Has the DRC welcomed the ‘Niger 6’ – is Mon. Z finally welcome somewhere?

Protais Zigiranyirazo – Monsieur Z – on trial at the ICTR in Arusha. Pic: UNICTR

September 2024: Time for ‘pastures new’ in the DRC for the Niger 6?
It’s been a summer of will-they or won’t they for the six former UNICTR detainees still in Niger – where the UN shipped them after closing their safe house in Arusha, Tanzania. That was nearly three years ago and the six (it was eight but Muvunyi and Nsengiyumva have since died) have been trying to get another state to take them ever since. No surprise whatever that Belgium, France, Canada, the USA and a host of others have refused to have them on their territory.
Good news and bad for them in the last few months though: first the good: they got their ‘annual’ $10,000 handout from the UN to ‘live on’ and the government in Niger decided to allow them the freedom of travel around Niamey. In June François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye demanded the UN pay them another $11,500 in 2025. The bad news: the UN Mechanism has finally woken up to the fact that it does not look good for its taxpayers to be funding forever a pleasant retirement for such individuals who were part of a genocidal regime – and in some cases took part in the 1994 horror. Hence they decided to turn off the generous funding tap and threaten the men that if no state would take them then it would be ‘back to Rwanda’ for them – after all they are citizens of the country.
Then suddenly this summer, out of the blue, comes news that after 2.5 years of searching a unnamed state announced in early July that it would be interested in taking the six. This despite one of them, Innocent Sagahutu, convicted in 2011 for his role in the genocide, being allegedly involved  in current FDLR activity aimed at destabilising the current Kigali government. Quite what help this aging, unintelligent killer thinks he can give in this is not clear.
And to no surprise whatsoever, various online news sites alleged, after leaks from the Mechanism, that the ‘unnamed site’ was the DRC. Certainly, the on-going tension between Kigali and Kinshasa means the six men are firmly of the same stance as the DRC regime. After all, this is the country they all initially fled to when their genocidal regime was overthrown 30 years ago. The state-sanctioned genocidal attacks by the Kinshasa regime on its own indigenous Tutsi living in the East Kivu region and support for the genocidal FDLR militia which it funds, arms and gives a free hand to attack Rwanda, make it a perfect retirement home. Unlike other states, DRC President Tshisekedi has nothing to lose in terms of public relations by welcoming the six – his regime is at rock bottom anyway – and he knows the historic symbolism involved in them joining him in Kinshasa will likely infuriate Rwanda. Sending an envoy to Niger to work out the logistics of taking the 6 men – and presumably using the little taxpayers money the DRC has to fund their pleasant retirement in Congo – must seem like good sense.
One thing is for certain – the 6 are vehement in their refusal to return to Kigali citing fears for their wellbeing. All six still see themselves as still hugely important figures and so pronounce through their lawyers that they will be seen as threats by the Rwandan government and treated as such.
In reality, they are now just 6 sad old men of no value or importance to anyone. It’s time they had a reality check.
As for the UN, if they can finally wipe their hands of the men after more than two decades ‘hosting’ them at huge expense in Arusha/Niger, then the Registrar and President of the Mechanism can sleep a lot happier.
The only losers if the deal goes through are the lawyers of the 6 who have taken millions of dollars in fees representing their clients. Still, most have plenty of other alleged war criminals and genocidaire on their books to keep their UN funding pouring in and the champagne lunches flowing…