Uganda arrests Rwanda genocide suspect

Oct 06, 2009

THE Ugandan Police have arrested one of the four most wanted suspects from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, after he sneaked into the country by bus from the Democratic Republic of Congo last week. Nizeyimana is former Rwandan army captain

By Herbert Ssempogo

THE Ugandan Police have arrested one of the four most wanted suspects from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, after he sneaked into the country by bus from the Democratic Republic of Congo last week.

A former Rwandan army captain and senior intelligence officer, Nizeyimana is accused of organising the slaughter of Tutsi civilians in the southern province of Butare and ordering the murder of the former Queen of Rwanda.

He was captured on Monday from a motel in Rubaga, a Kampala suburb, by a joint team of Interpol Uganda and a tracking team of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha.

Nizeyimana was detained at Jinja Road Police station before being transferred to Arusha aboard a UN chartered flight yesterday.

The United States had offered a $5-million reward for his capture. The UN court issued an indictment against him in 2007, charging him with genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

The prosecutor accused Nizeyimana and others of preparing lists of Tutsi intellectuals who were handed to soldiers and militia to be killed.

Nizeyimana is also accused of setting up roadblocks where Tutsi civilians were slaughtered, and of providing weapons and transport to militia in the knowledge that they were being used for such attacks.

He is also alleged to have sent soldiers to the home of the former Queen of Rwanda, Rosalie Gicanda - a symbolic figure for all Tutsis - who executed her on his orders.

“Nizeyimana, through the chain of command, is alleged to have exercised authority over soldiers and personnel at the camp and was perceived as a member of the elite inner circle (Akazu) of the late President Habyarimana,” said a statement by the Rwanda tribunal in Arusha yesterday.

Following the indictment, Interpol, which is headquartered in Paris, issued a red notice which calls for a suspect’s arrest and extradition.

Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba yesterday said Interpol Uganda had been tracking him since he crossed the border at Bunagana on October 3.

“He used temporary travel documents to enter the country,” Nabakooba said, adding that he did not resist arrest.
To beat security, he reportedly used a pseudonym, Itamana Kamogo, and was trying to make his way to the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

"Although we were aware of his presence in Uganda for a couple of days now, we couldn't arrest him immediately before we could cross-check thoroughly to ensure he was the person we were looking for," Nabakooba said.

Rwanda's government said he had spent the 15 years since the genocide fighting for a Hutu rebel group in the forests of neighbouring Congo.

"In Kinyarwanda, his name would translate as 'I believe in God,' which unfortunately is not the case. He believes in death," said Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama.
"He was an agitator, a handler, the chief killer in Butare. The arrest of this man ... is a very big relief to survivors of the genocide."

In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed his capture and said it marked an important step forward in the fight against impunity in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region.

The Rwanda tribunal commended Uganda for its cooperation, saying such support was crucial to enable it do its work.

“This is the second time Uganda has cooperated with the tribunal in arresting an accused person,” the statement said.

“The tribunal has commended Interpol and the Ugandan authorities for their close cooperation. This level of cooperation is highly appreciated.”
Nizeyimana is the second to be arrested in the list of 13 fugitives in less than two months.

Gregoire Ndahimana, a local administrator in Rwanda during the genocide, was caught in August by Congolese troops during operations against Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).


Idelphonse Nizeyimana: The ‘butcher of Butare’

Captain Idelphonse Nizeyimana, who was arrested in Kampala on Monday morning, is one of the four most wanted suspects of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, that claimed over 800,000 lives.

The captain and intelligence officer in the former regime’s army is accused of having ordered the killing of Tutsi Queen, Rosalie Gicanda, on April 20, 1994.

His men also carried out the raids on Butare University, in which at least 600 Tutsi students were killed, and the raids on Butare Hospital where Tutsi patients were dragged from their beds and slaughtered, according to Human Rights Watch.

“At 11:00 am, a detachment of soldiers commanded by Lt. Pierre Bizimana, acting under the orders of Capt. Nizeyimana, invaded the modest home of Rosalie Gicanda,” said Human Rights Watch in its 1994 report ‘Leave none to tell the story’.

Gicanda was the widow of Mutara Rudahigwa, the ruler of Rwanda who died in 1959 just before the Hutu revolution that overthrew Tutsi rule. About 80 years old, she lived a quiet life as a devout Catholic sharing her home with her bed-ridden mother.

“Because she eschewed any involvement in politics and behaved with discreet dignity, even the most anti-Tutsi politicians had left her largely undisturbed throughout the 30 years of Hutu rule,” the report said.

When the killings in Butare began, the queen had trusted that the prefect and the mayor would look after their safety. According to testimony, she called on the mayor for protection but he replied that he could do nothing for her.

“The soldiers passed through the wooden enclosure that protected the house from the main street and entered the little house with its air of faded respectability. They seized the former queen and six others,” the report said.

“The soldiers then took Gicanda and the others to a place behind the national museum where they shot them. One teenaged girl, left for dead, survived to recount the murders. The soldiers returned to pillage Gicanda’s home in the afternoon and, two days later, they killed her mother.”

The news that the queen had been taken away by soldiers in the back of a pickup truck spread rapidly and alarmed Tutsi and all others who opposed the genocide. “They concluded that if soldiers dared to seize even this revered person, then no one was safe.”

Besides the horrendous killings at the university and the hospital in late April, Nizeyimana’s men were also involved in slaughtering targeted people from the intellectual and political elite of Butare, including Hutu believed to oppose the genocide.

Nizeyimana, according to Human Rights Watch, personally supervised the murder of his neighbour, deputy prosecutor Matabaro.

The rights group repeatedly pointed out that Nziyemana was a key figure in pushing the genocide agenda in Butare, taking charge of army operations after accusing his boss of sympathy with the Tutsi.
“The commanding officer for the Butare-Gikongoro operational zone during the worst of the killing was Lt. Col. Muvunyi,” the report noted.

“But military and civilian witnesses present in Butare at the time agree that it was not Muvunyi but rather his subordinates, Capt. Nizeyimana and Lt. Hategekimana, who aggressively pushed the genocide while accusing Muvunyi of being Tutsi himself and threatening him with death for his efforts to help Tutsi.”
The two had divided the tasks, with Nizeyimana taking care of exterminating the Tutsis in the central part of Butare town, including in the residential section of Buye.

“Soldiers had orders to take identity cards from those whom they killed. According to one witness, Nizeyimana regularly received these cards from his men as they reported on the progress of the killings,” Human Rights Watch wrote.

“They often appeared at his house shortly after a volley of gunfire was heard and handed the cards to the captain with the report: Mission accomplished. In the captain’s absence, his wife received the cards.”


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