The Rwandan genocide continues to cast a long shadow almost two decades later as those allegedly tied to the bloodletting that left 800,000 dead keep turning up in Canada despite the government’s attempts to keep them out.
The latest case to emerge involves Jean Berchmans Habinshuti, 58, a former Rwandan member of parliament who served as the private secretary to Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana during the buildup to the 1994 genocide.
A document obtained by the National Post says Mr. Habinshuti arrived in Canada in July 2011 and claimed refugee status but was recently ordered deported after the Immigration Appeal Division found he had been a senior official in Rwanda when the massacres began.
The immigration tribunal said Mr. Habinshuti had attended, and allegedly helped plan, an April 2, 1994 meeting at the prime minister’s residence that was “a turning point in the history of Rwanda as it led to the assassination of the prime minister and the Rwandan genocide.”
Four days after that meeting, the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down and simmering ethnic tensions turned to genocide as ethnic Hutu extremists attempted to exterminate the country’s ethnic Tutsi minority.
Following the killings, in October 1994, Mr. Habinshuti returned to the government as head of social affairs in the prime minister’s office and then information and press director. He served as a member of the National Assembly of Rwanda from 1999 to 2003.
He has been trying to immigrate to Canada since at least 2005, but was advised by immigration officials at the Canadian High Commission in Kenya he might be inadmissible because of his alleged involvement in the Rwandan government before the genocide.
He came anyway. He denied any involvement in the atrocities and depicted himself as a clerk but the tribunal found he “had authority and responsibilities in the Rwandan government” and “exerted power and influence” in the regime.
The tribunal also said the meeting in which he was involved shortly before the genocide was “a very important one in Rwandan politics.” At the time the prime minister was attempting to reform the military. Hutu extremists used the meeting as evidence a coup was in the works.
“The respondent has been credibly identified as having been the originator of such meeting in conjunction with a military officer. In light of such information, the tribunal concludes that the respondent was influential in policy making and his role was politically significant as he had the potential to exercise significant influence on the exercise of government power,” the IAD wrote.
The decision was published last week on the Immigration and Refugee Board website. Mr. Habinshuti has filed an appeal in the Federal Court. Under Canada’s war crimes law, senior officials in the Rwandan government between 1990 and 1994 are not permitted to enter Canada.
Meanwhile, in a decision Monday, the Federal Court upheld the deportation of a former inspector in the Nepali Police Service, which committed serious human rights abuses during the 10-year fight against Maoist rebels.
Suman Raj Sapkota served 18 years in the Nepali police, much of it in areas under active Maoist revolt. After receiving threats and surviving a knife attack, he made his way to Buffalo and crossed into Canada in 2009.
“He fears returning to Nepal as the Maoists or other affiliated Communist members may torture, abduct or kill him if they find him,” Justice Simon Noel wrote in a 19-page decision that followed a hearing in Toronto last week.
Mr. Sapkota denied any knowledge of police abuses but the judge ruled he had been a member of a police force responsible for “widespread” abuses including forced disappearances, torture, rape, extrajudicial executions and random killings.
Source:National Post