in during a meeting held in Washington, D.C and organized by the US Committee for Refugees, Tutsis, led Alexander Kimenyi, opted for war, as a means of returning to Rwanda and eventually seizing power.
In his several writings, Professor Kimenyi has consistently held contradictory positions regarding regimes of both Habyalimana and RPF. Sometimes he defends Habyalimana's regime. He recognizes that Habyalimana gave orders to Rwandan intelligence services to issue a passport to himself and his family in 1987. He also affirms that Habyalimana was a popular president who, unfortunately was assassinated. On others occasions he blames Habyalimana's regime for holding Tutsis back into exile.
After mounting an intense defense of RPF policies, he now claims, that RPF is responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and large scale massacres of both Hutu and Tutsis. He even goes to the length of admitting that Habyalimana's regime was much better than RPF's.
The resignation of Alexander Kimenyi from the RPF has fueled speculations. According to some comments and political analyses, Kimenyi may be teaming up with Sebarenzi Kabuye, the exiled former Speaker of the Parliament to form an opposition party. Others put him in the Monarchists. Still others think that he is in contact with an armed political party, the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR). In May 2000, the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), held its meeting in Nasho, Kibungo and promised to overthrow Kagame's government. According to the meeting account, a copy of which AfroAmerica Network received, the meeting in Nasho was attended by delegates from America, Europe, Asia, and all over Africa and Rwanda.
Sources in Rwanda and abroad confirm that the FDLR have been actively recruiting all over the country, including the capital Kigali and seem to be very well organized both militarily and politically. The meeting in Nasho prompted the Rwandan Patriotic Front militia, the so-called Local Defense Units (LDU) to massacre families suspected of supporting the armed political party, in early June 2000. Bodies of those massacred were dumped in the River Akagera. These massacres sent thousands of Refugees to Tanzania.
However, sources close to Alexander Kimenyi's family affirm that Kimenyi is taking it easy and weighing options before his next move. He has enough time to think about it. For this academic year, is on sabbatical leave.
No matter the decision Alexander Kimenyi makes, one thing will remains: He will always be a man with multiple mysterious faces.
@AfroAmerica Network, September 22, 2000.
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