Category: News

A teacher who admitted burning his neighbours’ homes during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide has told a Kansas jury he was like an animal without humanity.

The testimony came Monday in the federal trial of 84-year-old Lazare Kobagaya. The Topeka resident is charged with lying to U.S. immigration officials about his role in Rwanda’s ethnic mass killings. Kobagaya has denied the charges.

One of his former neighbours, Valens Murindangabo, returned to the stand to testify about the events of April 1994.

He testified that Kobagaya told a mob of ethnic Hutus to burn the homes of Tutsi neighbours so they would not return.

The defendant shook his head as Murindangabo testified that Kobagaya’s work was to make sure the houses were destroyed.

Kobagaya, who lives in Topeka, is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 and with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card. Kobagaya denies committing acts of genocide, and defense attorneys say they plan to call more than 20 witnesses from around the world, along with family members, to testify on his behalf.

Prosecutors contend Kobagaya concealed that he had lived in Rwanda during the genocide and participated in the attacks and slaughter of hundreds of Tutsis. They say he lied during immigration proceedings in Wichita when he said he lived in Burundi from 1993 to 1995.

If convicted, Kobagaya faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the charges. But the indictment also seeks to revoke Kobagaya’s U.S. citizenship, a move that would subject him to deportation. Family members have said they fear that could lead to his death.

The Justice Department alleges that in April 1994 Kobagaya directed a gathering of Hutus to burn down houses belonging to the Tutsis. Prosecutors also contend he mobilized attackers and ordered and coerced them to kill hundreds of Tutsis.

Prosecutors allege Kobagaya worked with Francois Bazaramba, a former Rwandan pastor who was sentenced last year to life imprisonment for committing genocide against the Tutsi in 1994.

One of Kobagaya’s sons, Andre Kandy, said in April 2009 that his father was in Rwanda during the time in question as a Burundi refugee. His family also said Kobagaya was mostly bedridden while in a refugee camp. Kandy said his father speaks little English and probably misunderstood what was being asked during the U.S. immigration proceedings.

Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga has insisted that genocide denier, Peter Erlinder, might be summoned soon to answer cases related to both genocide denial and ideology.

The American lawyer was recently declared unprofessional by the International Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha (ICTR), and his views as a defense lawyer at the tribunal were considered hoax.

According to Ngoga, the latest developments add more credence to Rwanda’s efforts to summon the embattled lawyer. However, the chief prosecutor did not give a specific timeline for the summons but observed that there was progress.

He further pointed out that due to Erlinder’s habit of ignoring court summons, Rwanda might use the Interpol to apprehend him, “We believe we have concrete evidence which makes it hard for him to escape justice.”

Reacting to critics who argue that Victoire Ingabire’s case is lingering, Ngoga was quick to blame foreign countries like Switzerland and Belgium for delaying to handover some of the essential evidence. Even though there are less interests from concerned nations, Ingabire will still appear in court on 16 May 2011. “We believe we have enough evidence to start the case but in the meantime, we’re still finding ways of how evidence obtained by Switzerland and Belgium would be released soon.”

He however pointed out that other countries like D.R Congo, Burundi and Holland have been cooperative. “Netherlands, for instance, has handed out evidence obtained from both witnesses and frequent searches in her house.

Rwanda’s zero tolerance to corruption can be illustrated by
the recent incidence of corruption in Kanombe, Kicukiro District of Kigali,
where a primary court judge, Lillian Maombi, was apprehended after being caught
in a malevolent act of bribery.

In an exclusive interview with IGIHE.com, the spokesperson
of the Rwanda National Police, Mr Theos  Badege, said the incident
should serve as an example to all individuals from the average citizens to
those occupying high positions in government institutions that corruption
should be avoided and prevented.

“Its heavy a crime, it’s a bad principle, it’s a way of
hindering the progress and development that we are undertaking and also a
blemish to the judicial system in our country,” he observes.

“In this nationwide sensitisation of anticorruption, we
wish to suppress the idea that power lies in those who are able carry out these
activities of bribery and deceit. True power lies in abiding by the law. We
should use this unfortunate occurrence as an example that there is no one above
the law, be it those who facilitate in establishing it, such as
judges. Most importantly, we should not be afraid to notify or report to
the authorities in case of any malevolent activities like these,” the Police
spokesman reiterates.

Rwanda has demonstrated outstanding dedication in fighting
against corruption. It is a principle that all citizens should continue to
embrace to sustain development and responsibility to protect and preserve the
rules that govern us.

And the battle has had rewarding results. A survey
conducted by transparency international in 2010, showed Rwanda to be the least
corrupt country in East Africa by a considerable margin. Incidents of bribery
are so low with a prevalence of 6 percent compared to neighbouring countries
such as Uganda and Burundi that range from 30 percent.

This impressive fact can perhaps be attributed to the
nationwide anti-corruption drive and divulging of cases of corruption by citizens.

A United States Professor Scott Straus, who lectures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, would serve as an expert witness in a genocide case involving genocide suspect Lazare Kobagaya. This is the first genocide to be carried out in US soil. Straus’ extensive knowledge of genocide and African politics has landed him as an expert witness in the trial of Kobagaya who is charged with ordering mass murders during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The trial will take place in Kansas, where 84-year-old Kobagaya now resides, marking the first criminal prosecution in the United States to require proof of genocide, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Prosecutors allege Kobagaya illegally obtained United States citizenship by lying on his citizenship application, where he denied participating in the genocide.

The U.S. Justice Department alleges Kobagaya directed mass burnings of Tutsi homes and killings of hundreds of Tutsis, in addition to ordering the murder of any Hutu women married to Tutsi men.

Prosecutors are bringing in over 20 Rwandans to serve as witnesses for the case.

Political Science Associate Professor Straus would not comment on the specifics of the case, but said he expects to testify sometime next week.

According to the United Human Rights Council, 800,000 people died in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

If convicted, Kobagaya faces deportation and up to 10 years in prison.

 The octogenarian Rwandan is accused of lying about his role in the 1994 genocide in his home country to secure US citizenship.

Kobagaya, a diminutive man with a graying mustache, on Tuesday this week, walked with a cane into the Wichita courthouse accompanied by a half-dozen family members.

He listened to the proceedings with the aid of an interpreter, although he introduced himself at the start of jury selection in English, saying : “My name is Lazare Kobagaya.”

The case is being heard in a Kansas federal courtroom because Kobagaya moved here in 2005 to join family members.

 But prosecutors allege Kobagaya lied on his December 2005 citizenship application by denying he had participated in the genocide and falsifying other aspects of his background.

 US immigration and citizenships forms routinely ask applicants if they have ever persecuted another person because of their race or social group, and also probe whether the applicant has committed any crime for which they have not been prosecuted.

 If convicted of lying on his citizenship application, Kobagaya faces deportation.

 Numerous witnesses are being brought to the central state of Kansas from Africa to testify about the events from April through mid-July 1994 when an estimated 800,000 people, most of them Tutsis, were killed in Rwanda.

 “I will tell you, some of the evidence is going to be pretty grim and disturbing,” US District Judge Monti Belot told potential jurors, adding that several witnesses are “people who actually participated in genocide.”

 Potential jurors questioned Tuesday said they had little or no knowledge of Rwanda or the events that occurred there nearly two decades ago.

The indictment says most of those who were killed belonged to the Tutsi ethnic and social group, while most of the killings were carried out by members of the Hutu ethnic group.

 According to the indictment, Kobagaya was a wealthy Hutu who lived in southern Rwanda. It is alleged that he organized and incited violence against Tutsis on several occasions, including ordering Hutu to burn Tutsi homes, murder hundreds of Hutu who had tried to flee the violence, and kill Tutsi women who had married Hutu men.

Kobagaya’s defense attorneys have argued in court papers that their client’s name never turned up in lists of genocide suspects compiled by independent sources in the aftermath of the violence.

 It was not until he gave a statement on behalf of another Rwandan convicted of genocide by a Finnish court that he was targeted by US investigators, the defense attorneys say.

 In addition to denying that he participated in genocide, Kobagaya told immigration officials that he had lived in the African nation of Burundi from 1993 to 1995, the indictment states.

 Kobagaya’s family declined comment during a break in the proceedings.

 Two translators are also being used in the courtroom as interpreters for many of the witnesses, just one of many complications that Belot said could cause the case to last for eight to 10 weeks.

Meanwhile, the Government on Wednesday hailed the
arrest of one the key genocide suspects, currently on trial before Wichita
(Kansas) in the United States, saying this is a “landmark in fight against
the culture of impunity” and a clear messages to all “genocidaires
who are still hiding in several western nations. ” “Arresting
this key genocide suspect (by U. S. justice) whose hands are stained with the
blood of thousands of innocent people is a historic and unforgettable
moment,” said prosecution spokesman Alain Mukuralinda Mukuralinda.

Rwanda has made an extradition request to the U. S. justice, the
spokesman said. “We hope that after years and
years, justice will be finally served” Mukuralinda told the media in Kigali.

Two senior Rwandan Hutu rebel leaders go on trial Wednesday accused of masterminding from Germany atrocities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In the dock in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart are Ignace Murwanashyaka, 47, the head of the “terrorist” Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and his deputy Straton Musoni, 49.

Justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama has hailed Germans continued efforts to prosecute the two Rwandan genocide fugitives 

Before their arrest in Germany in November 2009, the two ordered mass killings and rapes from Germany together with a third man living in France who has been extradited to the International Criminal Court (ICC), prosecutors say.

They will face 26 counts of crimes against humanity and 39 counts of war crimes committed by militias under their command between January 2008 and the date of their arrest.

Those crimes’ foundation in international law dates back to the Nuremberg trials of top Nazis after World War II.

The United Nations hailed the trial as a breakthrough after repeated calls by the Security Council to bring FDLR commanders living abroad to justice and to bar them from unleashing further violence in the strife-wracked eastern DRC.

“This cooperative burden-sharing in prosecuting individuals for serious international crimes will greatly advance the fight against impunity,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in January.

“Legal action against FDLR leaders also reinforces efforts to demobilize and repatriate FDLR fighters, which would significantly contribute to stabilizing the eastern DRC.”

A resident of Germany for two decades, Murwanashyaka studied in the western city of Bonn and was afforded asylum, settling in Mannheim in the southwest. He is married to a German woman.

Musoni, his right-hand man since 2004, has lived in Germany since 1994.

Prosecutors say Murwananshyaka ordered around 200 killings and “large numbers” of rapes by his milititas, had them use civilians as “human shields” and sent child soldiers into battle in eastern DRC.

“I am the president and… the supreme commander” of the FDLR, “I know exactly what is happening” on the ground, he told German media in interviews in 2008 and 2009.

A UN report counted 240 telephone calls between Murwananshyaka, known as the “The Doctor” for his PhD in economics, and his officers during the same period.

A protege of former DRC president Laurent-Desire Kabila, Murwananshyaka also paid occasional visits to his troops in the country’s dense forests, according to the UN.

At the time of their arrest, the rebel group said that the two were “in no way involved in the atrocities committed against civilians in eastern DRC,” calling their detention “unfair and unjustified.”

The trial is to run until at least July.

The FDLR was created by the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, who fled to neighbouring DRC after President Paul Kagame took power.

Its around 5,000 Hutu fighters are seen as a major source of instability in Africa’s resource-rich Great Lakes region.

Kagame has criticised Western countries in the past for not doing enough to bring FDLR leaders to justice, and the UN mission in DRC, known as MONUSCO, has called on other countries to follow the example set by France and Germany.

Murwanashyaka, head of the FDLR since 2001, was among 15 people whose assets were frozen by the Security Council in 2005 on suspicion of involvement in war crimes.

He had been arrested but later released in Germany in 2006 due to a lack of witnesses for the prosecution. Germany declined a request to extradite him to Rwanda in 2008 but later launched another inquiry.

Prosecutors said they questioned witnesses in Africa “in very difficult conditions” with the aid of the UN and non-governmental organisations.

In January, a former mayor, Onesphore Rwabukombe, went on trial in Germany charged with ordering and organising during the Rwandan genocide the killing of at least 3,730 Tutsis who had sought refuge in church buildings.

France is holding a third alleged senior leader in the FDLR, Callixte Mbarushimana, who faces a trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Belgium is also among European countries arresting suspected Rwandan genocidaires with the country having captured four in the last two months.

The state minister of infrastructure Hon. Eng. Coletha Ruhamya has stressed the importance of promoting the usage of clay and ceramic stoves as a way of protecting the environment.

She made the remarks when she joined other top government officials, members of the private companies and development partners, top military officials and police officers to do their share of community service before assessing the Nyarugati Imbere energy sector project in Nyamata District of the Eastern Province last Saturday.

 “The cutting down of trees is not only affecting the environment of Bugesera but also by using stones and firewood, people are more prone to illness due to the smoke they breath in everyday,” the minister said in his address.

“We want every Rwandan to have the opportunity to take care of our environment but this does not mean that by the stopping the cutting of trees, the people should not be able to find a way to sustain their daily needs. By working together, we can not only keep our country beautiful but we can help each other in finding affordable and safer ways in which we can prosper in great health,” she observed.

The Nyarugati Imbere project involves a bio mass and energy sector project, which will train and promote an environmentally, cost effective, safe and reliable service to all sectors and households across Rwanda. The project began in Nyamata, which was the first district to produce a clay stove, proving that they are not only cost and environmentally friendly but are also reliable and durable.

An exhibition held in the area underlined how cooking with firewood, which has until now been the only method of cooking in most rural areas, is not only affecting the environment but is also harmful to their health.

Francince Mukaruberwa, a rural supervisor in Nyamata District told IGIHE.com that the project was a success.

“Before this program was put in place, there was a four hour difference between how long it would take to cook a simple meal using firewood and the stove. ”

From students, to the mayor of Bugesera, the minister of state herself, all took a lesson on how to build a stove for oneself.

The training program’s team consists of two consultants from Kenya and fifteen students from the rural districts. The students would be trained for free to make clay and ceramic stoves. At the end of their training, each student from each district would be able to teach those in their home districts on how to build the cost effective stoves. According to the trainees, one stove could last up to ten years.

The Rwandan Commercial Court recently announced the appointment of a special administrator, Richard Mugisha, a prominent Kigali Attorney, to manage the beleaguered Libyan owned telecom, Rwandatel. At the request of MTN Rwanda, Judge Bwasisi Mugabo Germain, ordered Mugisha to assess Rwandatel’s financial status, ensure the safety of assets and report back to the court on May 31, 2011 on whether to liquidate the company or try to sustain it.

The Rwandan Utility and Regulatory Agency (RURA) announced earlier this month [April 5th] that it had permanently revoked the Rwandatel’s mobile voice & data license. The Registrar General followed the license revocation by applying for a court order to declare the firm insolvent and appoint the temporary administrator to oversee the firm’s continued fixed line operations and the likely liquidation of assets. Rwandatel’s major creditors include Huawei, a China based telecommunications equipment provider and MTN Rwanda to whom Rwandatel has racked up a millions of dollars in debt from interconnection fees for calls made across networks.

“The company was mismanaged and their liabilities far outweigh their assets. Their books are negative RWF 38 Billion” Rwandan Registrar General Louise Kanyonga said Wednesday, “This has been a real learning experience for our government. We need to ask how this happened.” Kanyonga said that she did not feel that the action taken by the Rwandan Government would worry other investors. “Many parties have already expressed interest in the license”, she added but was not able to be specific. Others familiar with the Rwandatel story feel the handling of the telecom is part of worrisome trend for the region’s ICT landscape.

In 2004, Greg Wyler, a young American IT entrepreneur came to Rwanda and invested millions in his firm, Terracom, which attempted to establish a fiber-optic network in mountainous, landlocked country, previously dependent on expensive and unreliable satellite based internet connections. He traversed the countryside in shorts and sandals and was famous for his ambitious attempt to retrofit an aging radio tower atop Mount Karisimbi, a 14,787 foot volcanic peak, to create an elevated telecom station bringing voice and broadband internet to the rural masses.

In 2006, Wyler’s group was asked to take control of Rwandatel, Rwanda’s sole PTT (Public Telephone & Telegraph) company and— according to a former Terracom-Rwandatel finance executive, who asked not to be named ; Terracom bought the asset on very agreeable terms and eventual price of $20 million. It is unclear how much of that price was ever actually paid.

In 2006, Chris Lundh, an American telecom executive with more than 15 years of experience working with African technology companies, was named CEO of the new firm but says that Rwandatel was overstaffed and in a financial mess. “We tried to clean up the place. Much of the technology was quite outdated. We decided to bring in a mobile technology called CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) which is something that in the States, Verizon and Sprint have used. We built a state of the art CDMA network—both voice and data—and at the time the data services were arguably the best in Africa in terms of internet speed,” Lundh said Tuesday.

Lundh told IGIHE.com that after their group retrenched redundant employees, repaired Rwandatel’s tattered balance sheet and invested heavily in the latest technology, the Rwandan Government wanted the asset back.

According to the Rwandan News Agency, the new owners had not held to their agreed investment and payment schedule and had fallen short of fiber-optic networking goals.

In June of 2007, the investors held negotiations with government representatives and accountants to establish the value of the company and agree on a buy-back price. The Americans asked for $40 million. The Government of Rwanda insisted it was worth just $12 million.

“I remember very well the chairman of RURA at the time, Colonel Mudenge, approached us. Mudenge turned to me on the last day of our negotiation and said : you take this offer or tomorrow I’ll send in the troops. I just laughed. But he repeated himself and the second time around I took him quite seriously.” Last July, Col. Mudenge—still head of RURA at the time— was arrested after allegedly pulling a gun on a farmer over financial dispute.

By September 2007 the Libyan investment firm, LAP (Libyan Investment Portfolio) Green, acquired the telecom from Rwanda for several times the price the government had paid just 60 days prior. An initial investment of $100 million and a promise to invest another $177 million over the following 5 years as well as an agreement to meet wireless voice and data roll-out goals gave LAP Green 80% of Rwandatel, the remaining 20% stake went the Social Security Fund of Rwanda.

The wireless voice—or cell-phone—component of Rwandatel never quite took off and was easily overwhelmed by competition when, in 2009, the country’s third telecom, Tigo Rwanda, began operations behind Rwandatel and the wireless voice leader, MTN Rwanda. But the wireless data offered by Rwandatel— with its advanced equipment—continued to dominate the market and the other carriers found it difficult to compete. The most recent report from RURA on market share shows that Rwandatel held 69% of the wireless data market through 2010.

When asked about the accusations of the former CEO and the discrepancy between the $12 million acquisition and the $100 million dollar sale less than two months later, Rwandan Government officials have been quiet. Regis Gatarayiha, the Acting Director of RURA says he was not involved with the previous transaction and knows little of it. Loiuse Kanyonga is also unaware of details surrounding prior transfer. The Ministry in the Office of the President in charge of ICT has not yet responded to inquiries regarding Rwandatel.