EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE	RDR Rassemblement pour le Retour des Réfugiés et la Démocratie au Rwanda Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda Ihuliro Liharanira Itahuka ry’Impunzi na Demokarasi mu Rwanda Pour un Peuple Reconcilié dans un Etat de droit - For a Reconcilied People in a Rule of Law Duharanire Ubwiyunge bw'Abanyarwanda mu Gihugu cyubahiriza Amategeko
info@rdrwanda.org http://www.rdrwanda.org		Victoire Ingabire, President Postbus 3124 2280 GC, Rijswijk, Netherlands Phone/Fax : 00-31-180633822	Emmanuel Nyemera, Vice-President P.O. Box 5352, Postal Station B Montreal, Canada, H3B 4P1 Phone : 00-514-340 0618	RDR is member of the Union of Democratic Rwandese Forces (UDRF)

PRESS RELEASE NO. 8/2001

RDR CONDEMNS THE EXPLOITATION OF THE 1994 RWANDAN GENOCIDE FOR POLITICAL ENDS

The RDR denounces and condemns the political exploitation of the 1994 Rwandan genocide by General Paul Kagame in order to suppress any political opposition to his tyrannical regime or to justify crimes committed by his militia, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), in Rwanda since October 1990 and in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since August 1996. This exploitation appears in:

a) the arbitrary lists of alleged category 1 genocide suspects

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) issued in January 1994 a list of 210 persons to be killed by RPA and many of them (e.g. Felicien Gatabazi, leader of the party PSD, Martin Bucyana, President of the party CDR, etc.) had indeed been allegedly assassinated by RPF’s death squads before April 1994. Others were killed later. The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on 6 April 1994 sparked the genocide. After its seizure of power in July 1994, the RPF-led dictatorial regime published in the Official Gazette of 30 November 1996 a list of 1946 names of alleged category one genocide suspects. A second version of the list with 2133 names was issued in January 2000. By comparison to the first list, 643 names had been withdrawn and replaced by 830 new ones. A third version of the list with 2898 names was issued in March 2001. The Rwandan government regularly adjusts its list to changes in the Rwandan political arena in order to suppress any political opposition to its dictatorship and bad governance. The genocide of Tutsis is exploited by the RPF as a political weapon to disqualify any person or political party (allied or in opposition) contesting its political choices or leadership.

Here are just few illustrative examples of the RPF’s political exploitation of the Rwandan genocide. One finds on these lists former collaborators of the RPF who quit it and exiled themselves (e.g.,Pierre-Celestin Rwigema, minister of education from July 1994 to August 1995 and Prime Minister from August 1995 to January 2000, Brigadier Leonidas Rusatira, ex-RPA officer, Barahinyura Shyirambere Jean, ex-RPF Commissioner for documentation, etc.) or deceased persons (e.g., President Juvenal Habyarimana, Pasteur Musabe (assassinated in Cameroon), etc.). The Catholic bishop Augustin Misago, judged and found innocent in Rwanda in 2000, appears again on the new list. By contrast, persons who were on the old lists and whose loyalty to RPF is no longer questioned were withdrawn from the new list (e.g., Boniface Rucagu, provincial governor of Ruhengeri, etc.) or are maintained on the list for later blackmailing. The Rwandan government often uses the genocide of Tutsis to carry false criminal charges against any person it seeks extradition to Rwanda.

b) the refusal of aid and burial with dignity to non-Tutsi victims and to some Tutsi victims

Since 1995, on 7 April of each year, the Rwandan government exhumes and recovers the rests of Tutsi victims from some sites of massacres and reserve, for unspecified period, other sites of massacres for its future ceremonies of commemoration of the genocide. Some rests of alleged Tutsis victims of genocide are sent by the authorities to museums to be exposed there to visitors while others are buried with dignity. Hutus or Twas victims of massacres and atrocities committed by RPA, Interahamwe or other militias are not recognized by the authorities and are denied burial with dignity. No assistance is provided to Hutu or Twas survivors or to the families of Hutus or Twas victims. Only some Tutsis have the right to mourning, burial with dignity and assistance. Other Rwandan victims or survivors are denied of these rights; the current government denies them assistance and justice.

c) The culpabilization of the international community

To attract compassion from world opinion and enjoy impunity for their crimes, the RPF leaders blame the international community to have failed to prevent the 1994 Rwandan genocide and portray their dictatorial regime as the political regime of survivors of genocide. However, fearing that any armed United Nations (U.N.) force might prevent them from seizing power by force in Rwanda, RPF leaders warned the U.N. to stay out of the war in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. On 13 May 1994, Denis Polisi, then RPF deputy vice-president, declared to the BBC that " Should the (UN) force come in between the two warring sides then it will be treated as an enemy force and will be engaged". According to the British newspaper The Guardian of 23 May 1994, Theogene Rudasingwa, then RPF Secretary-General, told a news conference in Nairobi that " Africans know what they need. We don’t accept that a foreign force can come to Rwanda and establish law and order". In fact, the RPF’s actions and statements incited many countries to not provide troops for the U.N. mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. General Paul Kagame praises himself as having stopped the genocide and maintain the spectrum of a second genocide in order to portray himself as a legendary hero, saviour and protector of the Tutsi community from the final solution. He exploits the Rwandan genocide not only to justify brutal repression of political opposition and the invasion of DR Congo by his army, the RPA, but also to frighten and threaten Tutsis into submission to his will.

To restore durable peace in Rwanda and the African Great Lakes region, the RDR demands:

¨ to all governments to reject and not legitimate the Rwandan government’s lists of genocide suspects, to carry out their own independent investigations and to transfer the suspects to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or to judge them themselves instead of sending them to sure death in Rwanda.

¨ to the U.N. Secretary-General, the President of the U.N. Security Council, the Chief Prosecutor at the ICTR, all countries and human rights organizations to take all necessary measures to bring also to justice RPF/RPA leaders responsible of war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed in Rwanda and in DRC.

¨ to the United Nations, Organization of African Unity, European Union and great powers to organize an International Conference on Peace and Security in the Great Lakes to which governments of the and their political oppositions will be invited to find political solutions to their conflicts by dialogue and negotiation.

Done in Montreal on 15 May 2001

For the RDR

Emmanuel Nyemera, Ph.D.

Vice-President