It was a meeting held far from the eyes of justice—in a Congolese town called Bulonge, nestled deep in the chaos of post-genocide eastern Zaire (now the DRC), where the architects of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi had fled after their defeat.
There, on October 3, 1996, former senior officers of the Rwandan army (ex-FAR) and officials of the genocidal government gathered in a secret session. The aim: to mount a new kind of war—this time not with machetes and bullets, but with words, lies, and propaganda.
Nearly three decades later, Rwanda’s Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Dr. Jean-Damascène Bizimana, an acclaimed genocide scholar and one of the country’s foremost authorities on transitional justice, has blown the lid off that covert operation.
In a detailed exposé, he revealed the contents of a confidential document—minutes from that very meeting—drafted by Lt Col Juvénal Bahufite, a former ex-FAR commander notorious for his role in massacres across northern Rwanda in the early 1990s.
The document uncovered a strategy as calculated as it was insidious. Realizing they could not reclaim Rwanda by force, the ex-FAR leadership pivoted to narrative warfare.
Their plan involved infiltrating international institutions—most notably, the newly created International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha—and weaponizing the media to distort facts, deny the genocide against the Tutsi, and shift blame onto the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the very force that had halted the killings.
According to Dr. Bizimana, this wasn’t mere theorizing. The conspirators named specific individuals they would use to execute this information war. Among them were four Rwandan journalists working with international broadcasters: Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, now a prominent voice at BBC’s “Imvo n’Imvano,” Étienne Karekezi, Augustin Hatari, and Phocas Fashaho.
The latter two were eventually dismissed by Voice of America (VOA) following internal concerns about bias and alignment with genocide denial narratives.
“These individuals were not just observers or neutral reporters,” Dr. Bizimana declared. “They were embedded in a scheme designed to recycle the ideology of genocide—repackaging the killers as victims and branding those who stopped them as criminals.”
His voice, steady but sharp, carried the weight of decades spent researching, documenting, and defending the truth about Rwanda’s darkest chapter.
The man behind the document, Lt Col Juvénal Bahufite, was no stranger to orchestrated violence. As commander of military units operating in Gisenyi and later Byumba, he oversaw some of the most brutal killings of the early 1990s.
His name still evokes terror among survivors in communes like Karago, Mutura, Giciye, Kibilira, Rubavu, Gaseke, Ramba, and Kayove. After being transferred to Byumba in 1993, he continued the slaughter until July 1994 when the genocide was halted by the RPF.
He then fled to Zaire, where he and others regrouped in the refugee camps and launched a new offensive—this time cloaked in political language and misinformation.
Even today, Bahufite’s legacy continues to cast a shadow. His daughter, Liliane Bahufite, currently based in Belgium, is a known member of JAMBO ASBL—an organization frequently criticized for its denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi.
According to Dr. Bizimana, this is no coincidence. “Her activism is rooted in the same ideology, the same mission her father laid out in Bulonge: to erase the truth and replace it with a carefully constructed fiction.”
The connection deepens. Ally Yusuf Mugenzi, also a native of Byumba like Bahufite, has long operated under the guise of journalistic objectivity.
But for years, his broadcasts have provided a platform for genocide deniers and revisionists, inviting them to spread misinformation under the pretext of debate.
“He never disclosed that he was listed as part of the propaganda machine itself,” said Dr. Bizimana. “He wasn’t just enabling the lies. He was chosen to deliver them.”
What makes the revelations more unsettling is how long these strategies have gone unchecked.
For years, Rwandans endured not only the pain of memory but the agony of watching their truth questioned, denied, or distorted on international airwaves.
Survivors were re-traumatized, and the international community—ill-informed and often misled—began to doubt the overwhelming evidence of the genocide.
Dr. Bizimana’s address was more than an exposé; it was a warning. “The greatest danger,” he said, “is not in the machete that swings in the dark, but in the lie that travels across airwaves, enters homes, and poisons minds. That lie can undo justice, mock memory, and reopen wounds we have worked so hard to heal.”
In closing, the Minister reminded the world of the stakes. “The truth is not a footnote. It is the foundation of our reconciliation, our recovery, and our future.
Those who conspired to destroy it must be exposed—not for revenge, but to uphold justice and preserve the dignity of the victims.”
As Rwanda continues to navigate its post-genocide recovery, and as the international community grapples with a resurgence of denialism masked as free expression, Dr. Bizimana’s testimony stands as a call to action and a call to memory.
Genocide denial, he insisted, is not an opinion. It is the final stage of genocide.
And as the hills of Rwanda grow greener with each season, the voices of those once buried by lies now rise—with testimony, with documents, and with an unshakable commitment to truth.
Never Again means telling the whole story.
