by Cristophe Hakizabera
Cotonou (Benin)
08.10.99
Hakizabera Christophe.
Born in 1949 in Gitarama.
Graduated First of the 9th promotion of the Rwanda Officers` School with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in 1971.
Ran away to Uganda in 1973 following the Coup d`à©tat by Major-General Habyarimana.
Joined the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) in Uganda in 1990.
Ran away from the Rwandese Patriotic (RPF) from in 1995.
Has been living in exile since then.
LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE UN COMMISSION ENTRUSTED WITH INVESTIGATING THE UN RESPONSIBILITY IN THE RWANDESE DRAMA
Mr. President of the Commission:
It is a great pleasure for me and the entire Rwandese population to learn that the U.N. Secretary General has just set up a commission entrusted with showing the UN role in the Rwandese genocide.
As one of those who, at the very beginning, were with the RPF in Uganda, I think that the RPF which is continuing to make a lot of noise to accuse others for its role in the Rwandese genocide must be denounced.
I am the only surviving former member of the RPF who has managed to run away from the torturous RPF regime. Before I am killed by the RPF commando as that was done in the case of Mr. LIZINDE Theoneste and Mr. SENDASHONGA Seth, I am handing over to the UN Commission my souvenirs of the RPF. I am hoping that the document will shed some light on the methods used by the RPF to entrap the UN.
In my opinion, the best approach would be:
1. To set up a Commission which would investigate:
a) The Rwandese tragedy since 1959 to today and more particularly the role of the RPF in the genocide;
b) The tragedy which is ravaging the Great Lakes Region and Central Africa. Truth must, the whole truth must be told to the entire international community.
2. To put on trial all those who are guilt of crimes against humanity to face an international penal tribunal in all impartiality.
3.To organize an international conference on the Great Lakes Region, and wisely and firmly take all necessary measures in order to allow all the Rwandese people and their neighbors to come out of the cycle of self-destruction to which a band of criminals has condemned them. It is unacceptable to continue to allow people to be deceived by the lies of the RPF, which is bent on entrapping the world community and black-mailing it.
Attached please find the document that I have written for the UN Investigation Commission entitled: The UN in the claws of the RPF Lobbies”.
I am at your entire disposal for any additional information if adequate measures are taken to ensure my security and that of my family.
May God protect us.
Done in Cotonou on April 10, 1999
HAKIZABERA Christphe
Signed
THE UN IN THE GRIPS OF
RWANDESE PATRIOTIC FRONT (RPF)
The international community allowed itself to be manipulated by the RPF lobbies, and today, the UN must pay the price. The naivete, the partisan spirit, the lack of depth and the absence of analysis and critical thoughts of some UN civil servants are driving the UN Secretary General to reexamine the UN system by putting in place a commission charged with investigating the role of the UN in the Rwanda tragedy.
If the UN were to have had some foresight in the beginning, it would not have accepted the withdrawal of its forces at the height of the war, and consequently it could have avoided the tragedy whose victims, till today, are not well known. Today, people talk of 800,000 people killed, but I can assert that this number is far from reality, for no statistical accounting work has ever been undertaken. Why has this figure been minimized? Why the current authorities in Kigali do not want to proceed with the census and accounting of the victims? As long as this work is not done, the RPF and its lobbies will continue to put the responsibility on the UN, France and the INTERAHAMWE to hide its prominent role in the genocide.
In the preparation of the attack against Rwanda by the RPF, the founding members of this organization knew all too well that the Tutsis would pay the price. However, they did not expect massacres at such a big scale. All the prognostications set by the RPF members in exile indicate and their sympathizers agreed that the war they hoped to launch against the Rwandese Hutus was going to end with a quick victory by the RPF Tutsis, and that civilian casualties would be less than 500. These were the arguments which General Fred RWIGEMA who was always hesitating to attack the HUTU regime in Kigali.
In keeping with the RPF starting strategies, these prognostications were true; and yet, they did not take into account the eventual intervention of foreign troops on the side of the Rwandese Armed Forces, and which would in the process make the war drag on. When the RPF was repelled by the Rwandese Armed Forces assisted by the Zaïrian troops on October 3, 1990, it became necessary very soon to think of change of strategies and methods. In this way, we abandoned the idea of a classical war to the benefit of a guerilla war. The new political strategies were debated for a long time in a seminar organized by the RPF in MBARARA in January 1991.
We concluded that, in order to ensure a total victory, it was necessary to fight the HABYARIMANA regime at all fronts (military, political, diplomatic and media).
1. STRATEGY ADOPTED AT THE MILITARY LEVEL
In order to ensure a military victory, while at the same time minimizing the loss of human lives, the RPF chose the following option:
1.1 To train the politico-military cadres and send them throughout the territory to disseminate the RPF ideologies among Hutus who were sympathizers of RPF. The first training school was set up in KABALE and MASAKA in Uganda.
1.2 To infiltrate small groups of 6 to 10 people well trained militarily throughout the Rwandese territory with a mission to terrorize the population, spread panic and disarray among the population in an attempt to make it impossible to govern.
1.3 To install throughout the territory brigades (militias) of the RPF which would enter into action on the “j” day.
1.4 To teach, through these brigades, every young Tutsi how to handle firearms.
1.5 To gather the maximum amount possible of military equipment to be scattered throughout the Rwandese territory forming stockpiles.
1.6 To recruit the maximum amount possible of fighters among young Tutsis who protect the Tutsi families when the RPF would advance towards Kigali.
2. STRATEGY ADOPTED AT THE POLITICAL LEVEL
The RPF policy was to demonize the HABYARIMANA regime and present itself as an alternative: for this, it was necessary to do the following:
2.1 To provoke the anger of the HUTUS by killing a great number of their congeners during each attack.
2.2 To awaken the inter-ethnic hatred by addressing the HUTUS as enemies of the TUTSIS.
2.3 To create inter-ethnic tensions by killing HUTU leaders and casting the responsibility on the HABYARIMANA regime and its political party, the MRND.
2.4 To hide the ethnic identity of the RPF by recruiting HUTUS to the services which adhered to the RPF ideology.
2.5 To look for a HUTU to put in charge of the RPF to make it appear as a trans-ethnic movement.
2.6 To create tensions between political parties in order to weaken the opposition against the HABYARIMANA regime in an attempt to reduce the influence of the parties on the Rwandese political scene, and hence promote a single unified movement which was the RPF.
2.7 To infiltrate and dig holes into all the political parties.
2.8 To infiltrate all the youth organizations of each movement.
2.9 To arouse HUTU political opposition against the HABYARIMANA regime by organizing through political parties demonstrations, which would have to turn into trouble events hence provoking discontent within the population and consequently justify the need to change the regime.
2.10 To slander the Catholic Church which preaches equality among men and contributed to the education of the popular masses.
2.11 To eliminate a great number of the HUTU clergy in order to replace them, later on, with TUTSI clergy.
2.12 To terrorize missionaries so that they could leave the country because they were unwelcome witnesses and obstacle to the execution of the overall RPF plan.
2.13 To kill older missionaries who knew the history of Rwanda because they were responsible for what happened in 1959 when the TUTSIS lost power to the benefit of the HUTU elite trained by the very missionaries in Minor Seminaries.
2.14 To threaten foreign troops which wanted to intervene in Rwanda in order to protect the TUTSIs.
2.15 When the MINUAR arrived, the following was agreed upon; To manipulate the MINUAR through General Dallaire for whom it was necessary to find a beautiful young lady, who was very intelligent and capable of influencing and manipulating him.
2.16 To use personal relations of the Canadian Mrs. Helene Ndasingwa Landoald with her compatriot Dallaire in an effort to have permanent access to information about MINUAR and to manipulate it.
2.17 To constantly inform the MINUAR about the crimes committed in Rwanda by making sure that the MNRD and INTERAHAMWE were incriminated (whereas many of those crimes were committed by the RPF against civilian population); political assassinations, explosives use attempts and civilian massacres.
2.18 To take advantage of the HUTUS` anger in order to accuse them of preparing a genocide against the TUTSIS.
3. STRATEGY ADOPTED AT THE DIPLOMATIC AND MEDIA LEVELS
To isolate the Rwandese government and desecrate the HABYARIMANA regime, the RPF decided to do the following:
3.1 To infiltrate its foreign diplomatic missions accredited in Kigali to transmit to them information cooked up by the thinking heads of the RPF.
3.2 To inform diplomatic missions about all the actions committed throughout the territory, even those perpetrated by the RPF by making sure to cast all responsibility on the MRND and INTERAHAMWE.
3.3 To set in place a radio station to broadcast the RPF ideology and demonize the HABYARIMANA regime. That radio was named “MUHABURA” and put under the direction of an extremist TUTSI then known as Major SHABANI RUTA, who, later on, will bear the name of Major RUTAYISIRE Wilson. The MUHABURA radio station, which broadcast all day long provoking statements against the HABYARIMANA regime, was, besides, very detrimental for the Rwandese people. As a reaction, the HUTU extremists also set up their own independent radio station called the Radio Television des Milles Collines (RTLM), which was informing the HUTUS about the wickedness of the TUTSIS and asking them to be vigilant and defend themselves against TUTSIS. On the other hand, it was this same radio station MUHABURA which broke down national by exacerbating ethnicity, regionalism and hatred between the political parties.
All these strategies were applied by the RPF, but all did not produce the expected impact. Even though strategies of the military type were a total success, politically the RPF met with a total failure which will be difficult to redress. All the demons proper to each ethnic group awakened and spread hatred in the hearts of TUTSI and HUTUS. The two (2) ethnic groups, while being integral parts of the same nation, have become, from now on, die-hard enemies, and the co-existence will be, in my opinion, very difficult. Naturally, the RPF succeeded in dividing the HUTUS and create a fierce opposition against the HABYARIMANA regime and its party, the MRND. On the other hand, the demonization policy of the entire MNRD party by the RPF allowed all those who were not agreed with the RPF ideology to unite into a movement called “POWER” to build a fronts against the RPF.
Faced with this failure , the RPF elaborated a macabre plan which would have to lead the country into chaos, namely the death of president HABYARIMANA. The latter was considered a major obstacle to the taking-over of power by force. The first assassination planning meeting was held in KABALE in the bishop`s residence under the auspices of Bishop HARERIMANA. Later on, meetings of this type would take place in MBARARA at the residence of Major General Salim Saleh, half-brother of Uganda`s president YOWERI KAGUTA MUSEVENI. The it quite well known that the decision to kill President HABYARIMANA was made in BOBO-DIOULASSO in BURKINA FASO in March 1994, and that Major Paul Kagame took part in this meeting. The assassination plot against President HABYARIMANA was revealed to the TUTSIS in the interior who warned Paul Kagame against the fierce and disastrous consequences of such an assassination and asked him not to make such a stupid mistake whose consequences and price tag they clearly foresaw.
Unfortunately, Paul Kagame banked on a quick military victory, with the fall and capture of Kigali within 3 days and with the limitation of loss of human lives being set at 500, a balance sheet which, the RPF estimated, was acceptable in keeping with the expected results, namely complete power take-over in Kigali. For the RPF, the only entities that mattered were the TUTSIS of the diaspora whereas the great bulk of the in-country TUTSIS were considered as being an integral part of those who had been corrupted by the HABYARIMANA regime. This is what explains why the death of thousands of TUTSIS did not at all affect the RPF, which used their misfortune to legitimize its coup d`à©tat by foreign, even UN forces which would only intervene in Rwanda to save anyone. Any intervention whatsoever would have been an obstacle to the power take-over by the RPF. It is clear that KAGAME needed a TUTSI bloodbath to justify later on the planned extermination of the HUTUS and loudly and strongly shout GENOCIDE which today has become an inexcusable trademark to legitimize his regime.
In conclusion, the RPF regime presents itself to the eyes of the entire world community as a liberator, whereas it did nothing at all to protect and save the TUTSIS and did everything to block every initiative seeking to protect them. Today, the RPF wants to take advantage, to the maximal level possible, of the TUTSIS` deaths by casting all the responsibility upon its former allies including the UN which has succeeded in hiding the horrible crimes perpetrated by the RPF. Five (5) years after the Rwandese tragedy, the UN is among those being accused of having been an accomplice of the RPF, and when the dead of KIBEHO, of the refugee camps in BURUNDI and Zaïre, of TINGI TINGI, of KISANGANI and MBANDAKA will rise up to demand justice, what will be the answer of the international community to the question that will be put to it, namely why didn`t they conduct investigations against these crimes?
The UN which, through its organ, the HCR, had as its mission to protect refugees, willingly left them to be massacred. Today, the UN is being scrutinized for its role in the TUTSIS` genocide, tomorrow it will have to answer for the blood of the HUTUS spilled by the RPF, and the number of HUTU victims cannot be measured against that of the TUTSIS who were killed, given the fact that two (2) million HUTUS died and continue to die now under the RPF repression.
