Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
14 July 2008
Kigali — As pressure on a Genocide suspect living in the U.S. mounts, Mr. Oswald Rukemuye accused in Rwanda of taking part in the Tutsi Genocide says he is innocent because some Tutsis even hid at his home. He is instead claiming that government is haunting him like it is doing with "critics overseas", RNA reports.
Consul Kaliza Karuretwa of the Rwandan embassy in Washington told the Dayton Daily News newspaper that government is urging U.S. officials to review Rukemuye's case to confirm his crimes.
The United States has no extradition treaty with Rwanda, Ms. Karuretwa said, but she said Rwanda hopes immigration officials revoke Rukemuye's refugee status and deport him to Rwanda to face justice.
In April, RNA reported that campaign organization African Rights was demanding an investigation of Mr. Oswald Rukemuye who it said had changed his name from Mr. Oswald Rurangwa.
African Rights accuses Mr. Rukemuye - a former student at the Central State University in Wilberforce - Ohio of forming and supervising an interahamwe Genocide militia around Gisozi in Kigali. This very place is where the National Genocide Memorial center stands - where up to 258.000 people have been laid to rest.
The accused says he is also anxious for U.S. officials to review his case, because he said an unbiased investigation will show he is an innocent victim driven from his home by violence in which he did not take part.
Mr. Rukemuye told the newspaper that he believes action by African Rights was triggered by an announcement he circulated to friends online that he was about to graduate from Central State. He earned a degree at the college this year.
He said the Rwandan government targets critics overseas, and he believes the government might have felt he would become more affluent and respected and possibly more outspoken after earning a college degree.
But the Rwandan government diplomat Ms. Karuretwa said it's very common for criminals who are guilty of Genocide to masquerade as Genocide victims. "That's a typical reaction of suspects," she said.
Ms. Rukemuye said he is a legitimate refugee who suffered, along with his family, in the 1994 genocide. On April 6, 1994, Rukemuye, a Hutu, said he was an elementary schoolmaster living with his Tutsi wife and a son in a mixed ethnicity neighborhood. On the evening of the second day of unrest, he said a Hutu militia attacked a nearby Tutsi home.
"We asked our Tutsi neighbors to hide in our home," Rukemuye said. He, like other bitter critics of the Kigali government alleges that African Rights is its "propaganda tool" - which the organization that has documented Genocide crimes for years denies.
Three days later, Mr. Rukemuye said the Hutu militias were chased out of the area by the RPF rebels. Rukemuye claims the rebels targeted Hutus in the neighborhood for death, so Hutus took their turn hiding in the homes of the Tutsi neighbors they had helped earlier.
Ultimately, U.S. media report, that it may be the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security that decides the fate of Oswald Rukemuye.
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