MAPUTO, Mozambique
The president of the Association of Rwandan Refugees in Mozambique on Wednesday called for the creation of an independent commission to investigate the murder of a fellow countryman in Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo.
“What we are
asking is that there is an independent commission to investigate this case and
I am sure there will be results,” Cleophas Habiyareme told Lusa.
Rwandan
businessman Revocat Karemangingo (above), who had lived in Mozambique since 1996 –
where he took refuge after the Rwandan genocide in 1994 – was shot dead near
his home when he was returning home alone from one of his stores that sells
soft drinks and beers, according to the police (PRM).
Revocat was
reportedly intercepted on the 13th, at 17:30 (16:30 in Lisbon), by two
vehicles, which blocked his path, from which unknown persons fired several
shots.
The president of
the Rwandan association also wants the same independent commission to
investigate the disappearance in May of journalist Ntamuhanga Cassien, who
lived on the island of Inhaca, near Maputo, and an attempt to kidnap the
association’s secretary.
Cleophas Habiyareme
questions the fact that the Rwandan community is the “only” one experiencing
this type of problem, and therefore asks the Mozambican government to “think
about it”.
“These are three
cases that have occurred within the same community. Here we have four major
refugee communities, including Rwandans, Burundians, Congolese and Somalis, but
the only one that is having a bad time, that suffers kidnapping, disappearance,
death, is the Rwandan community,” the president of the association told Lusa
indignantly.
Contacted today
by Lusa, PRM said there were still no results of the investigations into the
death of the Rwandan businessman.
“We are still
working,” said Carminia Leite, PRM spokeswoman in Maputo province.
According to the
president of the Association of Rwandan Refugees in Mozambique, the businessman
had been the target of political persecution since 2016, when he lived in
Boane, south of Maputo: he escaped an alleged assassination attempt, followed
by a process of “psychological torture” against him and “all those who were
considered opponents [of the regime] in Kigali”, Rwanda’s capital, and
President Paul Kagame.
Rwanda’s leader
since 1994, Paul Kagame is credited with developing the country after the
genocide of Tutsis that year, but the head of state is also accused of limiting
freedom of expression and repressing opposition.
Human Rights
Watch (HRW) in late March accused the Rwandan authorities of limiting people
using the internet to express themselves in the country, after restricting
freedom of expression in the media.
The restriction
of freedoms has also been denounced and condemned by other organisations such
as Reporters Without Borders and the European Union (EU).
The genocide in
Rwanda was responsible for the deaths of more than 800,000 people, mainly from
the Tutsi minority, between April and July 1994.
Rwanda was the
first foreign country to field troops in Mozambique under a bilateral agreement
to fight Islamist insurgents in the country’s northern Cabo Delgado province.
With the support
of the 1,000 Rwandan soldiers, Maputo recaptured rebel bases and localities
that had been occupied but which the Mozambican military had been unable to
recover on their own.
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