Victims of the attacks carried out by Rwanda Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD)/National Liberation Front (FLN), led by Paul Rusesabagina, have petitioned the U.S, Belgium and the European Union (EU), to recognise their plight.
The victims, through one of their lawyers, on Friday, delivered letters to the Embassies of the U.S and Belgium, as well as the EU, to stop portraying Rusesabagina as the victim, yet in reality his actions, left behind actual victims, whose side of the story is not told.
“When they talk about Rusesabagina, they describe him as the victim. What are we then?”
“We are more than victims because some of us are still suffering from the consequences of the attacks, which Rusesabagina openly took responsibility of in videos all over social media,” said Thacien Hakizimana of Omega Safaris, which lost two buses in the attacks carried out by FLN in the south western part of Rwanda between 2018 and 2019.
Hakizimana and more than 90 others are civil parties in the appeal trial in which Rusesabagina and 20 others were convicted on different terror-related charges. The civil parties are seeking compensation from Rusesabagina and co.
Hakizimana said that they wanted to deliver the message to the countries, particularly the U.S where he had residence status and Belgium, where he holds citizenship and the EU, the European bloc which Belgium falls under.
“We want them to know that we have pain. If it is justice, we all deserve justice. Those who say that Rusesabagina is being victimised are disregarding what we went through. We lost two buses, one brand new, which put us into heavy losses,” Hakizimana said.
He argued that there is proof of what happened and in court Rusesabagina did admit to his actions and was pinned by some of his co-accused, even in the presence of representatives of embassies and human rights organisations.
