Kagame 2By: Jennifer Fierberg

In an interview on RFI.fr conducted in English and translated to Kiswahili on Monday July 8, 2013 Colonel Patrick Karegeya, former head of intelligence in Rwanda under President Paul Kagame made the following statement (in summary):

This senior Rwandan officer refugee in South Africa claims to have information on the recruitment of Laurent Nkunda and Bosco Ntaganda by Paul Kagame and DRC will be sent to create rebellions.

Patrick Karegeya further stated that he calls for the International Criminal Court to indict the Rwandan President Paul Kagame as well as Bosco Ntaganda for their crimes against humanity in the DRC.

This writer contacted Colonel Karegeya to ask him further about this interview. The brief interview is below:

JF: What prompted this statement?

CPK: The statement was part of a general interview about Rwanda and its politics.

JF: Have you been asked to give this information by a court of law?

CPK:  you followed the interview, that’s what I was driving at, no one has interviewed me about it with an intention of taking Kagame to court, so none at all. I’m not looking for an interview though!

JF: The latest UN Group of Experts (GoE) report states that support for the M23 is not the Government of Rwanda as a whole but is only unidentified government personnel. What, in your opinion, would cause such a change?

CPK: It just shows the UN GoE has no clue as to the workings of the Kagame regime! There is no way on earth any government official or Army officer would do that without Kagame’s authorisation. The country is a police state and highly controlled by Kagame and nothing like what they suggest would ever happen. So the change could be in the new methods and personnel that the Group has not managed to identify and they confuse that as a “change”……nothing much has changed.

JF: What do you want to tell a court of law about Kagame’s involvement in the DRC that the 19 years of UN reports has not already stated? Is there something they missed?

CPK: My view is that the guy should be charged in a court and people testify. Their reports are just made for the sanctions committee most of which might not stand in a court of law and yes there is always a lot they miss.

JF: Are you concerned at all that implicating Kagame would also implicate yourself since you were head of the “Congo Desk” under Kagame?

CPK:  I’m not concerned at all and I have nothing to hide. If anybody has anything against me, he/she is more than welcome to bring it up. There was nothing criminal in what I did. I was actually the Director-General of External Intelligence and not the Head of “Congo Desk”, this is easy to verify. I think the “Congo Desk” you are talking about was not under me in real terms with regard to its workings.

JF: You stated you are not looking for an interview. What do you mean by that?

CPK: I’m saying any time they want to ask anything of me, I will be available but I’m not looking for them to be interviewed.

JF: It is believed that Laurent Nkunda is in DRC now looking for a replacement for Makanga who is failing in his physical health. Do you know if this is accurate? Would the use of Laurent Nkunda in DRC, out of house arrest, be a violation of international law since he is supposed to be held in arrest?

CPK: I have heard about the Nkunda affair but no proof yet. We are following up. You know that place has also become the “land of a million rumours”!!

As stated above, there are nineteen years worth of reports that detail  Kagame’s role in the ongoing destabilization of the Eastern DRC so he can have unlimited access to the mineral wealth that is over-flowing the area. Kagame stated in a public address that, “Rwanda wants peace in the DRC,” but his actions speak louder than his words. For anyone who has researched this area, spent time as an observer or has lived in this region knows that the instability is coming straight from the Rwandan Government. Many respected ambassadors, human rights activist, NGO’s and journalists all state that the M23 should really be called the RPF since it is merely an extension of the Rwandan Government. Rwanda continues to state that the FDLR are the real problem in the region, yet, if that were the case then the M23 would be fighting the FDLR instead of causing massive destruction.