The online news site Jambo News carries a story of a former soldier of Rwanda's Directorate of Military Intelligence who discusses the slaughter, assassination and cover-ups that he participated in both in the Congo and in Rwanda. These crimes were committed on Paul Kagame's orders against both Hutus and Tutsis. What follows is a Google Translate version of the story, translated from French. I did some grammatical touch up here and there and eliminated sentences that were totally unclear.
Rwanda: RPF Crimes in DRC, an exiled ex-soldier testifies
"I'll give you my testimony about what happened in the Congo, where I was a soldier of the RPA (now the RDF Rwandese Defence Force) before being assigned to the DMI (Directorate of Military Intelligence). We were sent to kill the refugees in Kisangani at the command of Captain Shema of the DMI and Lieutenant Frank Bashimake. Refugees...walking on the road, arrived at Kigangani, where they were blocked by the river, this is where they perished. This is what happened there..." said the former DMI member who recognizes himself to be a former RPF killer, now a refugee in Europe, and did not want to reveal his name or address for his safety and that of his family. He delivered his story on the radio in Kinyarwanda Itahuka Saturday…
Transformed into a refugee killer
Born in Rutshuru in the eastern Congo, the former DMI member is a descendant of the former Tutsi refugees expelled from Rwanda in 1959. He joined the RPF rebellion in 1993, one year before the victory of the movement over the Habyarimana regime. Soon after, he was assigned to the famous DMI, the Rwandan military intelligence agency indicted for its role in the execution of thousands of Rwandans and foreigners."I want to give my testimony on overall Rwandan leaders and what they have done since the RPF launched the war of liberation, I'll tell you because it makes me very sick at heart and that is what pushed me into exile again, "he says.
Objective: to liquidate any Hutu on Congolese soil
"We attacked and massacred Rwandans brutally and in unimaginable ways. Jacques Nziza commanded us, who was in turn under the command of General Paul Kagame. They asked that all Hutu refugees on Congolese soil be assassinated, and announced that whoever refuses to do so will be executed on the spot. (...) Among my colleagues there were some who were executed because they refused to obey orders.""We placed refugees fleeing Tingi-Tingi (a NDRL refugee camp) in trucks and sent them off in several places: there we drove on the other side of the river to a place called the "left bank". Thousands and thousands that were killed. Another place is Devansende, 59 kilometers from the city of Kisangani; in that place we massacred thousands of people. We dug holes where they threw the bodies, we did not distinguish [between] children, women and aged people, everyone had to go because the orders were to kill everything Hutu on Congolese soil. We employed all means at our disposal: bullets, agafuni (hoes), plastic bag over the head, tie his hands behind, etc....." he continues."We killed until they were depleted. Some refugees were even dying of hunger. Captain Shema told us that we toiled in giving to our country. "There are many that if we do not wipe them out they will come back in the country," he liked to repeat.He also sheds light on the massacres in Mbandaka, in the Équateur region: "On the left bank of Mbandaka, we also slaughtered many people, because the refugees were stuck, they could not advance. The religious (monks?) who tried to intervene in turn suffered the same fate. After their death we looted the vehicles being used to transport and subsequently burn the bodies.""The People being massacred were all civilians, for example Rafasenti was made to believe that they would be refugees back to Rwanda, they were brought up in several trucks...of mostly men, over 4000 at all. They were all killed on the same day.""Those who escaped death, are those that UNHCR gathered around the forests, they are the only ones who were able to escape. (...) Our criminal activity took place from 1997 until 1998...says the former agent of the DMI.
Leave no trace
According to the witness, every effort was made not to leave traces of these massacres, because the international community was already following the situation of these refugees. "We dug pits in the vicinity of the city of Kisangani, everything was well planned and controlled from on high by General Paul Kagame. We piled the bodies in the graves like cords of firewood. Above, they were covered with tarpaulins, it allowed us to easily open them and then get other bodies to burn once the holes were filled. Every night we used a motor boat to carry the ashes and throw them in the river Zaire. In everything we did, we were ordered not to rest, we were obliged to execute the orders not to leave...It was small soldiers under the command of General Paul Kagame, General Nziza, and General Kabarebe who was our leader directly on the ground...
The killers were carefully selected
According to the witness, the killers were carefully selected, they were selected from the Tutsi from Congo because according to him the command of the APR did not trust the Tutsi from Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania to perform this mission, which was to be fast, well made and especially quiet. The choice was largely the Tutsi from the Congo. The same witness testified that the guards closer to Paul Kagame, who ensure his security and property are those coming from Congo, as the strong man of Rwanda would not trust his countrymen from Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi."Before the massacre, a meeting was held one evening in the city of Kisangani, led by Captain Major Shema today, and his deputy Lieutenant Bashimake who is now Captain and Chief of Police Brigade 408 Ruhengeri. During this meeting, a question was asked: "why do you think you here are from only one ethnic group? "We replied," We do not know. " So they told us that if we are only Tutsi, is that we have a job to do without specifying what it was. " "We knew it was not because of different battalions (...). Captain Shema told us that it was the Staff that who had chosen us for this work, which is why you should not say "I refuse to do it or I'm sick." In Kigali we were selected, they looked at where we were born, our family and our country, "said the witness.
Keep away unwanted witnesses
The book also witnesses his account that his squadron was to take away the witnesses, especially the NGOs that were likely to take steps in order to know the situation of the refugees on the ground. "We were ordered to withhold aid in the city of Kisangani, and if necessary, to shoot them to make them believe that some places were dangerous. I will give you the example of the Red Cross: they killed some of its members. Because they were stubborn to know the truth, "he said.According to him, the aid workers were prevented from reaching the scene of massacres before the executioners had finished their work. "We contained the humanitarians in Kisangani until transferring bodies 150km inside the forest to leave no evidence to the investigators. (...) Captain Shema and Lieutenant Frank Bashimake ordered us to work over 24 hours...without resting. " he said before adding that they even fired heavy weapons on UN planes that were flying over the area of the killings to try to understand what was happening. "..."When the United Nations began to raise suspicions about our atrocities in Kisangani, the press asked Paul Kagame about the massacres that were committed on the ground. ...Kabarebe who led Rwandan soldiers in the Congo answered the same thing, Kabila (father NDRL) also denied the facts. They were all saying that no Hutu refugee was killed on Congolese soil. We were there, [and] we were surprised to hear that, we followed the BBC all the time. "The former soldier even gives examples of some officials who were eliminated because they supervised the killings, "the regime wanted to ensure their eternal silence." This is the case of major Ruzindana and Birasa, who were eliminated by the DMI. Bagire died [by being] poisoned. "What I am sure is that everyone used in the massacres, went into exile or was killed. Me too, when I left the country in March 2006, they wanted to kill me. - Major Birasa, Chief Warrant Officer Abbas who oversaw the massacre in camp Kami, and Lieutenant Rushoke who was known as the most cruel of all, they were all murdered in the camp and then transported to Kami Nyungwe" said the witness.
The massacres in Rwanda
The witness also [spoke of] cases of massacres in Rwanda he attended directly or indirectly. He returned to the massacres committed at the regional stadium of Ruhengeri (northern Rwanda) in 1998, on the orders of Gasheja who ran the 408 Ruhengeri battalion and Gasana who led the 408 Ruhengeri brigade. According to him, these officers picked people from Nyakinama Kinigi, and from Nyamutera Giciye, and gathered them in the stadium of Ruhengeri. People arrived at the stage tied in container trucks, and they were gradually carried to the Mukamira camp to be finished off. According to the witness, the bodies were transported in the same trucks to Nyungwe forest in a place they called "Icyokezo" to be burned.The witness states that he served the DMI in Nyungwe in 1997 and 1998, where they burned the bodies of people killed across Rwanda. According to him, at Kugiti Kinyoni (all near Kigali) there were feared barriers. People from Ruhengeri, Kibuye, Gitarama and Butare were arrested; we looked at the origin of the person and [their] facial characteristics. "We chose especially those who still have the strength to fight, it was called" guca Imbaraga Abahutu" (discourage Hutu)." He says that this climate of terror had finally persuaded people to take taxis because...it was not safe to go, especially ...from Gisenyi and Ruhengeri...They were arrested and taken to Camp Kami, a camp sheltering them as in 1998, in the basement, a prison where people were kept before being killed. "All these killings were coordinated and supervised by Jacques Nziza" he said. To carry the bodies to camp Kami in Nyungwe forest, the witness said they used a blue Benz brand truck looted from Congo.
Massive use of poison
The witness also mentions the case of murder by poison. "There were also people who were murdered...the poison market was in the hands of the Indians, they are the ones who imported [it] in Rwanda for selling to the DMI. This poison was often injected by syringe. The poison was most often used to kill people...that it was impossible to remove...without attracting attention….the person to be removed was either invited to a meeting or approached at a party, "we expect him to be distracted to put the poison into his glass," said the witness who said that he had been given an assignment to eliminate a colleague"They gave me a day to put poison in the milk of Sankara who was in prison at that time. I did not do so because he was a man of integrity in his songs, he defended the rights of soldiers. They did not know that I had not poisoned Sankara's milk, and said to him, "you're really lucky, you ingested poison and you're still alive. '"
The massacres of Tutsi refugees at Mudende
The former DMI officer also returned to the massacres of Tutsi refugees from 1959 who returned to Rwanda in 1995 after 30 years of exile in Congo. The witness said he was shocked that Paul Kagame and Nziza decided to attribute their death to the Hutu rebels (abacengezi) from Congo, while in this period, the eastern border of Congo was under the control of the new Rwandan government.Indeed, these refugees upon their return to Rwanda were installed at Mudende, not far from the university that bears the same name, and at Nkamira. "The killings took place at night, in the morning all the soldiers who were guarding the camp had been recalled." General Munyakazi who led Brigade 211 of Gisenyi, and who victims had called during the events, wanted to go to the scene of the massacres to intervene but was prevented because those who committed these murders were Kagame's men from Kigali. But the bodyguard of Paul Kagame is largely composed of these people's murdered sons. "The guards did not know, that's why I wrote this testimony," said the former agent of the DMI."
Reported by Jean Mitari
See this link for news of this massacre from that time.
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