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II. Killings in November 2006

Rwanda continues to live with the social and political consequences of the 1994 genocide, which inevitably colors local interpretations of events or public perceptions of official action. In this climate, serious crimes such as the killing of genocide survivors and reprisal attacks on villagers, or the death of persons in police custody, quickly attract attention and give rise to rumors and fears that go beyond the immediate incidents themselves. The importance of the impartial application of criminal justice cannot be overstated. Any perceived inequality in law enforcement risks contributing to public cynicism about the rule of law.

Incidents in Rukumberi Sector

The killing on November 19, 2006, of Frederic Murasira, a genocide survivor and nephew of a gacaca judge, in Mugwata – a village in Rukumberi sector, Ngoma district in eastern Rwanda – was followed the same day by a reprisal attack that killed eight people. Human Rights Watch is concerned that the police appear to have been less thorough in pursuing perpetrators of the reprisal killings than in investigating the original killing of the genocide survivor.

Innocent Habinshuti, aged 38, is reported to have seen Frederic Murasira, aged 23, riding a bicycle through the village of Mugwata on November 19, 2006. Habinshuti had once been jailed following allegations of participation in genocide and had been released in 2003 pending trial before a gacaca jurisdiction.² Murasira’s uncle was said to be preparing new charges against Habinshuti.

Witnesses claim that Habinshuti chased after Murasira, pulled him from the bicycle, and attacked him with a machete. As Murasira ran to a nearby house, onlookers shouted at Habinshuti to stop the attack but did not otherwise intervene. At the house where Murasira sought shelter, a man blocked his entry and shut the door. Habinshuti then reportedly delivered a considerable number of further blows to Murasira, killing him.³

According to several witnesses, the bicycle Murasira was riding had belonged to Habinshuti but had been taken from him following a gacaca session the previous week.  One local observer said that relations between the families of Murasira and Habinshuti had once been good but had recently degenerated in a dispute over the sale of a cow and an unpaid debt.  Others said that Habinshuti had been accused of pillaging cattle during the genocide and that the gacaca session had fined him 30,000 Rwandan francs. When Habinshuti was unable to pay the fine, his bicycle was seized.⁴ 

Southeastern Rwanda is a dusty, impoverished part of the country where large-scale slaughter of Tutsi took place in 1994. During and after the genocide, soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the dominant political party in Rwanda today, also killed civilians in that area in violation of international humanitarian law. Many genocide survivors in Rukumberi live in a village called Ibuka, which means “Memory”, built specifically for them. Other Rwandans, including a number of released prisoners awaiting trial, live in the nearby commercial center of Mugwata. 

According to one local resident of mixed ethnicity and to officials, the two communities coexisted without conflict before this killing. Persons from one community shared beer with those from the other and even exchanged cows, a local sign of excellent relations.⁵ But a spokesperson for Avega, an association of genocide widows, painted a different picture, saying residents of the two communities lived in “silent conflict,” with violence just waiting to happen.⁶ The executive secretary of the National Service of Gacaca Courts, Domitille Mukantaganzwa, echoed this description of hostility between the communities in a mid-December 2006 radio broadcast.⁷

An hour or so after Murasira’s killing, genocide survivors came running to the scene from nearby Ibuka.⁸ By this time Habinshuti had fled to the bush outside Mugwata. According to one Mugwata resident, the people from Ibuka came in at least two groups.  She said,

Those who came first were really looking for the murderer. Then others arrived. They didn’t want to find the murderer, they just wanted to beat people.⁹

An elderly man still showing bruises and other evidence of having been beaten told a Human Rights Watch researcher that three people from Ibuka village kicked and beat him until he was able to break free and flee. Others beat two women who were pregnant and a third who was elderly.  The pregnant women needed medical treatment for their injuries and one man, hit in the face with rocks, suffered injuries too severe to be treated locally and required hospitalization in Kigali. One man who was beaten is reported to have beensaved from serious injury when an assailant realized he was a visitor to Mugwata and persuaded the others to stop hitting him.

The commercial center emptied out, with residents fleeing before the assailants, but two or three families remained, locked in their homes.¹⁰ “They believed themselves safe, because they were innocent,” said one local person.¹¹

According to a local official, assailants attacked the persons in one house with agricultural implements and machetes, killingDaniel Munyempama, age 70, Francoise Mukaneza, age 18, Arusi Nyirankunzimana, age 13, and Mukarukundo, age 8.¹²  A police photograph taken at the scene shows the victims lying face down in a pool of blood inside the house.¹³ When Human Rights Watch researchers visited the home, the blood stains were still visible and the lock on the front door hung broken on the hasp.

In another house, Hilary Nyiraneza and her three-year-old son Cedric Imanibuka were killed. An axe and a small hoe were found at the scene. Finally, in a third house, a visitor to Mugwata, identified only as Sinzababanza, was killed, along with a six-year-old boy, Jean-Claude Turikumana.

None of the eight people killedhad participated in the killing of Murasira, nor were any of them related to Innocent Habinshuti.¹⁴

Some residents also saw their houses burned and their belongings looted. One elderly man reported that practically the only possession left in his house was a mattress. Food stocks were among the goods destroyed.¹⁵

Official Reaction to the Rukumberi Killings

The police arrived at Mugwata more than two hours after the violence had begun, apparently because of the difficulties of communication in this remote region, where mobile phones function only in certain areas. Finding that residents had fled, the authorities held meetings to reassure people and to encourage them to return. A small military detachment was sent to the village to restore order. When the community was visited by a Human Rights Watch researcher two weeks after the incident, the troops were still in Rukumberi. Both survivors and released prisoners found reassurance in their presence.¹⁶

On the night of November 23, Innocent Habinshuti came out of hiding and gave himself up to the police. According to the sector executive secretary, the local authorities also arrested several other persons. On December 3, the minister of internal security said that in addition to Habinshuti six persons were under arrest in connection withthe killing of Murasira.¹⁷ One detained person was held for two weeks in seriously overcrowded and poor conditions in the local lock-up.¹⁸

The authorities promised Rukumberi residents they would also pursue perpetrators of the revenge killings. Three men were arrested for alleged participation in the reprisal killings soon after the crime and a local administrator was arrested for not having prevented the reprisal attacks.¹⁹ Mugwata residents report that many more persons were directly involved in the killings, and have given the police lists of names.²⁰

However, residents remain unconvinced that further alleged perpetrators will be brought to justice. One local inhabitant who lost family members told Human Rights Watch researchers,

I would have hope for justice if I saw any reaction to what I have said [to the authorities]. I have no hope

Children who lost parents have been promised that their school fees will be paid by the state.  People who lost food or property, however, expect no compensation from local authorities.²² The sector executive secretary commented that most people kept little food in their houses in any case, and could survive on food that they had deposited in a government storage program.²³ Regardless of the amount stored elsewhere, the loss of all food stored at home as well as other possessions further impoverished the already poor residents of Mugwata whose houses were looted.

Killings in Mwulire Sector

The killing of Egide Ndabakuranye, the president of a local gacaca jurisdiction, on the evening of November 23, 2006, near his rural home in Mwulire sector, Rwamagana district, Eastern Province was quickly followed by the arrest of three men. Subsequently the three were killed in police custody. Human Rights Watch is concerned that these deaths have not been adequately investigated and may have been extrajudicial executions.  

Egide Ndabakuranye’s body was found early the morning after he wasmurdered.One of his eyes had been gouged out and his head had been split in two by a machete blow. As the neighbors gathered, the police arrived and immediately took three men into custody, including Jean Hakizamungu, the victim’s half-brother. Ndabakuranye’s widow told police and her friends that Hakizimungu had threatened to kill her husband because he had refused to use his power as local gacacapresident to ensure that genocide accusations against Hakizamungu not be carried forward. Hakizamungu and the other two suspects, John Rukundo and Francois Ndagijimana, all lived near the victim’s house and site of the murder.²⁴

At dusk on November 24, local residents report seeing a police pick-up truck, with the three men under guard in the back, heading down a little-used country road.  According to one witness who observed the scene, the vehicle stopped about a mile-and-a-half from Rwamagana town and the driver turned off the engine.  The armed policeman in the back stood up as the three men got down from the vehicle next to a thick clump of bamboo. A short time later, several shots were heard even as far distant as a mosque on the outskirts of the town. Those who heard say there were between three and six shots in close succession. According to witnesses, the vehicle started up and continued along the road until it reached a convenient turning place. When it came back past the scene, occupants of the truck retrieved the bodies and the truck returned towards Rwamagana.²⁵

Relatives of the victims learned of the deaths shortly afterwards by word of mouth. They retrieved the bodies from the local hospital with the help of friends and took them home for burial. Police officers did not visit relatives to inform them officially of the deaths of their relatives or to explain how they had died.

The minister for internal security said in a December 3 radio broadcast that Jean Hakizamungu had been shot by police while trying to escape. He did not mention the fate of the other two men.²⁶

In a December 15 interview with a Human Rights Watch researcher, Mary Gahonzire, deputy police commissioner general in charge of operations, said that an investigation into the incident had been carried out by the Inspectorate of Service, an internal investigatory agency of the National Police. Referring several times to a document before her, she stated that a police officer had killed the three in self-defense. She said that one of the three suspects, John Rukundo, had confessed to killing the judge with the other two suspects. The three had then offered to show the police where other persons were hiding in order to “escape justice” and avoid appearing before gacaca jurisdictions. According to the police, while being escorted to this supposed destination, Rukundo, a demobilized soldier who knew how to use firearms grabbed the weapon of one of the police officers and threatened one or more of the other officers, who then shot all three suspects.

Deputy Police Commissioner Gahonzire said the incident happened in broad daylight, but she could not provide more details on the time or exact location. She said the three suspects outnumbered the police officers but could not say how many officers there were. Nor could she provide information on the kind of weapons involved or the number of shots fired. She said, “It is unfortunate that the people we were hoping to protect antagonized us and forced us to do that…”²⁷

Information provided by persons who saw the bodies and the traces left behind at the scene of the shooting, however, do not support this official account of what took place.  According to persons who saw the bodies, each victim had been shot once or twice in the head or neck, apparently from the front or the side.²⁸ Local observers reported that blood and brains were visible in a narrowly circumscribed area for several days following the killings, suggesting that the three men had been shot within a fairly defined space.²⁹ The reported location of the bullet entry wounds and the proximity of the killings to each other seem inconsistent with a situation in which officers were responding in self defense to escaping prisoners.

When asked if it were not possible that the three had been executed, Deputy Police Commissioner Gahonzire replied that such an act would have been a “total violation of human rights—we don’t do that.”³⁰

Rwanda is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).³¹ As such Rwanda is legally obligated to ensure that prompt, effective, and independent investigations take place in the event of any death in custody. To date the information that Human Rights Watch has received regarding the investigation conducted into the deaths of the three suspects indicates that this obligation has not been discharged. Rwanda also has an obligation to ensure that all suspects receive a fair trial.