General Bosco Ntaganda to be Charged With Involvement in 1995 Kibeho Massacre of Rwandan Hutu Civilians
Photo: Children Massacred in Kibeho by Rwandan Patriotic Front
General Bosco Ntaganda was transferred to the ICC after spending days hauled within the compound of the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda. He had surrendered to the US Embassy on Monday March 18, 2013, fleeing for his life, when he found out that Rwandan Military Intelligence operatives were after him (see our March 19, 2013 article: General Bosco Ntaganda Evades Rwandan DMI Killing Squad).
Preparing for the Defense of Imprescriptible Crimes
Since his transfer to the Hague, General Bosco Ntaganda has been preparing for his defense with the help of select lawyers. Before his surrender, his case was built around the crimes he allegedly committed in Eastern and North Eastern DRC. Meanwhile, the prosecution has decided to expand the charges to all imprescriptible crimes committed in Rwanda and elsewhere. Among the imprescriptible crimes identified by the Prosecution, accusations of which cannot lapse with time, were the massacre of internally displaced Rwandan refugees in Kibeho on April 22, 1995.
The Kibeho Massacre: A Scourge of The Rwandan Patriotic Army on Rwandan People.
The Kibeho massacre occurred in a camp for internally displaced persons(IDP) near Kibeho, in Southern Rwanda on April 22, 1995, 18 years ago this week, under the helpless watch of Australian blue helmets serving as part of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). UNAMIR estimated that at least 4,000 people, mostly children in the camp were killed by soldiers of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), known as Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), now transformed into Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF). The Commander of the troops who conducted the massacres was General, then Colonel, Fred Ibingira, the current Chief of Staff of Rwandan Defense Forces Reserve Forces. Then Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu rushed to tell the World that only 330 civilians had been massacred.
According to Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) doctors and MINUAR troops that witnessed the massacres, around 10 am, the civilians gathered in a hospital compound in Kibeho under heavy rain. RPA forces who had surrounded the compound began firing into the crowd in the hospital compound and at fleeing refugees for the next two hours. The RPA soldiers initially used automatic weapons to fire into the masses that included mostly children, women, and the elderly. The, the RPA troops switched to 60mm mortars, grenades, and other weapons of mass destruction.
General Bosco Ntaganda Participated in the Massacre
According to sources within Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) and who were also members of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) at the time, General Bosco Ntaganda, then a low ranking officer, was among the troops that led the massacre of the civilians under the command of Colonel Fred Ibingira. For that reason, the ICC prosecutor has decided to add these crimes to General Bosco Ntaganda's long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
General Bosco Ntaganda's line of Defense: "We were given orders"
According to sources close to General Bosco Ntaganda's relatives, General Ntaganda's line of defense will be that the troops were given the orders to shoot at the refugees. The sources add that the orders came from the top of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) and ultimately General Paul Kagame himself.
Other sources in contact with General Ntaganda confirmed the new accusations by the ICC Prosecutor and the defense strategy. According to the sources, "General Ntaganda, was a low ranking soldier. His unit was ordered to shoot at the Rwandan ex-FAR and found out that they were really civilians afterwards. Maybe Colonel Ibingira knew it. But the orders come from well above him. At least that is what he told his unit."
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