Rwanda suspect found in Angola
2002-08-12 21:48
Luanda - The government announced on Monday it has discovered former Rwandan armed forces chief General Augustin Bizimungu, suspected of involvement in his country's 1994 genocide, among Angola's disbanding rebel forces.
The authorities said in an official communique read on state
radio Radio Nacional de Angola that Bizimungu was identified among Unita rebels gathered at a demobilisation camp.
He is to be handed over to the United Nations, the communique
said.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha,
Tanzania, is prosecuting the masterminds of the 1994 genocide in
which at least half a million people, most of them minority Tutsis, were slaughtered from April 7 to July 1, 1994. The campaign was orchestrated by the government of extremists from the country's Hutu majority.
US put price on his head
The Angolan government said last week that about 60 Rwandans
were identified among the 82 000 Unita troops who have entered into a peace deal to end Angola's two-decade civil war.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is interviewing
Unita's foreign fighters. As well as the Rwandans, about 500 other foreigners are Congo.
Neither government nor UN officials in Luanda were immediately available for comment on Bizimungu's capture.
The Unita army has handed over its weapons and is curently being demobilised.
On July 29, US Ambassador at large for War Crimes Issues,
Pierre-Richard Prosper, announced in Kinshasa, Congo, that the US
government was offering rewards of up to $5 million for
information leading to the arrest and transfer to the UN Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda of nine suspects, including Bizimungu.
Bizimungu fled to Zaire, as Congo was then called, when forces
of the Rwanda Patriotic Front captured the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on July 4, 1994.
From exile he called for the ouster of the new government,
dominated by minority Tutsis.
- Sapa-AP
- SAPA