During my two-month visit to Rwanda in 2008 I became friends with a genocide survivor who shared his story with me while I was there, and afterwards, in greater detail through emails, which he would like to revise into a book at some point. Along with losing most of his family and then being liberated by the RPF when he was in his mid teens, his emails make clear that, following their victory, he witnessed killings of by RPF officers (whom he never named) of Hutus he thought were "probably innocent." Last month my friend told me that he believes these emails were somehow intercepted and brought to the attention of one of the RPF officers to whom he had been assigned in the wake of the genocide, whom he says now holds a prominent police dept. position in Rwanda. My friends tells me he was questioned obliquely by this officer, that his job has been threatened (ostensibly for unrelated reasons), and that he fears for his safety and that of his family, to the extent that he wants to leave Rwanda at any cost.
I realize there has been tension in Rwanda in the lead-up to the August presidential election; that a general has been accused of setting off a bomb in Kigali; a prospective opponent to President Kagame jailed for what seems (from my current, considerable distance) to be a somewhat questionable application of Rwanda's laws against ethnically divisive speech; and that about 900 people who appeared to be unemployed or idle have been put into a "re-education camp." I also understand that revenge killings committed by RPF forces in 1994 remain a sensitive subject for the government, however understandable these might have been under the circumstances, and that my friend would hardly be the first person to mention these in a book or article.
I also understand that his experiences during 1994 could easily lead someone in his position to overreact to perceived threats, especially during and following Rwanda's often difficult month of memorial observances each April.
Based on the above account, can anyone more familiar than I am with the current climate in Rwanda give me some indication or hints as to how much danger, if any, my friend might actually be in?
I don't want to advise him to remain in Rwanda at the risk of his life or freedom, and I don't want to see him exchange his job and home for the life of a refugee without means and a profession, unless he really needs to.
Thanks for any relevant information or perspective.
