The Rwandan government is preparing an extradition request for a senior UWC lecturer, writes Chris McGreal
A Rwandan doctor wanted for murdering Tutsis during the 1994 genocide is to keep his job at the University of the Western Cape (UWC)because ”the charges against him are only allegations”.
This is despite the fact that numerous witnesses have provided information to Rwandan prosecutors that Dr Pierre Mugabo executed a colleague and helped draw up hit lists of Tutsis to be massacred.
The Rwandan government is preparing an extradition request for Mugabo, who has worked as a senior lecturer at UWC’s pharmacology department for two years. Rwandan authorities are also seeking the extradition of his wife, Felicitee Musanganire, a nurse. The couple – and their son, who is now in Belgium – are accused of murder and organising killings during the genocide of 800 000 Tutsis in Rwanda.
Survivors and former colleagues of Mugabo accuse him of shooting fellow doctors, overseeing the murder of patients and joining the notorious interahamwe militia as they butchered children seeking sanctuary with nuns. Among the witnesses to Mugabo’s crimes is a survivor of the genocide, now living in South Africa, who has offered to testify against him.
In a brief conversation with the Mail & Guardian, Mugabo was adamant that ”everything is false. I was always busy in the hospital. We were only 10 doctors continuing to work.”
Mugabo says he has no hope of a fair trial in Rwanda, where he faces the death penalty if it can be proved he organised killings.
It is not clear how long Mugabo and his wife have been in South Africa, but they were granted permanent residence on January 11.
Until 1994, Mugabo worked at Rwanda’s principal teaching hospital in Butare. The city was the country’s intellectual centre and remained calm during the first days of the genocide. Butare province had Rwanda’s only Tutsi governor.
But two weeks into the genocide, President Theodore Sindikubwabo flew to Butare to berate political leaders, police and anyone who shared his Hutu extremist philosophy for failing to deal with the inyenzi (cockroaches), as Tutsis were derided. As Sindikubwabo left the city, his presidential guard flew in to kick-start the slaughter.
The hospital was turned into a refugee centre. Thousands of Tutsis fled their homes for the hospital believing they would be protected by the doctors and professors. It was not to be.
Survivors, and those who witnessed the killings but refused to participate, say doctors and nurses betrayed their Tutsi colleagues and patients to the killers. Among them was Mugabo.
Prosecutors say Mugabo at first limited himself to revealing the hiding places of the hunted to the interahamwe. He ordered Tutsi patients out of the wards knowing full well the militia were waiting at the door to hack them to pieces.
Then he decided to help cleanse the Buye district, where he and many doctors and lecturers lived. With help from his wife, Mugabo drew up lists of Tutsis among his neighbours and then joined the gangs hunting them down.
One of the survivors , Tharcisse Mukasafari, saw Mugabo kill a female colleague. ”Mugabo was no different to other doctors at the university hospital. They were doctors so they were used to blood and not afraid to shoot. I saw Mugabo murder a woman doctor. He shot her in the head. One shot,” he said.
Mugabo joined the interahamwe and soldiers when they attacked a house belonging to a group of nuns, the Sisters of Butare, where dozens of Tutsis were seeking refuge. The doctor helped kill the children of one of his colleagues, Pierre Claver Karenzi, a physicist at the university.
Then Butare’s intellectual elite invited the prime minister in the extremist regime, Jean Kambanda, to a meeting. Mugabo was among those who attended the conference with the prime minister at which it was decided to lure the remaining Tutsis from hiding with public announcements that ”order” had been restored and to offer treatment for the wounded at the hospital. Hundreds of Tutsis were duped, and died.
Mugabo says he cannot remember whether or not he attended the meeting. ”You see there were meetings we couldn’t miss. I remember hearing of a meeting with [the prime minister], but I don’t think I attended,” he said.
At the same time, Mugabo’s wife, Musanganire, was doing her bit for the extermination of the Tutsis. She worked as a nurse at the University’s Public Health Centre Aids project.
Jean Baptiste Mugaragu, a medical assistant at the health centre, told African Rights that Musanganire specialised in taunting Tutsis with foul language. ”For her, the death of the Tutsis was the victory of the Hutus. She would say that all the Tutsis would soon die. It was the same for other women. They put their ideology into practice during the genocide. The little time that we spent together showed me that they supported the genocide of the Tutsis 100%,” he said.
Among the few who survived Musanganire’s wrath was Venuste Rudasingwa, a hotel worker whose wife was murdered in the early days of the genocide. He made the mistake of going into a shop run by Musanganire. ”She started threatening me. She said she didn’t understand how Tutsis were still alive. She said: ‘You, for example. Why haven’t you been killed yet?’ I told her it wasn’t my turn. She said our hotel hid many Rwandan Patriotic Front accomplices, but that problem was to be quickly solved,” he said.
Days later, Musanganire arrived at the hotel with soldiers and the interahamwe. Three waiters and three gardeners were murdered. Rudasingwa was saved by his false Hutu identity card.
Kambanda pleaded guilty to genocide at the International Tribunal for Rwanda and was sentenced to life imprisonment last year.
Mugabo was tracked down last month after he obtained a Rwandan passport using forged United Nations documents saying he had been a refugee in Algeria since 1989. But after confirming the documents were fake, Rwandan officials looked deeper into Mugabo’s background.
The UWC says despite the gravity of the accusations against Mugabo, they remain allegations and there is no reason for the university to suspend or dismiss him. ”Should it be proven legally that this is true that would change things,” said UWC representative Alwyn van Gensen. He added: ”In none of the references that we received on Dr Mugabo [when he applied for the job] was mention made of his involvement in genocide in Rwanda.”
Mugabo and his wife are not alone among Rwandan war criminals in seeking shelter in South Africa. Another prominent killer, former mayor Charles Munyaneza, was living in Durban claiming to be a Burundi citizen called Musa Sulimani. Last week he was pulled in for questioning by the Department of Home Affairs after his cover was blown. Munyaneza has since disappeared. Rwandan officials believe he is trying to seek a visa for Britain or Holland.
The Rwandan authorities fear Mugabo will also disappear before he can be detained.