Rwanda : separating myths from reality - Linda Melvern Scottish Review, April 28, 2021 - France Génocide Tutsi

Rwanda : separating myths from reality
                               Linda Melvern
                    Scottish Review, April 28, 2021

    ”Do Not Disturb : The Sto-                 trayed Tutsi as natural-born liars, a
ry of a Political Murder and                   part of the ideology that underpin-
an African Regime Gone Bad”                    ned the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi.
by Michela Wrong (published by                 This is not a book ’about a genoci-
4th Estate London, 2021).                      de’, we are told, but a story of a group
    ’Of all the liars in Africa,’ wrote        of exiled Rwandan fugitives, a ’small,
the English colonialist Ewart Grogan           tight-knit elite’. They seem to have
after visiting in 1899, ’I believe the         been brought together by their loa-
people of Rwanda are by far the most           thing of the government of Rwanda
thorough’. Grogan’s appalling quote            and its President Paul Kagame – a
is used in the introduction to Miche-          sentiment the author shares.
la Wrong’s book, Do Not Disturb :                  Do Not Disturb purports to tell
The Story of a Political Murder and            the story of the Rwandan Patriotic
an African Regime Gone Bad. Not                Front (RPF), the army led by the cur-
much has changed, the author be-               rent President of Rwanda Paul Ka-
lieves. Rwandans are always telling            game that chased the forces of Hu-
her how mendacious they are : the              tu Power from Rwanda, the genoci-
country ’glories in its impenetrabi-           dal extremists who had attempted to
lity’ and ’sees virtue in misleading’,         eliminate the minority Tutsi and are
Rwandan children are encouraged to             responsible for the murder of some
develop the quality of deception. Mi-          one million people.
chela Wrong admits that such a so-                 The primary subject is Patrick
ciety poses a ’bit of a challenge’ for a       Karegeya, who became Rwanda’s
non-fiction author.                            external intelligence chief but fled
    The offensive paragraphs are re-           Rwanda in November 2007. This was
miniscent of the racism of Hutu Po-            out of a concern for human rights
wer, of the hate propaganda that por-          abuses by former RPF comrades. No

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mention is made of the corruption         gnalled the start of the genocide. The
allegations he faced. Another spe-        exiles tell her that Paul Kagame was
cial informant is Lieutenant-General      responsible, and she writes how this
Kayumba Nyamwasa, former Chief of         ’massive secret squats like a giant
Staff of the Rwandan Army who joi-        toad at the heart of the RPF story’.
ned Karegeya in exile in South Africa     The narrative she presents is how a
in 2010.                                  ’power-hungry rebel movement trig-
     Presented as an insightful and ex-   gered the slaughter of its own people’.
clusive exposé, the book uses a nove-         To obtain confirmation of their
listic style. There are flattering des-   claims, the author turned to French
criptions of Karegeya, his winning        Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who for
ways, his wicked sense of humour and      nine years had investigated the as-
she describes ’his skin was a smooth      sassination, and announced in No-
honey’. Michela Wrong feels unable        vember 2006 that RPF comman-
to ask about his rumoured role in         dos fired the missiles from a hill-
an extrajudicial murder in Nairobi at     side known as Masaka some four kilo-
the height of his powers. ’How does       metres from Kigali International Air-
anyone lightly broach the issue of so-    port. The Bruguière thesis was even-
meone’s role in a murder over din-        tually disproven using scientific and
ner ?’, she asks her readers.             forensic data, but in this account the
     Karegeya tells her he has lots of    relevant report is hidden in a foot-
secrets, and she revels in tales of       note, and revelations that the judge
double agents who befriend the ex-        ignored critical evidence, neglected to
spy, the wiretaps of plotters (using      call essential witnesses, distorted wit-
unscrambled telephone lines), the hit-    ness statements, and had a represen-
men out to get him, fake police, and      tative of Hutu Power on his payroll
entrapment. The author claims tape        as a translator – all are absent.
recordings exist of former comrades           The two French investigative ma-
planning his assassination, but there     gistrates who took over the dos-
is scant evidence presented and no ri-    sier, even after a long interview with
gorous testing. No expert verification.   Nyamwasa at his request, eventually
     Both informants tell her they        decided that the RPF had no case to
knew the deadly secret of the assas-      answer. The Masaka theory is further
sination of President Juvenal Habya-      discredited by experts from the UK’s
rimana, who had ordered the mis-          Cranfield Academy who demonstra-
siles to be fired that destroyed his      ted that the missiles had come from
Falcon jet as it came in to land on       within a fortified military camp at
6 April 1994. This milestone had si-      Kanombe, closer to the airport and to

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the crash site, and so certainly inac-     about missile launchers being found
cessible to rebel fighters carrying mis-   by a peasant quite by chance on Ma-
siles. The conclusion of Rwanda’s own      saka hill.
enquiry under Judge Jean Mutsinzi              The accusation against the RPF
further confirmed Hutu Power extre-        is an old story. It was used by the ge-
mists were to blame. Both reports are      nocidaires in April 1994 even as their
dismissed here in a paragraph.             crime got underway to explain how
    In her enthusiasm to blame the         the assassination of the President at
RPF, Michela Wrong makes no men-           the hands of the perfidious ’Tutsi
tion of three witnesses who saw the        RPF’ had caused Hutu to rise up in
missiles depart from Kanombe that          anger, and that the killing of Tut-
night. One of them, Dr Massimo Pa-         si was ’spontaneous’. A foundation
such, a Belgian military doctor, was       stone of denial, and central to the de-
close enough to hear the ’whoosh’ of       fence of the genocide perpetrators in
the missile fire. Acoustic evidence is     their trials, is the claim of a lack of
crucial and the results of a scienti-      planning.
fic study in 2012 by French crash in-          Too late for this book but of po-
vestigators, buried here in a footnote,    tential use to the author are rele-
show Kanombe camp the likeliest lo-        vant sections in the recently relea-
cation for the assassins.                  sed Duclert report, commissioned by
    If the massive secret of the as-       President Emmanuel Macron to en-
sassination does squat like a giant        quire into the role of France in the
toad anywhere, it is likely to be in       circumstances of the genocide. The
a prison cell in Mali. Here, the corpu-    Duclert report has a document da-
lent figure of Théoneste Bagosora is       ted 22 September 1994, from the Di-
serving a 35-year sentence for geno-       rection Générale de la Sécurité Ex-
cide : a racist and violent Hutu Po-       térieure, France’s foreign intelligence
wer ideologue, architect of genocide       and counterintelligence agency. The
and not mentioned in this account          document concludes that the most
as the prime suspect of the attack         plausible culprits for the assassina-
on the plane. To this day, Bagosora        tion were Hutu Power military offi-
blames the assassination on the RPF.       cers. They are named : Théoneste Ba-
An RPF commando unit had acces-            gosora, Laurent Serubuga, Leonard
sed Masaka hill using an escort of         Nkundiye and Anatole Nsengiyumva.
peacekeepers from the UN Assistance        Interestingly, the Duclert report de-
Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) who            termined how the assassination had
were in on the act. Bagosora had gi-       been subjected to constant efforts at
ven information to Judge Bruguière         disinformation.

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     Karegeya swore to the author that    tu groups simmering with anti-RPF
President Paul Kagame had ordered         grievances’ is dismissed. There is no
the downing of the plane. He said         mention of the Hutu Power move-
this was a grab at power, and Ka-         ment, or its racist ideology crucial to
game was aware of the dangers that        Rwanda’s history. Hutu Power does
Tutsi civilians faced. He was no more     not even appear in the index.
than a ruthless tyrant willing to sa-          Karegeya was found strangled in
crifice his people and was now stifling   January 2014 in an upmarket Jo-
dissent and assassinating his enemies.    hannesburg hotel. Wrong blames Ka-
Yet Karegeya was after power for          game but four suspects evaded trial
himself, and the book details the es-     and five years later at an inquest in
tablishment of his political party in     Johannesburg, with no hard evidence
South Africa, the Rwandan Natio-          or proof, a judge found the Rwandan
nal Congress (RNC). The author des-       Government responsible. The author
cribes how the RNC established links      believes that Karegeya should have
with ’Hutu groups connected to the        had a state funeral in South Africa –
genocidal FDLR’, and describes them       which he did not receive. She equates
as FDLR ’bogeymen’, and she writes        his murder with that of Leon Trotsky,
how this was seized upon by Ka-           both men producing a ’credible oppo-
game putting the Karegeya organisa-       sition’.
tion ’beyond the pale’.                        General Nyamwasa survived a
     These are more than bogeymen.        shooting in 2010 and four men were
The FDLR, the Democratic Forces           sentenced for attempted murder in
for the Liberation of Rwanda, a US-       South African courts. Today, he
designated terrorist group established    trains his own militia in the DRC, a
to retake power in Rwanda in the          ’loose coalition of both Hutu and Tut-
name of ’Hutu People’, includes fugi-     si’, Wrong asserts.
tive Hutu Power genocidaires across            While numerous allegations are
the border in the neighbouring De-        made against the Rwandan Govern-
mocratic Republic of Congo (DRC).         ment and its President, some old
Most of the Hutu Power leadership         and familiar, scant evidence is offered
escaped in 1994 and are living in Wes-    here. To accuse a serving President
tern capitals financing terror move-      of assassinating his predecessor would
ments intent on destroying the Rwan-      normally require what in Fleet Street,
dan Government. The author tells          former heart of the UK’s newspa-
readers the FDLR is a ’spent for-         per industry, was known as ’copper-
ce’, and any danger from the ’Hu-         bottomed’ evidence. A different set of
tu opposition movement’, or the ’Hu-      rules seems to apply when reporting

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on Africa. A few disgruntled exiles       casts into doubt, the facts are capable
telling tales and a reliance on a dis-    of immediate verification with the use
credited dossier from a French magis-     of reputable and public sources. This
trate is not adequate.                    matters. It prevents myths turning
     At the end of the book, the au-      into a reality.
thor questions the veracity of Rwan-           Linda Melvern is a journalist
da’s miraculous rebirth. And yet, as      and author of ’Intent to Deceive. De-
with the circumstances of the geno-       nying the Genocide of the Tutsi’ (Ver-
cide of the Tutsi which she so casually   so 2020)