Remains of former Rwandan commander exhumed in Zim
THE remains of former commander of the Rwandan presidential guard, Protais Mpiranya, have been exhumed at Granville Cemetery in Harare following a request by United Nations ( UN) investigators to the Government of Zimbabwe to take samples for DNA analysis.
Mpiranya’s remains were exhumed last month and his identity was then confirmed by DNA analysis on Tuesday.
According to reports, the UN investigators had tracked down and identified Mpiranya’s grave with the help of a critical lead found on a confiscated computer: the handdrawn design of Mpiranya’s tombstone.
Mpiranya died in Harare in October 2006 of a heart attack brought on by tuberculosis, at the age of 50 and was reported to have been living in Zimbabwe for four years before his demise.
The French inscription on the tombstone read: “Here rests forever one who loved his fatherland, his people and his family, more than his own life.”
Below that, a crude depiction of a warrior with bow and arrow was carved with the message: “Dad RIP”.
Mpiranya was head of the Rwandan Presidential Guard in 1994 before he moved on to the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC), fighting with Hutu forces and Zimbabwean troops on behalf of the then country’s president Laurent Kabila, against the Rwandan army, in what became known as the second Congo war.
It is reported that Zimbabwean officers saw the former commander as a cut above most of the Congolese troops they were fighting alongside.
“He developed a lot of relationships with these guys during the war,” a senior official in the prosUN ecutor’s office was quoted saying.