Rwanda Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)

Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR) also operates as, or is known as, Interahamwe, Former Armed Forces (ex-FAR).

The FAR was the army of the Rwandan Hutu regime that carried out the genocide of 500,000 or more Tutsis and regime opponents in 1994. The Interahamwe was the civilian militia force that carried out much of the killing. The groups merged after they were forced from Rwanda into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then-Zaire) in 1994. They are now often known as the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR), which is the armed branch of the PALIR or Party for the Liberation of Rwanda (Dept. Of State, 2000).

Interahamwe, which translates as "those who work together" are a mixture of the Hutu extremists who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and boys who were recruited often forcibly by hard-liners in the camps in what was Eastern Zaire (Vesperini, 2001).

Rwanda Demographic and Country Statistics republic in east central Africa, Rwanda is Africa's most densely populated country. It is a small state in the heart of Africa, about 10,000 sq miles, bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo. The west border is formed by Lake Kivu and the River Ruzizi. Rwanda has a rugged landscape, dominated by high, volcanic mountains, rising 14,787ft to Mount Karisimbi. The capital, Kigali, stands on the central plateau. East Burundi consists of stepped plateaus, which descend to the lakes and marshland of the Kagera National Park on the Tanzania border (Rwanda, 2005).

The population of Rwanda is just over 8 million. Rwanda has three major ethnic groups. It consists of 84% Hutu, 15% Tutsi and 1% Twa (Pygmoid). The government is Multi-party republic and the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) (Rwanda, 2005).

U.S. Designates Terrorist Groups

Section 411 of the U.S.A. PATRIOT ACT of 2001 (8 U.S.C. 1182) authorized the Secretary of State, in consultation with or upon the request of the Attorney General, to designate terrorist organizations for immigration purposes. This authority is known as the "Terrorist Exclusion List (TEL)" authority. A TEL designation bolsters homeland security efforts by facilitating the USG's ability to exclude aliens associated with entities on the TEL from entering the United States.

An organization can be placed on the TEL if the Secretary of State finds that the organization:

Commits or incites to commit, under circumstances indicating an intention to cause death or serious bodily injury, a terrorist activity; prepares or plans a terrorist activity; gathers information on potential targets for terrorist activity; or provides material support to further terrorist activity.

On December 5th, 2001 Secretary of State Colin Powell, in consultation with the Attorney General designated ALIR and other organizations, thereby placing them on the Terrorist Exclusion List (CDI, 2003).

Activities

ALIR seeks to topple Rwanda's Tutsi-dominated government, reinstitute Hutu- control, and, possibly, complete the genocide (Dept. Of State, 2000).

This terrorist group is a guerrilla force that is leading an insurgency against the government of Rwanda, largely from bases in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The conflict between the ALIR and the government of Rwanda is related to deep divisions among the ethnic groups of Rwandan society, for centuries before the colonial period and for many years after, between the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu (Kushner, 2002).

The ALIR was formed apparently in an attempt to coordinate Hutu groups' efforts at defense. In 1996, a message allegedly from the ALIR threatened to kill the U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda and other U.S. citizens (Kushner, 2002).

In 1999, ALIR guerrillas critical of alleged U.S.-UK support for the Rwandan regime kidnapped and killed eight foreign tourists including two U.S. citizens in a game park on the Congo-Uganda border. During the Congolese war, the ALIR was allied with Kinshasa against the Rwandan invaders (Dept. Of State, 2000).

The group did not emerge as a recognized and organized force until sometime in 2001. The ALIR leadership is mostly composed of former FAR officers, but its membership as a whole includes many fighters who were not implicated in the original genocide. A large proportion were children in 1994 who became involved in the conflict after becoming refugees (Kushner, 2002).

Terrorists Wreaked Havoc over Rwanda Citizens

The 1994 genocide carried out by FAR and the Interahamwe inflicted a horrible human tragedy on the people of Rwanda. They suffered through a systematic killing which eventually claimed the lives of approximately one million people. Every area of Rwandan society was impacted by the genocide. Men, women and children were brutally murdered; women were violently raped and sexually tortured; children were forced to watch their parents killed in the most horrific of ways.

Hundreds of thousands of Rwandese were forced to flee going into hiding or trying to escape to a safe haven leaving behind their homes or their families in the ensuing chaos. During the 100 days of the genocide, countless numbers of Rwanda's citizens were forced to witness the most horrific treatment a human could suffer.

Thousands of Rwanda's citizens participated in the killings, some forced by threats of death.. Understandably Rwanda's survivors are desperately in need of restoration and healing. It changes a person to participate in something so violent and brutal as the death of another human being. Rwanda's genocide had left this tiny nation in need of great healing and restoration, of reconciling perpetrators and survivors, of caring for orphans and widows and rape victims left behind, of providing opportunities for all of Rwanda's 8+ million citizens to find a way out of the devastation and poverty that impacts this nation (12).

After the genocide in 1994 many more would have been killed had not the Rwandese Patriotic Front promptly intervened and defeated the genocidal forces. But the determination of the genocidal forces (ex- FAR and Interahamwe militia) was such that they quickly regrouped as the ALIR inside the democratic Republic of Congo from where they launched terrorist attacks on various targets inside Rwanda.

Working under this new organization, the terrorist's wreaked havoc in the countryside, continuing the killing of both Rwandans and foreigners perceived to be friends of Rwanda. The terrorists also targeted infrastructure such as bridges, power lines, and local government offices (Rwanda police, 2007).

After the infamous September 11 attacks took place in New York and Washington in 2001, a global coalition to fight terrorism was born and Rwanda supported the counter-terrorism initiatives taken by UN (Rwanda police, 2007).

Rwanda has two major reasons why it must take serious counter-terrorism measures. In the first place, the government has a duty to protect her citizens from terrorist's attacks. Secondly, as a member of the international community, Rwanda has an obligation to honor international conventions, including the UN Resolution 1733 that it ratified (Rwanda police, 2007).

Citizens Get Greater Protection

As both Rwandan government troops and ALIR terrorist forces have continued to confront each other since 2001in the eastern Congo, Human Rights Watch has called on both sides to give civilians greater protection. In contrast to previous combat in northwestern Rwanda where so many thousands of civilians were slain by both government army and rebel forces, the most recent episode inside Rwanda of the ongoing central African war cost relatively few civilian lives (Rwanda: Observing the rules of war?, n.d.).

ALIR Strength

Since 2001 several thousand ALIR regular forces operate alongside the Congolese army on the front lines of the Congo civil war, while a like number of ALIR guerrillas operate behind Rwanda lines in eastern Congo closer to the Rwandan border and sometimes within Rwanda (Dept. Of State, 2000).

When the guerilla attacks in Rwanda began, the number of ALIR troops based across the border in eastern Congo was believed to be about 30,000 (Vesperini, 2001).

Fractured Force

Military commanders in Rwanda now think they have put nearly half of the guerillas out of action. The ALIR rebels are split into two groups, ALIR 1 and ALIR 2. Both are formed from members of the former FAR and the Interahamwe militia (Csete & Kippenberg, 2002).

Military commanders in Rwanda say they are winning the battle against the guerillas who have posed a constant threat since fleeing after the genocide in 1994. "What I'm sure of is that we have really crippled ALIR 1," said a senior Rwandan army commander. "They have been killed, captured or dispersed beyond the capacity to regroup," he said (Vesperini, 2001).

The Rwandan Army believes ALIR 1 is the tougher of the two armies out to overthrow the government of President Paul Kagame.

They are the braver fighters anyway because they're the ones who stayed in Eastern Congo and they were further hardened by their attacks on Rwanda from 1997 to 1999," said a senior Rwandan military commander.

The military capacity of ALIR 2 will now depend largely on the attitude of the Congolese government.

When the late President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo turned against his Rwandan backers, he hit on the idea of recruiting and supplying their arch enemy, the ex-FAR and the Interahamwe, to fight alongside his forces (Vesperini, 2001).

ALIR Location of Operation and External Support

In recent years, the ALIR has based most of its military activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, but some operations have been located in Burundi, one of the countries that border Rwanda.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo provides ALIR forces in the Congo with training, arms, and supplies (Dept. Of State, 2000).