An investigator who worked on key defense cases at the UN tribunal for Rwanda has been kidnapped in Kenya, amid mounting evidence that Rwandan President Paul Kagame's intelligence services were behind the abduction.
The kidnapping of Rwandan national Jean Chrysostome Ntirugiribambe in Nairobi has been widely condemned by political activists and defense lawyers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) where the victim worked for years as a legal investigator."It is our information that he was seized by Rwandan intelligence agents, possibly with the connivance of local police in Nairobi," Christopher Black, a Canadian defense lawyer who worked with Ntirugiribambe at the ICTR, wrote in a letter obtained by Digital Journal.On July 7, Black officially requested Kenya's attorney general and ministers of interior and foreign affairs to investigate the matter.The latest abduction appeared to be part of a wider, relentless crackdown on Rwandan refugees and dissidents and comes eight months after the kidnapping in Nairobi of another high profile Rwandan asylum seeker.In November suspected Rwandan agents seized Emile Gafirita, a former Tutsi soldier due to testify against Kagame in a French inquiry into the 1994 downing of a plane carrying the former Rwandan president, an incident that sparked the 1994 genocide.In a series of interviews with this journalist, family and lawyers say that a group of armed men seized Ntirugiribambe on June 23 and forced him at gunpoint into a car in front of witnesses on the street. Kenyan police have acknowledged the kidnapping occurred but have refused official comment on the case, pending an investigation.However a Kenyan police officer said the Rwandan embassy in Nairobi would be in a position to provide details on Ntirugiribambe's disappearance."The Rwandan embassy would be able to give you that information. It would be better to call them," the officer, requesting anonymity, told Digital Journal.Sources close to intelligence in Rwanda said Rwandan government agents were indeed behind the abduction.One of the sources told Digital Journal that Ntirugiribambe' kidnapping was facilitated by Lt Col James Burabyo, a military attaché at the Rwandan embassy in neighboring Uganda, under the instructions of Jack Nziza. Nziza is a notorious figure that has worked in Rwandan intelligence for decades and played a crucial role in killing, abducting and torturing perceived opponents of Kagame. Rwanda's external intelligence chief, Francis Mutiganda, was also allegedly involved in organizing the abduction, the sources indicated.Lt Colonel Mutiganda is a much-feared individual who recently worked in UN peacekeeping before returning home to oversee the country's external intelligence, a branch long suspected of carrying out murderous operations abroad in conjunction with Rwandan embassies.A UN officer who worked closely with Mutiganda said the UN department of peacekeeping DPKO failed to properly vet the Rwandan colonel before hiring him and only became aware after the fact that he had allegedly directed a killing squad in Rwanda. The UN wrote an internal report on Mutiganda's criminal record following his appointment as deputy chief of DPKO's military planning services.Despite the report, DPKO was ultimately unwilling to fire Mutiganda because Rwanda exerted undue influence at the United Nations as a result of its troop contributions to peacekeeping operations, the UN officer explained.Mutiganda was also accused of threatening colleagues at DPKO. "I can tell you that a German Waffen-SS officer looks a Kindergarten cop compared to Francis Mutiganda," the UN official told Digital Journal.Mutiganda and Nziza work under the authority of an umbrella spy agency in Rwanda called the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). The head of NISS, Lt General Karenzi Karake, was arrested in London last month on a European arrest warrant issued by a Spanish court invoking universal jurisdiction. Karake now faces possible extradition to Spain for having allegedly organized the murders of three Spanish nationals in the late 1990s in Rwanda. He also is accused of having ordered large-scale massacres of Hutu civilians following the genocide.Jean Chrystostome Ntirugiribambe's daughter said her father's kidnapping had plunged the family into a state of anguish, following the recent death of their mother."It's been so hard to deal with. We are very worried," she said in an interview. The daughter said Kenyan police had conceded that a police officer in Mombasa, Kenya's second-largest city, appeared to have played a role in the kidnapping.Rwandan agents have often been accused of bribing local police to assist in their operations.Lawyer Christopher Black described Ntirugiribambe as an "intelligent, self-effacing, gentle man," and a vital member of his legal team that had secured the full acquittal at the ICTR of General Augustin Ndindiliyimana in 2014.Another colleague said Ntirigiribambe had been recently considered for a security job with the United Nations in Burundi, but that Rwanda had allegedly attempted to sabotage his candidacy, as election-related violence escalated and tensions flared along the Rwanda-Burundi border.Meanwhile the president of the Association of Defense Attorneys at the ICTR, John Philpot contacted Kenya's attorney general on Friday to express grave concern over the abduction.Philpot, a Montreal lawyer, said that "Rwanda has become an outlaw state by committing crimes of murder, assault or kidnapping in Kenya, Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda to mention a few."Rwanda was roundly criticized last year following the assassination of Kagame's former colleague, ex spymaster Patrick Karegeya. Karegeya broke with the regime in 2007 and fled to South Africa to help set up an opposition party. On New Year's Day 2014, he was found strangled in a Johannesburg hotel room. Diplomats from the Rwandan embassy in South Africa were later expelled.Rarely do disappearances and kidnappings of Rwandan dissidents garner international attention, however. In August 2014, a Rwandan human rights activist named Emmanuel Munyaruguru who holds Norwegian citizenship quietly went missing in Uganda after traveling to a refugee camp in Nakivale and has not been seen since.In October 2013, Rwandan agents assisted by Ugandan police kidnapped Kagame's former bodyguard Joel Mutabazi from a UN safe house in Kampala. The kidnappers also seized Mutabazi's younger brother Jackson Kalemera during the operation, brought him to Rwanda and tried to force him to testify in a trial against his brother. Family members in Uganda have had no news of Jackson for months and fear he has been killed. More recently, Rwanda has been accused of trying to persuade police forces and governments in Africa to deport a number of high profile Rwandan refugees who are activists or survivors of massacres by Kagame's troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).In May 2015, police in Brazzaville arrested a Rwandan refugee activist named Jean Leonard Mbarusha, claiming to be acting on an Interpol alert. According to the refugee's family, police later said they were detaining him because of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). However no arrest warrants for Mbarusha have been issued by either Interpol in Lyon or the ICC in The Hague.Nor was Mbarusha investigated by the ICTR or Rwanda's traditional Gacaca courts, his supporters say.When contacted by Digital Journal, Congolese police could not explain why Mbarusha was being detained. Officer Lt. Jean Marie Ntsinda said the case was being handled by Congo's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose officials subsequently met with Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo in Brazzaville.In letters obtained by this journalist from his family, Mbarusha said that Congolese police have tortured him in jail. He also explained that he is Hutu refugee survivor of killings by Kagame's troops during the 1996-97 invasion of the DRC .In 2010, a UN report concluded that Kagame's army committed crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Hutu civilians in the DRC jungle.
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T he FDLR Pretext Collapses Under the Weight of Documented Plunder Introduction: A Battle That Tells the Truth When Rwandan-backed RDF/M23 forces fought with extraordinary ferocity to seize and hold Rubaya — a remote mining town in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo — the stated justification was security. Kigali's consistent public line has been that its military presence in the DRC is a response to the threat posed by the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group whose leaders include individuals linked to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. This narrative has been accepted, qualified, or left insufficiently challenged by Western governments and multilateral institutions for over a decade. The Battle of Rubaya strips that narrative bare. What unfolded in Rubaya was not a counter-insurgency operation against genocidal remnants. It was a sustained military campaign — reinforced by the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), prosecuted at sign...
Le prétexte des FDLR s’effondre sous le poids du pillage documenté Introduction : une bataille qui dit la vérité Lorsque les forces RDF/M23 soutenues par le Rwanda ont combattu avec une férocité extraordinaire pour s’emparer de Rubaya et la conserver — une ville minière reculée du Nord-Kivu, dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo — la justification officielle était la sécurité. La ligne publique constante de Kigali a été que sa présence militaire en RDC répond à la menace posée par les Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), un groupe armé dont les dirigeants comprennent des individus liés au génocide de 1994 contre les Tutsi. Ce récit a été accepté, nuancé, ou laissé insuffisamment contesté par les gouvernements occidentaux et les institutions multilatérales pendant plus d’une décennie. La bataille de Rubaya met ce récit à nu. Ce qui s’est déroulé à Rubaya n’était pas une opération de contre-insurrection contre des restes génocidaires. C’était une campagne mili...
Résolution 2773, Conférence de Paris, doctrine macronienne du dialogue et pari de la Francophonie La politique de la France à l’égard de l’est de la RDC a produit un schéma constant : un langage public fort, une faible application des décisions, aucune pression visible fondée sur les sanctions, et des appels répétés au dialogue qui laissent largement intact le levier militaire et politique du Rwanda. La France ne peut pas rédiger des résolutions, organiser des conférences, rejeter les sanctions, appeler au dialogue, puis revendiquer la neutralité pendant que les civils restent sous occupation, déplacement et violence. Dans une guerre de cette ampleur, le silence et l’inaction ne sont pas neutres. Ce sont des actes politiques. Introduction La France se présente comme l’une des puissances occidentales les plus engagées dans la recherche de la paix dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo. Elle a parrainé la Résolution 2773 du Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies. Elle a organ...
How France's Interests in Mozambique Obstruct Peace in the DRC A Critical Analysis of Emmanuel Macron's Interview with TV5 Monde, Africa Forward Summit, Nairobi, 12 May 2026 Published by The African Rights Campaign (ARC) | London, May 2026 1. Introduction This analysis is based on French President Emmanuel Macron's interview with TV5 Monde, conducted on 12 May 2026 during the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. In that interview, Macron was asked a direct question: given that Rwanda's support for the M23 armed group has been documented by United Nations experts, and given that the United States has imposed sanctions on the Rwanda Defence Force and several of its senior officers, why have France and the European Union declined to do the same? Macron's response was unconvincing, dishonest and analytically incoherent. It revealed not a carefully calibrated position of principled neutrality, but the operational logic of a government that has c...
----- Mail transféré ----- De : Mpania Jean <drjeanmpania@yahoo.fr> À : Hinterland <hinterland1@yahoogroupes.fr> Envoyé le : Mercredi 26 février 2014 17h13 Objet : [hinterland1] Tr : L'OCCUPATION RWANDAISE EN MARCHE Le Mercredi 26 février 2014 9h56, congokdp <congokdp@gmail.com> a écrit : L'OCCUPATION RWANDAISE EN MARCHE : Voici comment les institutions et tout le système de sécurité de la RDC sont sous contrôle du Rwanda et les officiels congolais infiltrés par des «hirondelles» rwandaises! L'OCCUPATION RWANDAISE EN MARCHE : Voici comment les institutions et tout le système de sécurité de la RDC sont sous contrôle du Rwanda et les officiels congolais infiltrés par des «hirondelles» rwandaises! Le processus d'occupation de la RDC par le lobby tutsi rwandais passe par le...
ANALYSIS AND INVESTIGATION Introduction: The Myth and the Man Behind the Myth There is a version of Paul Kagame that exists in the conference halls of Davos, in the pages of Western magazines, in private hotel meetings in London, Paris and Washington, and on the sleeves of European football shirts. In this version, Kagame is a visionary. A builder. A disciplined African moderniser. A leader who pulled a broken country from the ashes of genocide and turned it into what admirers often call the “Singapore of Africa”. In this version, Rwanda is clean, efficient, safe, investment-friendly and orderly. Kagame is presented as the African leader the West wants to believe in: controlled, polished, pro-market, security-focused and comfortable in elite Western spaces. Then there is the Rwanda that many Rwandans, exiles, journalists, opposition figures and human rights organisations describe. In this Rwanda, YouTubers and online commentators are jailed for what they say. Critics die in custo...
Dr Phil Clark was born in Sudan and is currently working at SOAS University of London. He is known to be biased lecturer and researcher about African issues, particularly the Rwandan genocide. With his poor judgement and analytical thinking, this man only talk about the results of events and forget the root causes. He is a staunch supporter of the criminal, dictator and killer Paul Kagame , the President of Rwanda. He is singing the song of the winner of the Rwandan war. He is in the same boat with Linda Melvern, a biased British freelancer who received a medal from the dictator Paul Kagame. "> "> Dr.Phil Clark "> Linda Melvern I am asking Dr Phil Clark one question: Dear Dr Phil Clark, What was the role of Paul Kagame and RPF in the Rwandan massacres and genocide in and outside Rwanda? Based...
Comment les intérêts français au Mozambique font obstacle à la paix en RDC Analyse critique de l'entretien d'Emmanuel Macron avec TV5 Monde, Africa Forward Summit, Nairobi, 12 mai 2026 Publié par The African Rights Campaign (ARC) | Londres, mai 2026 1. Introduction La présente analyse est fondée sur l'entretien accordé par le président français Emmanuel Macron à TV5 Monde, le 12 mai 2026, lors de l'Africa Forward Summit à Nairobi, au Kenya. Au cours de cet entretien, Macron s'est vu poser une question directe : étant donné que le soutien du Rwanda au groupe armé M23 est aujourd'hui documenté par les experts des Nations Unies, et étant donné que les États-Unis ont imposé des sanctions aux Forces de défense du Rwanda (FDR) ainsi qu'à plusieurs de leurs hauts responsables, pourquoi la France et l'Union européenne n'ont-elles pas fait de même ? La réponse de Macron s'est révélée peu convaincante, malhonnête et analytique...
I nvestigation: Paying to Stay Poor: How Western PR Firms, Lobbyists, Sports Clubs and Media Outlets Profit from Rwanda’s Image Economy Introduction: An Ecosystem of Paid Influence Rwanda is often presented internationally as a model of discipline, security, investment promotion and post-genocide recovery. That image has been carefully built, repeatedly amplified and professionally protected. Behind it sits a costly international network of sports sponsorships, lobbying contracts, public relations firms, legal consultancy, political access, favourable media relationships and diplomatic narrative management. The moral problem is clear. Rwanda remains heavily dependent on foreign aid and external financing. According to World Bank-linked data, foreign aid received by Rwanda reached approximately 1.39 billion US dollars in 2023. UNDP’s 2025 Human Development Report gives Rwanda a Human Development Index value of 0.578 for 2023, placing it 159th out of 193 countries and territories. U...
Introduction Depuis 2014, les tribunaux français ont poursuivi une série de ressortissants rwandais hutu pour leur rôle présumé dans le génocide de 1994 contre les Tutsi. Le premier procès, celui de l’ancien chef du renseignement Pascal Simbikangwa, a été suivi par les condamnations des anciens bourgmestres Octavien Ngenzi et Tito Barahira en 2016, puis par la condamnation, en 2023, de l’ancien officier de gendarmerie Philippe Hategekimana. Aucun accusé jugé en France, au titre de la compétence universelle, pour le génocide rwandais n’a été acquitté. D’autres poursuites devraient suivre. Ces procédures ont été largement saluées comme la preuve que la France affronte enfin son passé d’État ayant protégé des auteurs présumés du génocide sur son territoire. Des organisations internationales de défense des droits humains, des spécialistes du génocide et une partie de la société civile française les ont présentées comme une contribution tardive, mais bienvenue, à la lutte mondiale contre l’...
Africa Realities Media speaks to Africa and to the developed world. Many abuses facing African people are committed by African states and ruling elites, but they are often protected by international silence, lobbying, public relations, trade interests, migration deals and unequal global accountability. While governments pay lobbyists to present a good image abroad, ordinary African people continue to face violence, hunger, disease, poverty, repression and exclusion. We challenge the normalisation of African suffering and demand equal truth, equal justice and equal protection.
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Africa Realities Media s’adresse à l’Afrique et au monde développé. De nombreux abus subis par les peuples africains sont commis par des États africains et des élites dirigeantes, mais ils sont souvent protégés par le silence international, le lobbying, les relations publiques, les intérêts commerciaux, les accords migratoires et une responsabilité mondiale inégale. Tandis que des gouvernements paient des lobbyistes pour présenter une bonne image à l’étranger, des Africains ordinaires continuent de faire face à la violence, à la faim, aux maladies, à la pauvreté, à la répression et à l’exclusion. Nous contestons la normalisation de la souffrance africaine et exigeons une vérité égale, une justice égale et une protection égale.
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