Genocidaire who provided petrol to burn Tutsi alive has links with Victoire Ingabire

Dutch police on May 11 arrested a 65-year-old former Rwandan army officer who was living in a town of about 30,000 people called Ermelo, in central Netherlands.

Born in 1955 in Kiyonza, Mugina, Gitarama to Ntawemvura and Genereuse Nyirabujogori, Maj. Pierre-Claver Karangwa, is a wanted genocide fugitive. Mugina Parish is located in Mbati Cell, Mugina Sector, Kamonyi District.

After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, he and some others, fled to the north-western Europe country known for a flat landscape of canals, tulip fields, windmills, cycling routes, and being a safe haven for genocide fugitives and virulent genocide deniers including Charles Ndereyehe Ntahontuye, the former Director General of ISAR-Rubona.

Before undertaking military studies at ESM, in Kigali, Karangwa attended primary school located near Mugina Catholic Parish and Secondary at Junior Seminar in Kabgayi. Later in military life, he headed the Bureau de Gendarmerie until the end of 1993, when he became liaison officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 872 on October 5, 1993, following the Arusha Accords signed on August 4, 1993.

In April 1994, Karangwa became a special envoy of the chef d’etat major. He later worked as a defense investigator for Gen. Augustin Ndindiriyimana, the Rwandan genocidal regime’s Minister of Internal Security, who was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the first international court of law established to prosecute high-ranking individuals for massive human rights violations in Africa. Karangwa was removed as defense investigator after discovering he was also under investigation for involvement in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Rights groups African Rights and Redress published a dossier on Karangwa’s role in the massacres of Mugina and sent the dossier to Dutch Authorities where he is a citizen for examining the allegations.

For so long, however, nothing was done to apprehend him until the tide changed recently.

In the past, Rwanda’s local Gacaca courts sentenced him in absentia to life imprisonment sentence over the massacres of 20,000 Tutsi in Mugina parish, Southern Province, where he is also accused of having killed a local official who was trying to foil his campaign of exterminating the Tutsi. Karangwa, witnesses say, was also involved in the murder of the mayor of Mugina, Callixte Ndagijimana, who was trying to protect the Tutsi in the area.

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, many Tutsi from Bugesera, Kigali City, Kigali Ngari, and from the communes which surrounded Mugina Commune had taken refuge at Mugina Parish. They were so many and hence they thought they would defend themselves when the attacks would come. Those who had taken refuge at Mugina Parish tried to fight the attacks with the support of Mugina Bourgmestre called Callixte Ndagijimana who did not support the killing of Tutsi. Ndangijimana had agreed to pay selected Hutu, Tutsi youth as well as police officers if they would continue to fight and repel the killers’ attacks which were coming from Mbati, Mukinga, Jenda and elsewhere.

The former area Bourgoumestre, a massmurderer called Onesphore Ngiruwonsanga, alias Gitaro, held a meeting and ordered to cut off all water pipes saying that they cannot kill snakes without starving them. The kilers then sealed off all pathways using roadblocks and had many dogs around to hunt any Tutsi who would go out of hiding looking for food. Many Tutsi refugees starved to death.

Attacks led by Ngiruwonsanga and a businessman called Kanyanzira were persistent.

The killers decided to kill Ndagijimana first. He was eventually killed in Ntongwe. Afterwards, the killers called upon the Burundian refugees who lived at Nyagahama, Kinazi to come and help them in their killing spree. About 14 trucks full of armed soldiers, Interahamwe, as well as attacks from Kabugondo, Ngoma, Runda and elsewhere converged at the Parish. On April 24, 1994, there was a big massacre of the Tutsi. The Tutsi who had taken refuge there thought they were safe in the local church but the marauding Interahamwe militia ordered them to get out. Karangwa who was then the head of National Gendarmery Investigation Service ordered for the Tutsi to be killed on spot. The Interahamwe then took them into the nearby house of a Tutsi called Moko and others were put in the toilet pit alive.

It is Karangwa who provided petrol to burn them in the house. Those in the toiled pit were also burnt alive, on Karangwa’s orders.

From April 25, 1994, the killing started to intensify but they exterminated most Tutsi on April 26, 1994.

Those who had fled to the parish were killed using guns, grenades, machetes, sharp sticks, and stones. Some of the key perpetrators include Karangwa, Ngiruwonsanga Onesphore, Kanyanzira.

In the Netherlands, Karangwa’s wife is the Vice President of Contact, Dialogues and actions caritatives (CODAC).

Self-styled Rwandan politician Victoire Ingabire – a staunch denier of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi – is a founding member of many associations and foundations including CODAC which purportedly seeks to give moral, legal advice and material support to 'the survivors' of the Great Lakes region in the Netherlands or in their region.

CODAC was one of the major funders of FDU-Inkingi, an outfit that claimed to work for the installation of rule of law, respect of democracy and good governance, in Rwanda. FDU-Inkingi, however, collaborated with terrorist groups such as the DRC-based FDLR that comprises remnants of the mass murderers who carried out the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Later, when Ingabire sensed that the true colours of FDU-Inkingi were no longer secret she pretended to resign from its leadership and created another phoney political party called Dalfa-Umurinzi.

Karangwa was in charge of security and documentation (intelligence) in FDU-Inkingi, before the post was removed from their organization structure.

Until his arrest, he was operating clandestinely because he is wanted for genocide crimes.