Initial events of the Rwandan Genocide

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The Rwandan Genocide

Rwanda History of Rwanda

Initial events Causes of the genocide Rwandan Players Role of the International Community

Glossary and supplements Bibliography

The initial events of the Rwandan Genocide set the course for subsequent events, which culminated in the mass genocide of Tutsi and moderate Hutu residents of Rwanda. Many hold Minister of Defence, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, responsible for the orchestration of the genocide; he had held ultimate authority over the presidential guard.

The week that followed the attack

Assassination of Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana and Moderate Hutus

During the nighttime from 6 April to 7 April, the members of the Forces armées rwandaises, under the leadership of Colonel Bagosora, engaged in heated discourse with General Roméo Dallaire, then commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMR). (The UNAMR served as the military and legal force behind the Prime Minister of Rwanda, in addition to its other peacekeeping duties.)

Madame Agathe Uwiligiyimana, the Rwandan Prime Minister, planned to launch an appeal for calm over the radio the following morning. planned to send an armed escort with Uwiligiyimana to the radio station. However, the presidential guard took control of the state radio station that morning and Madame Uwilingyimana had to cancel her speech. Later that day, the presidential guard assassinated her.

Many powerful, moderate Hutus, who favored the Arusha Accords, were later assassinated. An attempt was made on the life of Faustin Twagiramungu, the prime minister of the Transitional Broad Based Government under the accords, but it failed thanks to the efforts of the UNAMR.

Execution of Ten Belgian Blue Helmets

The presidential guard captured the fifteen Blue Helmets, troops from UNAMR, who had been protecting the Prime Minister, Madame Uwilingiyimana. Five out of the fifteen were Ghanaian and were quickly set free. The other ten were Belgian and were tortured and killed with machetes [link]. Bagosora and his entourage immediately advised General Dallaire that it was better for the Belgians to leave immediately because the radio accused them of being the perpetrators behind the attack on the presidential aeroplane. These accusations had aroused the uncontrollable anger of the group. General Dallaire had been told by an informer named "Jean-Pierre" in January 1994 that there was a plan to attack the Belgians in order to make them leave the UNAMIR, where they formed the largest contingent of soldiers.

Evacuation of foreign personnel by Belgium and France

France and Belgium formed two separate militarily assisted evacuation operations whose actions are detailed in the role of the international community section. France also evacuated dignitaries, families of Habyarimana regime officials, and the children in a presidential orphanage.

These evacuations were the cause of two very large controversies, after the fact. The first is over whether the genocide could have been stopped at the outset by nearby Western troops. At the time, there were American soldiers in Burundi, two hundred kilometres south of Kigali. Larger groups of Western troops were also a few hours from Rwanda by aeroplane. Soldiers agree that these troops had the power to retake control of Kigali and to decisively support UNAMIR, which had a lamentable lack of equipment. The other controversy related to the complete refusal to evacuate the endangered Tutsi. The only Western country which evacuated any Tutsi was Belgium; these were a very few Tutsi who had succeeded in including themselves into the evacuated groups by negotiation or infiltration.

Composition of the interim government

The new government was created after the assassination of the Prime Minister, Madame Uwilingiyimana. Its prime minister was the first to be condemned by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: Jean Kambanda, who pleaded guilty. Read [sub-chapters 14.4 to 14.8] of the United Nations report. This government was characterized as controlling the genocide. The ICTR has sentenced or is in the process of sentencing the majority of its members. It seems that there was a fight for influence between Colonel Bagosora, who controlled the presidential guard, and the chief of staff of the FAR who wished to create a civil government. This government was thus the result of a trade-off of circumstances and Bagosora, who renounced a military government, "set up” (according to the terms of the agreement with the UN) a civil government formed of adept members of the Hutu Power, motivated by the extermination of the Tutsi.

Civil war starts again between the FAR and the RPF

The Arusha accords, concluded in August 1993, permitted 600 FPR soldiers to be moved into Kigali. However, it seems that the FPR exceeded that number. The date of the resumption of the fighting between the FPR and the FAR was the source of many controversies, partly related the attribution of responsibilities in the attack of 6 April. General Quesnot, Major Chief of State of the Elysée at the time of the genocide, supported in his hearing in front of the French deputies that the FPR launched into action immediately after the attack. The French deputies, after various verifications, did not retain this version of events and started an effective resumption of fighting on behalf of the FPR on 10 April 1994. In his book, General Romeo Dallaire speaks of provocations from 7 April by the FAR with respect to the of posted FPR battalion in Kigali. Whatever the real answer, after the first few days of the genocide, the FPR deployed all its combatants against the FAR.

Responsibility for the attack of 6 April 1994

The identity of those behind the attack of 6 April 1994 is still poorly understood today. The source of the missiles that destroyed the presidential aeroplane is subject to much controversy, controversy which is even more relevant as the attack was the prelude to one of the worst horrors ever seen on the African continent.

Several hypothesises have been advanced and have been examined by the Belgian [link] and French [link] parliaments, as well as by the United Nations [link]. The two most plausible explanations accuse one of the groups of Hutu extremists, distressed by the advancement of negations with the FPR, the political and military adversary of the current regime. Among the other hypothesises that have been examined, there is one that implicates the French military, although there is no clear motive for a French attack on the Rwandan government.

The FPR and president Paul Kagame have always denied any involvement in the attack, however a recent French investigation lead by Jean-Louis Bruguière concluded differently (Le Monde 10 March 2004 and following days). The French newspaper Le Monde annotated Bruguière's report, but it was not published. The investigation has since been suspended.

The UN has never investigated the attack. In front of the Belgian senate, the person mandated by the UN to lead the investigation, Mr Degni-Segui, declared that he was not able to get a hold of the required components for his work from France, nor from the FAR. On the other hand, the French captain, Paul Barril, alleged on French television to possess the black box of the aeroplane. It seems that, according to witnesses as well as General Roméo Dallaire, the French troops surrendered the debris of the device after the attack, even though officially, only the presidential guard had access to it. The judicial and political complexity of the affair seemed to require the nomination of an investigation committee; however the UN refused, citing a "budgeting error."

The aeroplane's black box was the subject of a wild reportage in 2004. Apparently found by the UN, after the insistence of the French newspaper, Le Monde, an expert revealed that it could not be the one from Habyarimana's aeroplane. Anyway, this box, which has become mythological, is unlikely to reveal anything about those who launched the missiles.

See also

[Example of the discussion] of the adherents of the dissertation on the responsibility of the FPR in the attack. This document is found on the ["www.inshuti.org"] site, considered to be close to revisionists over the genocide in Rwanda by partisans of Habyarimana's former regime.

References

External links

 

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