French soldiers moved in tinted jeeps to disguise presence

Date: 12th-December 2006

After the 1993 Arusha Accords had been signed, among other elements requiring French soldiers to leave Rwanda, some remained and often moved in tinted jeeps around Kigali to avoid being noticed, a former body guard to the head of the Interahamwe militia in Kigali has just told the Mucyo Commission.
Dushimimana Jean-Batiste (witness III) said the disguised French officers often attended meetings of the "Akazu" (insiders of the Habyarimana system) and supervised their colleagues (French too) who manned roadblocks where "Tutsis and RPF collaborators" were sorted out - later to disappear.

The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) won concession from their belligerents at Arusha - Tanzania (Habyarimana) that all French soldiers had to leave Rwanda, as they had been seen as obstacles to the peace process. France had also previously embarrassed an RPF senior delegation head by Paul Kagame in Paris around 1992.
According to Dushimimana, who was an "MRND cadre because his family was too", said he was part of the first youths recruited to become Interahamwe militias by Twahirwa Sarafin (who later became his boss) - trained by the French in Kabuga’s multi-storied building in Kigali. Kabuga Félicien is considered to be the Genocide financer - now on the run with a US $5m bounty on his head.
"We (interahamwe) were trained in Kabuga house - then Techno-serve building near Muhima then later Night club compound - then General Ntindirimana house (Kimihurura) and finally we were taken to Gabiro", the slow speaking but confident Dushimimana said.

"They kept on moving us from place to place because the planners who also included French officers did not want the plan of preparing for war by training civilians to be found out by other political parties", he explained.

According to the Habyarimana insider, the French military personnel hatched the plan of training a militia that would protect senior ruling Mouvement Revolutionaire Nationale pour le Dévéloppement (MRND) party members and close Habyarimana relatives.
Put to task to explain how he could have known such information, Dushimimana who became Captain in Interahamwe militia, said he was the driver and bodyguard to Twahirwa Sarafin and that sometimes Twahirwa confided him with some of such sensitive information.

Explaining at length how the French trained them (interahamwe) in the various places they were transferred, Dushimimana said they were given military drills, hate ideology, food rations and clothing by the French soldiers at the Gabiro training site. The interahamwe wore flowered clothing with MRND colours.
To the amazement of the small audience, the former militia also said French President François Mitterrand and Habyarimana had a cocaine plantation established in Nyungwe forest ( Western Province). Rumours have had it that french soldiers left with cocaine from the vast Nyungwe forest but nobody had come out to speak with likely authority as witness III.

"Infact as we were retreating towards Cyangungu (Western province) out of pressure from the advancing RPF, the french soldiers passed through Nyungwe and harvested the cocaine, loaded it into helicopters - but we later heard that they took it to Central Africa", the former killer narrated with seeming authority.
France had a military contingent in Central African Republic for most of the conflict in Rwanda and that is where it is believed most of the soldiers retreated, often making incursion into Rwanda.
Former head of Intelligence - now Senator Iyamuremye Augustin was also queried about the cocaine but declined to say anything tangible - instead answering - he just heard it as "rumours".

According to Dushimimana, french soldiers were also in Cyangugu along with the retreating genocidal government of Jean Kambanda but were later forced to cross over to Zaire (D R Congo). Apparently, roadblocks to sort out "Tutsis and RPF collaborators" continued in Cyangugu - and victims were dumped into Lake Kivu using french helicopters.
Based on his position in the militia hierarchy, Dushimimana also confirmed the long existing but vague information that killed roadblock victims were also dumped from air into Nyungwe forest using french helicopters.

Queried by commissioners on how the Interahamwe were recruited and which other people were at Gabiro for training, the seemingly knowledgeable former militia about the events of the time, stunned the audience by saying "you know in Rwanda there were 3 tribes - Hutu- Tutsi and Twa - but they only wanted MRND Hutus"
Queried on who the "Akazu" were - because he kept on using the word over and over, Dushimimana outlined them as Bikindi Simeon (ICTR detainee - musician) - Zigiranyirazo Protais (ICTR and brother to Agathe Habyarimana) -Twahirwa Sarafin (Habyarimana brother) and one - Joseph.

Information available in Rwanda indicates that the Akazu are the brains or inner-circles behind the Genocide and the conflict that raged on in Rwanda. Most included First Family (Habyarimana) close relatives and most senior MRND insiders.
On war end, as Dushimimana explained - the militia and ex-FAR soldiers were aided by the French to flee into Zaire along with civilians and later given arms and encouraged to regroup for an offensive on Rwanda. In Zaire camps, civilians were kept in Mugunga camp (30 away from Goma) and the interahamwe together with government forces (ex-FAR) were grouped at Lac vert for more training by the french.
What is clear, the evidence given earlier on by witness II - Kaburame Jean Damascène - a former corporal with the ex-FAR and Dushimimana’s - seem to correlate, except that the former sounded illiterate and did not have a lot to narrate - apart from situations in which he was involved.

Kaburame Jean Damascène who was attached to the 2nd battalion in Muvumba (eastern province) told the commission that French soldiers erected roadblocks at Ngarama centre (eastern province) at which "Tutsis and RPF collaborators" were put in tracks - escorted by french on jeeps towards Nyagatare (further east). He however could not explain where the victims were headed.

Another element noted is that France has maintained that all its forces left Rwanda after the Arusha Accords required so and that there was no french military support in the planning and executions of the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda.
Former head of Rwanda department with the notorious French Ministry of foreign affairs - Ms. Natalie Loiseau (now french diplomat in Washington) said recently that there were "only 24" french officers left in Rwanda to man the France-Rwanda military cooperation directorate.

The Mucyo will from today till December 19 hear up to 5 witnesses everyday who have been referred to as the "factual witnesses" because of their direct connection with the events that could have involved French officials. Some are expected to include Genocide victims and the killers themselves. For the first phase - were "contextual witnesses" who mainly included former government officials.