A Genocide survivor has implored the United States government to fulfill its international obligation and bring to book an indicted mass murderer who has for years lived freely in the country.
Vincent Nzigiyimfura’s known address is a town called Dayton in the State of Ohio, where he runs a successful grocery store ironically called Ikaze East African Market.
It started with an emotional thread posted on his Twitter timeline on Wednesday, April 28, which Gustave Mukurarinda, a genocide survivor posted on his timeline, the same day his father was killed 27 years ago during the Genocide against the Tutsi.
The thread, he said, was inspired by the fact that this was the first time he was going to commemorate his father as a father himself, and therefore his son will never get to see his grandparents.
According to Mukurarinda, who now lives in Canada, his family lived in Gihisi cell, Kavumu sector, just a kilometer from Nyanza District. He was 11 years when the Genocide took place in 1994.
My mother was also killed on May 7, an incident that Vincent Nzigiyimfura orchestrated, Mukurarinda told The New Times in an exclusive interview on Thursday.
Born in 1962, Nzigiyimfura was no stranger to the household of Mukurarinda’s parents; they were neighbours.
He recalls that Nzigiyimfura, a famous and businessman in Nyanza town at the time had two other brothers, one called Michel and Cyamatare, with whom they ravaged Nyanza town and its surroundings, killing Tutsi.
"The three brothers were all rich, so they had the means.”
He said that Michel was known as the ‘throat eater’.
In 2019, The New Times published a story after the Genocide mastermind resurfaced in the US and at the time, prosecution said they had updated the indictment earlier sent to Malawi, and sent it to the US.
On May 7, 1994, Mukurarinda’s mother was killed in an attack by Interahamwe militia which was led by Nzingiyimfura. On the same day, thousands were killed in the area.
According to the survivor, Nzigiyimfura did not stop at fleeing justice. He said that despite being away in Malawi at that time, he tried to use his wealth to subvert justice by influencing the decisions of Gacaca courts.
"He was a very wealthy man, and he tried to bribe many Gacaca judges in our village in order to help close relatives (who perpetrated the Genocide) so that they can also escape justice.”
Safe haven in the US
Nzigiyimfura is not new in the media. The New Times first published an investigation on him when he lived in Malawi where he operated a thriving business in 2009.
The story was inspired by a dossier that followed an extensive investigation by a human rights group, Africa Rights which gave details of his business undertakings in the Malawian commercial capital Lilongwe.
In Malawi, he had changed his name to Vincent Nzigiye.
When the National Public Prosecution Authority sent his indictment to Malawi about 11 years ago, he escaped, went off the radar for some point before he resurfaced in Ohio, together with his family.
"Now the Butcher of Nyanza and his family are enjoying the American dream despite the indictment and arrest warrant sent to the US Justice Department over two years ago for his role in the Genocide Against the Tutsi,” Mukurarinda said in one of his tweets.
According to Mukurarinda, Nzigiyimfura could not have found a better ‘safe haven’ than Dayton.
"This is a city in which Genocide perpetrators make the ‘rules’.”
Like other survivors, Mukurarinda, now a father of one, appeals to the US government to bring to book the suspect, citing Munyenyenzi’s case as a recent example.
Beatrice Munyenyenzi arrived in Rwanda on April 16, following a 10-year sentence by a US court related to immigration fraud.
During her conviction in 2013, the US court ruled that she had lied about her role in the 1994 Genocide during the time she was processing her papers to allow her to stay in the United States.
A couple of other Genocide perpetrators have also been deported to Rwanda through the same means after they are found to have lied during the processing of citizenship of the US.