RWANDAN VICTIMS OF RPF MASSACRE
2437 Pitkin Ave,
Brooklyn, NY 11208
Mr. Tony
Hall,
Director-General
of the BBC,
Broadcasting
House, Portland Place
London. W1A
1AA
October 11, 2014.
Dear Mr. Hall,
REF: EXPRESSING
OUR GRATITUDE ON THE BEHALF OF THE RWANDAN VICTIMS OF THE RPF MASSACRE SINCE
1990S TO 2003
On behalf of the Rwandan Victims of the RPF massacre, we are
writing to express our deepest gratitude to the BBC for the courage, zeal, and
selflessness undertaken to produce and broadcast the BBC This World Documentary,
Rwanda’s Untold Story.
We have been so lucky and privileged to reach this day and
sit together in our living room to watch such an incredible work that no man
has ever dared to produce in the last 20 years. We were all in tears as the
documentary touched our stories and told our own story without bias,
compromise, and prejudice that characterized previous production on Rwanda’s
past. Once again we wish to have better world to say thank you but human
language is so limited with few words to express how grateful we are. With no
cloud of any doubt in our minds, 80% of all Rwandans would tell you the same,
“Thank you very much BBC.”
Before we continue, here are some of our historical
background of the members who have come together to write you this letter of
gratitude. In 1991, twenty of us were between 5 and 11 years old. We lived in
Byumba, in the north western Rwanda where we witnessed the RPF insurgency at
the first hand. We saw our parents, relatives, uncles, aunts, and playmates
being butchered at the braod day. Those who survived continued fleeing as
children and crossed over to Eastern DR Congo. Our woes did not end there but
continued with us as we grew older. In October, 1996, the Rwandan RPF soldiers
invaded the camps and started shooting and killing indiscriminately. Majority
of our relatives died in these circumstances and those who survived entered
into the Ituli Equatorial jungle. The RPF soldiers did not spare us and they
followed us shooting and killing any living creature that they found on their
way. I myself Kanyabugabo saw with my own eyes my mom being chopped off her
breasts as I was hiding in a granary in a region called Masisi. Even if you go
there today and ask the people of Kibabi in they will tell you about the
Rwandan refugees’ massacre carried out by RPF on 17 November 1996. After
butchering my own mother in front of my eyes they left him to bleed to death.
Seventeen years on that image has never faded away.
Those who luckily survived in Masisi onslaught continued all
the way to Walikale, Amisi, and temporary settled in Tingitingi, Maniema. We
vividly remember it was on 19 December 1996. The Good Christmas of the Lord
found us in Tingitingi refugee camp scavenging for anything to eat. At least ¾
of refugees left Masisi region toward the unknown west couldn’t make it to
Kisangani. Majority of them were women and children, families with children,
sick and elderly people, or those women who were expatant and never had a
chance to see their beloved pregnancy come to completion because when they were
captured by RPF, they were aborted by a knife. That is how my uncle’s wife
Jeanine Uwamahoro died . After aborting Jeanine they asked her husband
Simbikangwa to drink her blood and he will be allowed to proceed but he
refused. They gorged out both of his eyes and told him to proceed to
Tingitingi. He died at Amisi refugee camp due to infection of his wounds.
Some of us were lucky
enough left Tingitingi on 22 February 1997 to the unknown destination but we
continued anyway though we knew we had no chance of making it out of Congo
alive. From Tingitingi to 5km away from the Tingitingi refugee camp we had been
ambushed by RPF soldiers at River-Lubutu. It was exactly at 4am when we fell
into RPF soldiers who started shooting at us as we were trying to cross over
River Lubutu. As thousands of the people struggled to cross over the Lubutu
bridge it collapsed into the river. As it sunk into the river with all people
on it, people continued coming in masses as RPF and Ugandan soldiers continued
shooting at us the refugees continued falling into River Lubutu until their
bodies piled up to make a new human corps bridge. This is how some of us
survived to write to you this letter it is because the bodies of our relatives,
friends, neighbors, and schoolmates made a new bridge on River Lubutu of which
we crossed over as thousands of drowining souls called out for help through the
deafening sounds of machine-gun. We survived anyway.
Some of us continued all the way to Kisangani, Ubundu, Ikella,
Mbandaka and crossed over to Lukolela in the Republic of Congo. Thousands of
Rwandans were killed by RPF in all these places. We were there and we witnessed
it. From Lukolela to Brazzavill then to Cameroon. From Cameroon some of us
managed to go to the safer countries where we can dare to write you this letter
of gratitude. Those who are against your work is because they have benefited
from their lies for so long they don’t want to lose their dividents. A good
example is the letter from those calling themselves the scholars. They have
written books on the official narreative therefore, the BBC documentary cuts
right through their financial stream and pierces their academic credibility
that is why they are fighting the “NO” war at the expense of millions of Rwandans
who support the BBC work,
Since the broadcast of the Rwanda’s Untold Story documentary , as expected by Kigali, it has
provoked strong passions on either side of the Rwanda debate, thus confirming
that BBC’s endeavour has responded to an un-met need for dialogue and debate in
contemporary Rwandan society, which is a pillar to national reconciliation in
Rwanda and among Rwandans. Despite relentless noise from President Paul
Kagame’s brutal dictatorship, the groups that benefit from the official
narrative, and those who know that the truth is going to exposed them, majority
of Rwandans, at least 80% of Rwandans are proud that it has made a contribution
to Rwanda’s search for the whole truth upon which a safe and shared future for
all Rwandans must be built.
Dear BBC, permit us to take freedom to use this thank you
note to express utter dismay and grave concern about the content in a letter
that a group of people calling themselves scholars, scientists, researchers,
journalists and historians wrote to you on October 12, 2014. As we have said it
earlier these are people who have invested and harvested so much from the lies
and established different mechanisms to to cover up the truth that all Rwandans
know. Although we might not have have
any doubt about their credentials, their attempt to silence the BBC and
Rwandans, in defense of the Kigali regime, should be strongly condemned by all
truth-loving peoples, especially majority of Rwandans who support your work.
Rwandans who are not in exile live in constant fear and
cannot speak out about their feelings because if they do then their bodies will
be collected in Lake Rweru the next morning. If it were you would you exchange
your another day of existence to speak the truth you know? Of course no. In
Rwanda we have adopted “Keep it to yourself and live another day” style. I hope
because of this letter Kagame is not going to send me a hit squad to smash my
head because of writing to you this support letter.
Once again thank you very much for standing with the
majority of Rwandans both Hutus and Tutsis to tell the whole world what really
happened in Rwanda in the last 24 years.
Kanyarugano
E, PhD
President of the
Rwandan Victims of the RPF Massacre
2437 Pitkin Ave,
Brooklyn, NY 11208
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