AfroAMerica Network
Kampala, Uganda
05.04.01
Former Interior and security minister has joined many other former Rwandan senior officials who have fled Rwanda since the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) overthrew President Habyarimana's regime. Among them are two former Prime ministers and a former speaker of parliament.
Theobald Rwaka who was reported missing in Rwanda three days ago has turned up in Kampala, Uganda. He fled to Uganda after he learned that the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was about to arrest him. He and a group of Hutu elite had been working on a political platform for a new political party.
In Kampala, Rwaka was welcomed by Major Ruzindana who crossed into Uganda one week ago, Major Furuma, Major Mupende, Captain Frank Tega and many other members of the Rwandan community who have fled to Uganda because of threats to their security.
Three weeks ago Rwandan President General Paul Kagame held a meeting in Gisenyi with Rwandan senior army officers who withdrew from parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC). Informed sources say he asked them to be prepared for a war with Uganda. During this meeting, Kagame alleged that Uganda was preparing an invasion of Rwanda with Rwandan exiles.
Meanwhile Marie Immaculee Ingabire and Elie Muhayimana are preparing to file a lawsuit against the Rwandan government. Both individuals argue that when they wrote articles about former Prime Minister Pierre Celestin Rwigema's participation in the genocide of Tutsi in 1994, the Rwandan government rebuked them and now the same government has issued an international arrest warrant against him.
Ingabire contends that when the government rebuked her, she lost jobs opportunity within the RPF. As to Muhayimana, he says the RPF did not appoint him to the National Transitional Assembly because of the articles he wrote.
Ingabire is a former journalist at Imvaho, a state-run weekly newspaper. She is associated with the activities of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) through Patrick Karegeya, the Director of External Security Organization. Muhayimana is a journalist and a member of the National Reconciliation Commission. He owns a newspaper largely funded by the RPF.
Political sources say genocide charges against Rwigema are politically motivated. In 1994, he fled to Hotel des Mille Collines and during an exchange of displaced people between the then Rwandan Government and the RPF, he chose to flee to the zone controlled by the RPF. He spent weeks in Kabuga where he witnessed selective killings of Hutu carried out by RPF execution squads. After the war, he served as minister of education for one year and Prime Minister for 5 years. When Ingabire and Muhayimana made genocide allegations against him, Kagame said a government investigation had found Rwigema innocent.
A western diplomat told AfroAmerica Network correspondent in Kigali that the exploitation of genocide for political gain is despicable. The diplomat said: "My parents are Holocaust survivors. Using the Rwandan genocide to get even, violate another person's rights, invade another country, commit massacres, and kill people is wrong. The international community should stand up against this practice."
(c)AfroAmerica Network, May, 2001.
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Soon to come: Coverage on Rwandan Refugees in the Republic of Congo.