A key contributor to the genocide in Rwanda has been arrested. The businessman kept escaping his investigators. Relatives of the victims of the genocide hope for clarification and justice.
Kigali / Johannesburg / Paris (dpa) - More than a quarter of a century after the genocide in Rwanda in East Africa, a wire-puller for the mass murders has been arrested.
The 84-year-old Félicien Kabuga had then built up the Interahamwe militia, which was responsible for a large part of the murders of at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutu in 1994. The Hutu make up the majority of the population in Rwanda, the Tutsi are in the minority. Kabuga was also responsible for the radio and TV station RTLM, which was involved in the genocide and had openly called for the murder of Tutsi.
The judicial authorities in Rwanda's capital Kigali welcomed the arrest in Paris previously announced by the French authorities. According to them, the arrest took place on Saturday morning. The gendarmerie said that Kabuga had lived under false identity in an apartment in Asnières-sur-Seine in the north of the French capital. His children were accomplices, the message said. The arrest has now cleared the way for legal proceedings in Paris. In the end, France would have to hand Kabuga to the criminal court in The Hague.
This was preceded by an international search operation, in which Belgian and British investigators were also involved. On his long flight from the judicial authorities, Kabuga was said to have been in Germany, Belgium, Kenya, Switzerland and the Congo. Despite a five million dollar reward, he had always managed to get away from the investigators.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the arrest a strong signal that criminals can be held accountable for decades.
The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) also spoke of a "milestone in dealing with the genocide in Rwanda". GfbV director Ulrich Delius said: "It is shameful that it took 26 years to find one of the most important backers of the genocide in Rwanda." It was important for the relatives of the victims of the genocide that Kabuga was still held accountable despite his old age.
Kabuga also headed a national defense fund that raised funds to finance the notorious Interahamwe militia. He is also said to have imported large quantities of machetes with which massacres were later committed. According to experts, his strong influence would have enabled him to prevent the massacres.
Jean Damascene Bizimana, head of Rwanda's Commission to Combat Genocide Ideologies, said he also used his prosperity to evade the judiciary. However, the former Attorney General Martin Ngoga also raised the question of who made his decades of successful escape possible.
The genocide has long marred relations between France and Rwanda. President Paul Kagame had accused Paris of involvement in the genocide and escape aid for the masterminds. In the previous year, French President Emmanuel Macron had therefore announced the convening of an expert commission in order to search the state archives for relevant information.
In 1994 representatives of the Hutu majority in Rwanda had killed around 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutu. The massacre only ended after around 100 days when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), founded in Tutsi in exile, with today's President Paul Kagame, headed in from Uganda. The landlocked country of Rwanda was part of the German East Africa colony until the First World War. Around 26 years after the genocide, many of those involved still live freely in Germany and other countries. Again and again they have to answer before courts.
Commission communication against genocide
Homepage Society for Threatened Peoples
Notification gendarmerie
