In this piece on The Elephant, John-Allan Namu revisits a gruesome chapter in East-African history, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. On 16 May, 2020, exactly 26 years later, one of the prime instigators of this mass murder, Felicien Kabuga, was arrested in Paris, France.
The arrest could have happened 17 years ago if Kenyan journalist William Munuhu, who was set to lead Kenyan and US authorities to Kabuga, was not murdered. "Kenyan police first claimed that he had killed himself by lighting a charcoal burner and inhaling carbon monoxide fumes," Namu writes. "Yet the evidence found in his Karen home told a completely different story."
While Munuhu's younger brother is excited about the genocidaire's arrest, there is bitterness about the Kenyan government's inaction. "(Former President) Kibaki was a guest of the Rwanda government in 2004. We expected him to say something. He didn't. In 2014 at the 20th commemoration of the genocide (President) Uhuru was a guest of the Rwanda government. We expected him to say something. He didn't." (...) "he isn't our criminal," I can almost hear some local public relations spindoctor say."
John-Allan Namu is an investigative journalist and the founder of Africa Uncensored, an in-depth journalism production house in Nairobi and a partner of ZAM.
Read the article here.
