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News
14.03.06
ICTR/MILITARY I - LIEUTENANT ABDUL RUZIBIZA PILES ACCUSATIONS ON THE RPF
Arusha, March 10th, 2006 (FH) - Lieutenant Abdul Ruzibiza who has been testifying at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since Thursday has attacked the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), now in power in Rwanda, for its “crimes”.
Ruzibiza who joined the former rebel movement in 1987 denounced in the detail abuses by the RPF, including assassinations and ceasefire violations.
He was called to testify on behalf of Major Aloys Ntabakuze, former commander of an elite unit who is on trial with three other senior officers of the former Rwandan army.
The 36-year old officer joined the RPF while living in exile in neighbouring Burundi and later joined the armed wing of the movement, the RPA, which invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda in October 1990.
Four years later, the rebels ousted the former regime of the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana who was killed on April 6, 1994. Ruzibiza fled Rwanda in February 2001 “for security reasons”.
“I realised that the situation had changed because the injustice we were supposed to fight was entrenched in the government system”, he explained.
“I expect one day to have reasons to worry because I reveal information that disturbs the Rwandan government”, said the witness who insisted on testifying in open court. Five bodyguards accompanied him from his country of exile.
The witness requested that his identification documents be put under seal for fear that there might be leaks in his testimony, which has filled the public gallery with interested observers.
The attack on President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane
Ruzibiza accuses, without hesitation, the former commander of the RPF and current president Major General Paul Kagame of having ordered the assassination of the former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, on April 6, 1994, which triggered the large scale massacres in Rwanda.
“I saw RPA soldiers armed with SAM 16 missiles aboard a pickup. They fired two missiles. The first one hit the plane’s left wing while the second destroyed it”, he said.
He explained that all battalions left their headquarters in Mulindi (northern Rwanda) 30 minutes after the plane attack. “The fighting began at 21:00 hours”.
At the time of the attack Ruzibiza was in charge of intelligence gathering in the southern part of Kigali, especially Masaka, where the attackers were positioned.
According to several testimonies, the presidential plane was shot down at around 20:30 hours. Ruzibiza claims that the night time operation was the handiwork of Kagame.
“The order must have been given by the commander-in-chief of the RPA because the missiles could only be used on his command”, stated the witness.
The decision to kill the president had been taken long in advance, he alleged, because as of April 4, the rebel soldiers had been on “standby class one” and were getting ready to resume hostilities “at any moment” after the death of the president.
The witness continued that the rebels had missed the president by a whisker the previous day as he returned to the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).
“We have missed the fool”, one of the rebels officers had allegedly exclaimed in Kiswahili at the time.
Ceasefire violation
In February 1993, the two belligerents had signed a ceasefire agreement. Ruzibiza claims that during this time the RPA rearmed and strengthened itself and its officers “were convinced that they could capture the whole country”.
The witness affirmed that after the signature of the agreement, he was deployed in a group that “was supposed to hide ammunition that was supposed to be used in the final battle”. He revealed that in Ruhengeri zone (north) where he was deployed, they had hidden “equipment that weighed between 100 and 120 tons”.
“Every time there was a ceasefire, the RPA took this opportunity to prepare for the coming battles”, said the officer.
Assassination of political figures
Ruzibiza also declared that the rebels had managed to infiltrate soldiers from their base in Mulindi to Kigali via the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR). He said that the soldiers passed themselves off as technicians or doctors and were driven to Kigali aboard UNAMIR vehicles.
“The UNAMIR did not know that they were transporting soldiers and the number of RPA soldiers at the CND (headquarters of the RPA battalion in Kigali) largely surpassed the permitted one.”
He said that the mission of these agents who disguised themselves as civilians were to gather information in preparation of hostilities, infiltrate political parties and plan assassinations of political leaders.
The witness gave an example of two politicians; Emmanuel Gapyisi and Felician Gatabazi who were assassinated by RPA agents between 1993 and 1994.
“These assassinations were blamed on the government but it was pure propaganda”, stated Ruzibiza who explained that the rebels’ objective was to create a climate of violence that would allow the resumption of war.
He continued that some members of the rebels movement who were politically aware realised that if the war restarted, the lives of Tutsis would be in danger because they would be accused of collaborating with the enemy.
The RPA defector claimed that every time Kagame was questioned on the Arusha peace accords, he would brandish a Kalashnikov riffle saying “…it is by this that we will enter Kigali”.
“President Kagame always told us that the negotiations would never solve the Rwandan problem”.
Ruzibiza is the author of a book entitled “Rwanda. L'histoire secrète" and his testimony attracted a lot of attention at the ICTR.
A member in the public gallery who requested anonymity murmured that the officer’s evidence against the current Rwandan regime was “without precedence” in the tribunal’s history.
GA/KN/PB
© Hirondelle News Agency
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