Jambo ASBL is an organization which promotes genocide denial, historical revisionism and genocide ideology. It is led by the children of the planners and perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The organization is influenced by their parents, who continue to promote hatred and shape the beliefs of their children. Jambo ASBL claims to seek “the search for truth about the events that led our country [Rwanda] into chaos.” In 2010, the members of this Belgian association created the website “Jambo News” with the aim to “inform readers about current events related to the Great Lakes region of Africa in general and Rwanda in particular.” However, the content of their articles and statements, which employ various relativistic and denialist theories regarding the genocide against the Tutsi, categorizes them as proponents of the crime of crimes.
To cite some of its members, prominent for their connection to genocide perpetrators and for their promotion of historical revisionism, genocide denial, and hate ideology, Léon Habyarimana, son of Juvénal Habyarmina, former president of Rwanda, whose government prepared and planned the 1994 geocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, served as the treasurer of Jambo ASBL. Laure Uwase, daughter of genocide perpetrators and of Agnes Mukarugomwa who was involved in disseminating hate information during the genocide. Placide Kayumba is the son of Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for atrocity crimes by the international justice. One of the leaders of Jambo ASBL is Ruhumuza Mbonyumutwa whose father Shingiro Mbonyumutwa was involved in extremist factions and served as the Director of Cabinet for genocidaire Prime Minister Jean Kambanda. His father Dominique Mbonyumutwa, played a significant role in initiating and driving the first massacres of Tutsi from 1959 to 1961. Norman Ishimwe, the Secretary General of Jambo ASBL, has connections with influential figures from the genocide era, although his father, André Sinamenye, who was a moderate and not involved in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, attempted to dissuade him from engaging in extremist activities to no avail.
Jambo ASBL claims to promote cultural exchanges, peace, dialogue, and justice, but their actions align with the extremist group Rassemblement Républicain pour la Démocratie au Rwanda (RDR) and the denial of genocide. RDR, formed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), consists of extremist elements from Hutu-Power factions. They aim to use young individuals who cannot be directly linked to the 1994 events to deny the genocide and portray it as an inter-ethnic conflict. Victoire Ingabire, was an earlier leader of RDR, chosen due to her residency in the Netherlands during the genocide, allowing plausible deniability. She is the daughter of genocide fugitive Thérèse Dusabe, a former midwife in Kigali’s Butamwa health Center who was nicknamed “the doctor of death” for killing pregnant Tutsi women and their babies using extremely violent means.
The party FDU-Inkingi was established as an alliance of the RDR in 2006. Patrice Rudatinya Mbonyumutwa, Ruhumuza Mbonyumutwa’s brother, is the Vice-president of the Belgian section of FDU-Inkingi, whose chairman is Innocent Twagiramungu. He was the head of a Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) cell at the University of Rwanda during the period of Hutu-Power politics. This connection indicates the ties between FDU-Inkingi and genocidaires.
Charles Ndereyehe, a fugitive of the 1994 genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda is a founding member of RDR and FDU-Inkingi. Theophile Mpozembizi is the second Vice President of FDU-Inkingi. He has also been commissioner of communication of FDU-Inkingi. He is the son of Jean-Pierre Mpozembizi, a genocide suspect. He was a good friend to Marcel Sebatware (the father of Denise Zaneza). They both are accused of committing genocide against the Tutsi in Bugarama.
On September 29, 2017 Jambo ASBL sent a letter entitled “Observations on the proposed law against the denial, minimization, justification, or approval of the genocide committed in Rwanda in 1994” to the Belgian Federal Parliament ahead of a parliamentary debate on the related bill which aims to criminalize genocide denial. The Belgian Federal Parliament invited Jambo ASBL to present their views. The group’s objection to criminalize genocide denial is based on the argument that it deprives the accused of a line of defense. This line of attack is deeply insidious, as it suggests that denying genocide should be seen as a valid defense for those accused of such crimes. The individuals behind Jambo ASBL are the children of the architects of the genocide, and their organization was created in DRC as part of a plan to portray the genocide against the Tutsi as a spontaneous conflict rather than a planned extermination of the Tutsi population.
Jambo ASBL’s actions disregard the inclusion of the 2006 International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Judicial Notice, which affirms the mass killings intended to destroy Rwanda’s Tutsi population in 1994 as a fact of common knowledge. An organization that has gained enough influence to have its members run for local and federal elections in Belgium, Jambo ASBL presents itself as a humanist and democratic group. They promote a negationist narrative of mirrored accusations, which has been crafted for over 30 years by the genocidaires themselves as well as by individuals, states, and organizations facing serious allegations of collaboration. Jambo ASBL established another website in 2011 called Mpore: Memory and Justice” with the objective to promote the double-genocide derived discourse.