Lieutenant-Colonel Wilson Rutayisire, Commander of Rwandan Patriotic
Army troops in Eastern Congo died on Monday June 5, 2000.
Speculations about his death abound. Mayi-Mayi fighters, opposed
to Rwandan occupation of Kivu were the first to claim they had ambushed
his escort on way towards Kisangani where the war between Rwanda and
Uganda
rages on.
Rwandan Patriotic Army spokesman Emmanuel Ndahiro fueled the speculation by advancing the idea of a suicide. Several people in Kigali side with the government's version citing the fact that Wilson Rutayisire was in advanced stages of AIDS.
AIDS has become a very serious threat for the Rwandan Patriotic Army. Several top officers, including the current President of Rwanda, General Paul Kagame, are believed to be infected by AIDS virus and in a disease stage.
During the RPA rebellion years Wilson Rutayisire was Director of the infamous Radio Muhabura, the equivalent, on Rwandan Patriotic Front side, of Radio Milles Collines. When the RPA took power, he became Director of the official Radio Rwanda.
According to several human rights organizations, Wilson was at or near sites in south Kivu, Haut-Congo, and Equateur during periods when massacres of hundreds of thousands of Hutu Refugees took place. Reports from these organizations accuse him of being responsible for a special unit of RPA composed primarily of experienced Rwandan soldiers, that has been implicated in several large massacres in Congo.
Wilson was in Kisangani during military intervention that took place at Byaro, Kasese I, and Kasese II that likely resulted in thousands of refugee deaths. According to Aid workers in Kisangani in 1997, Wilson Rutayisire was responsible for training and inciting the local Congolese population south of Kisangani to launch attacks against refugees. He was a commander for RPA operations in Mbandaka on May 13, 1997, when massacres took place. He was in Mbandaka until approximately may 24, 1997.
Wilson had striking facial scarification. He reportedly often went by the alias "Khadafi". He was an influential member of the so called Akazu, a clique of General Kagame's corrupt cronies.
Whether killed by Mayi-Mayi, assassinated, or dead from AIDS, Wilson was not a choir boy.
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