Former deputy leader of The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) Straton Musoni has opened up on how Rwanda’s genocide militia was formed.
In September 2015, former FDLR leader, Ignace Murwanashyaka, and his deputy, Straton Musoni, were sentenced to 21 years in jail, collectively, by a court in Germany after a four-year trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in eastern DR Congo by the genocidal militia they led.
Musoni was, almost immediately, released early, having been in pre-trial detention for almost six years but restricted to his home in Germany, while fighting deportation to Rwanda.
After completing his eight-year jail term, authorities in Germany deported Musoni to Rwanda, in October 2022.
A few days later, he headed to the Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) camp in Mutobo, Musanze District. Its mission is to support the successful demobilization, and social and economic reintegration of ex-combatants in their respective communities so as to realize national security, reconciliation, and development.
In an interview with The New Times at the RDRC camp, in April, Musoni shed some light on his early days; traveling to Germany after obtaining a scholarship in 1986, joining one of the first Rwandan subversive groups founded on genocide ideology, RDR, and partaking in a meeting that established the eastern DR Congo-based militia, FDLR, in May 2000.
When the Rwanda Patriotic Army took over power and stopped the Genocide against the Tutsi, in July 1994, the ousted genocidal regime’s army (ex-FAR), politicians, and Interahamwe militia that had committed Genocide – runaway, en masse, with their weapons, to eastern DR Congo, then known as Zaire. They later banded together into what they called the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR). In 2000, soon after the US government listed it as a terrorist organization following its murder of American tourists in Uganda’s Bwindi forest, they formed FDLR so as to evade or distance themselves from their horrendous crimes.
All they changed was a name. But the plan to complete the extermination of the Tutsi was never lost sight of by the genocidaires who stayed in DR Congo and mingled with the population. To date, the militia is at the heart of the insecurity affecting eastern DR Congo and the region.
Musoni, a father of two, met his ex-wife in Germany while he was still a student there. They got married in 1997. He became FDLR vice president in 2004. Before then, he was the militia group’s spokesperson in Europe.
Due to his arrest over association with the genocidal militia, he admitted, their marriage hit a rough patch and the couple split up. But he was happy that his children, and relatives in Rwanda, were never barred from regularly telephoning or visiting him in Mutobo.
Enter Akagera-Rhein
Musoni said: “I met Murwanashyaka during the phase of Akagera-Rhein. Nearly all Rwandans were members of Akagera-Rhein. We thought of the Akagera and Rhein Rivers as rivers that should be joined and then we called it association de l’amitié Allemagne-Rwandaise.”
Musoni claimed that Akagera-Rhein was all about advocacy and raising public awareness about the difficulties people in Rwanda faced at the time. But, just like RDR and other groups formed by members of the ousted genocidal regime, Akagera-Rhein also had a weird hidden agenda.
“What we watched on TV was Interahamwe killing the Tutsi. We also observed that the Hutu were fleeing in large numbers. The fleeing and the killings are what we wanted to make known. We also wanted [to raise awareness about] the problem of the war and its origins and how people could help Rwanda to end the conflict between the Hutu and the Tutsi.
“We explained that the war was caused by the Tutsi who had fled to Uganda and acquired arms since they were in the Ugandan army, and attacked Rwanda and were about to capture power [in Rwanda].”
Asked how, or when, he left the association to join FDLR, Musoni said he never actually left Akagera-Rhein.
“We did not quit. One is an association and the other is a [political] party. We did not even join FDLR at the time because it was born [later] in 2000. At the time, or in between, there came what was called RDR, in 1995.
“A man called Francois Nzabahimana is the one who founded RDR while in the [refugee] camps. He came to Europe and informed us that there was a newly formed party called RDR which we then joined as a political party. Its objective was the return of refugees and democracy in Rwanda. That is [the party] we left and joined FDLR because it was a competitor.”
Officially founded in April 1995, with headquarters in France and later in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada, the Rassemblement Républicain pour la Démocratie au Rwanda (RDR) hierarchy comprised genocide ideologues drawn from among the génocidaires in exile. Many were very much active in the refugee camps in Zaire, now DR Congo.
The idea of forming RDR was born in a meeting they held in the Congolese town of Bukavu in October 1994. It was in due course formed in Bukavu, South Kivu Province, and the camps in Mugunga in North Kivu Province.
Musoni said: “I used to represent RDR in Germany but eventually, I stopped activities because I no longer wanted to be RDR’s representative in Germany. I had done that for about five years and then I said ‘I have a lot of work, I have responsibilities; I have young children and my regular job, and couldn’t continue being active’.”
Before he quit, Musoni coordinated RDR activities – handling meetings, communiques, and translations, lobbying for support such as medicines for Rwandan refugees in refugee camps in DR Congo, in Tanzania, and elsewhere in faraway countries such as Cameroon.
“We reached everywhere where there was a Rwandan refugee at the time.”
Ingabire Victoire took over
Nzabahimana founded RDR, he said, but later, Ingabire Victoire took over its leadership. Reports indicate that Ingabire was elected as president of RDR during its third congress in Bonn, Germany, on August 17-19, 2000.
“When Victoire headed it, I was the representative in Germany. We got acquainted even though after some time we left RDR and moved to form FDLR.”
So, why quit, I asked.
Musoni explained that he left RDR because it had failed in its main mission.
Within the refugee community, he said, there were disagreements over how things should be done or managed.
“The military, or the ex-FAR, as we called them, did not agree with RDR. They did not agree with each other because RDR wanted to do politics without the [direct] involvement of the military. But the soldiers also said that they wanted to have a role in politics. That’s how they conflicted.”
“It was, therefore, the soldiers who took the initiative to form FDLR. They wanted to form their own [political] party within which they had a say. These included [Aloys] Ntiwiragaba, [Col. Tharcisse] Renzaho, and many others whose names I cannot recall now. There was also [Sylvestre] Mudacumura, although he was not involved in the direct organization since he was in the military.”
According to Musoni, the militia fighters were vehemently opposed to the idea of RDR civilian politicians commanding them.
“The reason they fronted was realistic, to whoever listened but anyone who cared less would disregard it. They [the fighters] were saying that it was the politicians who made the soldiers in Rwanda lose the war. It means they never, at all, wanted decisions, especially military decisions, to be made by politicians.”
Ntiwiragabo, a former head of the ousted regime’s military intelligence, is one of the founders of FDLR. Mudacumura, the former supreme commander of FDLR’s military wing – Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi (FOCA), was killed in September 2019.
When they were planning and coordinating activities to launch FDLR, Musoni said, Ntiwiragabo was in Kinshasa.
“I left Germany and headed to Lubumbashi. I think I boarded a flight from either Stuttgart or Frankfurt. It [plane] headed to Zambia. I don’t recall where we connected [flights]. It could have been Belgium or France, and then to Zambia. I was with Murwanashyaka Ignace.”
At the end of April 2000, they landed in Lusaka, Zambia, where they were welcomed and facilitated by people in their network. They stayed there for about two days, he recalls, then moved on, in a public minibus, to Lubumbashi, – the second-largest city in DR Congo, located in the country’s southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia.
On May 1, 2000, they gathered in a large hall in Lubumbashi and formed the FDLR. Their meeting in Lubumbashi lasted about three days, he recalls. There were “about 200 people,” mostly from the city and others from Kinshasa, the capital city of DR Congo.
“There was Ntiwiragabo, Renzaho Tharcisse, and many others whose names I could not know because people had [secret] names. There was, for example, someone called Romeo.”
“The leader was Ntiwiragabo. The deputy was Tharcisse Renzaho.”
The Congolese government appreciated our effort
During FDLR’s founding meeting, the Congolese government was represented by a high-level delegation, Musoni said.
“A senior government official spoke on behalf of the Congolese government and appreciated our effort in establishing a political party to represent the interests of Rwandan refugees in Congo. FDLR was founded at a time when the Congolese government wanted to find a way to solve the problem of Rwandans in Congo, especially the issue of soldiers who were in their army and who were then called the ex-FAR.”
At the time, in the Congolese army, the ex-FAR were referred to as forces spéciales [special forces].This was under the leadership of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila.
“Kabila was behind the establishment of FDLR. The government of Congo supported it. The [Congolese] military supported it because the soldiers in the forces spéciales were paid by Kabila’s army.”
“Kabila was in a hurry to find a way of getting rid of friends who assisted him. His way out, therefore, was to tell them [ex-FAR and Interahamwe] to go and set up their own political party so that they can also go and negotiate with Rwanda so that they get integrated into the Rwandan national army and their politicians get positions in government as was being done in Congo.”
Musoni explained how, initially, ALIR members did not want the name FDLR but preferred to be called ALIR2.
He said: “Kabila and others including Ntiwiragabo and us all said we didn’t want to be ALIR2 since ALIR had been put on a terrorist group because they killed American tourists in Bwindi.
“Even though they all originated from ex-FAR, their personalities were different. They didn’t have one hierarchy. They didn’t have one command. In brief, none of them commanded the other. One operated from the west and the other operated from the east. I am not sure whether that [west-east] conflict ever ended but even when they left the west and came to the east, the conflict persisted to the extent that Rwarakabije never saw eye to eye with Mudacumura who brought those from the west to the east. Eventually, [Paul] Rwarakabije returned home [to Rwanda].”
The group in the west, he said, contained those in Kinshasa and regions like Lubumbashi. They fought as a unit within the Congolese army; the so-called forces spéciales.
The group in the east – eastern DR Congo – was mainly under ALIR. It was led by the likes of Maj. Gen. (retired) Paul Rwarakabije, a former RDRC commissioner, and ‘Gen’ Gaston Iyamuremye, alias Victor Byiringiro, who is presently leading the militia in eastern DR Congo.
Ntiwiragaba left DR Congo and headed to Sudan in 2002. Murwanashyaka also left Kinshasa and returned to Germany. At the time, Renzaho had already been arrested and transferred to a UN detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania.
“The head of the military at the time was Mudacumura. He is the one who led the soldiers from Kamina to eastern DR Congo. He linked up with Rwarakabije. That was in 2002. It took them about six months to get there.”
Musoni agrees that the FDLR’s genocide ideology is still a threat.
“The genocide ideology is the biggest threat. I know it existed and it still exists in some people.”
As we concluded the interview, Musoni said he could not easily contact FDLR commanders in DR Congo because “I am no longer part of the organisation.”
But he had a message for them.
“We did whatever we could and did not succeed. If it is the battle of bullets that they are still waiting for, they will never win it because we know Rwanda and we know the strength it has. They must do whatever it takes such that there must be no war in Rwanda caused by them.
“Next is for them to return back home and build their motherland. There is no peace or luck that they will ever get in Congo. They will only have peace when they return to their peaceful country. They are the only ones who can cause us chaos and instability. When they return home we shall all be happy. Where they are, they also have no peace. Their return home is good for them and good for Rwandans because it gives us all peace.”
Musoni was in the group of 92 former members of armed groups discharged from the camp in Mutobo on Thursday, July 20, after completing months of civic education.
