African Rights accuses Mr. Rukemuye – now a student at the Central State University in Wilberforce – Ohio of forming and supervising a interahamwe Genocide militia around Gisozi in Kigali. This very place is where the National Genocide Memorial center stands – where up to 258.000 people have been laid to rest. Some of the victims now buried in Gisozi suffered and died at the hands of a militia force that Oswald Rurangwa created, armed, incited and supervised, claims the London-based organisation that has documented Genocide crimes for years.
The latest report ‘Oswald Rurangwa in the US – Turning Gisozi Into A Mass Grave ’- based on testimony from 20 eyewitnesses – including former interahamwes that he commanded, links him to massacres at the Parish of Sainte Famille and at Saint Paul’s Centre in central Kigali.
Mr. Rurangwa – who changed to Mr. Rukemuye, according to African Rights worked closely with Kigali prefect Col. Tharcise Renzaho – who is on trial at the Tanzania-based UN Tribunal on Rwanda.
A prominent ruling party member for the Gisozi area, Mr. Rurangwa was previously a school head teacher – but would be named councilor by Col. Renzaho. This appointment reflects the trust which senior officials had in Rurangwa, and in his commitment to the policy of genocide, says African Rights.
Witnesses allege that Mr. Rurangwa recruited militias – sending them for military training in the military camp of Gabiro in eastern Rwanda – where thousands others were. Militias that worked under his command claim he gave them guns and grenades to hunt Tutsis. They also say he ordered militias manning roadblocks around the Gisozi to confiscate possessions of Tutsis and kill them.
Mr. Rurangwa apparently issued special travel documents known as ‘laissez-passer’ that would clearly show documents in Kinamba as a way of showing that the holder was not a Tutsi. He is also alleged to have helped militias at the roadblock close to the Pan Africa Hotel in the city center to check identity cards and handing Tutsis over to the assembled interahamwe.
He also provided them with drinks as an additional incentive, African Rights claims, adding that this roadblock, used to vet Tutsis seeking refuge at the nearby Catholic Parish of Sainte Famille, was notorious in Kigali during the Genocide as a killing site.
Part of the accusations in the report, the Ninth in the African Rights series, Mr. Rurangwa stands accused of involving untrained civilians in military action, as back up to the soldiers fighting the RPA rebels, thereby exposing them to danger.
When the Genocide ended in July 1994, the Organisation claims Mr. Rurangwa fled Rwanda to live in exile in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), initially in Kibumba refugee camp and later in camp Kayindo.
In 1996, he made his way to the United States and now lives in Dayton, Ohio State. His legal status in the US is not clear, says African Rights.
But in Rwanda, his participation in the genocide has not been forgotten. The local Gacaca jurisdiction, courts set up specifically to try Genocide suspects, have sentenced him to 30 years in prison in absentia, for the crimes he is accused of committing in Gisozi.
Not alone
Research carried out by African Rights over 18 months indicates there are at least several dozen Rwandese Genocide suspects in the US, both men and women. They include men who worked alongside Mr. Rurangwa and whose names appear in the report, for example Samuel Benda.
Some are also fugitives from justice who made their way to the US to escape the judgement of gacaca courts. Some have entered the US under their own name, but many use false names – just like Mr. Rurangwa himself.
As tactic to evade capture by US authorities, these men and women, as Afrian Rights puts it, frequently represent themselves as victims of the “Genocide they helped to plan, unleash, co-ordinate and implement”.
A number of them have become US citizens or have obtained permanent residence, while others are asylum seekers. Dayton, Ohio, where Rurangwa lives and studies, and where there is a large Rwandese community, is particularly well-known for the significant number of genocide suspects who live there.
“We are dedicating this issue of our Charge Sheet Series to Oswald Rurangwa to encourage the US government to investigate the allegations levelled against him so as to determine the gravity of the charges and the appropriate course of action”, organisation says.
“More broadly, we call on the US government to examine the implications that countless Rwandese genocide suspects, responsible for the massacres of tens of thousands of people, are living on its soil”.
The US, is also home to outspoken critic of government Prof Leopold Munyakazi – a scholar and assistant professor of French at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He has been on the political trail denouncing the authorities in Kigali. Prof. Munyakazi is also on record as saying what transpired in Rwanda was a Genocide but civil war.
US authorities nabbed and deported Genocide fugitive Isaac Kamali to France who now remains in detention awaiting judicial review. (End)