Exiled Rwandan protects family in US, but not without fear

Numerous other Rwandan children’s passports were canceled, including those of his former boss’s three children, he said, because the Rwandan government believes their parents oppose President Paul Kagame’s regime.

Even as his native country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the mass genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by ethnic Hutu extremists across the Eastern African nation, Mr. Turayishimye says there has been little progress during the last 20 years.

The regional conflict the genocide sparked remains unresolved and political dysfunction and repression in Rwanda continues, according to a 2013 human rights report by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. The conflict spilled into neighboring eastern Congo and Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda rebels have continued the fighting for nearly two decades.

Mr. Turayishimye, a law student and court interpreter, said he is grateful he was able to sneak his twins, Adric M. and Adris M. Ngabo, out of Rwanda with the help of a good friend living in Uganda.

Part of his plan that has been in the making for years was giving his sons a different last name than his, he said.

Even his sons did not know where they were going as they traveled across borders in Central Africa, Mr. Turayishimye said, because he feared if they did, they could jeopardize the plan. Friends and family helped hide the boys as they moved through the jungles of Central Africa, sometimes under the cover of darkness. It took longer than expected — almost three years — to execute his plan.

His sons moved from family member to family member to stay hidden, he said, and only knew who he was from talking to him via Skype.

They flew as unaccompanied minors to the U.S., and Mr. Turayishimye said he paid extra to get them here. It is less stressful for him since they arrived here Feb. 16, he said. He couldn’t talk about his plan with anyone, he said, including his parents back home, whom he feared might get used by the government to find out information about him.

“It was very difficult, especially for someone in my position — one of the members and co-founders of the Rwandan National Congress,” he said. “I’m now on trial in Rwanda. Everyone who is in the RNC or anybody who says bad stuff about the Rwandan president is labeled as supporting terrorist groups.”

The RNC activist group was formed to highlight what is going on in Rwanda, he said, and to try to save those trapped who are still seeking political asylum, those who fled the regime, and to continue advocating for human rights, democracy and free press in Rwanda.

“I kept thinking, what if they find them in the hotel?” he said of his sons. “They spend millions tracking critics of the government, but never use it to help the Rwandan citizens get out of poverty.”

The journey his sons would have to take was set long before Mr. Turayishimye’s involvement with the RNC.

It starts with the horrific violence and corruption that he experienced back home in the jungles of Central Africa 20 years ago fighting against the mass genocide of his people, widespread corruption and discrimination. He was born a Tutsi in the Congo, one of three ethnicities in the region along with Hutus and Twas — pygmies who make up less than 1 percent of the population.

The 41-year-old’s eldest brother was killed during the genocide by a machete at age 24, along with his 27-year-old cousin, and his youngest brother at age 14 (two years after Mr. Turayishimye fled the country) when he left to get food for the family and came home with a fatal wound to his upper thigh.

The United Nations estimates that nearly a million people, mostly Tustis, were killed — many with machetes — and that 250,000 to 500,000 were raped during the Rwandan genocide that lasted 100 days.

Thousands of Tutsi refugees, including Mr. Turayishimye’s family, fled to neighboring countries. They later formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ultimately ended the genocide and is still in power.

As part of the RPF, Mr. Turayishimye said disappointment set in quickly a few years later when there was disagreement within the RPF. High-ranking RPF officials were killed and the Rwandan president was imprisoned by current President Kagame because he wanted to take the post himself.

“Now, the entire government is in exile,” he said.

Rwanda has the highest number of high-ranking officials in exile of any country and there are also numerous former officials and their families seeking asylum, according to UN reports.

In 2005, Mr. Turayishimye was interrogated several times after the former chief of staff he worked with for 10 years was sent to India to be an ambassador.

He saw high-ranking officials flee in fear for their lives, and in 2005 he fled to the U.S. after multiple interrogations in fear he would “disappear.”

He is in this country legally as a permanent resident. He entered the U.S. seeking political asylum. His sons entered the U.S. as refugees, a special status given by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to those who fear persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.

Even now, while on U.S. soil, Mr. Turayishimye said he fears of possible retaliation.

Rwandan dissidents, such as himself, in several Western countries, including the United Kingdom and U.S., say local security agents have warned them of plots to kill them, he said.

“I am still afraid,” Mr. Turayishimye said. “Everybody is. It helps to raise awareness, but I’m putting myself out there. As a co-founder of the RNC, I’ve been put on trial as a terrorist because of (media) interviews. But this (the U.S.) is one nation I think he (President Kagame) fears and respects.”

Others in the RNC have faced recent retaliation, he said.

His friend Lt. Goel Mutabazi, who had refugee status in Uganda and was guarded by police, was abducted from a safe house roughly five months ago and accused of collaborating with him, he said. He is being tried for plotting to overthrow the government, he said.

There was also the Dec. 31 assassination of former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya in South Africa, according to international news reports, who received political asylum there in 2009 and formed the RNC a year later. Mr. Karegeya’s allies said he had been killed by Rwandan government agents, but the high commissioner to South Africa denied it, Mr. Turayishimye said.

Two weeks later, President Kagame warned that those who betray the country will face “consequences,” according to news reports.

Another co-founder of the RNC, Lt. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, has survived three assassination attempts, also in South Africa, Mr. Turayishimye said.

President Kagame has been accused of not tolerating opposition, he said, and maintains that Rwanda needs a strong government to prevent a return to ethnic conflict.

Mr. Turayishimye said the strong presidency is taken to the extreme and there is restriction of freedoms, including freedom of speech and the press.

The country has the highest number of journalists in exile, and many are intimidated or arrested.

Mr. Turayishimye and other dissidents believe Mr. Kagame’s motive is to remove all of his political opposition so he can get elected to a third, seven-year term in 2017 — something the Rwandan constitution forbids.

His native country’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the genocide, Mr. Turayishimye said, is an opportunity for the international community to send a strong message to President Kagame.

If conditions were placed on U.S. aid to Rwanda to pressure President Kagame, it may help, he said.

“He is using the phrase ‘never again,’ but I don’t want it just to be words,” Mr. Turayishimye said in the living room of his Leominster home, while his wife, Alice, prepared lunch for the family, including the couple’s 6-month-old son, Garvin N, Turayishimye. The twins watched television. They are awaiting the completion of paperwork that will allow them to attend public school and learn English, their father said.

“We need to ask the Rwandan government to pay attention and act — not just say it,” Mr. Turayishimye said. “The irony is, the president is doing the same things that led to the genocide 20 years ago.”

Contact Paula Owen at powen@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @PaulaOwenTG