Refugees ‘targeted by Rwandan spies’ after fleeing to Australia

‘The (foreign) government can choose to exercise that power over the minds of the residents in Australia’

RWANDAN spies in Australia are informing on refugees from the east African nation, a local media investigation has claimed.

The revelation comes as the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) this weekend warned that interference from foreign agents had reached an “unprecedented scale”.

The Australia Broadcasting Corporpation (ABC) uncovered a covert recording of an alleged Rwandan spy filmed in a Queensland car park late last year. The man can be heard detailing how the Rwandan government runs secret missions from its embassies and high commissions.

One Rwandan refugee and government critic told the broadcaster he had been threatened by a countryman upon his arrival in Australia. He said Queensland police urged him to stay out of south Brisbane, where they believed Rwandan operatives worked.

The man claimed that spies were planted in the country on student visas.

Dr Nadine Shema, a government adviser on African-australian relations, told ABC she had warned Canberra of the rising threat of intimidation to Rwandan dissenters. The broadcaster also found evidence that Julie Bishop, then the foreign minister, was warned in 2017 that the Rwandan high commissioner to Singapore had threatened to kill a Rwanda-born resident of New South Wales.

“The ambassador has diplomatic immunity in Australia,” police said.

Guillaume Kavarugand, the high commissioner, did not comment when approached by ABC.

Intelligence sources said China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Malaysia were known to monitor their diaspora in Australia, while seeking to silence dissenters speaking out against their former governments.

“Refugees who flee often have family connections remaining with (their) home country,” explained Prof John Blaxland from the Australian National University. “The (foreign) government can choose to exercise that power over the minds of the residents in Australia concerning safety and well-being of relatives back home, and that can be a very difficult pressure to resist.”

He said expats could be compelled or coerced into “gathering information to pass back to the home country” or “conducting illegal acts”.

ASIO has cautioned that “both espionage and foreign interference can inflict economic damage … and threaten the safety of Australians.”