According to reports leaked from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to reporter and author Judi Rever , Kabarebe presided over the massacre of Hutu civilians in Byumba , north of Kigali , in late April 1994 . He arrived at the Byumba stadium and massacre site , " talked with his military colleagues , " and " after Kabarebe left , a Lieutenant Masumbuko gave the order to ' open fire on the refugess ' " , Rever reports in her 2018 book , '' In Praise of Blood '' . According to Rever , " Kabarebe 's presence inside the stadium has been independently confirmed by several sources interviewed by the tribunal and by me . " During the First Congo War , Kabarebe was the commanding officer of a Rwandan-led army that crossed into the Zaire ( now the Democratic Republic of the Congo ) . The aim of the army was to defeat the ex-FAR and Interahamwe , Hutu militia groups that had committed the Rwandan genocide and were engaged in cross-border attacks on Rwanda , destroy the refugee camps that the militia groups and Hutu civilians were living in , and overthrow Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko . As chief military strategist in Laurent-Désiré Kabila 's rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo ( ADFL ) , Kabarebe helped engineer the capture of Kinshasa , the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , on May 17 , 1997 , and the defeat of Mobutu Sese Seko . At the end of this mission , he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army by Kabila . However , relations between Rwanda and Kabila soon deteriorated in circumstances that would eventually lead to the Second Congo War . Fearing a coup d'état , around 27 July 1998 , Kabila dismissed Kabarebe from his post . Kabila then appointed General Célestin Kifwa , a Congolese who had previously served in Angola
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
James Kabarebe