Global Research

From Ambassador Jean-Marie NDAGIJIMANA, former Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister

To:

– Tony Hall, Director-General

– Sam Bagnall, Executive Producer, This World, BBC

Dear Sir,

Let me begin by introducing myself.  My name is Jean-Marie Ndagijimana. I am a lawyer, and a human rights activist. I come from mixed ethnicity, Hutu and Tutsi; my mother is a Tutsi and my father a Hutu. During the Tutsi genocide, I lost several members of my tutsi family killed by the Hutu militias and after Paul Kagame took power, several members of my hutu family were massacred by the RPF Tutsi rebels in Rwanda and Zaïre, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Before 1994, I served as Rwandan Ambassador in Addis-Ababa from January 1986 to October 1990, and in Paris from October 1990 to April 1994. I fell apart with the interim government formed at the beginning of the genocide.  I joined the first government of national unity established after the genocide where I served as foreign affairs minister from July 1994 to October 1994. I resigned and forced to go into exile in October1994 after I denounced and condemned the massacres of thousands of innocent Hutus committed by the new national army, namely the RPA/RPF. I am now the Spokesman of the Committee for Unity, Peace and Reconciliation in Rwanda (Inteko y’ubwiyunge mu Rwanda). I live in France.

My stance on the genocide of 1994 is as follows. Yes, some Hutus committed acts of genocide against their Tutsi neighbours, there was certainly genocide against the Tutsis between April and July 1994. I spoke out publicly on that matter in the middle of April 1994 when many of those who today pretend to be defending my fellow Rwandans, murdered Tutsi and Hutu. However, all the Hutus did not participate in the massacre of the Tutsis, nor are the Hutus a genocidal people as some people seem to assert. That is confirmed by intelligence reports.

On the other hand, Hutus were victims of mass killings which could be described as genocide, though it has not as yet been recognized by the International Community. Thousands of Hutus were selectively and systematically massacred by extremist Tutsis of the RPF from October 1990 to 1994.  Many more were massacred after April 1994. My position is that Kagame’s RPF committed acts of genocide against Hutus in the areas they controlled during the war 1990-94. The ethnic cleansing of the Hutus was carried out after Paul Kagame took power in Rwanda and reached its climax in the forests of Zaire when about 400,000 Hutu refugees were killed by RPF between 1996 and 1998. The evidence abounds. The testimony of many RPF soldiers directly implicated in these massacres sends chills up your back. Investigative reports by international judges and human rights organizations have been published on that subject (Mapping Report), but without budging anything. Everything happened as if the brutality, the cruelty and the bestiality of the genocide of Tutsis hunted down and slaughtered like animals in front of TV cameras anesthetized the global consciousness that no longer wants to hear about Rwanda and millions of the dead. Out of sight, out of mind!

“After all,” some say, “the massacres committed by the RPF were aimed only at the majority of the country.” The reason, “The Hutus were numerous enough to survive genocide.”

As one of the specialists of the Great Lakes and Rwanda in particular, I participated in several conferences on the Rwandan genocide, the recently took place in The Hague from June 1 to 3, 2014 to consider the failure of the international community to prevent or effectively respond to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and to explore whether and how the tragedy might have been averted.

I do confirm that at that conference, various responsibilities of Paul Kagame and the RPA in the genocide were recognized and underlined by many eye witnesses, including the former UNAMIR commander who was in Kigali during the Tutsi genocide.

At that conference, I exposed my point of view on that matter, and made it clear that Paul Kagame/RPF/RPA sacrificed the Tutsi on one hand, and committed genocide against the Hutu on the other hand. I expected the rwandan government’s delegation at the conference, to react, but they never contradicted me on that matter.

On my part, I wrote a book How Paul Kagame sacrificed Tutsi, in which I testify the responsibilities of the Rwanda Patriotic Front. I take this opportunity to send you confidentially the file of the manuscript of my book proving that the contents of the documentary “Rwanda’s untold story” are just a drop in the ocean, taking into account that one cannot tell, in one hour, all the crimes committed by Paul Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front.

I do congratulate the BBC for its impartiality and the professionalism in that documentary. Those who try to frighten the BBC by spreading and broadcasting motions and public protests against the documentary “Rwanda’s untold story” are fighting a rear-guard to mask the truth and protect Paul Kagame and his accomplices.

I have attached here with the complete file of my book.

Hoping that this communication will help you understand better the complex history of the Rwandan genocide.

Yours sincerely,

Ambassador Jean-Marie NDAGIJIMANA

Spokesman of the Committee for Unity, Peace and Reconciliation in Rwanda (CUPR)

http://www.inteko-y-ubwiyunge.org/