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You can run but you cannot hide. That is the bitter truth that a notorious Genocide suspect found out last week.
Angeline Mukandutiye was a ruthless killer and head of the Interahamwe militia in her neighbourhood of lower Kiyovu. She was personally responsible for the murders of Tutsis in her area as well as the hundreds who were forcefully picked from Sainte-Famille Church.
She worked closely with Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, then Prefet of Kigali, as well as Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, and as fate has it, Renzaho is serving a life sentence while luck still manages to favour the latter who has escaped justice.
To understand the level of Angelina’s, (as she was popularly known) cruelty, one only needs to revisit the archives that hold details of Renzaho’s trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
There is enough to write a script for a horror movie.
We have the Congolese army to thank as over the past few months they have managed to break the backs of several anti-Rwanda militia groups and the lucky ones were repatriated to Rwanda. Angelina was one of them.
A Gacaca court had found her guilty in absentia and sentenced her to life. After all these years she could have slipped away incognito, but the end of the day it was her notoriety that was her undoing. Her scorched earth policy made her a celebrity and no amount of rags and filth she was found in could hide her. She landed straight in jail to begin her sentence.
Angelina is definitely thanking her lucky stars; to have managed to get out of the Congo hell alive; it is like winning the lottery. At least in prison she will be fed, clothed and have access to free medical care, all thanks to the taxpayers, some of whom narrowly escaped Angelina pogrom. Let us call that divine justice.
