Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
14 August 2007
Kigali — Last week, the UN and the African Union endorsed the nomination of Rwandan Maj. Gen. Karenzi Karake to deputise the head of the Darfur hybrid force. Opposition groups say the General does not have clean hands to manage a peace keeping mission, RNA reports.
According to United Democratic Forces - UDF Inkingi, Gen. Karake supervised several extra judiciary executions targeting politicians and civilians in Rwanda. The group points to the period before the Genocide and after the Rwanda Patriotic front RPF rebels took over Rwanda.
"His nomination as Deputy Commander of the UN-AU force to be sent to Darfur is an insult to Africa, to Sudan as a State and to the suffering Sudanese as well as to the memory of Rwandan victims of his crimes", Inkingi said in a statement.
On the list of accusations that have been rejected by officials in Kigali includes assassinations and mass killings.
"Karenzi Karake directed the military assault conducted against Kibeho IDP (internally displaced people) camps that killed 8.000 displaced persons on April 22, 1995", Inkingi claims.
Kibeho camp was located in Gikongoro province - southern Rwanda - where several civilians gathered as the country was just recovering from the Genocide. Aid groups on the ground claimed hundreds of civilians were attacked by soldiers but have not identified which group exactly.
Gen. Karake is also accused of masterminding the assassination of numerous politicians at a time when he was RPF liaison officer on an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) military observatory in Rwanda (GOMU) during 1992-94.
The team had been put in place by OAU, to monitor the implementation of the Cease-fire between the Rwandan governmental army and the then RPF rebel force.
Inkingi details names of former politicians that died mysteriously but available information indicates that the government of late President Juvenal Habyarimana was to blame for most of the deaths.
Rwanda envoy to the UN - Prof. Joseph Nsengimana told the BBC great lakes service yesterday evening that those raising the allegations had simply run out of ideas to complain about.
"The whole world and the diplomats at the UN, the Sudanese government and people of Darfur have appreciated the role that our troops in Darfur have played", Amb. Nsengimana said.
"Why can't these people develop in their thinking because they seem to be out of touch with the way Rwanda is changing?"
The Netherlands-based Ikingi opposition group accuses Gen. Karake of alleged mass killings of civilian refugees in D R Congo describing him as a "notorious Rwandan war criminal".
"Karenzi Karake supervised the mass killing of hundreds of thousands Rwandan refugees in former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1996-1997 as Chief of Operations during the military campaign that aimed at destroying refugee camps", Ikingi boss Dr Jean-Baptiste MBERABAHIZI said yesterday.
"He was directly responsible of the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of combating the insurgents allegedly operating in that area from 1998 to 2000".
Rwanda has about 3.000 soldiers and police in Sudan and all are planned to be incorporated into the newly agreed hybrid force of 22.000. But the police officers are in Khartoum. Rwanda also recently promised AU chief Omar Konare that it would increase its force numbers in the troubled Darfur region.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2007 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
