Kigali – Saturday, May 16, 2020, many survivors will not have lived long enough to witness history in the making. But YES! Félicien Kabuga was finally arrested, twenty-six years after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Where he was apprehended on the other hand is no news, at least not to survivors. After all, France has played the Godfather to the genocidal regime.
They trained, equipped, and guided the Interahamwe militia and the then army, Les Forces Armées Rwandaises (the Armed Forces of Rwanda – FAR) in the systematic killings targeting Tutsis. To finish an almost-perfect plan, France went the extra mile to become a sanctuary for a list of known genocidaires.
Kabuga, 84, is yet another name on that list. In 2002, he was indicted by the former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on multiple charges of Genocide.
Known as the leading supplier of tons of machetes – Interahamwe’s signature weapon – Kabuga was also the senior sponsor of the hate radio, Radio Television Libres de Milles Collines (RTLM), and several extremist newspapers such as Kangura, Intera, Kamarampaka, La Médaille Nyiramacibiri, L’Echo des Milles Collines… which all served the same purpose; to amplify hate speech in the buildup and during the Genocide.
RTLM was not an ordinary radio station reporting the radical views of others. It was an instrument of Hutu extremists who planned and instigated the mass killings of Tutsi. This was hate speech at its most extreme. It is a fact, without Kabuga media would never have been as involved in the Genocide as it did.
In the early days of the Genocide, France launched "Opération Amaryllis” commanded by French General Henry Poncet, allowing the evacuation of about 1,400 people.
The operation whose first objective was to rescue the Westerners also helped the evacuation and resettlement of the top masterminds of the Genocide in France, including Habyarimana’s family and their close friends.
Kabuga’s family being one of the beneficiaries.
The French operation ignored Tutsi employees at their embassy and the French Cultural Centre in Kigali, who were being hunted. A substantial number of them didn’t survive.
Kabuga did not spend the past 26 years in one location. He went places, sought refuge in different countries and continents, despite the international arrest warrant, and the 5 Million USD prize on his head as the most wanted man on earth.
His wealth secured him protection, clinched him a place among the greatest, and took him to places around the world.
In late 1994, Kabuga was in Switzerland seeking asylum. When the Rwandan community in Bern filed for a complaint against him, the country chose to deport him to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, instead of arresting him.
That was their contribution. That was all they could render to more than one million of souls still waiting for justice to be served.
In July 1997, The ICTR prosecutors and security organs in Kenya conducted the operation code-named "NAKI” (Nairobi – Kigali) which led to the arrest of key planners of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, who were still at large in Kenya.
Among them were Jean Kambanda, Prime Minister of the Genocidal government; Gen. Gratien Kabiligi, and Hassan Ngeze, the renowned writer of Kangura.
Kabuga should have been arrested with them, but Kenyan authorities forewarned him. He had stayed in Kenya for years.
In 2007, Kabuga was spotted in Germany. At a place where he was believed to be, the German police found Augustin Ngirabatware, his son in law and Minister of planning in the Genocidal government. N
Ngirabatware had a USB stick which he immediately destroyed.
The stick contained medical reports of Félicien Kabuga, who had arrived in Europe on a counterfeit Tanzanian passport. His wealth had bought him high-level connections all over the world.
Even on the run, Kabuga maintained his support to terrorist groups against Rwanda.
Some informants who had helped locate him were murdered. According to reports, the FBI came close to arresting Kabuga shortly after Daniel Arap Moi, the former Kenyan president retired in 2002 when a local journalist, William Gichuki, walked into the US embassy in Nairobi and said he knew where Kabuga was hiding.
But before the FBI could act, Gichuki was murdered.
Back in the 1980s, Kabuga, a native of Byumba near the border with Uganda, was a businessman who earned much of his wealth from the illegal exportation of Ugandan coffee, through Rwanda, during Uganda’s civil war.
That is when he earned the trust of prominent politicians, a situation he sealed with the marriage of his daughters with Habyarimana’s sons.
Today, many people are in awe of the arrest of Kabuga. But no one was surprised he was in France. The country shelters hundreds of genocidaires, who live freely in known locations, without hiding their identity.
France has over 30 arrest warrants at its disposal, but it is taking an eternity to react. Maybe death will take them away before any of the fugitives ever get to face justice. Had France wished, they would be brought to court before they turn 84 and above.
The arrest of Kabuga is indeed a noble gesture, should we hope for more similar acts to follow? Will they also arrest Agatha Kanziga Habyarimana, Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, Hyacinthe Nsengiyumva Rafiki and others?
Will they declassify those documents and let us know how their Banks, BNP Paribas and Credit Lyonnais remain other top financial backers of the Genocide? There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied, but then again, better late than never.
The author is survivor of the Genocide against Tutsi.
The views expressed in this article are of the author.