Kabuga, Lumbala and Cie

Félicien Kabuga, one of the most wanted suspects of the Rwandan genocide, was arrested near Paris on the 16th of May 2020. Then, few months later, a former Congolese warlord and legislator Roger Lumbala was arrested also in Paris for what French authorities described as « complicity in crimes against humanity ».

Felicien Kabuga had been living under a false identity in Asnières-sur-Seine for several years. It was there that he was arrested by the police, during a major police intervention, launched by international forces. He is suspected of having financed terrorist groups that killed 800,000 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Lumbala’s alleged crimes date back to the Second Congo War (1998-2003) and cover a period from 2001 to 2003. At that time, Lumbala led the Rally of Congolese Democrats and Nationalists, a small rebel party supported by the Ugandan army. This party is suspected of having used murder, rape and looting as tactics of war in urban operations. After that, Lumbala embarked on a political career. He became Congolese minister of foreign trade. This enabled him to avoid all the legal proceedings that were incurred against him after his acts of war. He then became a parliamentarian in the Senate of the Congo. He became an ally of the M23 group, a rebel party supported by Rwanda, and was arrested several times by the police. Before being definitively arrested in January 2021.

Felicien Kabuga is not Congolese, but Rwandan. He comes from the Hutu ethnic group. He was arrested on suspicion of having financed militias that perpetrated massacres, particularly against the Tutsi ethnic group. He encouraged them to be hunted down in the broadcasts of his own radio station. He will be judged by the international court for « crimes against humanity ».

Kabuga was arrested in his apartment in the Paris suburbs, where he lived with his children. Mr. Kabuga was charged in 1997 with seven counts:

-genocide

-complicity in genocide

-direct and public incitement to commit genocide

-attempted genocide

-complot to commit genocide

-performance

-extermination

Approximatly nothing has been done internationally to stop the killings and massacres. The UN had forces in Rwanda, but the mission never began, so the peacekeepers never launched an attack, particular on Kabuga’s militias.