Global AfricaBy Abdul Tejan-Cole
Last Monday, 20 accused persons appeared before the High Court Specialised Chamber for International and Cross-Border Crimes in Kacyiru, a neighbourhood in Kigali, Rwanda. One accused person Paul Rusesabagina was absent. However, it was his case that garnered the most international attention. And it was his case that the court started with.
Justice Beatrice Mukamurenzi, who delivered the court's judgment, stated that based on the evidence presented, Paul Rusesabagina had the long-held ambition of removing President Paul Kagame through an armed struggle. The evidence she said showed that he contacted several people, mainly active militiamen in the region, seeking collaboration in launching an armed struggle against Rwanda. One of them was Lt Col Habiyaremye, an ex-Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) officer, who testified against Rusesabagina.
The court noted that evidence showed that Rusesabagina sent money via Western Union to Noel Habiyaremye. The court held that Callixte Nsabimana, aka Sankara, and Rusesabagina, co-founded the Mouvement Rwandais pour la Changement Démocratique (MRCD) coalition and its armed wing FLN and so shared equal responsibility in the atrocities that led to the death of at least nine people between 2018 and 2019 in south-western Rwanda. Although the prosecutors had sought a life sentence, they were sentenced to 20- and 25-year jail terms, respectively. Rusesabagina was cleared of charges of formation and the creation of an illegal armed group.
Rusesabagina was not in court for the verdict because he had withdrawn from the trial since March. He claimed that the proceedings were unfair and would not deliver justice. He also claimed he was denied unfettered access to his lawyers. The Rwandese authorities deported his leading attorney, Vincent Lurquin, a Belgian, for working in Rwanda without a work permit.
The United States backed Rusesabagina's condemnation of his trial. It expressed its concerns about the reported lack of fair trial guarantees, which it said calls into question the fairness of the verdict. Their statement further noted that "(W)e have consistently highlighted the importance of respect for all applicable legal protections throughout these proceedings and have raised concerns that these protections were not addressed in an impartial manner consistent with Rwanda's international commitments. We are concerned by the objections Mr. Rusesabagina raised related to his lack of confidential, unimpeded access to his lawyers and relevant case documents and his initial lack of access to counsel. We urge the Government of Rwanda to take steps to examine these shortcomings in Mr. Rusesabagina's case..."
The Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, the former colonial power, also said that the trial was not fair and equitable.
How he was brought to trial was highly questionable. Rusesabagina, who was once a Rwandese citizen, is said to have renounced his citizenship and taken up Belgian nationality. He was residing in San Antonio, Texas, USA. In August 2020, he was said to have left Chicago for Burundi via Dubai onboard an Emirates flight. Reports indicate that he stayed in a hotel in UAE for a few hours before boarding a Greece-based aviation company, Gainjet, flight at Al Maktoum airport, one of Dubai's two international airports. He was told he was going to Burundi on a speaking engagement, but he ended up in Rwanda, where he was arrested and charged.
Mr. Rusesabagina's family claim he was extrajudicially kidnapped. They promptly filed a case – Rusesabagina v. GainJet Aviation, 20-cv-1422, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas (San Antonio) - claiming that GainJet's pilot and co-pilot were responsible for their passengers' safety but did nothing when they saw his abductors bind his hands before the plane landed in Rwanda instead of Burundi. They accused Constantin Niyomwungere, a Rwandan secret service informant who tricked Rusesabagina into the fictitious speaking engagement with a church, of conspiring with GainJet and violating U.S. anti-terrorism laws.
Rwandese President Kagame has denied that Rusesabagina was kidnapped. He instead conceded that Rusesabagina had been tricked into flying to Kigali. However, in an interview on Aljazeera in February, then Justice Minister, now Rwanda's new ambassador to UK, Johnston Busingye, admitted that the Rwandan government had paid for the plane that transported Paul Rusesabagina from Dubai to Kigali. He insisted that they acted legally, noting that 'in international criminal law, luring people into places where they can be brought to justice has happened in many jurisdictions.'
This is not the first time that Rusesabagina has been embroiled in controversy. The 67-year-old former hotelier is credited to have saved the lives of many Tutsis during the 1994 genocide. As the then manager of Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, he sheltered hundreds of guests and saved the lives of more than 1,200 Tutsis holed up in the hotel from the murderous hands of the Interahamwe militia, a Hutu paramilitary organization that played a major role in the Rwandan genocide. His story was depicted in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda and the American actor Don Cheadle who played Rusesabagina was nominated for an Oscar.
In 2005, former US President George W. Bush awarded Rusesabagina the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the US. The University of Michigan awarded him the Wallenberg Medal, usually awarded to outstanding people who act on behalf of the defenceless and oppressed.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame was unimpressed. His allies have discredited the movie and charged that it "manufactured a hero" in the name of Paul Rusesabagina. The Rwandan government accuses Rusesabagina of using the hype generated by the Hollywood production for revisionist purposes, that is, denying the genocide.
In addition to Kagame, a few others challenged his account of the events. A book titled 'Hotel Rwanda: Or the Tutsi Genocide as seen by Hollywood,' co-authored by Alfred Ndahiro and Privat Rutazibwa, depicts Rusesabagina as an opportunist who 'milked the outpouring of sympathy for the genocide victims to tell lies about his role in the genocide.' Another book, 'Inside the Hotel Rwanda, The Surprising True Story... And Why it Matters Today,' by a Hotel des Mille Collines survivor, Edouard Kayihura, and journalist Kerry Zukus, describes Rusesabagina as a "fraud" and claims that Mr. Rusesabagina "did not single-handedly prevent the slaughter of more than 1,200 refugees at the Hotel des Mille Collines."
Many of these criticisms are levied by allies of Kagame. Alfred Ndahiro, for example, was a public relations advisor to Kagame. Indeed, Rusesabagina's problems started when he became disillusioned with the human rights violations in his home country. He went into exile in 1996 but remained committed to the liberation of his country of birth. He formed a political party, the Mouvement Rwandais pour le Changement Democratique and worked for change in his home country. In December 2018, Rusesabagina denounced Kagame's government in a video on YouTube and called for the "use [of] any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda as all political means have been tried and failed." In the video, he pledges "unreserved support" to the National Liberation Front (known by its French acronym FLN), the armed wing of the MRCD. Since 2018, the FLN has claimed responsibility for several attacks around Nyungwe forest, Southern Province, near the border with Burundi.
Although his co-defendants gave conflicting testimony about the level of Rusesabagina's involvement with the FLN, Kagame did not miss this opportunity to jail and silence a critic. Rusesabagina’s fate was sealed the moment Kagame said: "Rusesabagina heads a group of terrorists that have killed Rwandans. He will have to pay for these crimes. Rusesabagina has the blood of Rwandans on his hands." His conviction leaves many questions about his role and heroism, as well as the fairness of the Rwandanese justice system.
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Copyright © 2021 Politico Online (24/08/21)
