As Rwanda commemorates for the 29^th time the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, survivors still wait for justice from the UK that has become a safe haven for genocide masterminds.

 

Currently, at least five masterminds of the Genocide against the Tutsi enjoy protection from the United Kingdom, despite efforts by the Rwandan judiciary to bring them to book.

 

The Genocide exposed some of the ugliest realities of the world we live in and the real standards of some of the countries, especially those that claim to be the custodians of human rights, and who have taken it upon themselves to police other countries, like the UK often does.

 

Interestingly, these powerful countries swiftly become ‘toothless’ when it comes to holding to account members of Rwanda’s former genocidal regime.

 

The UK’s unwillingness to intervene when it was needed the most is a reality that Rwandans will hardly forget. However, the current incapacity to act against the genocide fugitives who live freely in the UK is unconceivable.

 

How did they land in the UK with hands dripping blood? How do they manage to live untouched despite calls by genocide survivors to have them in courts of law for the crimes they committed? What an inconsistency to human rights values and advocacy that the UK tends to demand from other countries?

 

Well, only the UK knows why it still houses these characters.

 

Below are five men who continue to enjoy their freedom in the UK while survivors of their atrocities wallow in grief.

 

Charles Munyaneza

 

The 65-year-old lives in Bedford, UK. He is a former Rwandan mayor accused of commanding Interahamwe militia to kill thousands of the Tutsi in Commune Kinyamakara, currently Huye District, which he led. He worked closely with a notorious military Colonel, Aloys Simba, in exterminating the Tutsi.

 

At the ICTR trial in Arusha, Tanzania, evidence was heard that Munyaneza acted ‘in concert’ with Simba during actions against the Tutsi, handing out weapons and assisting in training the militia.

 

Munyaneza is closely linked to mass killings at ISAR/Songa – a large agricultural research station in neighboring Huye town. He brought Interahamwe militia from his commune to back up local Hutu and security forces in killing 8,000 Tutsi who had sought refuge at the centre.

 

Celestin Ugirashebuja,

 

The 70-year old’s current known address is Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. He is the former mayor of Kigoma which, like Kinyamakara, was located in the former Gikongoro prefecture, currently in southern Rwanda.

 

During the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, he worked with members of staff at his commune and gendarmes (police) to kill the Tutsi who lived in the local vicinity. He addressed several meetings in which he incited the Hutu community to stand guard at roadblocks where killings often took place and to expedite the extermination of the Tutsi in the area.

 

During the months of April – July 1994, Ugirashebuja, convened a meeting of local leaders in his commune and instructed them to set up roadblocks and bring any ‘inyenzi’ (literally ‘cockroaches’ as the Tutsi were called) to him.

 

The police officers who were under his direct command played an important part in the massacres, as he regularly inspected roadblocks to establish how many Tutsi had been killed.

 

Emmanuel Nteziryayo

 

He lives in Wythenshawe, South Manchester.

 

Nteziryayo, 69, in 1994 was the mayor of Mudasomwa, which was also in Gikongoro prefecture in the south of Rwanda.

 

He is said to have worked with Interahamwe militia, leading them in the massacre of thousands of Tutsi, especially at the infamous Murambi massacre where tens of thousands were killed at a local technical school.

 

Murambi remains one of the major killing grounds of Tutsi during the Genocide in which over a million people were killed. At the local technical school alone, at least 50,000 Tutsi were exterminated.

 

Celestin Mutabaruka

 

This génocidaires lives in Ashford, Kent.

 

The 67-year-old was working as the director of a state forestry project in Rwanda in 1994. He is linked to the killings of Tutsi refugees at Gatare in April, and in May he led Interahamwe militia to the hills of Bisesero where operations against Tutsi who had fled to the hills were taking place.

 

Around 40,000 Tutsi died at Bisesero, which is located in western Rwanda.

 

Vincent Bajinya (alias Vincent Brown)

 

The 71-year-old lives in Islington, London. He trained as a medical doctor and also worked with the state population control agency, then called ONAPO. In 1994, Bajinya commanded Interahamwe militia at roadblocks near his house in Kigali, and in north west Rwanda, where the Tutsi were stopped, and hacked to death.

 

What is the UK waiting for?

 

With such tangible facts pinning the five génocidaires who live in the UK, several questions that Rwandans have failed to answer for decades remain; for how long will the UK protect these fugitives?

 

 What are the UK’s interests in keeping these five genocide suspects unchecked?

How does the UK justify its decades-long indifference on the Genocide against the Tutsi and its double standard on human rights and justice?

 

Well, Rwandans being unable to answer these questions, the one thing they have come to understand is that, the so-called universal human rights advocates and self-proclaimed custodians of human rights like the UK are the very ones that failed miserably to walk the talk in the face of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

 

The United Kingdom can choose to keep being a safe haven to the genocide suspects.

 

But it should never have the moral authority to point a finger at any country over human rights issues.