For the past three decades, the New-York-based so-called rights group, Human Rights Watch (HRW), has endlessly propagated a poisonous agenda against the RPF-led government of Rwanda.

What HRW actually does is not human rights advocacy but political advocacy which has become profoundly unscrupulous in both its means and ends, as exposed by Richard Johnson, a retired US diplomat, in a paper titled: “The Travesty of Human Rights on Rwanda,” published in March 2013.

You can find Johnson’s entire paper here.

The HRW travesty, Johnson cautioned, has dangerous implications for Western policy toward Rwanda and for the overall credibility of Western human rights advocacy.

HRW’s discourse on Rwanda over the years, he noted, has been viscerally hostile to the RPF which defeated the genocidal Hutu Power regime, in 1994, and systematically biased in favour of letting unrepentant Hutu Power political forces and genocide ideologues back into Rwandan political life.

In the guise of human rights work, HRW has unilaterally mounted a relentless campaign against Kigali.

At the Rwandan government's throat again, this time, the New York-based group which claims to defend the rights of people in 100 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice, has a new plot.

Currently on the table is a new report titled, “Rwanda’s transnational repression,” a continuation of its unrelenting recycled anti-Rwanda conspiracy.

The Great Lakes Eye’s investigative desk has credible information that prior to the publication of the new HRW report, it was planned such that a British free to air public broadcast television channel - Channel4 – would quickly broadcast an interview with one Joseph Mazimpaka, alias Joseph Bahati Mbanda (who is mentioned in the report) narrating his allegedly failed kidnaping in Tanzania; and the supposed harassment of his wife in Mozambique, by “Rwandan operatives.”

The group forgot, however, in its haste to orchestrate its usual smear campaign, that by omitting verifiable facts from its report, it was leaving holes that actually reveal its hidden agenda.

Who is Joseph Mazimpaka?

Mazimpaka served in the Rwandan genocidal forces, Ex-FAR, before being reintegrated into the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. It was later discovered that he was one of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide. He was arrested in 2009, but managed to escape from prison in Rwanda’s Southern Province, and fled to Uganda, then to Kenya and later ended up in Tanzania.

While in Tanzania, he collaborated with other anti-Rwanda government groups there since 2017. His collaborators in Tanzania included Brig Gen Jean de la Paix Mupenzi, an ex-FAR Captain called Sagahutu, CFCR-Imvejuru, the RNC terrorists and FDLR.

The latter is a UN-sanctioned genocidal militia operating in eastern DRC that was enlisted as a terrorist group in 1999. The FDLR was founded in eastern DRC, in 2000, by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

HRW has more overtly become the campaign mouthpiece of the FDLR, the armed genocidaires who after committing genocide in Rwanda in 1994, were given safe passage to eastern DRC and have been accorded, ever since, a lucrative safe haven and shelter from justice.

In 2013, for example, Rwandan intelligence intercepted information from an FDLR commander in eastern DRC in which the commander was instructing a group of operatives to immediately inform HRW should they be suspected and or arrested. The commander supplied a HRW staff e-mail address.

Mazimpaka was indicted in 2017 by the High Court of Tanzania; charged with unlawful presence in Tanzania, forgery, giving false information on application for a driving license, and fraudulent schemes. He managed to oil his way out of the case.

He often engaged with government officials in DRC on grounds that he served in RDF, expressing his willingness to give testimonies to validate the so called UN Mapping Report, a fundamentally flawed and highly controversial document published in 2010 which accused Rwandan troops of committing a genocide against Hutu refugees in DRC.

On August 25, a HRW official named Maureen, a citizen of Ireland met with Mazimpaka and his wife, Beatrice Iribagiza, at Dar es Salaam Serena Hotel. Their meeting was set up by Maureen to coach the couple on how to stage manage their kidnapping.

Mazimpaka used the "failed kidnap" narration as evidence of being targeted and harassed by the Rwandan government, in his bid to obtain refugee status for eventual relocation to the West. As usual, HRW deliberately ignored the background of their alleged “hero”.

During the coaching meeting, Maureen introduced herself to Mazimpaka as a co-worker of Clémentine de Montjoye, a researcher at the HRW Africa division who previously interviewed Mazimpaka for input for the HRW draft report on alleged extra-territorial activities by the Rwandan Government against its opponents. 

HRW is not ashamed to try and white wash a genocide fugitive in its relentless agenda to tarnish the image of the government of Rwanda.

HRW is using similar problematic elements in Burundi, Australia, Belgium, Uganda, South Africa, France, the US, the UK and elsewhere to feed its bullying “reports”.

Noel Zihabamwe and his brothers

HRW’s new report mentions the Zihabamwe siblings as victims of the Rwandan government’s alleged persecution. The case of Noel Zihabamwe, and his brothers, is made up of fabricated lies for the reason of qualifying for Australian asylum, typical of many asylum seekers.

Zihabamwe collaborated with corrupt HRW personnel to spread a false narrative that his family was targeted and repressed by “Rwanda’s operatives abroad.”

Contrary to the HRW allegations, The Great Lakes Eye established that Zihabamwe’s family members crossed to Uganda after renting out their land and selling some of their houses. Zahabamwe lied that their family property was seized by the Rwandan government.

The family’s neighbours, in Mbazi Sector, in Huye District, Southern Rwanda told The Great Lakes Eye how Zihabamwe’s brothers used to regularly sneak back to Rwanda to collect rent money.

Abdallah Bicahaga

Like Zihabamwe, Abdallah Bicahaga left Rwanda for Burundi in attempt to seek asylum in Western countries. After he arrived in Burundi, HRW saw him as an asset and coached him to claim that he and his family were being targeted by the Rwandan government for political motives.

But Bicahaga has never been a politician in Rwanda nor a leader of any known political party.

Again, like Mazimpaka, Bicahaga was jailed for almost 10 years for his involvement in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Upon his release, he became an advocate of genocide denial. In Burundi, Bicahaga is known to be recruiting for anti-Rwanda terrorist groups including FDLR.

Exploiting the death of John Williams Ntwali

HRW for the second time is including in its dubious reports a claim that the death of Williams Ntwali, in January, is suspicious.

The motive is not because the so-called rights watchdog does not understand that Rwandans are not immune to motor road accidents, but to advance its agenda against Rwanda’s leadership with allegations of repression and persecuting journalists.

It is unfortunate that HRW lost their active correspondent, Ntwali, and also regrettable that Rwanda lost a citizen.

Ntwali’s unfortunate death was a great loss to HRW and the country. But it should not be politicized to blame Rwanda for his death with no evidence.

Those who know the agenda of HRW on Rwanda also know that there is nothing new in HRW allegations.

About the HRW reports on Rwanda, Johnson noted that: “HRW’s advocacy efforts concerning the international community’s treatment of Rwandan genocide suspects outside Rwanda has been consistent with HRW’s radically negative view of Rwandan governance and justice...”

He recalled how HRW has been very active, through its 2008 “Law and Reality” report and amicus curiae briefs to the ICTR and a UK court, in supporting the efforts of Rwandan genocide suspects to avoid transfer or extradition to Rwanda by the ICTR or by national courts, on the grounds that they would not get a fair trial there.

The HRW reports on Rwanda serve as a propaganda tool meant to demonize Rwandan leadership, and the RPF ruling party, in an effort to create a moral equivalence with génocidaire organizations like FDLR and allied groups such as FDU-Inkingi and RNC.

According to the wishful thinking of HRW, it would then be easy to replace the government or force it to negotiate with génocidaires and criminal outfits as equals.

In the latest report, criminals and genocide suspects including Paul Rusesabagina, a convicted terrorist; Cassien Ntamuhanga, who was found guilty of complicity in terror acts, and Eugene Richard Gasana, a disgraced former Rwandan diplomat who supports negative armed groups against Rwanda, among others, are the “credible sources” for HRW’s research.

In each and every report on Rwanda, HRW has been quoting corrupt and sometimes anonymous sources who easily repeat on record what they have been coached to say by HRW staff.

Bribes are often used, which is not surprising since the former HRW Executive Director, Kenneth Roth, is as well known to have solicited a bribe from Saudi real estate magnate Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber in 2012.

For HRW to depend on information provided by criminals who only want to win the sympathy of host countries and get asylum is evidence of a conspiracy to advocate for génocidaires, at the same time tarnishing the image Rwanda so that it can  be condemned and isolated by the international community.

Questions

Like Kigali has pointed out, in the past, many questions need to be answered - questions like whom and for what objectives does HRW serve?

What motivations lie behind HRW publications?

Is HRW a bonafide, independent human rights watcher or an embedded undercover political actor?

To whom is it accountable and to whom does one complain when the organization is thought to be involved in acts harmful to one’s interest?

For nearly 30 years, HRW has shown a consistent and persistent pattern of actions, activities and publications capable of only one explanation: a deliberate, sustained, and politically motivated propaganda campaign against the Government of Rwanda.

HRW has been used, for long, by the Global North in bullying countries that are not on their side and, in certain cases, to threaten them while emphasizing the West’s political hegemony.

HRW found it convenient to release its new fictitious report on Rwanda’s “repression” at a time the security crisis in the DRC is worsening.

The message can be clearly understood. Tarnishing the image of Rwanda’s leadership amid tensions between Kinshasa and Kigali is, undoubtedly, intended to please Kinshasa which, in return, will offer the West lucrative mining deals.