A Genocide survivor who was neighbours with Genocide suspect Joseph Mugenzi during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi has described the suspect as "an evil man” who ruthlessly oversaw the extermination of Tutsi neighbours.
They resided in Nyakabanda Sector in Nyarugenge District.
Mugenzi, 71, was last week arrested in the Netherlands by the Dutch Police’s international crimes unit, acting on an international arrest warrant issued against the suspect for his role in the Genocide.
Paulin Rugero, 61, last week on October 30, gave The New Times a guided tour of his Kabeza village neighbourhood - the same place where Mugenzi lived more than two decades ago.
Rugero said: "This (Mugenzi) was an MDR-Power diehard who killed people. He was an evil man.”
Asked what he would like judicial authorities in the Netherlands to know about their prisoner, Rugero first thank them for doing the right thing; making the arrest.
He added: "His arrest, first of all, made us so happy. What would make us even happier, however, is that he is eventually brought home for trial. He committed beyond cruel crimes here.”
Many other criminals like Mugenzi, he noted, continue to mingle freely with unsuspecting neighbours in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Genocide suspect Joseph Mugenzi, 71, was arrested on Tuesday, October 27, by the Dutch Police’s international crimes unit. / Photo: File
Rugero said: "He was a very bad person and also a connected rich businessman and political party activist who first belonged to MDR and later joined Froduald Karamira’s extremist MDR-Power party. I remember Mugenzi’s white Peugeot car that usually moved with loudspeakers screaming party rhetoric.”
Karamira, former vice-president of the extremist MDR-Power party, was a prominent businessman too and the ideologue behind the extremist Hutu Power movement. During the Genocide, Karamira’s daily hate broadcasts on radio encouraged the population to massacre the Tutsi.
Known as the symbol of the Hutu power ideology, Karamira was one of the 24 genocidaires sentenced to death and executed in 1998 – before the death penalty was abolished.
Retired history Professor Paul Rutayisire, who still teaches Rwandan history (Catholic Church, colonial period and Genocide against the Tutsi) at the University of Rwanda, said he does not personally know Mugenzi or his son, Rene Mugenzi, who was recently imprisoned in the UK for stealing church funds but noted that Mugenzi senior’s case is not an exception.
Paulin Rugero took time to show The New Times' team around his neighbourhood, in his car. / Gad Nshimiyimana
Rutayisire said: "Many Genocide suspects of are living freely all over the world. They have benefited from different networks which are very active, put in place by individual groups, or even countries. A man like (Félicien) Kabuga cannot spend many years in France without the support and accomplices of local and powerful actors.
"The same goes for Mugenzi, the problem being now, who helped him? The Netherlands accepted to collaborate with Rwanda Justice, which is the best way to bring to justice these suspects.”
According to Rutayisire, "much more effort and pressure” is still needed to bring change as regards bringing Genocide fugitives to book wherever they are.
A very dangerous neighbourhood
Mugenzi’s old brick house, tucked uphill in Kabeza village, Nyakabanda II cell, is, by and large, still intact.
Next to Mugenzi’s house is another house of an Interahamwe member whose whereabouts are not known. To get there, from Rugero’s home, one moves about 500 metres uphill on a stone paved road past Baobab Hotel.
Just outside the hotel’s gates, Rugero showed The New Times another house where "another dangerous killer” – Capt Pascal Simbikangwa – used to camp and plot against his victims during the Genocide.
Simbikangwa, a notorious intelligence officer in the genocidal government, among others, organised roadblocks where Interahamwe militia murdered the Tutsi. In 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a French court but appealed and the sentence was later reduced to 25 years.
"This was a very dangerous neighbourhood at the time,” Rugero said, pointing at Simbikangwa’s former operational base, an old small house just a stone throw from his own. Further uphill is Mt Kigali, where the genocidal regime’s military had a dreaded base.
Genocide fugitive Mugenzi's house in Kabeza Village, Nyakabanda Sector, as shown by Paulin Rugero (Mugenzi's house has a dish on the roof). / Gad Nshimiyimana
Soon after turning right and up the hill, gesturing to the lower side of the stone road leading to Mugenzi’s house, Rugero pointed to a line of refurbished houses. These, he said, were occupied by journalists working for the national radio. The journalists did a good job, he observed, in ignoring the massacres happening day and night in their neighbourhood.
"For the very few of us that survived, it was a miracle. When gacaca courts started, much more information about him came out,” Rugero said.
"Mugenzi was responsible for the death of Tutsi families including the family of a medical doctor called Vincent Sempampa which was wiped out completely. He helped draw lists of people to be killed,” he added, pointing to the house where the Sempampas lived.
Ibuka, the umbrella organization of Genocide survivors associations, and the National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) welcomed the arrest of Mugenzi in The Netherlands.
Mugenzi is accused of Genocide, crimes against humanity, conspiracy to commit Genocide, and complicity to commit Genocide.
The crimes were committed mainly in Nyamirambo and Nyakabanda sectors of Kigali.