A witness yesterday said former Rwandan military officer, Tharcisse Muvunyi successfully used Kinyarwanda proverbs to rally many extremist elements into taking up arms against innocent Tutsis. Witness FBX told judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that Muvunyi used inflammatory language at a meeting in Gikore, Southern Province, which they understood as a call to exterminate all the Tutsis and Hutus married to Tutsi women. The accused is being re-tried over a speech he allegedly made at a public meeting in the commercial center of Gikore in 1994. The witness narrated that during the meeting, the accused used a traditional proverb that goes as follows; “Iyo inzoka yiziritse ku gisabo, nta kundi bigenda barakimena,” meaning that when a snake coils itself onto a calabash, there remains no other alternative but to break the calabash. “This message was very clear to us. We understood it to mean that all Hutus who had Tutsi spouses should surrender them to be killed if not they all loose their lives,” the witness said. “By 7: 00am the following day, we started killing Tutsis. We stormed houses and killed mostly women and children who had any relationship to a Tutsi,” The prosecution witness said that during the meeting, Muvunyi assured them that the presence of senior government officials like former cabinet director in the Rwandan Interior Ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira was a guarantee for their immunity in case anybody questioned their acts. “He showed us officials from the justice ministry and the officer in charge of prisons. He assured us that no one would take us to jail since the prisons boss was in our midst,” the witness added. Prosecutor Charles Adeogun-Philips said that they will provide evidence to show that the accused threatened those who didn’t participate in killings against Tutsis, telling them that they would be considered as traitors. Witness FBX is among the five witnesses that include a socio-linguist expert that prosecution will present in three days. Many believe Muvunyi’s retrial will be characterized by traditional proverbs which he allegedly used while making speeches that incited Hutus to kill Tutsis. He was arrested in February 2000 in the United Kingdom and transferred eight months later to the UN detention centre in Arusha. Ends
