AfroAmerica Network
Correspondent in Buniakili, South Kivu
02.07.00
"Those who burnt my house, killed my wife after raping her were Rwandan Patriotic Army troops in plain clothes. I recognized two of them. We used to share beer once in a while. They didn't participate in the raping of my wife whom they knew very well, but they are part of the squad ", angrily reacted a schoolteacher from the Nande ethnic tribe to reports by Virginia Gomez of Radio France Internationale, Africa Section. (RFI-Africa).
In fact, this morning, the RFI reported massacres and looting committed by the so-called Interahamwe in South-Kivu. However, independent witnesses confided to Afro-America Network that Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) troops, disguised in civilians, are responsible for the massacres. They point out that the Rwandan Patriotic Army used the same approach in Rwanda 1994. This approach led the international community to attribute massacres committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army to either Interahamwe or the Rwandan Government Forces (EX-FAR).
The RPA is using the strategy after two serious setbacks. First, for more than three weeks, the Mayi-Mayi rebels, strongly opposed to the invasion and occupation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by RPA, have taken control of Shabunda. Shabunda, situated at few hundreds kilometers from Bukavu, is a strategic town with an important airstrip.
Second, to protest against the invasion and occupation of Kivu by RPA, residents of Bukavu the capital of South-Kivu, have stopped all social, economical and civic activities. Although the RPA has detained, summarily executed, or deported some congolese social leaders, the protestation movement is growing out of control and becoming a veritable rebellion.
In North-Kivu, the RPA has brought in battalions of troops. These troops tried to set up nazi-like concentration camps similar to those in Northwestern Rwanda. Instead of joining the camps, people fled to forests and fields. RPA is now conducting systematic killings mostly in the cities and regions of Rutchuru, Kiwanja, Tongo, Kikanda, Matanda, Mushaki, and Ngungu. These kind of killings are probably those attributed to the so-called "Interahamwe" by Virginia Gomez of RFI.
"We are surprised that no major international media or human rights organization is reporting on these atrocities. It is outrageous. It is not fair. When will the international community discover or admit that the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its RPA have been manipulating or lying to them?" complained a Mayi-Mayi commander.
Many congolese believe that the international community has sided with the Rwandan Patriotic Front against them. They point to the systematic murders, massacres, looting, and occupation of their property by the Rwandan Patriotic Army that go underreported, misreported or not condemned. They concur that the RPA is trying to justify its occupation of the Democratic Republic of Congo by committing massacres and attributing them to the so-called Interahamwe. Political analysts in the region have another theory: Rwandan Patriotic Army, by these massacres, tries to sabotage the Lusaka accords and to divert Rwandans and the international community from internal problems in Rwanda.
In fact, in Rwanda itself, political crises that were brewing for some times within the Tutsi-led government, started to pop. Most recently, influent Tutsis, including the Speaker of the Parliament, business people and RPA soldiers, have been fleeing the country. Members of the family of the Speaker were arrested. There are also persistent rumors of a list of influent Tutsis to be assassinated. "I am talking of a list of Tutsis, most of whom were, until recently, very close to General Kagame. The DMI (Department of Military Intelligence) has already designated a death squad and equipped them with pistols and silencers", confided Frank K., an RPA soldier who claims to be part of the Kigeli's Army, composed of disgruntled RPA soldiers who support the ex- Mwami of Rwanda, now in exile in the United States of America.
Meanwhile, Rwandans Hutu continue to flee the country in large numbers for Europe, America and other countries in Africa.
Hutu leaders who do not flee the country are uncertain about their future. More than 150,000 Hutu mostly elite, business people, clergy, and social leaders have been kept in jail for more than five years without trial.
These Rwandan prisons have arguably become the most crowded, most dangerous, and most inhumane prisons in the World. Hundreds of thousands of people are held in truck containers, disused factories, old bathrooms, wet or leaking dungeons, or anywhere things can be confined. Crowded cells serve as toilets, sleeping, and living rooms. Prisoners are regularly tortured. Thousands have lost limbs, developed skin diseases, or caught recurrent or terminal illnesses.