Friday, December 9, 2011

Where in Kenya is Kabuga hiding?




Updated 9 hr(s) 18 min(s) ago
By Standard Reporter and Agencies
Kenya has again been put on the international radar in the luckless search for the world’s most-wanted fugitive, Rwanda’s Felicien Kabuga.
Despite denial by both retired President Moi’s regime, and after 2002, President Kibaki’s administration, the suspicion among the investigators remains that he is hiding in Kenya.
Now that President Kibaki leaves office next year, it appears the suspicions the former billionaire businessman and untouchable Rwandese minister is somewhere in Kenya, could last long enough to trouble the next President.
Rwanda’s Felicien Kabuga who has been on the run for years. He is the world’s most wanted fugitive suspected to be hiding in Kenya [PHOTO:FILE/STANDARD]
But even as the accusation comes and goes, like yesterday when it was voiced by the lead Prosecutor of the Rwanda Tribunal based in Arusha that is closing shop, the questions remain: Where in Kenya could he be? And why has there not been any reported sighting of him since 1994 when his trackers report he entered Kenya on his way to Switzerland?
The next question is, who could have, if at all he is in Kenya, given him sufficient cover from his trackers to last 17 years and still counting?
Kabuga, 76, is one of three high ranking fugitives from Rwanda who have evaded capture and are believed by the UN to be protected by networks embedded in ‘friendly’ countries.
The other two are former Rwandan Presidential Guard commander Protais Mpiranya, and former Rwandan defence minister Augustin Bizimanga.
The UN Security Council has accused Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s Government of shielding Mpiranya.
Mpiranya is alleged to have directed the Presidential Guard in sexually assaulting and killing Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and murdering ten Belgian UN peacekeepers who had been guarding her house.
He uses several aliases, including Yahaya Mohamed, Hirwa Protais Alain, Alain Protais Muhire, James Kakule, and Mambo Mapendo Augustin.
Narrowly missed capture
Kabuga was indicted for his role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed over 800,000 lives, but President Kibaki’s Government has repeatedly denied allegations Kabuga is hiding in Kenya, despite evidence that a team from the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR) that included Interpol (International Police) detectives and an elite Kenyan police unit, narrowly missed capturing the fugitive in a 1998 raid on his suspected safe house in Nairobi.
Sources at the time indicated corrupt units within the Kenya Police might have tipped off the fugitive.
In March last year, Rwanda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo said Kabuga was "unlikely" to be in Kenya.
"FÈlicien Kabuga is the man who financed the genocide. We have no idea where he is. It has been said he has been living in Kenya, but the administration has assured us he is not around," Musikiwabo was quoted by a local daily as saying, on the sidelines of the Pan-African Media Conference.
Observers at the time indicated that Rwanda, which had been demanding that the ICTR be wound up for being less effective than its own justice system, was not keen to ruffle Kenya’s feathers in public, given the close bilateral relations the two East African Community member States enjoy.
The minister went as far as implying that the ICTR was using Kabuga as an excuse to continue in business.
According to the minister, it defied logic as to why Kenya, a country that Rwanda holds in such high regard, "could harbour such a person".
She was reported to have asked: "If he is here (Kenya), where is he?"
Kabuga was indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.
He is alleged to have been the main financier and backer of the political and militia groups that committed the Rwandan genocide in which at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered during over a 100-day period in 1994.
Kabuga was the co-founder and chairman of the Fonds de DÈfense Nationale (FDN).
It is alleged that through this organisation, Kabuga provided money to the interim Rwandan Government to exectue mass murders, and gave logistical support to the Interahamwe militiamen who did most of the killing, by supplying weapons, uniforms, and transport.
Justice Hassan Jallow, the prosecutor of the UN tribunal that is pursuing key figures in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, says Kenya and Zimbabwe have refused to co-operate with his office.
$5 million reward
Each fugitive has a $5 million reward on his head, as do seven others being sought by the prosecutor.
Jallow said the tribunal also has "reliable information" that Mpiranya is in Zimbabwe.
"The Security Council should request both Kenya and Zimbabwe to fully discharge their legal obligations in this respect," he said.
But Jallow called for greater co-operation from member States in the Great Lakes region of east and central Africa, including Kenya, where many of the fugitives are.
And Judge Khalida Rachid Khan, president of the Arusha Tribunal said the court has been preserving evidence against the three high-ranking fugitives.
Kabuga was alleged to have visited Kenya in December, 2007 to meet his Kenyan "business associates" before flying to Switzerland – where he fled to in 1994 and stayed before being thrown out following his indictment – and stayed there for two weeks before crossing to Oslo, Norway, where many Rwandese nationals wanted for their role in the genocide have sought political asylum.
When Kabuga was kicked out of Switzerland in 1994, he fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but is believed to have fled to Nairobi after Rwandan troops invaded the DRC to flush out remnants of the Interahamwe.
In May 2008, the Africa Press Institute, quoting Kabuga, reported that the fugitive was trying to get some of the South Sudan leaders to broker a meeting between him and officials of the Rwanda Government of President Paul Kagame.
According the story, which was not independently confirmed, the meeting between Kabuga and the South Sudan leaders occurred in Oslo, Norway. API claimed Kabuga had said he was tired of running and wanted to return home, but under certain conditions.
Among these was that he be tried in Rwanda, but not be detained due to an alleged medical condition.
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