Rwanda exile details allegations against Darfur force general

August 30, 2007 (BRUSSELS) — A Rwandan exile group detailed its charges on Thursday against a Rwandan general nominated to help lead a Darfur peacekeeping force, saying he massacred civilians and killed political enemies.

The African Union approved Maj. General Karenzi Karake for the post of deputy commander for the United Nations-AU peacekeeping force in Darfur but the United Nations has not yet confirmed it.

The United Nations has asked international human rights groups to submit any information they have on Karake to discover whether there is any basis to allegations made by the Brussels-based Unified Democratic Forces earlier this month that he was involved in crimes against civilians.

Karake has repeatedly refused to comment on the allegations. Rwanda has said his UN-AU appointment was well-deserved and that accusations against him were fabrications by exiled government critics aimed in part at tarnishing Rwanda’s image.

Jean-Baptiste Mbera Bahizi, secretary-general of the Unified Democratic Forces, on Thursday stuck by the allegations and detailed them.

Mbera’s group, which he says is comprised of Rwandan socialists and social democrats, accuses Karake of supervising extra-judicial killings of civilians before and after Tutsi-led rebels took power following Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

He said Karake helped trigger the genocide itself with the assassination of opposition leaders in 1993 and 1994.

“He made sure there was no strong opposition and made possible the genocide … His aim was to provoke tensions between Hutus in the south and Hutus in the north of Rwanda,” Mbera said in a telephone interview.

The Unified Democratic Forces also accused Karake and his troops of massacres in central Rwanda in 1994, and in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and near the Congo border from 1996 to 2000.

“He’s certainly not the man to be leading such a force (in Darfur) and to have the Rwandan army on a mission of peace is tragic. It’s immoral and illogical,” Mbera said.

The Rwandan Foreign Ministry last week lambasted Mbera’s group as “an amalgamation of extremist fugitives known for their genocide ideology and hostility against the Government”.

The Unified Democratic Forces is one of many Rwandan exile groups. Mbera said it has members across the world, but that could not be independently verified.

Mbera, whose father is a Hutu and mother a Tutsi, said his group’s members had played no part in genocide that saw 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed by Hutu extremists.

Mbera said a number of witnesses tie Karake to two political assassinations in May 1993 and February 1994 but they are afraid of testifying.

“If they can be protected there would be witnesses at a trial and I don’t mean one or two, but many,” Mbera said.

The hybrid AU-UN operation in Sudan, which Karake is expected to help lead, aims to protect civilians in Darfur, where more than 2.5 million people have fled their homes and an estimated 200,000 have died in the past four years.

Rwanda fields some 2,000 of 7,000 AU troops now in Darfur, and is proud of its peacekeeping role, but the controversy has reignited tensions 13 years Rwanda’s 100 day genocide.

(Reuters)