In 1973, “les cinq comrades”, (including Habyarimana, Lizinde and Kanyarengwe) overthrew, through a coup d’etat, Gregoir Kayibanda. All were said to be on the same side of the ethnic divide.
Hutu elites deemed sympathetic to Kayibanda were systematically decimated. Some numbers put it at close to 1000. Commandant Lizinde was part of the court martial that sentenced Kayibanda to death. Kayibanda was later to die of starvation in his home.
Lizinde was to later be charged by Habyarimana of those mass murders. He was sent to Ruhengeri maxmum security prison. He was freed by the invading force of mostly Tutsi exiles (The RPA). His comrade Kanyarengwe had earlier joined the force from exile in Tanzania.
Lizinde, it is alleged, was instrumental in downing Habyarimana’s plane in 1994; having allegedly drawn a map for the best missile launch position.
Later, he was later (allegedly), gunned down by the same RPA in Nairobi some years later, after he fled the RPA government he helped put in power.
Some of the people allegedly involved in his cold-blooded murder have become victims of the same RPF government…as time progressed.
Moral of the story: It is all about POWER and POWER CLASHES know no class, or race, or wealth.
By Didas Gasana
