Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
9 January 2008
Kigali — Government so far has a list of 6945 individuals in DR Congo that are suspected to have been part of the Genocide machine but that is not the exhaustive number as more are still being added, RNA has established from senior government officials.
As part of the November 2007 agreement between Kigali and Kinshasa to flash out Rwandan extremist rebels - the FDLR - from the eastern DRC - dubbed the 'Nairobi Communiqué', Rwanda was to compile a list of Genocide criminals among the rebel ranks. In return DRC would have them handed over to face justice - which Kigali says is basis for lasting regional stability.
Rwanda has maintained that these thousands of individuals with blood on their hands are holding the region hostage by blocking any peace plans because they want to continue evading justice.
Government twice sent its troops into DRC - in 1996 and 1998 - saying its vast neighbour had not done enough to neutralise the interahamwe militias there. The result of which has been the current political uncertainty of the country as dozens of more militias are born from time to time.
"We have compiled a list of 6945 individuals but cannot give it to you because it was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that asked us to do that", Ms. Domitilla Mukantagazwa, Executive Secretary of the Gacaca Courts told RNA on Wednesday. "You can contact them (Foreign Affairs) for any more details you need".
However, Foreign Affairs Minister Dr. Charles Murigande first refuted any suggestion that his office was in possession of the list.
"The Information (you have) is false because we have not got the list", he said but later changed his tone when RNA insisted. "We are still waiting for the 'full list' from a number of sources because we are not the ones doing it anyway".
According to the Nairobi Communiqué, Rwanda was to hand over the list and DRC would reciprocate by submitting a detailed strategy for doing away with the Interahamwe militia on its soil. They stand accused to have take part in the mass slaughter that left over a million people dead in just 100 days in 1994.
On December 01 last year, DRC handed to Rwanda a strategy for ending the problem, through "political/diplomatic means and accompanying public information and sensitization campaigns, and through military operations planned to begin in mid-March and to be completed with urgency".
Minister Murigande told RNA today that "when we have the full list I will immediately hand it over to DRC", but declined to divulge any details on when exactly that will be done and why there has been a delay. When we have the complete list it will be forwarded, (but) that (current list) is not final, he said.
According to him, the list of the wanted individuals is being compiled by the 'Office of the Prosecutor, auditorat Militaire (military prosecution) and other organs that charged with dealing with such matters'.
Genocidaires or not?
The issue of whether all the people among the rebel ranks of the FDLR are Genocide suspects remains of contention depending on who you talk to.
Outspoken Human Right Watch Africa Expert Ms. Alison Deforge at some pointed late last year doubted if there were more than five Genocide suspects among the rebels because as she put it, Kigali has not provided the list.
The government of Rwanda is not answerable to Ms. Alison Deforge, is how Senior Great Lakes Presidential Envoy Dr. Richard Sezibera shot back, adding that it was common knowledge the interahamwe militias had Genocide cases to answer.
Last month, another campaign group African Rights released a damning report with alleged names and location of suspected FDLR commanders and political sympathizers in DRC and other countries especially North American and Europe.
The 88-page report said contrary to the arguments that there is only a small number of Genocide suspects among the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels, there are hundreds and remain a force that must be 'dismantled' and repatriated to Rwanda.
African Rights said the rebel force had developed a strategy to have top leaders that are believed to be innocent such that even if thousands of officers and men below the ranks have Genocide background, it would be difficult to prove. It is usually these top political leaders like its boss Dr. Murwanashyaka Anastase that speak over the airwaves defending the causes of the group because the have no cases to answer.
However, London-based African Rights does not also come out with a specific number of the genocide suspects instead it also called on Government in Kigali to do exactly that to end any suspicions.
In a presentation to the recent annual National Dialogue conference in Kigali, Justice Minister Mr. Tharcise Karugarama caused laughter when he described DRC as a 'so called democracy'. There are more than 6000 Genocide suspects that are across in the so called Democratic Republic of Congo, he told delegates in Kinyarwanda.
He said most of these in DRC were top interahamwe militia leaders that were part of the planning and execution mechanism of the Genocide.
Minister Karugarama was presenting achievements and challenges of the judicial sector. He said government would want to have even the supposed Genocide planners - commonly called the 'big fish' - to be tried by the Gacaca courts.
Thousands or hundreds?
The exact number of fighters that belong to the controversial group remains another mystery because the rebels have never opened up their bases to external scrutiny. Some experts say it is unlikely that they can be more than 10.000 men. Government says the issue is not the numbers but the threat they pose.
Some experts suggest an estimated 15,000 armed and trained Interahamwe / ex-government soldiers (FAR) still retain their bases in the Masisi area of North Kivu, and were very active in carrying out cross border raids on villages, hospitals and schools in Rwanda. That has stopped for while now. Others say they are between 5000 and 25.000.
The bottom-line, according to observers is the Interahamwe / ex-FAR roaming the vast jungles in North Kivu destabilise the security and have engaged local ethnic groups, the Bahunde, the Nande, the Batembo, and the Mayi-Mayi - who they have mobilised around an anti-Tutsi theme.
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If a gouvernment is not ready to talk to its people, that means they do not want a lasting peace.
Even if all regugees disappeared today , there will be no peace in Rwanda as long as there no democracy in the country.
The government of rwanda has to accept tha fact of nobody will keep power by discrimation and mistraitment of owmn people.
The change in Rwanda will come from inside the country. The refugees are not a treat for the regime.
The international Communauty and African Rights is giving a wrong advise to the Rwandan government.They advice Rwandans to kill each other and not to talk each other when in their countries ( in Europe , America..) they settle all thge matters by dialog.
Help Rwandans to understand that it is good for them to understand each other, and it is impossible to understand others without talking to them.
Terram Pacis. Kongo- Brazzaville