Families want truth at Rwanda trial

20 April 2007

BRUSSELS – The relatives of the ten Belgian UN soldiers who were killed in Rwanda on 7 April 1994 hope that former Rwandan major Bernard Ntuyahaga will give all the facts on what happened to their family members. The defendant denies any involvement in the events for which he is on trial, De Morgen reports today.

The Brussels court assembled the jury and read out the bill of indictment on Thursday. The accused man will be questioned at the next hearing on Monday.

The former Rwandan military leader is on trial for the murder of the ten Belgian soldiers and the Rwandan prime minister at the time, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, on 7 April 1994. He will also have to answer for a series of other killings in the capital of Kigali and the Rwandan province of Butare between April and July 1994.

The man denies that he disarmed the paracommandos and brought them to Camp Kigali, where they were murdered by soldiers. He claims that he happened to drive by where they were and that they asked him to take them with him.

The family members of the paracommandos are convinced that Ntuyahaga is guilty and want to know who ordered Ntuyahaga to carry out the killings.

Rwandan victims have also declared themselves civil parties in the case. Goretti Mukunde, who has been living in Belgium since 1989, lost her whole family in Kigali in 1994. Only one of her nieces, left for dead in a mass grave, survived the violence. “My family members weren’t given a grace. They lie in a mass grave. I hope that their story will be told,” she said.

Subject: Belgian news