For Rwandan Man In Boston, New Arms Replace Those A Father Destroyed

By Martha Bebinger June 30, 2014

Greig Martino fits a new prosthetic on Patrick Mbarushimana at the United Prosthetics workshop in Dorchester. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

BOSTON — In the mid-1990s, following the Rwandan genocide, clashes between government forces and mostly Hutu rebels continued along the country’s border with then Zaire. One day, soldiers came to a mud brick home in a small village and questioned a father while his young son listened.

The father denied helping rebels, but the boy, then 6 years old, said yes, some men had slept in the house the night before. The soldiers took the father away.

When the father returned a day later, “he said that he’s going to do something that I won’t forget,” recalled Patrick Mbarushimana, now 22.

(Jesse Costa/WBUR)

The details of Patrick’s punishment are murky. In one story that circulated through his village, the father tied Patrick by the arms to a tree. Gangrene set in before he was released. In Patrick’s memory, his father started a fire and sat on him, with his bound arms facing the blaze until rope burned through to the bone.

Patrick says his father left him to die, but he ran away to the soldiers and told them what happened. The father was arrested.

“We heard shootings within that prison,” Patrick said in a soft voice. “Immediately [the soldier] brought us to the car, taking us to the hospital.”

The soldiers told Patrick they had killed his father because if they didn’t, he would kill others.

At the hospital, doctors amputated Patrick’s right arm just below the elbow and his left arm about four inches below the shoulder. Patrick was wandering the hospital halls when a producer with CNN, Ingrid Formanek, arrived looking for survivors of a recent massacre.

“He was dirty, he was soiled, he was jumping into bed at night with patients to keep warm,” Formanek recalled. “That night I called my husband, I was upset. I said this child, we gotta do something. I don’t know why this child and not another child, but anyway, he got to me.”

Formanek partnered with Tharcisse Karugarama, a lawyer she knew at the time. Karugarama, who later became Rwanda’s minister of justice, offered to give Patrick a home.

“I provided the emotional and psychological support,” Karugarama said. “She did everything else.”

Formanek paid for Patrick’s schooling and other expenses. She ordered a set of artificial arms through the mail when Patrick was younger. They didn’t work out, but Formanek and Karugarama never gave up.

‘This Is Incredibly Amazing’

“Now I can scratch,” Patrick said after being fitted with his new arm. “This is incredibly amazing.” (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

At United Prosthetics in Dorchester, Greig Martino, grandson of the company’s founder, pounds the final rivet into a new right forearm for Patrick as he waits downstairs. The prosthetic is a brown tube that ends in tong-like, curved hooks.

“Ooo,” Patrick says after sliding the soft flesh below his elbow into the socket. He stretches the arm out several times before raising it toward his face. “Now I can scratch. This is incredibly amazing.”

Both the right arm and the left will be held on with straps that loop around the opposite shoulder. Patrick pulls against the harness, using what’s left of his arm, underarm and back muscles to extend the artificial limb. As he extends, a cable that runs through the arm tightens, pulling open the two hooks.

Martino gets a laugh out of Patrick as he adjusts the fitting of his new left arm. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

“Now can I hold you?” Patrick asks, reaching out to shake Martino’s hand. Martino obliges.

“Hello, sir,” Patrick says.

“Hello, sir,” Martino responds. “How are you?”

“Great,” Patrick says with a smile Martino returns.

A Public Disability 

Patrick is an accomplished artist. He plays soccer, sings and produces music, rides a bike, and swims. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

The arms will change his life, Patrick says, although he’s surprisingly adept without them. He’s an accomplished artist, having learned to pick up a pencil with his lips and teeth, then place it between what’s left of his two arms. He plays soccer, sings and produces music, rides a bike, and swims.

Four of Patrick’s drawings. From left to right, Thabo Mbeki, Beyonce, Nelson Mandela and Akon

But he can’t go to the bathroom by himself, bathe or get dressed, and he’s tired of having such a public disability.

“People who sees me ask me very many questions,” Patrick says. “Others, they cry.”

“Maybe sometimes I will be able to put on shirts with long sleeves, so that people won’t know, unless they see the hook, that I don’t have arms,” Patrick says, adding that he’s not ashamed of how he looks.

Patrick will probably still need help with the buttons from 18-year-old Maurice Murenzi, who’s been Patrick’s constant companion for 16 years.

Maurice Murenzi, 18, right, assists Patrick with all tasks he is unable to do. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

“Since I met him, we became brothers,” Murenzi says.

The boys came of age after the 1994 genocide, during which 800,000 Rwandans were killed. Most of the dead were Tutsi. Most of the killing was done by Hutus. Patrick and Maurice were adopted into a home that includes Tutsis and Hutus. The young men say tribal differences don’t matter in their relationship.

A Low-Tech Solution 

Patrick writes “I love you all” on a workbench at United Prosthetics as he tests out his new arm. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

“You’re keeping your chest out, like this,” says Dr. Brendan Green, modeling the stance Patrick will use to move his new left arm. This fitting is tricky. Muscles around what’s left of the 4-inch limb haven’t been used in years.

A higher tech, more robotic arm might help, but those models require regular maintenance not available in Rwanda. So for Patrick, Dr. Green and the team at United Prosthetics went in the other direction.

“This is as low maintenance as it gets,” Green says. “This prosthesis, given all the spare parts that we will give him, will last 10 to 20 years.”

“Together we will do something greater to this world, me and you,” Patrick says to Green and Martino.

“We make good team?” Martino asks. Patrick nods. “All right, brother, it works,” Martino says.

Samantha Conley, an occupational therapist at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, helps Patrick get his shirt over his head. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Three days later, Patrick is at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston. The Braintree-basedRay Tye Medical Aid Foundation is funding the $40,000 to $45,000 cost of Patrick’s prosthetics and rehab.

Patrick sits across a table from his occupational therapist, Samantha Conley. His black Manchester United soccer jersey lies between them.

“Can you put your head in first?” Conley asks.

Twenty minutes after he started, the shirt is stuck on Patrick’s head.

“This is a very great work,” Patrick says, breathing as if he’s just finished working out.

“Where are you?” Conley asks, laughing.

“I’m lost,” Patrick says, returning the laughter.

At the end of the appointment, Patrick, who’s produced a handful of songs and videos in Rwanda, delivers a gift for Conley.

“Can I rap for you?” he asks.

Patrick, holding a microphone with one hook hand, belts out “Dufatanye,” a song about “unity, let’s work together, as one.” Patrick uses the stage name Puzzle when he raps, because, he says, the whole picture of his life is not yet clear.

Rwanda has won praise since the genocide for bringing Tutsis and Hutus together to improve the country’s health and economic well-being. But a recent Human Rights Watch report raises concerns about an increase in what it says are politically motivated detentions and disappearances.

Patrick, an incidental peace ambassador, will be in Boston for a few more weeks, spreading his message of resilience and hope.

Source: Common Health

Rwanda: Acquitted but still not free

by

Beth S. Lyons

In February 2014, Lead Counsel Chief Charles A. Taku and I (with our defence team) won the acquittal of our client, Major F.X. Nzuwonemeye, former Commander of the Reconnaissance Battalion, Rwandan Army in April 1994, in the Ndindiliyimanaet al. (‘Military II’) case at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The Appeals Chamber reversed the Trial Chamber's convictions for crimes against humanity and violations of article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II for the murders of the Belgian peacekeepers and former Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.

Major Nzuwonemeye joined the other ICTR acquitted persons and those who have completed their sentences (about ten in total), who live under U.N. auspices in a ‘safe house’ in Arusha, Tanzania. One person, Dr.Andre Ntagerura, has lived in a ‘safe house’ since his acquittal at trial in 2004. The reason is that no country where these men can live in safety and without fear will accept them. They are separated from their families. Many of their families live in Europe, in countries where these men were initially arrested, prior to transfer to the ICTR.

These men are former members of the Rwandan government and military in 1994 - the very enemy against whom the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Rwanda's current President Paul Kagame, waged war. A year or so ago, Rwanda expressed its willingness to accept these persons. Based on the government's past and current practices and attitudes towards its opponents (both inside and outside the country), the men fear for their safety if they were to set foot on Rwandan soil.

Their fears are unequivocally justified. The environment in Rwanda under the current government is unsafe for anyone or any party perceived to be in opposition to the regime. As The Economist's editorial on the Parliamentary elections in September 2013 stated, ‘Political opposition has been allowed only where it does not question the RPF's role as the country's saviour.’

The opponents of the RPF - whether political candidates, or journalists or other individuals - are imprisoned or found dead. In the last Presidential election in 2010, the First Vice-President of the Democratic Green Party (one of the three opposition parties excluded from the ballot), Andre Rwisereka, was found dead a few weeks prior to the elections. Leaders (as well as members) of other opposition parties, such as Me. Bernard Ntaganda, Deogratias Mushayidi, Dr. Theoneste Niyitegeka, and Victoire Umuhoza Ingabire remain incarcerated. Journalists have been killed inside and outside the country. In fact, Rwanda ranks 162nd out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Victoire Ingabire, President of the Unified Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi), a coalition of Rwandan opposition parties, returned to her home country after 16 years in exile in the Netherlands to challenge President Kagame in the last Presidential election. Instead, she was arrested and prosecuted for ‘genocide ideology,’ ‘divisionism’ and other charges related to terrorism and is now serving a sentence of fifteen years (see, Amnesty International's 2013 publication, Rwanda in Jeopardy: The First Instance Trial of Victoire Ingabire). In a resolution (23 May 2013), the European Parliament stated that it ‘strongly condemns the politically motivated nature of the trial’ and noted that ‘respect for fundamental human rights, including political pluralism and freedom of expression and association, are severely restricted in Rwanda, making it difficult for opposition parties to operate and for journalists to express critical views.’ The bottom line is that Kagame's stranglehold on human rights is omnipresent. It has fostered an environment in which the violations of human rights, the suppression of the opposition, and the muzzling of journalists occur with impunity.

The most recent U.S. State Department Country Report 2013, issued in February 2014, concluded that ‘the most important human rights problems in the country remained the government's targeting of political opponents and human rights advocates for harassment, arrest, and abuse; disregard for the rule of law among security forces and the judiciary; restrictions on civil liberties; and support of a rebel group [M23] in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).’

The report also identified other major problems, including arbitrary or unlawful killings both inside and outside of the country. In March 2014, South Africa expelled three Rwandan diplomats, after authorities linked them to attacks on former leaders of Kagame's own party, who were in opposition to the Kigali regime. Patrick Karegeya, former Chief of External Intelligence Services, who had been granted asylum in South Africa, was found strangled in a Johannesburg hotel on 1 January 2014. President Kagame, interviewed by the Wall Street Journal at Davos, Switzerland, denied any involvement in his death, and reportedly said, ‘But I add that, I actually wish Rwanda did it. I really wish it.’ Kagame claimed that Karegeya, a leading opposition figure, was part of a group that threatened Rwanda and its people but did not describe the threat.

In Rwanda, media pronouncements on the guilt of ICTR defendants, prior to a trial and verdict, void the presumption of innocence. When there are ICTR acquittals, some civil society groups (including IBUKA, well-known as a state controlled organization) challenge the legitimacy of these judgments. In the last months, these groups filed a petition against Judge Meron [2] (the presiding judge in the Appeals Chamber) with the Security Council, opposing the acquittals of government and military leaders and demanding an investigation of the presiding judge.

At the heart of this is the RPF's consternation that no former government official or military commander stands convicted of conspiracy to commit genocide. Some have been acquitted by the Trial Chamber; others have been acquitted by the Appeals Chamber, which has reversed Trial Chamber convictions for conspiracy to commit genocide.

This charge is the sine qua non of the Rwandan government's ‘official narrative’ of the events of 1994: that there was a pre-planned genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus, orchestrated by the highest official echelons in Rwanda. In this ‘official’ recollection of 1994, the whole state apparatus, from the national level down to local communes, from the Rwandan army to the local bourgmestre (equivalent of mayor) at the commune level, had been transformed into a killing machine against the Tutsi population. This is essentially the scenario in the book by the late Alison Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, which has been used as the Bible of the prosecution in drafting the indictments.

The fact is that the evidence presented by the prosecution at the ICTR did not prove the allegations of conspiracy to commit genocide beyond a reasonable doubt. For a fuller critique of, and alternative view to, the ‘official narrative,’ based on the trial evidence, including the role of the U.S. and the U.K. in covering up the truth, see ‘The Accidental...Genocide [3]' by Professor Peter Erlinder. 

No doubt alarmed that the evidence did not follow the ‘official narrative,’ the petition states: ‘...It is disquieting to note that in all cases it has handled, all those known and accused of planning the genocide against Tutsi, no one has been convicted of this act of planning. Can genocide happen unplanned?’

Rwanda's U.N. Representative, Eugene-Richard Gasana, reiterated this point in his remarks to the U.N. Security Council in its debate on the international tribunals, held on 5 June 2014: ‘Rwanda fully understands that in a human undertaking such as judicial processes, all people indicted will not necessarily be convicted and sentenced. Nonetheless, we are extremely troubled at the dangerous trend of the ICTR Appeals Chamber of acquitting military commanders and cabinet ministers who were, for some of them, heavily condemned by the Trial Chamber...’.

Rwanda's petition and remarks are an affront to the rule of law, because they do not respect the legal judgments of the Tribunal; nor does the suggestion of an investigation of a presiding Judge indicate respect for the General Assembly, the body which elects ICTR judges.

In this context, returning home is not an option for my client, or for others who have been acquitted or have completed their sentences. The struggle to get countries to accept these men must be based on strict adherence to, and respect for, the rule of law...a principle that is clearly lacking in Rwanda.

* Beth S. Lyons served as a defense counsel in three cases at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania. Her review of Professor Nancy Amoury Combs' book, Fact-Finding Without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions, was published in the Journal of Genocide Research in September 2011.

Source: Pambazuka.org

Fingers point at FDLR as mysterious fires gut Rwanda prisons

Kigali’s commercial centre of Quartier Matteus burns of July 8, 2014 afternoon. The inferno raged for well over two hours before it was put out by police and military fire brigades. In the past month, fires have been reported in two state prisons, prompting fears of sabotage. Photo/Daniel S. Ntwari 

Posted  Friday, July 11  2014 at  20:20

As government officials remained tight-lipped on the causes of recent fires in state prisons, one of which claimed the lives of three inmates, some insiders would not rule out sabotage.

Some sources even pointed a finger at the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)-based militants are widely implicated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as well as several bomb and grenade attacks on unarmed civilians in Rwanda from across the border.

“It cannot be a coincidence that two correctional facilities can be gutted by fire in one month,” an official at Rwanda Correctional Services, who preferred anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Rwanda Today. “This has to do with work of an insider or an enemy within.”

The source further revealed that the prison service and intelligence agencies would ensure the cause of the fire was established.

Unconfirmed reports were reportedly making rounds in Rubavu town alleged that the FDLR were behind the fire. These reports had, however, not been corroborated by officials by press time.

Three inmates were confirmed dead in an inferno that recently swept through Rubavu Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS) facility, just weeks after another prison in Muhanga district was gutted by fire.

At 8pm on Monday, fightfighters were still battling the fire which gutted a large section of one of the newest prison in Rwanda located in Rubavu, Western Province. Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) and Rwanda National Police battled the fire late into the night.

In an interview with the state broadcaster Radio Rwanda, Mayor of Rubavu Sheikh Hassan Bahame said the three died in the blaze while 40 others sustained injuries during a stampede that ensued.

According to sources at the scene, the fire broke out at around 4:30pm in one section of the facility. Eric Ntakirutimana, the acting director of the prison, told a local news outlet that he could not immediately confirm the cause of the fire.

“For now, our concern is the lives of the inmates as well as their property and that of the prison,” said Mr Ntakirutimana. “We cannot tell for now what the cause the fire was but we will launch investigations immediately.”

Residents of the district looked on as the correctional facility, which is located on a hill overlooking Lake Kivu, was consumed by the inferno. The picturesque prison, considered one of the new, model correctional facilities in the country, holds more than 3,000 inmates.

Just a month ago, a big section of Muhanga Correctional Facility, which is located in the southern district of Muhanga, was gutted by fire which, according to sources, was a result of “poor electrical installation.”

Investigations concluded that during fumigation some liquid chemicals got into contact with bare, live electrical wires, causing a short-circuit that sparked off the blaze.

The management of the facility, which also houses more than 3,000 prisoners, struggled to keep the excess inmates after a large section of it was destroyed. Prisoners were distributed in Mpanga and Huye prisons, which were already battling congestion.

The western and northern towns of Rubavu and Musanze have in recent days been gripped by tension originating from the alleged infiltration by FDLR elements. Some of the recent documented disappearances and arrests happened there.

Bars and nightclubs razed

The prison infernos rekindle memories of 2011, when dozens of schools across the country were gutted by mysterious fires and, later in 2012, when several bars and nightclubs in Kigali were razed in a series of fires.

At least 92 fires were recorded In 2012 and 84 in 2011, which has compelled the government to establish a special team to investigate the outbreaks. The fires also have exposed Rwanda’s lack of capacity to handle catastrophic fires, what with an ill-equipped firefighting department.

When last month Minister for Internal Security Sheikh Musa Fazil Harelimana was grilled by parliamentarians regarding the country’s ability to respond to fire disasters, he said more resources were being allocated to this end.

Eyewitnesses say that, in most cases, police arrived at the scene hours after the fire broke out and struggled to contain the blaze.

Source: The East African

Rwandan tycoon drags govt to regional court

The Union Trade Centre (UTC) mall in Kigali, which is owned by exiled Rwandan business mogul Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa. Photo/Cyril Ndegeya

Posted  Saturday, July 12  2014 at  12:50

Exiled tycoon Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa has sued the government of Rwanda in the East African Court of Justice over the seizure of his property and assets in the country.

Several properties and assets belonging to Mr Rujugiro have been taken over by the state after being categorised as “abandoned properties.”

The latest was the takeover of his shares in Nshili Kivu Tea Factory by Nyaruguru District authorities on June 25 after the Commission for Abandoned Properties resolved it was “poorly managed.” It is now expected to manage the shares on Mr Rujugiro’s behalf.

Mr Rujugiro has businesses in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan, South Africa, Angola, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates, where he is currently based.

A former economic adviser of President Paul Kagame and stalwart of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), he fled in 2009 after he was accused of funding anti-government groups. The business magnate told The EastAfrican he was determined to fight the “illegal” seizure in the regional court.

“I have filed a case in the East African Court of Justice to redeem my properties, including UTC Mall and my residence,” Mr Rujugiro said. “It will be heard in August or early September. My properties have never lacked someone to manage them.”

Contrary to laws

The EastAfrican established that the case was, indeed, filed in EACJ under reference number 10 of 2013 by Union Trade Centre (UTC). EACJ president Dr Emmanuel Ugirashebuja had said he was unaware of it.

CAP has instructed NKTF to deposit all monies due to Mr Rujugiro in Nyaruguru District’s bank account for “safekeeping.” Dr David Himbara, an advisor of Mr Rujugiro who is exiled in Canada, said the government had “illegally” replaced Mr Rujugiro as a shareholder in NKTF.

“The government claims that Mr Rujugiro’s assets were taken over because they were abandoned since he does not reside in Rwanda,” Dr Himbara said. “As Mr Rujugiro explains, however, this assertion is contrary to Rwandan and universal laws that protect shareholders regardless of whether they are domiciled inside or outside their native countries.

“Rwanda seems to be saying that no investor residing outside the country may own shares in Rwandan-based companies or, to be precise, a native Rwandan not living in their homeland may not own assets of any kind in their country.”

Nyaruguru vice-mayor Fabien Niyitegeka, the district’s CAP chair, confirmed the takeover.

“It is true we have taken over the management of the shares, but it is not about Mr Rujugiro alone,” he told The EastAfrican. “In fact, we have never seen him, or anyone from him with power of attorney, coming to us.

“So, the commission resolved that these shares were abandoned.”

He said an account to hold earnings of Mr Rujugiro’s shares had been opened. The tycoon holds an estimated five per cent stake each in the tea plantations and the factory, which he co-owns with a British firm.

A few months ago, CAP in the Kigali districts of Nyarugenge and Kicukiro took over the UTC Mall and the 60-room residence, respectively. The mall, located in the heart of the city, is valued at $20 million and the residence $2 million. The state also took over his local bank accounts.

The high-end Gikondo residence is said to have been converted into a guest house and bar but when The EastAfrican visited, there was no visible activity and the policeman at the gate denied our reporter access.

“No one is allowed inside; go to Kicukiro District and get permission,” the officer said.

A district official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the mansion was in the hands of Rwanda National Police but that was refuted by Internal Security Minister Sheikh Musa Harelimana at a news conference.

“Police does not engage in commercial activities and, even if they did, it would not be in the alcohol business because their job is to keep law and order, including curbing excessive consumption of alcohol,” he said.

Source: The East African