The true face of the RPF, Kagame’s “Army Without Borders”
This article, commented on by DESC and initially published on August 27, 2014, is a new update of the review of the book entitled Rwanda Vingt ans de pouvoir du FPR Quel Bilan ? by Gaspard Musabyimana and Emmanuel Neretse, published by Editions Scribe (Brussels) in March 2014. A book which describes the barbaric methods of the regime of Paul Kagame in Rwanda.
Huge sums are spent to look after the image of the country and put a coat of varnish on the many packages committed by the RPF and its security services. It succeeds and the biggest media agencies keep praising his economic prowess while the population is starving or vegetating in the most abject misery.
The year 2014 therefore marks the twentieth anniversary of the takeover of power in Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). For this year, the monoethnic regime in Rwanda intends to punctuate this anniversary year of victory celebrations but also presentations of results in all areas and all presented as largely positive. The international media approached by the powerful lobbies who supported the rebellion and later the RPF regime will accompany and amplify this campaign.
The authors also draw up a very critical assessment of the twenty years of the dictatorial power of the RPF. They reveal or recall the unknown or hidden aspects of the regime installed in Kigali in July 1994.
An Army without Borders
To conquer (that is to say, to take, occupy and administer a territory by arms) Rwanda in 1994 and in the process the great Zaire in 1997, rebels from the Ugandan army have benefited from operational material support from certain superpowers of the world, (the United States of America: See our book Les Armées au Congo-Kinshasa. Radioscopie de la Force publique aux FARDC).
During this time, they became a gigantic army, the size of which could not be covered by tiny Rwanda. The only solution to maintain it was then to make it an “Army Without Borders ” whose elements must be deployed in the region willingly (peacekeeping operations) or by force in the form of rebellion in the DRC (AFDL, RCD-Goma, CNDP, M23, and certain Mai-Mai movements such as the Pareco, etc.). This is how Paul Kagame’s army is deployed everywhere in Africa, supposedly to keep the peace (also read: Boniface Musavuli, RD Congo : Un pays encerclé militairement ? [1]), either as rebellions against regimes to be defeated. All the neighboring countries of Rwanda and Tanzania first, worry, moreover, this state of affairs and have also started to run as the gendarme of the region, which until now was the prerogative of Paul Kagame alone. This results in diplomatic tension from which Rwanda would come out the loser.
An Army against the people
Far from being a national army, the APR, which has since become RDF (Rwanda Defense Force), is an army in the service of Paul Kagame and the RPF. It does not have the vocation of being a national army because the fact of making it a patriotic army automatically links it to a political formation among many others. This fact automatically takes away from this army the quality of national and sovereign, to make it only an unscrupulous and bluntly killing machine. (In the book Les armées au Congo-Kinshasa, we define in detail and illustrate the concepts of republican army and national army). Whether in Uganda, Rwanda or the DRC, the Inkotanyi (pseudonym attributed to the soldiers of Kagame called by Charles Onana from ‘Tutsi killers‘) have shown themselves in their atrocious ways of eliminating their victims.
For the APR, killing a Hutu is not punishable because the act is banal. To make the suffering last, the Inkotanyi used original methods, tested throughout their struggles in Mozambique and with the maquisard Museveni, who became president of Uganda in 1986, before releasing them in Rwanda.
Their favorite instruments of torture or massacre are: the “agafuni ” (old hoe with which one strikes the skull of the victim) and the ” akandooya ” ( method of torture with the hands and legs tied behind the back, the person dies by bursting after excruciating pain), removal of the sexual organs, until the toes or weakened limbs fall off by themselves. We are surprised to note the similarity with the massacres committed since October 2014 in Beni, in the DRC, or even with the photo relayed in particular by La Libre Belgique, very much like the Rwandan singer Kizito Mihigo, stretched out on the ground, losing his blood, hands tied behind the back [2].
Indeed, according to the testimonies collected by the authors of the book, the victims of the massacres of the RPA are for the most part people of one and the same ethnic group: the Hutu. There is no doubt about the targeted and systematic nature. Already in 1995, Robert Ménard , President of Reporters Without Borders, did not hesitate to assert that “if we are not dealing with a genocide rampant today in Rwanda, we are dealing with massacres of such magnitude, that it is impossible for the international community to say nothing… ”.
The APR is not content with killing : it also wishes to humiliate the victims, which it describes as Interhamwe, demonized nickname and applied indiscriminately to all Hutus to distinguish them from Tutsis without awakening in the conscience of Westerners the real existence of ethnic groups.
Inside the country, the populations are taken hostage and are regularly subjected to massacres by the APR soldiers… The most flagrant case inside the country was however the massacre of nearly 10,000 people in Kibeho, in April 1995.
The APR has always stood out with its Tutsi mono-ethnic coloring. The exceptions only arose when it was necessary to fallaciously show international opinion that the Army was Rwandan and not “Patriotic”.
The problem was more crucial during the invasion of the DRC. During the second invasion of this country with RCD-Goma in 1998, by Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian troops, the loss of life was such that the APR leaders were forced to integrate the Hutu into APR. Worse, they forced the prisoners to enlist in the APR.
The war in the DRC was presented as a survival reflex of a regime constantly threatened by raids by rebels and former elements of the FAR (Rwandan Armed Forces under Habyarimana). This argument, unfounded, border security that allows to occupy the DRC up to 150 km deep, can no longer abuse anyone, since the two Rwandan and Ugandan armies allied in the aggression of the DRC clashed and massacred by fighting over diamonds from Congolese mines. The looting of Congolese wealth by these neighboring states is only possible with a very significant military deployment (Editor’s note DESC: In particular through the joint Umoja-Wetu operation and the agreement of March 23, 2013, the work of concerted planning between Kagame and Kabila).
An enlarged monoethnic army
It should be recalled that the army of this country of 26,338 km2 (a little less vast than Belgium: 30,000 km2) with a population of around 10 million inhabitants was not built for the needs of defense this territory [unimportant (geo-strategic : not to access the sea, economically poor and pasture land, without mineral wealth …] stuck between the largest countries in all fields.
According to specialists, considering the number of generals in this army (a hundred after the appointments in 2013 )[3], the size of the Rwandan army would indeed exceed those of neighbouring countries, however, more extensive and more populated, such as the DRC (2,345,409 km2 and around 80 million inhabitants), Tanzania (945,087 km2 and around 30 million inhabitants) and Uganda (236,034 km2 and around 20 million inhabitants). The question is, what is the mission of this army in the region ?
The Rwandan army is also mono-ethnic. Almost all of the senior officers are of Tutsi ethnicity. The official press reports on the snacks that occurred on April 13, 2012. The observation is staggering: the number of generals continues to grow exponentially. Indeed, more than twenty new generals have just been appointed, adding to the fifty already counted in this category. Likewise, we are alarmed to note that no Hutu ethnic officer has been promoted, not even to the lower ranks (colonels, lieutenant-colonel, etc.). In the past, on the occasion of such river appointments, some Hutu officers were symbolically appointed and this was widely publicized in order to pass the pill. It now seems that the regime no longer needs this staging and now intends to fully assume the policy of excluding Hutus from the army command bodies.
The propagandists of the RPF regime and their Western lobbies are trying to evacuate this debate (as in the DRC with an abnormally high rate of Tutsis in the army and the security services, read DESC or our book which gives details overwhelming) but doing so, they shoot themselves in the foot! They hide behind an argument which leads them straight to identify them as they are: primary racists. They claim indeed that the appointments within the army of Kagame do not take into account the ethnic factor but that they are only based on the merits and the skills of the laureates. (We already heard also in the DRC, application laboratory by extension of the strategies designed by Kagame) among the kabilist laudators when they defend the two influential ethno-regional circles around Kabila in the security services: the Tutsis and the Katangese).
Thus in this syllogism, since the senior officers of the Rwandan army are almost all Tutsi, the conclusion to be drawn from the premises is that the Hutus are neither deserving nor competent to become senior officers.
DESC information: In this regard, we have received information according to which during the next deployments in the Congolese security services, Kabila will further increase the number of Tutsi (or allied) and Katangese officers in strategic positions in responsibility. It is rumors of discontent within the army, which are growing today, which prevent it from taking action. We will come back to this at the appropriate time. The rehabilitation of General Amisi Tango Four, former RCD-Goma officer with General Bisengimana (responsible for the massacres of Congolese soldiers in South Kivu) and other Tutsi officers formerly RCD-Goma and former CNDP who distinguished themselves in the massacres in Kasai and eastern DRC are already setting the tone.
Recurrent and flagrant violations of the sovereignty of the DRC
In 1996 and 1998 the RPF regime invaded the DRC. It occupied, through the RCD-Goma interposed, a large part of this country, including North and South Kivu. Paul Kagame justified this occupation for security reasons, “to prevent the Interhamwe and the ex-FAR from attacking Rwanda “. This excuse has been denied by several reports from the United Nations, Congolese civil society, ESCR, IPIS and hearings in the “Great Lakes Commission” of the Belgian Senate.
The peculiarity of this Rwandan presence in the DRC is to be accompanied by massacres, deportations of the civilian populations and rapes. The case of the Beni massacres which reveal the criminal DNA of the Rwandan regime is very eloquent.
The APR even creates fake Interhamwe to justify its presence in the Congo. Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman, after having traveled to the east of the DRC, noted: “the suspicion if not the certainty that the Rwandan soldiers are now injecting fake Interhamwe in South Kivu, in order to terrorize the population and force them to flee, in order also to use these attacks to justify the sustainability of the Rwandan presence in Kivu”[4].
Population grid
The RPF has established a security regime unprecedented in the recent history of Africa. It proceeded to a full mesh of the national territory: soldiers are scattered in small groups on the hills of the country . They are split into members of the local Defense , an armed militia responsible for supervising the population in groups of 10 households. Another militia, the “Intore“, was created to assist local defense agents in monitoring the population, not to mention the infiltration of civilian and military intelligence agents into many areas of national life. Rwandan citizens are therefore watched daily by these structures which do not allow them any freedom of movement. Even a simple person inhabitant must Register his host at the authorities on arrival in a town…
DMI: Directorate of Militay Intelligence, the formidable death squad of the Rwandan regime
A group of associations provides detailed information on this institution. For these associations, it is not an exaggeration to consider that the DMI, the secret police, has a lot in common with the Nazi Gestapo of the 1940s. Little is said about the DMI, but its effectiveness and its cruelty have not need advertising. The organization is so dreaded that one trembles at the mention of its name in the country. The joke of a journalist exiled in Belgium speaks volumes: “If you meet three men in Rwanda, you can be sure that among them there are two soldiers, a police officer and a member of the DMI “. This proves the omnipresence of this murderous institution. Well trained and very discreet, its units are operational everywhere. We find them in Rwanda, in the DRC (EMG FARDC, military regions, DEMIAP , civilian and military houses of the presidency, PNC, ANR…), in Kenya, in Tanzania, in most African countries, but also in Europe and America. Currently in 2020, the Rwandan special units deployed in the east of the DRC, with the authorization of President Tshisekedi, are mainly composed of elements of the DMI, informs us a source of Congolese military intelligence.
DMI Headquarters is located on the top of Kimihura Hill above the road to Kigali Airport. Anyone that brings the district general is certain not to get out alive (similar to the interrogation centers of the Gestapo).
There are many overwhelming accounts of his criminal activities. The DMI has specialized e in interrogations by which end all executions often performed by young recruits that strength and to prove their boldness. This is probably the fate that was reserved for the singer Kizito Mihigo. (Similar practices have also been recorded in the DRC where, in one of the dungeons of the ANR, formerly headed by Kalev, there was a bloodthirsty young boy, a member of the death squad, called “Satan “). DMI’s officers circulate regularly in the West, to silence the voices protest against Kagame regime and Belgium would be its nest.
LDF: Local Defense Force, the local political police
The commune in Rwanda has become the bastion par excellence of political insecurity. In the country of Kagame, each commune is crisscrossed by the abakada (cadres), the LDF and the Communal Police. Most of these militias came from RPF brigades that had infiltrated the country well before 1990. They had been trained militarily and ideologically to constitute a shock army during the RPF attack in 1994. They are at least 50,000 people armed by the authorities, dispersed in the population, not to mention other categories of civilians to whom the RPF distributed weapons after selective military training (students, businessmen and state agents).
To those who want to decipher the criminal system and modus operandi of the Kagame regime and its death squads in the DRC, DESC particularly recommends reading this exceptional book, richly documented with unpublished and poignant testimonies of leading actors.
An expanded review by Jean-Jacques Wondo Omanyundu
To acquire the book Rwanda Vingt ans de pouvoir du FPR Quel Bilan ? by Gaspard Musabyimana and Emmanuel Neretse, please contact Les Editions Scribe, Rue de la Colonne, 54/4 – 1080 Brussels: www.editions-scribes.com or info@editions-scribe.com.
Other additional information on the Rwandan regime can be found in our books:
Les Armées au Congo-Kinshasa. Radioscopie de la Force publique aux FARDC, Jean-Jacques Wondo, available at Amazon : https://www.amazon.fr/Arm%C3%A9es-Congo-Kinshasa-Radioscopie-Force-publique/dp/1086972538.
CONGO’S BENI MASSACRES: Fake Islamists, Rwandan Unending Occupation, Boniface Musavuli, at Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/CONGOS-BENI-MASSACRES-Islamists-Occupation/dp/1983214744.
Notes
[1] http://afridesk.org/rd-congo-un-pays-encercle-milititaire-boniface-musavuli/.
[2] https://afrique.lalibre.be/46914/rwanda-le-chanteur-kiz ito-mihigo-assassine-en-prison/
[3] Read also http://afridesk.org/flash-remue-menage-au-sein-de-larmee-rwandaise-kagame-limoge-le-chef-detat-major-des-rdf/.
