A court in Guatemala has found the former military leader Efrain Rios Montt guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity during the bloodiest phase of the country’s 36-year civil war and was sentenced to 80 years in prison.  Like the Rwandan Military Dictator, the former Guatemala Military ruler Rios Montt, now 86, took power after a coup in 1982 and was accused of implementing a scorched-earth policy in which troops massacred thousands of indigenous villagers thought to be helping leftist rebels.

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Rios MonttUnder International Law the crime of killing people just because they belong to an ethnic, religious, or a tribe, constitute a crime of genocide, and indeed, the Guatemala’s former dictator was found guilty for the massacre of innocent people of an ethnic group of Ixil just because they were perceived to support his political opponents.  “I feel happy, may no one else ever have to go through what I did. My community has been sad ever since this happened,” said Elena de Paz, an ethnic Maya Ixil who was two years old in 1983 when soldiers stormed her village, killed her parents and burned her home

The Prosecutors argued that Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson to try to rid Guatemala of leftist rebels during his 1982-1983 rule, the most violent period of a 1960-1996 civil war in which as many as 250,000 people died.  Kagame unlike his counter of Guatemala has gone very far by giving orders to his security forces to exterminate all the people who are perceived to be political opponents.  While the former Guatemala leader was tried over the killings of at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil indigenous group, just a fraction of the number who died during his rule. Kagame will will be tried for almost six(6) million people who have been killed in Congo and many Rwandans like Asiel Kabera, Col. Theoneste Lizinde, Seth Sendashonga who was his former Interior Minister, Col. Kizza who was kidnapped, murdered and up to this very day his remains have never been recovered by his family to give him  a decent burial.

The list of the people Kagame has murdered is long, for instance during the political campaigns   in the 2010, the vice president of the Green Party Andrew Kwagwa Rwisereka was decapitated and his body thrown in the valley, Major Alex Ruzindana was picked by Major Butera who at the time was a Captain in Kagame’s security forces who tortured him before he was murdered in the Nyungwe Forest one of the killing fields of the Kagame regime. Kagame has crossed the line of his counterparts in killing, for him he does not differentiate between friends and adversaries, any disagreement however trivial it might be; he will not tolerate any views that are different from his. It is in this regard that, he has even slaughtered his former comrades, Col. Adam Wasswa, Col. Kayitare (Intare Batinya) Col. Steven Ndugute(Kalisoso) Col. William Bagire,  Col. Rutayisire(Shaban) former director of ORINFOR.

Those who have survived the machete as the used to say during Idi Amins regime (the former notorious Uganda Dictator) they have been left politically impotent or some have fled the country for their own safety.  Among the list, is former Army commander of the RDF, Gen. Kayumba Nyamasa who miraculously survived an assassination   attempt in South Africa who was not only a comrade but also a man who stood shoulder to shoulder with Kagame in thick and thin during the RPF struggle that brought him to power.  Col.  Fred Nyamurwanga who was instrumental in capturing some of the strategic places in the Kigali City has been reduced to a mere pastor in one of the Kigali churches.

Furthermore, the first army commander after genocide who is now little known in the Rwandan politics is Gen. Sam Kaka, he is politically dead, in fact very few people in Rwanda know him, yet he was one of the RPF commanders who were even senior to Kagame before the tragic death of the Rwandan hero Gen. Fred Rwigema.  Where is the family of Fred Rwigema? Very few know his children in the Rwandan circles, why Kagame has kept the family of Fred Rwigema behind the political curtains in this country, yet Fred selflessly worked for the RPF the party that is now feeding Kagame and his family.   For the readers of this article , I would like to bring to your attention , that the future genocide will not only be defined   literally  but with broad analysis of  the intention to use all means of  either killing on the spot or intention to cause death of families the killer is trying to wipe off on the map.

In my opinion, how do you call all the above massacres of innocent Rwandans and Congolese alike?  Guatemala has set precedence that  might be used by other countries  may be even  in our country after Kagame has  left power,  it is the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide by a court in his or her own country. Other genocide convictions have been handed down by international courts.

Relatives and indigenous leaders cheered when the sentence was read out by Judge Jazmin Barrios in Guatemala City. Rios Montt was sentenced to 50 years for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity. According to different reports an estimated 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, the vast majority of them indigenous Mayans. As I have mentioned above the number of people killed by the Kagame regime within the country and outside the country using his proxies, like M23, is estimated to be in hundreds of thousands by different international reports like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, UN Mapping Report and UN Report of Experts, all coming to the same conclusion. Indeed, as the days of Rios Montt came to an end so will Kagame’s days one day come to an end or be brought to an end and those he has killed will come to haunt him either in life or in death.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels.