By Laura Hirahara
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
KIGALI, Rwanda- According to a statement made by Rwandan military spokesman, Jill Rutaremara, Rwanda has made preparations to withdraw thousands of peace-keeping troops from Sudan if the United Nations publishes its latest report on possible human rights violations in the region. The report, from the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, details the killings of thousands of ethnic Hutus in the Congo by Rwanda and its allies during a ten year period starting in 1993. Copies of this report, which leaked last week to several press agencies, identify Rwanda troops as taking part in crimes against humanity and genocide. Rwanda’s government, led by President Paul Kagame, is hoping it has enough leverage to stop the report from being officially published, which it believes to be false.
The U.N. report claims that Tutsi-led Rwandan armies followed Hutu-refugees into Zaire (what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and killed them, including women, children and the elderly. The report cites instances where Rwandan troops, along with the armed forces of their allies, promised repatriation to Hutu refugees only to kill them later. The U.N. was prompted to start an investigation after a number of mass graves were discovered in 2005 in North Kivu, an eastern province in the Congo. The authors of the report, who interviewed approximately 1,250 individuals and reviewed 1,500 documents, insist they are not trying to prove “individual criminal responsibility, but to expose the seriousness of the violations committed.”
The Rwandan government is calling the report outrageous and unfounded. Rwanda’s Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said the report is “a stab in the back.” An official statement from the capital in Kigali stated, “The report is a dangerous and irresponsible document that under the guise of human rights can only achieve instability in the Great Lakes [of Africa] region and undermine ongoing efforts to stabilize the region.” Without addressing any of the specifics of the report, Rwanda is relying on the considerable contributions it’s made to the U.N. and Africa Union’s peacekeeping mission in Darfur to prevent the U.N. from releasing its report. Currently, Rwanda has over 3,000 peacekeepers in Darfur and a Rwandan general leads the mission, which is made up of 21,800 peacekeepers total.
For more information, please see;
BBC- Rwanda Threatens UN Over DR Congo ‘Genocide’ Report– 28 August, 2010
AP- Rwanda: Plan Ready to Withdraw Peacekeeping Troops– 31 August, 2010
The NY Times- Rwanda Threatens to Pull Peacekeepers from Darfur– 31 August, 2010
The Washington Post- U.N. Says Rwandan Troops Carried Out Mass Killings in ’90’s– 29 August, 2010
