CPCR – Collectif des parties civiles pour le Rwanda Pour que justice soit faite
- Hearing of Mr. Johan SWINNEN, former Ambassador of Belgium to Rwanda from 1990 to 12 April 1994.
- Hearing of Linda MELVERN, investigative journalist, for the civil parties.
- Hearing of Esther MUJAWAYO, survivor, psychotherapist, for the civil parties.
Hearing of Mr. Johan SWINNEN, former Ambassador of Belgium to Rwanda from 1990 to 12 April 1994.
The former Ambassador of Belgium to Rwanda begins by saying that when he is appointed to this post, Rwanda has a good reputation internationally. Its good governance is in contrast with most other African countries. He had, however, noticed some wear and tear of power even before his arrival : corruption, political assassinations, the problem of Tutsi refugees who aspired to return to the country… The country had two challenges to overcome : the FPR attack which will lead to the Arusha Agreements and the institutional reform. HABYARIMANA had not waited for the recommendations made by MITTERRAND in his speech at La Baule to initiate reforms. These reforms will lead to the adoption of a new constitution in June 1991 which envisaged a multiparty system.
Hundreds of thousands of northern Hutu who fled the FPRs advance are piled up at the Kigali gates. A dozen political parties are formed, about forty newspapers are created, and human rights organizations are born. “A wind of freedom blows on Rwanda, encouraged by the international community”. But there is another side to this : massacres, political assassinations, resumption of FPR incursions, the birth of the media of hatred with ethnicized speeches. Rwanda is far from having arrived.
The political parties will practically all radicalize and eventually split into two and give birth to the Hutu Power. Even in the PL, there is a split between the Hutu and the Tutsi, which signals a deep dissatisfaction. The reasons are known: the agreements in Arusha are too good to the FPR, the army will consist of 60% of FAR and 40% of soldiers of the FPR army. As for the command posts, it’s worse: it’s 50/50.
In this uncertain situation, the witness expresses his efforts to ask, while awaiting elections in the month, that the Rwandan authorities make reassuring speeches. These Arusha Agreements did not arouse a real enthusiasm and Mr. SWINNEN also met the FPR, who did not see the election as such a good thing. To KAGAME, he pointed out that he could not ask that the words of RTLM be tempered if he did not do the same thing with Radio Muhabura, the FPR radio.
Meanwhile, things change: the emergence of militias, the distribution of machetes and weapons at the end of 1993, the bourgmestres themselves being the craftsmen of these distributions. Do not forget a major event for the region: on October 21, 1993, the first democratically elected Hutu president, “living incarnation of democratic success” is assassinated. HABYARIMANA called the witness the same day to express his concerns: “You push me to make concessions all the time. You see what is happening in the neighbouring country!” The ambassador insists that the president continue to make reassuring remarks. And Mr. SWINNEN confesses : “We criticized the regime, but always constructively. This process has failed and has led to great radicalization.” Today, he remains deeply disappointed by the failure of the international community. The primary perpetrators of the genocide are Rwandan extremists. The witness hopes that the trials can continue to tell the truth: “Let us not remain imprisoned in a single-minded history. We have not found the whole truth about this period. Rwanda and the international community have an interest in pursuing these efforts. “
The president, Mr. DE JORNA seeks to know if HABYARIMANA really played the game. “Did not he have a double language? Had he a real will to reform? Has he not spoken of the Arusha Agreements as a “rag of paper”? What was the role of the family circle? Did he not torpedo his action? “
The witness acknowledges that he was very disappointed by this statement in a speech in Kinyarwanda. HABYARIMANA tried to justify himself: “As long as this agreement is on paper, it is only a rag of paper, as long as it is not put into practice!” The witness acknowledges that the president held a double language and emphasized the role of the entourage of the in-laws. “Was the president hostage of his family and the extremists of his party or a primary actor?” This question, which he can not answer, will come back several times. And to continue: “I do not exclude that HABYARIMANA had dipped in extremism. I spent hours with the president trying to find solutions.”
“And on the 6th of April you were there, what can you say about that?” asked the president. The witness talks of a chaotic situation. He could not move and stayed at his residence with his family for a long time. Only the phone allowed him to have information. RUSATIRA came to tell him not to leave because his name was inscribed on a list of people to be eliminated: ten UN peacekeepers had been killed, besides a dozen Belgian civilians. Well-known personalities were murdered, including the President of the Constitutional Court, Mr. KAVARUGANDA, the Tutsi Minister Landouald NDASINGWA and all his family, the Prime Minister who was supposed to go to the radio to calm her fellow citizens… The witness regrets the ineffectiveness of the international community. Back at the embassy, he takes care of the evacuation of his fellow citizens, that of Enoch RUHIGIRA, director the presidents cabinet. Through the windows of his office, he saw the dump trucks loaded with corpses. RTLM was shouting its hatred of the Tutsi and the Belgians who had to be killed. He himself will leave Rwanda on April 12, 1994. A delegation of the government formed on April 9th comes to meet him. “A stormy encounter,” the witness said, “because they came to ask me for my understanding and support!” It was impossible.
The President then interrogated the witness on a fax he had sent to his Minister of Foreign Affairs on 27 March 1992, in which he stated that “a secret military staff was in charge of eliminating the Tutsi and crushing the inside Hutu opposition.” To this fax was attached a list of officials to be wary of. The names of ZIGIRANYIRAZO, SAGATWA, SIMBIKANGWA and other Anatole NSENGIYUMVA and Tharcisse RENZAHO appear on this list. Jean BIRARA, in this note, also speaks of the Death Squadrons, the Zero Network (Réseau Zéro), the Akazu…
Mr SWINNEN mentioned the « unclear » role of Elie SAGATWA. He met him when he went to the presidency but did not know him any more than that.. As for SIMBIKANGWA, he would have liked to meet him but for various reasons, it could not be done. And the witness mentions the visit, on December 6, 1991, of the abbot André SIBOMANA, president of the association of independent journalists. He was accompanied by Boniface NTAWUYIRUSHINTEGE, of the Revue Umurava. The latter was wounded following a meeting with SIMBIKANGWA. The two visitors also report that others have been tortured. The witness will tell the authorities this.
Another memory. SIMBIKANGWA was suspected of having wanted to corrupt a certain BAKONDO to compromise people who were not in the odor of sanctity. Major SABAKUNZI spoke of SIMBIKANGWA as the “brain of the Interahamwe”. Boniface was again arrested that same evening, and then set free, after promising that he would no longer attack the president, the army, and the people of the North. Abbot SIBOMANA will go so far as to demand that the accused be put aside (December 1991 / beginning of 1992). Jean-Baptiste MUGABE takes refuge in the Belgian embassy following the threats of agents of the presidency: the name of SIMBIKANGWA is given. He also refers to the arrest of a Human rights activist, Fidèle KANYABUGOYI, arrested by the SCR on April 1st, 1992. The ambassador who intervenes for his release is asked to “not always defend the Tutsi”. (Editors note : Mr. KANYABUGOYI will be killed on April 11th in Kigali with many Tutsi, at the place called Nyanza, following the departure of the Belgian UN peacekeepers based at ETO, technical school of the district of Kicukiro.).
To the question of whether the witness talks about SIMBIKANGWA with the president, the witness hesitates but ends up saying that it is very likely. In any case, he often spoke with the Minister of Justice, with Mathieu NGIRUMPATSE, the president of the MRND, with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. And he remembers: “With the president, I am formal.” The witness says that SIMBIKANGWA is well known to all these authorities. “We’re going to take care of it!” the president once said to him during a visit of the Kenyan president. Did he do it? That’s another question. The witness also intervened with the president to ask him to calm the RTLM: he did. “Without much result,” pointed out DE JORNA. And the witness wonders if the president still had power. In any case, he reiterated that HABYARIMANA had a double language.
Domitille PHILIPPART, lawyer for the CPCR, wants more information on Jean BIRARA. He was the governor of the Central Bank of Rwanda who came and slipped notes from time to time under his door or came to meet him. He was very critical of the president’s in-laws. He was a well-known man in Belgium in whom the witness had total trust, even if he was “enigmatic”. “We knew there would be a multiplication of generalized massacres. Leaflets circulated but they did not know where they came from. We were very worried, very vigilant. It can not be said that there was a pre-established responsibility. One can read with interest the works of LUGAN who intervened at the ICTR which did not recognize the « agreement to commit genocide in the BAGOSORA case !”
Mr. HERVELIN-SERRE. “Do you confirm that there was an influence group around HABYARIMANA, Akazu or not ?!”
The witness. “We knew there were negative forces around the president who was fighting the FPR arrogance, and we did not know if HABYARIMANA was an primary actor or a hostage of these negative forces. Did he have enough strength around him to oppose the harder ones? In Dar-Es-Salam, on 6 April, HABYARIMANA had wished to make the final concessions for the agreements to be put in place the following week. And all this under the pressure of the international community which had just extended the UNAMIR mandate for three months.” He added that he would have condemned SIMBIKANGWA’s behavior if he had been able to meet him. The witness had a very negative perception of Agathe KANZIGAs two brothers, ZIGIRANYIRAZO and RWABUKUMBA (Editors note : the latter has now long been a refugee in Belgium without ever being prosecuted!)
Mr. HERVELIN-SERRE. “Did you express your concerns about the RTLM in November 1993?” The witness acknowledged that “radicalization accelerated after the assassination of Melchior NDADAYE. There was even a journalist with a strong Belgian accent calling for the extermination of the Tutsi, RUGGIU”.
And weapon deliveries? “Difficult question. Belgium delivered some of the weapons ordered in October 1990”. But that is not the General Attorneys question who wants to talk about the distribution of weapons to civilians. The witness said that at the end of 1993 he received a call from a compatriot who told him that the bourgmestres were distributing weapons to the population.
On the trucks filled with corpses and the barriers? “I did not go around the city, but since the news of the attack, we speak of barriers, barriers that already existed. Very quickly we hear shots and early in the morning we find out that assassinations took place, first targeting political personalities, a well organized violence.”
Mr. CROSSON DU CORMIER’s turn to question the witness. “Was SIMBIKANGWA important in this extremely hierarchical society?”
The witness explains. “I do not know what became of him after the transfer of the SCR to the Prime Minister, from April 1992. Before 1992, he acted with the behavior of which I spoke. He had an evil attitude that worried us”.
The Floor is given to the defense. Mr. EPSTEIN points out to the witness that he was cautious in his intervention, “because with Rwanda one has to be careful. What evidence is available today?” Mr SWINNEN stresses that during this period there weren’t only negative elements: the return of refugees, the sharing of political and military power, the establishment of a rwandese democracy, refusal of insecurity… Many people were engaged in this process. We were very tough with HABYARIMANA, with good reason. But we were very constructive.
Mr EPSTEIN remids us that in the Assize Court there must be evidence. And he speaks of BATABAZIs assassination in February 1994. After accusing HABYARIMANA, his wife, 10 years later, accused the FPR of her husbands death ! “The attacks attributed to the death squads, in reality was the work of the FPR.”
“I’m a diplomat, not a judge,” the witness replied. “If GATABAZIs widow gives me information, I relay it. I can not do any more.”
Mr EPSTEIN. “And the information concerning the lists with SIMBIKANGWAs name, can it be the same thing? I can not answer,” the witness continued. “I am not a judge. I can not extrapolate what SIMBIKANGWA did. If Madame GATABAZI tells me the opposite of what she told me ten years ago, I hear it, that’s all.”
Mr. EPSTEIN pointed out to the witness that the French ambassador Jean-Michel MARLAUD never mentioned President HABYARIMANAs double language. “You can guess my answer. I’m more nuanced. I talked about my frustration with the word “rag” in Kinyarwanda and not in French. He had to take into account the harshness of his entourage.”
Concerning LUGAN, would the witness recommend reading him? “Any reading that sheds light on the debate is welcome. The ICTR has not proved the « agreement to commit genocide ». “
The defense lawyer will mention the corruption case to which SIMBIKANGWA would have been mixed up in. “The accused was suspected of having wanted to corrupt a certain BAKONDO. The latter was to file a complaint against Major SABAKUNZI accused of having plotted against HABYARIMANA by helping to transport weapons for the FPR. SABAKUNZI was acquitted.”
To the question of whether he met important people, the witness pointed out that he frequented all sorts of people. He often met Faustin TWAGIRAMUNGU. He did not only see important people. He adds that he refused an interview with RTLM not to endorse its hate policy. He did not meet SIMBIKANGWA between 1992 and 1994, it’s true, but it was a “shadowy person at the time”. However, he tried to see him. If little was heard of him at that time, “that does not mean that he did not take part. Was he better at hiding ?”
SIMBIKANGWA points out, when he was given the last word, that he did not know SABAKUNZI, Mr. FOREMAN had just said that his story had been reported by GUICHAOUA.
Screening of the documentary “Rwanda: an untold story” by Jane CORBIN, broadcast by the BBC in October 2014.
Hearing of Linda MELVERN, investigative journalist, for the civil parties.
Ms. MELVERN is a specialist in UN peacekeeping missions. In October 1993, she became interested in Rwanda to “monitor the peace treaty”. She has been working on this country for 22 years: investigations into the preparation of the genocide and its financing by the World Bank and the IMF. She added that “the UN is too late in Rwanda. We can criticize our politicians for their shortages and leadership. Today it’s Syria, in 1994 it was Rwanda”.
In the first few weeks, it was obvious that we were on the same scale as during the Second World War. In 1994, the ICRC had already issued a warning and the Security Council, instead of responding positively to a request from Roméo DALLAIRE, decided on 21 April a drastic reduction of its contingent: “A strong signal is given to the killers and the genocide will spread in the south of the country. The great scandal of the twentieth century is that this authorization for this genocide took place.”
There is much evidence of genocide planning. Many mention it : Human Rights Watch, the Belgian Senate, OXFAM, Amnesty International and all the European courts that have organized trials for genocide. “The will of the killers was to create a Hutu state, which is the keystone of this genocide.” The witness met many direct witnesses “who will never recover.” Many Red Cross doctors and nurses could also testify. And to quote the name of Dr. ZACHARIAS who had come to testify at the trial of the “Butare Four” in Brussels in 2001. Kigali is described as a mass grave where reigns an odor of rotten flesh. One can see “rats as big as dogs”. It is impossible to be in Kigali and not know. The killers, sure of benefiting from impunity, killed without hiding.
The witness made an initial investigation in Rwanda in 1997 and had access to the archives and found documents that were handed over to the ICTR. According to BAGOSORA, “the Tutsi are the masters of disguise, they compare themselves to the Jews of Europe to win the favor of a powerful lobby”. It was he who organized the murder of ten Belgian Peacekeepers. “These killings created a political void immediately filled by a Hutu government that implemented the genocide. This operation was carried out step by step and each stage of the genocide is marked by the cruelty that characterizes it.” And to recall all the stages that mark the genocide: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, polarization, preparation, extermination, negation (according to the President of Genocide Watch).
And Ms MELVERN pointed out that genocide was in the air, which is why a number of Tutsis left Kigali. Many others remained, confident in the UN. In her various visits to Rwanda, the witness had access to information about SIMBIKANGWA. In May 1994, an American document denounced the excesses of certain Rwandan politicians, including the accused. Ambassador SWINNEN had also pointed to the existence of “members of a secret commando charged with eliminating the liberal elements”. And to also quote the testimonies of Janvier AFRICA. SIMBIKANGWAs name appears in numerous documents, about the death of GATABAZI for example. He would have threatened Prosecutor NSANZUWERA if he did not release the arrested suspects. The witness also mentions the threats that the accused would have made against the president of the Constitutional Court, Mr. KAVARUGANDA, who will be murdered as of April 7: “The men who are to kill you have already been chosen” would have said the accused. “History tells us that genocide weaves a web of lies. There is nothing spontaneous in a genocide.” And to conclude by mentioning the BBC documentary that was viewed before her hearing, documentary that contains many errors and ignores witnesses and years of research.
The President asks the witness about the evidence of planning. She gives evidence that has already been given by other witnesses. She also replied that at the ICTR she was “counsellor for the accusation” because of her book “Conspiracy for a murder.” The last chapter of her book reports on the BAGOSORA trial. The ICTR has not been able to prove the “agreement to commit genocide”, but it does not dismiss it.
Regarding the BBC documentary, the witness said that she “decided to send a mail following many calls from Rwandan survivors shocked by this film, and many other people.” Total misunderstanding to see the BBC produce such a document. Minimizing the number of victims is scandalous. The investigation of Judge TREVIDIC is not even mentioned: the BBC acknowledged that it was a mistake! If this documentary has not been published abroad, many copies have been circulated on negationists’ initiative.
Mr FOREMAN said that BAGOSORA was not convicted of “conspiracy to commit genocide”, a crime that does not exist in French law. “But who says genocide says planning,” says the witness.
Mr. CROSSON DU CORMIER pointed out that the agreement with others is different from planning. One wants to engage the responsibility of KAGAME, but “can a crime justify another?” Mrs. MELVERN affirms that one has sought the sensationalist angle. And she appeals to the notion of “moral equivalence”. One could say “mirror accusation”. One can not speak of a double genocide because the facts don’t show it.
Mr EPSTEIN, by lapidary questions asked the witness in turn: the sources of the witness, bank documents (see Pierre GALAND’s report). Does the witness regard herself as an “expert” on Rwanda? Her priority was to write books and the ICTR wished to take possession of the documents used in the book. Mrs MELVERN acknowledges that she is not really interested in what other researchers are saying, which astonishes the defense lawyer. “I have read the others but I am an investigative journalist and not a researcher.” REYNTJENS? “He’s a scientist, I’m a journalist.” Regarding the assassination of GATABAZI, the witness said that SIMBIKANGWA exerted pressure. Mrs GATABAZI gives another version! “I trust the Belgian officers”. She is not in a position to comment on Mrs GATABAZI’s turnaround. The other questions will not bring new elements.
Hearing of Esther MUJAWAYO, survivor, psychotherapist, for the civil parties.
“I was born in Rwanda in 1958. I witnessed the evolution of the situation. In 1959, on my mothers’ back, we must already flee. In 1994, I had a baby on my back. “The scenery is set and it is in this Rwanda full of fear that she will live in until the genocide.
The words that illustrate her youth is “to start over.” On several occasions, the family home will be burned, the herds killed. Then she mentions the permanent difficulties she will experience as a Tutsi in pursuing her studies. Whether it be to go to secondary school, to enter the lycée Notre Dame de Citeaux “through the small door” thanks to the intervention of his father, a schoolteacher. It will be a real combatant journey : several times she will have to stop her studies and go to keep the cows or work in a sewing workshop because she spoke French well. She will have the same difficulties to enroll in University. Luckily, her father who is an evangelist gets her a scholarship to leave to Louvain la Neuve but LIZINDE refuses her a passport. She resumes her job as a teacher. To one of her friends who asked the minister why he refuses her a passport, the latter replies: “But she is Tutsi, is she not?”. She will then leave for Belgium for three years. Back in Rwanda, she was sent to teach French while working in development. She will eventually work in the association OXFAM which financed local NGOs. And she mentions at this stage the only meeting she had with SIMBIKANGWA, at his home, with the OXFAM director. On arriving in the living-room, the captain places his pistol on the table. The witness said it was for convenience, not to threaten the visitors.
In April 1994 she was on maternity leave. Her colleagues all went on training in Gisenyi, and they were all executed. She will take refuge at the boarding school of Notre Dame de Citeaux where her husband teaches. They will be betrayed by one of their acquaintances. The men will be separated from the women and children and executed in the neighbourhood at the gate of Gitega. The killers will cut their tendons before executing them the next day. His parents will also be killed as well as the 45 people who took refuge in their home. Almost all of her in-laws will also perish. With the help of a soldier guarding the high-school, she managed to reach the Hotel des Mille Collines and then went to the part occupied by the FPR. Evacuated to Uganda, she will return to Kigali at the end of the genocide.
With other survivors, she tries to reform families, informally. A Hutu child from the north, son of a guardian her husband had helped, revealed where the bodies were. The boy had seen her dead husband: “He was not a Tutsi, he was nice!” Confided the child.
The survivors regrouped: “We knew we were not crazy but that it was the situation that was crazy! I lost my husband, but I also lost my neighbors by losing my trust in them!” And she confesses: “My husband was killed by one of his students!” Within their group of women, a reconstruction work is carried out. The women had survived but died because they were raped and infected with AIDS. They then created the “association of the genocide widows”: AVEGA (1995). We had to reverse the image we had of ourselves. There was no shame in having been raped. Shame must be on the rapist. Rape will be recognized as a weapon of genocide. It was also necessary to rebuild houses: women were fighting for governmental help. A fund to help survivors will be created: the FARG (1998). And since it was necessary to treat the survivors, to follow psychologically the young survivors: the AERG is created.
Asked by the president, Esther confesses that she remarried after the genocide and that she followed her husband to Germany where they will stay because of their children. In Rwanda, mothers are trained to “actively listen”, for lack of psychotherapists. She works in a psychotherapy center.
Concerning SIMBIKANGWA, she confesses that everyone was afraid of him. We talked about brutal interrogations in criminology. The captain had become president of an association of handicapped: reason why she had once visited his home. The pistol placed on the table scared her less than the one brandished by the Abbot MUNYESHYAKA at the Hotel des Mille Collines!
The killers / saviors? That existed, but it was often in exchange for sexual favors!
What does she expects from justice? It’s an element that contributes to the repair. Being convicted for killing a Tutsi is important! The impunity culture had settled, a breeding ground for genocide. “Justice will not bring our love ones back ! The worst is when people say that the genocide did not take place!”
“IBUKA, a school of lies?” asks the president. There have been false testimonies, but this association is not a school of lies, any more than AVEGA. “I have a lot of respect for the survivors,” the witness continued. They need killers to help them: working in the fields, going to the hospital… “What is not tolerable is that NGOs or churches force people to reconcile in exchange for help!”
Mrs PHILIPPART: “You did not go out until your transfer to the Mille Collines (June 18th). How were you informed of the situation? “” We could not go out but the Hutu went out and walked around. We heard noises from the two neighboring barriers… When we evacuated the Mille Collines, the soldier who had led me there insulted me: he thought I was Hutu. On the road, the militiamen screamed, cursed us, the barriers had been removed to let us pass”.
Mr. HERVELIN-SERRE. And the removal of bodies? The Red Cross had picked up the corpses, but the city also used dump trucks. The residence of SIMBIKANGWA? He lived in front of the Presbyterian church. (Editors note by the road that descends from the Mille Collines to the French school.)
“Have you known killers”? Continues the General Attorney. “It’s complicated, you can become a hangman when the conditions are right. People have chosen not to kill, which reconciles me with the human race. One is not born a monster. 40 years of impunity, what does this create as a type of man? And all those killers who live in France, it hurts us! To ensure justice is to say stop!”
Mr. EPSTEIN thanked the witness for her testimony before asking her questions. The killers / saviors? “Especially with girls: gender issue”. Schools of lies? “It is the specialist Joseph MATATA who is hammering this thesis.” (Editors note: See his audition during the NGENZI / BARAHIRA trial on the site. It is worth its weight in gold!) Ethiopychiatry? “A buzzword for whites. I could improvise myself ethno-psychiatrist! “Frances Trial? “We are not there for that!” And if SIMBIKANGWA is acquitted? “You will have done your job. You’ll be happy, you’ll win! If there is no evidence, the Court shall decide.”
SIMBIKANGWA spoke last. He gets upset and says the witness lied. He does not know her, she never came to his house. There is a cabal against him. And he returns to his his usual explanations. The president would like to stop him but the accused insists. “Always lies!” The president tries in vain to tell him that the witness does not accuse him of having threatened her, he doesn’t want to hear a thing. “Do you agree that in this trial there are a lot of lies? Rwandans are liars. IBUKA is like the Interahamwe, it is like the PARMEHUTU! “And he continues: “Everything is not false but there are many fabrications and we will demonstrate that they lie. We are rational, we are from DESCARTES.”
Alain GAUTHIER, President of the CPCR.
(translated by Leah Tshabalala)
