Seth Sendashonga
Encyclopedia
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda
, following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) after the 1994 genocide
. One of the politically moderate Hutu
s in the National Unity Cabinet, he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination
attempt while in exile in Kenya
, he was launched a new opposition movement, the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in May 1998.
and been forced to leave the country in 1975. In 1992 Sendashonga joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front
, the rebel group then fighting the Rwandan Civil War
against the Habariyamana government. The RPF took power after defeating the Hutu Power
-led government that carried out the Rwandan Genocide
. Sendashonga was able to use his considerable personal prestige to convince other Hutu moderates to joint the RPF government.
, to be the Minister of the Interior. For much of his tenure, Sendashonga had written a barrage of memos to Kagame about killings and forced disappearance
s that were reported to have been carried out by elements of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). On 19 April 1995, Sendashonga rushed to Kibeho
in an attempt to calm the situation after RPA soldiers shot several Hutus in an internally displaced person
s (IDP) camp. After returning to Kigali
, he briefed Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu
, President Pasteur Bizimungu
and Vice President/Defense Minister Paul Kagame
and sought assurances that the RPA would exercise restraint. Following the massacre of a large number of IDPs at Kibeho on the 22nd, the RPA refused Sendashonga entry to the area.
After his attempt to seek redress for the victims of Kibeho was turned down, Sendashonga came to the conclusion that the 'Ugandan Tutsi' who controlled the RPF would not tolerate any dissent and were willing to carry out mass murder to achieve their goals. However, both Sendashonga and Twagiramungu, also a Hutu, thought that the situation might be salvaged as the political split did not precisely mirror ethnic lines; some Francophone Tutsi politicians in the RPF felt excluded by the English-speaking Tutsis who had come from Uganda
. Sendashonga decided to take a stand against arbitrary arrests after 15 prisoners had suffocated to death after being detained some days after Kibeho, stating, while cautiously referring to detainees as 'criminals', "Of late many criminals have been arrested following the closure of Kibeho camp, thus making the prisons full beyond their capacity." This infuriated Kagame, who some days before had given a speech proclaiming, "Over 95% of the former Kibeho people have returned to their homes and are in good shape." Tensions in the cabinet worsened after Rose Kabuye
, mayor of Kigali, announced the creation of city residency permits that would be given "only to blameless persons" and would be color-coded green for old residents and blue for refugees returning from Zaire
, who were suspected of being associated with the old Hutu regime. This announcement panicked the Hutu populace, who rushed to get this vital document, before Sendashonga canceled the entire permit plan through his authority over the Interior Department.
By this point, the RPF Department of Military Intelligence had leaked a memo to the press that stated that Sendashonga, Minister of Finance Marc Ruganera and Vice Prime Minister Col. Alexis Kanyaregwe, all Hutus, were under their watch. As the killings and disappearances continued without any pause, Sendashonga made the dramatic decision to disband the Local Defense Forces (LDF), which had been set up to replace the police
after the genocide but were subsequently linked to a large number of arrests, murders and disappearances. However, the LDF was the tool the RPF used to keep track of rural areas, further aggravating Defense Minister Kagame. As a minister, the government could not attack Sendashonga directly, but the RPF began to accuse Sendashonga's brother of various misdeeds. As things reached a breaking point, Twagiramungu called a special council of ministers on security matters that began on August 23. Running for three days, the meeting turned into a conflict between Kagame and Sendashonga, who received the backing of Twagiramungu, Ruganera and, somewhat surprisingly, Aloysia Inyumba, the Tutsi minister of women's affairs. In the final showdown, Twagiramungu confronted Kagame about how, of the 145 bourgmestres appointed by the RPF, 117 were Tutsi, to which Kagame left the room, ending the meeting. Over 95% of the February/March nominees for posts at the local administration levels of paroisse, commune, and préfecture were 'foreign' Tutsi.
Two days later, Prime Minister Twagiramungu resigned, but was outmaneuvered by President Bizimungu, who did not want him to leave the government on his own terms. On 28 August, Bizimungu came before Parliament
and asked for a public vote that succeeded in firing Twagiramungu. The next day, Sendashonga, Minister of Transport and Communications Immaculée Kayumba, Minister of Justice Alphonse-Marie Nkubito and Minister of Information Jean-Baptiste Nkuriyingoma were fired. Sendashonga and Twagiramungu were placed under house arrest and their documents examined for any incriminating evidence, but were eventually allowed to leave the country unharmed by the end of the year.
, Kenya
. There he planned to fly to Brussels
, Belgium
to launch a new opposition movement called the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD) with his old colleague and fellow Hutu moderate Faustin Twagiramungu. In February 1996, Sendashonga received a call from a fellow Rwandan exile offering to give him documents proving that there had been an attempted mutiny within the RPF. When he went to the appointment, he was met by two men who ambushed him, hitting him twice with bullets fired from pistol
s. His life was not endangered, but his nephew, who was with him, was seriously injured. Sendashonga recognized one of the would-be assassins as his former bodyguard from when he was a minister. The other was Francis Mgabo, a staff member at the local Rwandan embassy, who was subsequently discovered attempting to dispose of the pistol he had used in the attack in the restroom
of a local gas station. The government of Kenya asked Rwanda to withdraw Mgabo's diplomatic immunity
so he could be arrested and put on trial. Rwanda refused, resulting in a row between the two countries in which Kenya closed the Rwanda embassy and the two countries temporarily broke off diplomatic relations.
After recovering from his wounds, Sendashonga carried out his plan to start the FRD opposition party in Brussels. French historian Gérard Prunier
states that the party platform, which included an in-depth critique of the 1994 genocide, was "a very valuable contribution because it was an honest and realistic assessment of the genocide from a mostly Hutu political group." However, Sendashonga's assertion that the enemy was not the Tutsi, but rather the RPF under Kagame, was subject to harsh criticism by other Hutu politicians who accused him of being weak. Conversely, Sendashonga said of the former genocidaire Hutu leadership in refugee camps of Zaire
, "Their only political program is to kill Tutsis." At the same time, several of his old Tutsi colleagues in the RPF continued to feed him information about events within Rwanda, apparently in the belief that he would be needed once again once the violence had run its course.
However, Sendashonga realized that only the groups using violence were shaping events, stating to Prunier, "Everybody uses a gun as a way of sitting at the negotiation table one day. If I always refuse to use guns, I'll be marginalized when the time comes." Sendashonga had attracted about 600 soldiers and 40 officers of the old Rwandan Armed Forces, who were willing to fight for him because they saw him as an alternative to the RPF and the Hutu Army for the Liberation of Rwanda
, whom they felt were motivated by opposing forms of violent racism
. After Tanzania
agreed to host Sendashonga's rebel training camps, he used his contacts with Prunier to go to Uganda and talk to Salim Saleh
, President Yoweri Museveni
's brother, on 3 May 1998. Relations between Uganda and Rwanda had deteriorated and Salim was open to the idea of a new force to counter the RPF. Sendashonga then met Eva Rodgers of the United States Department of State
, who was noncommittal but did not outright oppose the formation of the new armed group.
s. Twagiramungu, still in Brussels, declared, "I'm pointing to the RPF and its government" and was echoed by a number of other exiled political groups, though the RPF government denied any involvement.
Three men, David Kiwanuka, Charles Muhaji and Christopher Lubanga were arrested by the Kenyan police. Kiwanuka was claimed to be Rwandan, despite his typically Muganda
name, while Muhaji and Lubanga were identified as Ugandan. The three had been identified, in what Prunier derides as a story "obviously fed by rather untalented Kigali security operatives", by Kenyan taxi driver Ali Abdul Nasser, who claimed that the three men had tried to hire him as a paid killer because Sendashonga had stolen $54 million in a criminal partnership with Kiwanuka's father, who the Nairobi police claimed to have been the Director of Immigration Services in Kigali, and who had subsequently been supposedly killed by Sendasonga so he would not have to share the loot. This story ran into serious problems when the actual Director of Immigration Services, a man named Charles Butera, surfaced to state that he was alive, that he had no son named Kiwanuka, that he knew Sendashonga only as a brief acquaintance, and that nobody had ever stolen $54 million.
Despite the problems with the Kenyan criminal case, the three men remained in jail until 31 May 2001, when they were released from jail by a court. In a December 2000 hearing, Sendashonga's widow, Cyriaque Nikuze, claimed that the Rwandan government was behind the assassination and revealed that he had been scheduled to testify before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
and the French Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. Sendashonga, who had agreed to testify for the defense in the trial of Obed Ruzindana, would have been the first current or former member of the RPF to testify before the International Criminal Tribunal. Nikuze claims that the Rwandan embassy official Alphonse Mbayire, who was the acting ambassador at the time, organized the assassination. Mbayire was recalled by his government in January 2001, immediately after Nikuze's accusation and shortly before a new hearing was to begin, only to be shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a Kigali bar on 7 February 2001.
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
, following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front abbreviated as RPF is the current ruling political party of Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame. It governs in a coalition with other parties...
(RPF) after the 1994 genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
. One of the politically moderate Hutu
Hutu
The Hutu , or Abahutu, are a Central African people, living mainly in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern DR Congo.-Population statistics:The Hutu are the largest of the three peoples in Burundi and Rwanda; according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians...
s in the National Unity Cabinet, he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
attempt while in exile in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, he was launched a new opposition movement, the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in May 1998.
Biography
Sendashonga was a leader of a student movement opposed to the rule of Rwandan president Juvénal HabyarimanaJuvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana was the third President of the Republic of Rwanda, the post he held longer than any other president to date, from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year rule he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi...
and been forced to leave the country in 1975. In 1992 Sendashonga joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front abbreviated as RPF is the current ruling political party of Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame. It governs in a coalition with other parties...
, the rebel group then fighting the Rwandan Civil War
Rwandan Civil War
The Rwandan Civil War was a conflict within the Central African nation of Rwanda between the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front...
against the Habariyamana government. The RPF took power after defeating the Hutu Power
Hutu Power
Hutu Power was an ideology propounded by the Akazu and other Hutu extremists in Rwanda. It contributed to the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu.-Background:...
-led government that carried out the Rwandan Genocide
Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an estimated 800,000 people in the small East African nation of Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days through mid-July, over 500,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate...
. Sendashonga was able to use his considerable personal prestige to convince other Hutu moderates to joint the RPF government.
Minister of the Interior
Following their victory, the RPF created a Government of National Unity in July 1994, and invited Sendashonga, a politically moderate HutuHutu
The Hutu , or Abahutu, are a Central African people, living mainly in Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern DR Congo.-Population statistics:The Hutu are the largest of the three peoples in Burundi and Rwanda; according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians...
, to be the Minister of the Interior. For much of his tenure, Sendashonga had written a barrage of memos to Kagame about killings and forced disappearance
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
s that were reported to have been carried out by elements of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). On 19 April 1995, Sendashonga rushed to Kibeho
Kibeho
Kibeho is a small town in south Rwanda, which became known outside of that country because of reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ occurring between 1981 and 1989.- Visions :...
in an attempt to calm the situation after RPA soldiers shot several Hutus in an internally displaced person
Internally displaced person
An internally displaced person is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the current legal definition of a refugee. At the end of 2006 it was estimated there were...
s (IDP) camp. After returning to Kigali
Kigali
Kigali, population 965,398 , is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is situated near the geographic centre of the nation, and has been the economic, cultural, and transport hub of Rwanda since it became capital at independence in 1962. The main residence and offices of the President of...
, he briefed Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu
Faustin Twagiramungu
Faustin Twagiramungu is an ethnic Hutu politician in Rwanda. He was prime minister from 1994 until his resignation in 1995, the first head of government appointed after the Rwandese Patriotic Front captured Kigali...
, President Pasteur Bizimungu
Pasteur Bizimungu
Pasteur Bizimungu was the fifth President of Rwanda from 19 July 1994 until 23 March 2000. He is considered belonging to the Hutu caste/ethnic group and was born in the Gisenyi prefecture of Rwanda. Bizimungu worked within the Hutu MRND regime which ruled Rwanda , including as director general of...
and Vice President/Defense Minister Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame
Paul Kagame is the sixth and current President of the Republic of Rwanda. He rose to prominence as the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , whose victory over the incumbent government in July 1994 effectively ended the Rwandan genocide...
and sought assurances that the RPA would exercise restraint. Following the massacre of a large number of IDPs at Kibeho on the 22nd, the RPA refused Sendashonga entry to the area.
After his attempt to seek redress for the victims of Kibeho was turned down, Sendashonga came to the conclusion that the 'Ugandan Tutsi' who controlled the RPF would not tolerate any dissent and were willing to carry out mass murder to achieve their goals. However, both Sendashonga and Twagiramungu, also a Hutu, thought that the situation might be salvaged as the political split did not precisely mirror ethnic lines; some Francophone Tutsi politicians in the RPF felt excluded by the English-speaking Tutsis who had come from Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
. Sendashonga decided to take a stand against arbitrary arrests after 15 prisoners had suffocated to death after being detained some days after Kibeho, stating, while cautiously referring to detainees as 'criminals', "Of late many criminals have been arrested following the closure of Kibeho camp, thus making the prisons full beyond their capacity." This infuriated Kagame, who some days before had given a speech proclaiming, "Over 95% of the former Kibeho people have returned to their homes and are in good shape." Tensions in the cabinet worsened after Rose Kabuye
Rose Kabuye
Rose Kabuye is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Rwandan Army and remains the highest ranking woman ever to serve in her country's armed forces...
, mayor of Kigali, announced the creation of city residency permits that would be given "only to blameless persons" and would be color-coded green for old residents and blue for refugees returning from Zaire
Zaire
The Republic of Zaire was the name of the present Democratic Republic of the Congo between 27 October 1971 and 17 May 1997. The name of Zaire derives from the , itself an adaptation of the Kongo word nzere or nzadi, or "the river that swallows all rivers".-Self-proclaimed Father of the Nation:In...
, who were suspected of being associated with the old Hutu regime. This announcement panicked the Hutu populace, who rushed to get this vital document, before Sendashonga canceled the entire permit plan through his authority over the Interior Department.
By this point, the RPF Department of Military Intelligence had leaked a memo to the press that stated that Sendashonga, Minister of Finance Marc Ruganera and Vice Prime Minister Col. Alexis Kanyaregwe, all Hutus, were under their watch. As the killings and disappearances continued without any pause, Sendashonga made the dramatic decision to disband the Local Defense Forces (LDF), which had been set up to replace the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
after the genocide but were subsequently linked to a large number of arrests, murders and disappearances. However, the LDF was the tool the RPF used to keep track of rural areas, further aggravating Defense Minister Kagame. As a minister, the government could not attack Sendashonga directly, but the RPF began to accuse Sendashonga's brother of various misdeeds. As things reached a breaking point, Twagiramungu called a special council of ministers on security matters that began on August 23. Running for three days, the meeting turned into a conflict between Kagame and Sendashonga, who received the backing of Twagiramungu, Ruganera and, somewhat surprisingly, Aloysia Inyumba, the Tutsi minister of women's affairs. In the final showdown, Twagiramungu confronted Kagame about how, of the 145 bourgmestres appointed by the RPF, 117 were Tutsi, to which Kagame left the room, ending the meeting. Over 95% of the February/March nominees for posts at the local administration levels of paroisse, commune, and préfecture were 'foreign' Tutsi.
Two days later, Prime Minister Twagiramungu resigned, but was outmaneuvered by President Bizimungu, who did not want him to leave the government on his own terms. On 28 August, Bizimungu came before Parliament
Parliament of Rwanda
The Parliament of Rwanda consists of two chambers:*The Senate *The Chamber of Deputies Prior to 2003 the Parliament of Rwanda was unicameral...
and asked for a public vote that succeeded in firing Twagiramungu. The next day, Sendashonga, Minister of Transport and Communications Immaculée Kayumba, Minister of Justice Alphonse-Marie Nkubito and Minister of Information Jean-Baptiste Nkuriyingoma were fired. Sendashonga and Twagiramungu were placed under house arrest and their documents examined for any incriminating evidence, but were eventually allowed to leave the country unharmed by the end of the year.
Exile and assassination attempt
Sendashonga went into exile in NairobiNairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. There he planned to fly to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
to launch a new opposition movement called the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD) with his old colleague and fellow Hutu moderate Faustin Twagiramungu. In February 1996, Sendashonga received a call from a fellow Rwandan exile offering to give him documents proving that there had been an attempted mutiny within the RPF. When he went to the appointment, he was met by two men who ambushed him, hitting him twice with bullets fired from pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
s. His life was not endangered, but his nephew, who was with him, was seriously injured. Sendashonga recognized one of the would-be assassins as his former bodyguard from when he was a minister. The other was Francis Mgabo, a staff member at the local Rwandan embassy, who was subsequently discovered attempting to dispose of the pistol he had used in the attack in the restroom
Washroom
A public toilet is a room or small building containing one or more toilets and possibly also urinals which is available for use by the general public, or in a broader meaning of "public", by customers of other...
of a local gas station. The government of Kenya asked Rwanda to withdraw Mgabo's diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws...
so he could be arrested and put on trial. Rwanda refused, resulting in a row between the two countries in which Kenya closed the Rwanda embassy and the two countries temporarily broke off diplomatic relations.
After recovering from his wounds, Sendashonga carried out his plan to start the FRD opposition party in Brussels. French historian Gérard Prunier
Gérard Prunier
Gérard Prunier is a French academic and historian specializing in the Horn of Africa and East Africa.Prunier received a PhD in African History in 1981 from the University of Paris. In 1984, he joined the CNRS scientific institution in Paris as a researcher. He later also became Director of the...
states that the party platform, which included an in-depth critique of the 1994 genocide, was "a very valuable contribution because it was an honest and realistic assessment of the genocide from a mostly Hutu political group." However, Sendashonga's assertion that the enemy was not the Tutsi, but rather the RPF under Kagame, was subject to harsh criticism by other Hutu politicians who accused him of being weak. Conversely, Sendashonga said of the former genocidaire Hutu leadership in refugee camps of Zaire
Great Lakes refugee crisis
The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide...
, "Their only political program is to kill Tutsis." At the same time, several of his old Tutsi colleagues in the RPF continued to feed him information about events within Rwanda, apparently in the belief that he would be needed once again once the violence had run its course.
However, Sendashonga realized that only the groups using violence were shaping events, stating to Prunier, "Everybody uses a gun as a way of sitting at the negotiation table one day. If I always refuse to use guns, I'll be marginalized when the time comes." Sendashonga had attracted about 600 soldiers and 40 officers of the old Rwandan Armed Forces, who were willing to fight for him because they saw him as an alternative to the RPF and the Hutu Army for the Liberation of Rwanda
Army for the Liberation of Rwanda
The Army for the Liberation of Rwanda was a rebel group largely composed of members of the Interahamwe and Armed Forces of Rwanda that carried out the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Operating mostly in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo along the border with Rwanda, it carried...
, whom they felt were motivated by opposing forms of violent racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
. After Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
agreed to host Sendashonga's rebel training camps, he used his contacts with Prunier to go to Uganda and talk to Salim Saleh
Salim Saleh
General Salim Saleh , is an adviser to the President of Uganda on military matters. Formerly, he was the Ugandan Minister of State for Microfinance. Before that, he was a high ranking military official of UPDF, the armed forces of Uganda. He is a brother of the current President of Uganda, Yoweri...
, President Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Museveni
Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is a Ugandan politician and statesman. He has been President of Uganda since 26 January 1986.Museveni was involved in the war that deposed Idi Amin Dada, ending his rule in 1979, and in the rebellion that subsequently led to the demise of the Milton Obote regime in 1985...
's brother, on 3 May 1998. Relations between Uganda and Rwanda had deteriorated and Salim was open to the idea of a new force to counter the RPF. Sendashonga then met Eva Rodgers of the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
, who was noncommittal but did not outright oppose the formation of the new armed group.
Assassination
On 16 May 1998, at about 5 pm, Sendashonga was being driven home in his wife's United Nations Environmental Programme car when he was shot and killed, along with his driver Jean-Bosco Nkurubukeye, by two gunmen firing AK-47AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
s. Twagiramungu, still in Brussels, declared, "I'm pointing to the RPF and its government" and was echoed by a number of other exiled political groups, though the RPF government denied any involvement.
Three men, David Kiwanuka, Charles Muhaji and Christopher Lubanga were arrested by the Kenyan police. Kiwanuka was claimed to be Rwandan, despite his typically Muganda
Buganda
Buganda is a subnational kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Ganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day Uganda, comprising all of Uganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala, with the exception of the disputed eastern Kayunga District...
name, while Muhaji and Lubanga were identified as Ugandan. The three had been identified, in what Prunier derides as a story "obviously fed by rather untalented Kigali security operatives", by Kenyan taxi driver Ali Abdul Nasser, who claimed that the three men had tried to hire him as a paid killer because Sendashonga had stolen $54 million in a criminal partnership with Kiwanuka's father, who the Nairobi police claimed to have been the Director of Immigration Services in Kigali, and who had subsequently been supposedly killed by Sendasonga so he would not have to share the loot. This story ran into serious problems when the actual Director of Immigration Services, a man named Charles Butera, surfaced to state that he was alive, that he had no son named Kiwanuka, that he knew Sendashonga only as a brief acquaintance, and that nobody had ever stolen $54 million.
Despite the problems with the Kenyan criminal case, the three men remained in jail until 31 May 2001, when they were released from jail by a court. In a December 2000 hearing, Sendashonga's widow, Cyriaque Nikuze, claimed that the Rwandan government was behind the assassination and revealed that he had been scheduled to testify before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to judge people responsible for the Rwandan Genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan...
and the French Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry. Sendashonga, who had agreed to testify for the defense in the trial of Obed Ruzindana, would have been the first current or former member of the RPF to testify before the International Criminal Tribunal. Nikuze claims that the Rwandan embassy official Alphonse Mbayire, who was the acting ambassador at the time, organized the assassination. Mbayire was recalled by his government in January 2001, immediately after Nikuze's accusation and shortly before a new hearing was to begin, only to be shot dead by unidentified gunmen in a Kigali bar on 7 February 2001.