“Leave None to Tell the Story”
Genocide in Rwanda
written by Alison Des Forges
based on research by
Alison Des Forges
Eric Gillet
Timothy Longman
Catherine Choquet
Michele Wagner
Kirsti Lattu
Trish Huddleston
Jemera Rone
Copyright © March 1999 by Human Rights Watch.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 1-56432-171-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-61313
Cover photograph © Gilles Peress
Cover design by Rafael Jiménez
Cartoons and cover from Kangura reprinted Rwanda, Les médias du génocide, courtesy of Jean-Pierre
Chrétien, Jean-François Dupaquier, Marcel Kabanda and Joseph Ngarambe.
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Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1
The Genocide .....................................................................................................................................3
The Strategy of Ethnic Division ............................................................................................... 3
Preparations for Slaughter .....................................................................................................4
The Attack .............................................................................................................................4
Recruiting for Genocide ......................................................................................................... 5
The Structure........................................................................................................................ 6
Strategies of Slaughter .......................................................................................................... 7
Popular Participation ............................................................................................................ 8
The Masquerade of Legitimacy ............................................................................................. 9
Survival Tactics ................................................................................................................... 10
The End of Hutu Power......................................................................................................... 10
The Rwandan Patriotic Front ............................................................................................................. 10
Numbers .......................................................................................................................................... 12
International Responsibility .............................................................................................................. 13
Tolerating Discrimination and Violence ................................................................................ 13
Economies and Peacekeeping ............................................................................................. 14
Warnings, Information and the U.N. Staff ............................................................................. 14
Obfuscation and Misunderstanding ..................................................................................... 15
Genocide and War ............................................................................................................... 16
Military Action and Inaction ................................................................................................. 17
Tolerating Genocide ............................................................................................................ 19
Rwandans Listened ............................................................................................................ 20
The Future ........................................................................................................................................ 21
The Research Project ........................................................................................................................22
Language, Spelling and Names ......................................................................................................... 23
The Context of Genocide
History ............................................................................................................................................. 25
The Meaning of “Hutu,” “Tutsi,” and “Twa” .......................................................................... 25
Colonial Changes in the Political System.............................................................................. 27
The Transformation of “Hutu” and “Tutsi” ........................................................................... 28
The Hutu Revolution ............................................................................................................30
Habyarimana in Control ....................................................................................................... 32
The Single-Party State ......................................................................................................... 32
The Army, the Church and the Akazu ....................................................................... 33
Prosperity, Short-Lived and Superficial ................................................................... 35
Threats to the MRND Monolith .............................................................................................36
Opposition within Rwanda .....................................................................................36
The RPF Attack........................................................................................................ 37
The Government Response to the Attack ................................................................. 37
Consolidating the Opposition .................................................................................39
Kubohoza, “To Help Liberate” .............................................................................................. 41
Impunity and Insecurity .......................................................................................... 44
The Military Defines “The Enemy” ........................................................................................ 45
Propaganda and Practice ..................................................................................................................48
The Media ...........................................................................................................................49
Validating the Message ....................................................................................................... 52
The Message ....................................................................................................................... 53
“Tutsi Unity” .......................................................................................................... 54
“Infiltration”........................................................................................................... 55
“Restoring the Old Regime” .................................................................................... 56
“Genocide of the Hutu” .......................................................................................... 57
The Regional Context .............................................................................................. 58
“The Hutu as Innocent Victim” ................................................................................ 59
“The Tutsi Cause Their Own Misfortune” ................................................................ 60
“Hutu Solidarity” ................................................................................................... 60
The Mugesera Speech: “Do Not Let Yourselves Be Invaded” ................................................. 61
Practicing Slaughter ............................................................................................................63
Choosing the Target ...............................................................................................63
Feeding the Fear .....................................................................................................64
Directing the Attacks .............................................................................................. 65
Lying about the Violence ....................................................................................... 66
Impunity ............................................................................................................... 66
International Response to the Massacres ............................................................................. 67
The International Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda ..................... 68
Choosing War .................................................................................................................................. 69
He Who Wishes for Peace Prepares for War .......................................................................... 70
Arms ...................................................................................................................... 70
Lists ....................................................................................................................... 71
The Militia and “Self-Defense” ............................................................................................. 73
The AMASASU and Colonel Bagosora ...................................................................... 74
Locating Potential Leaders ..................................................................................... 78
The February 1993 Attack ..................................................................................................... 78
Splitting the Opposition ..................................................................................................... 80
French Support for Habyarimana..........................................................................................83
The Costs of War ................................................................................................................. 87
The Arusha Accords ............................................................................................................ 88
Opposition to the Accords ..................................................................................... 89
Buying Machetes ................................................................................................... 90
Recruiting Supporters ............................................................................................. 91
Recruitment by the RPF .......................................................................................... 92
The United Nations Peacekeepers ....................................................................................... 92
Resources and Mandate .........................................................................................93
Paragraph 17 ..........................................................................................................94
The Assassination of Melchior Ndadaye and Violence in Burundi ......................................... 95
Hutu Power ......................................................................................................................... 97
Warnings......................................................................................................................................... 99
Chronology........................................................................................................................ 100
November 1993 .................................................................................................... 100
December 1993 .................................................................................................... 101
January 1994 ........................................................................................................ 103
February 1994 ...................................................................................................... 112
March 1994 ........................................................................................................... 117
April 1994 ............................................................................................................ 120
The U.N. Response to the Warning ..................................................................................... 120
Responses of the French, U.S., and Belgian Governments .................................................. 122
A Solemn Appeal ............................................................................................................... 124
Renewing the Mandate ...................................................................................................... 124
Genocide at the National Level
April 1994: “The Month That Would Not End” .................................................................................. 126
The Attack on Habyarimana’s Plane ................................................................................... 127
Taking Control ................................................................................................................... 130
Bagosora In Command ......................................................................................... 130
“The Prime Minister Isn’t Working Anymore...” .......................................................131
Ambiguities and Double Language ....................................................................... 134
The Interim Government .................................................................................................... 137
Launching the Campaign ................................................................................................... 139
The Initiators ........................................................................................................ 139
Sharpening the Focus on Tutsi ...............................................................................141
Military Opposition: The April 12 Statement .......................................................... 143
Strategies of Slaughter ...................................................................................................... 143
Priority Targets ..................................................................................................... 143
Thorough Elimination: “Begin on One Side...” ....................................................... 145
Massacres............................................................................................................ 146
Impeding Flight: Barriers and Patrols .................................................................... 148
Rape and Sexual Servitude ................................................................................... 150
Crimes of Extraordinary Brutality ........................................................................... 150
Strategies of Survival.......................................................................................................... 151
Resistance ............................................................................................................ 151
Flight, Hiding, and Buying Safety .......................................................................... 153
The Organization ............................................................................................................................ 154
The Military ....................................................................................................................... 155
Politicians and Militia ........................................................................................................ 157
The Militia ............................................................................................................ 158
The Administration ............................................................................................................ 161
Passing the Word ................................................................................................. 161
Mobilizing the Population..................................................................................... 162
Enforcing Regulations ........................................................................................... 165
Support Services: Ideas and Money ................................................................................... 168
The Clergy ......................................................................................................................... 170
The Radio: Voice of the Campaign ...................................................................................... 173
Deception, Pretext, and Pretense ....................................................................................... 175
Popular Participation ......................................................................................................... 181
Extending the Genocide .................................................................................................................. 182
Removing Dissenters ......................................................................................................... 183
Continued Conflicts Among the Military ............................................................................. 184
Destroying Opposition in Gitarama .................................................................................... 187
“The Population Is Trying to Defend Itself” ......................................................................... 193
Tightening Control ............................................................................................................. 196
Restoring to Rwanda “Its Good Name” .................................................................. 197
“Violence...Should Stop”...................................................................................... 199
“No More Cadavers...On the Road” ...................................................................... 200
“Pacification” as Deception ..................................................................................202
“Justice” During the Genocide ...........................................................................................204
Mid-May Slaughter: Women and Children as Victims .......................................................... 205
“Opening a Breach to the Enemy”: Conflicts Among Hutu .................................................. 206
Political Struggles ................................................................................................ 207
Disputes Over Property ......................................................................................... 207
“Where Will It End?” ............................................................................................ 208
RPF Victory ....................................................................................................................... 209
Genocide at the Local Level: Gikongoro and Butare
Gikongoro ...................................................................................................................................... 211
Background ...................................................................................................................... 211
Bypassing the Prefect ........................................................................................................ 213
Sub-Prefect Damien Biniga ................................................................................... 214
Lieutenant Colonel Simba..................................................................................... 215
First Attacks ...................................................................................................................... 216
Moving the Violence Outward ............................................................................... 218
The Radio Targets Tutsi......................................................................................... 219
Musebeya ......................................................................................................................... 219
The Burgomaster Opposes the Genocide ..............................................................220
Simba Takes the Lead .......................................................................................... 222
The Barriers.......................................................................................................... 224
“We Must Exterminate Them All!” ......................................................................... 225
“No Words for Solving the Problem” .................................................................................. 227
Attacking Dissenters ............................................................................................228
National Authorities Spur the Slaughter ................................................................ 230
Kivu: Evading Responsibility .............................................................................................. 230
Eliminating the Tutsi at Musebeya ..................................................................................... 232
Massacre at Kaduha .......................................................................................................... 233
Tightening Control .............................................................................................................239
“Pacification” in Gikongoro ..................................................................................240
“Civilian Self-Defense” in Gikongoro ..................................................................... 242
Removing the Burgomaster of Musebeya .............................................................. 243
Nyakizu: The Massacres ................................................................................................................. 244
Butare: The Prefect and the Prefecture ............................................................................... 245
Nyakizu Commune ............................................................................................................ 245
Burgomaster Ntaganzwa: Victory Through Kubohoza ..........................................................246
Consolidating Control ...........................................................................................248
Hutu Power .......................................................................................................... 250
The Border and the Burundians ......................................................................................... 251
Training and Arms ............................................................................................................. 253
Beginning the Genocide .................................................................................................... 255
Gathering the Tutsi, Mobilizing the Hutu ............................................................... 256
The First Killings ................................................................................................... 258
Nkakwa ............................................................................................................... 260
Cyahinda...........................................................................................................................262
The “Battle” .........................................................................................................264
Improving Participation ........................................................................................ 267
Promises of Help, Threats of Reprisals .................................................................. 270
The Hilltops ....................................................................................................................... 273
Flight ................................................................................................................................ 276
Nyakizu: The Administration of Genocide ........................................................................................ 278
Restoring “Normal” Life ..................................................................................................... 278
The Language of War ........................................................................................... 280
Cleaning Up ......................................................................................................... 281
“Clear the Remaining Brush” ............................................................................................. 283
Speaking With One Voice ................................................................................................. 286
Approval from Above ........................................................................................... 289
The Security Committee ....................................................................................... 290
The Burgomaster: More Feared than Trusted ...................................................................... 291
Allies into Enemies ............................................................................................... 293
“A Thirst for Possessions” .................................................................................... 293
The “Enemy” Arrives at Nyakizu ......................................................................................... 295
Butare: “Let Them Stand Aside for Us and Let Us Work” ................................................................. 298
The Setting ....................................................................................................................... 298
The Military ......................................................................................................... 299
The Intellectuals ...................................................................................................300
The Militia and Political Parties .............................................................................300
The Burundians .................................................................................................... 301
Early Violence.................................................................................................................... 302
Trying to Keep Control .......................................................................................... 303
Responding to Attacks from Gikongoro ................................................................. 305
Dealing with the Displaced ...................................................................................306
Prefect Habyalimana Removed .......................................................................................... 307
Hutu Power Gains in Butare ..................................................................................309
Massacre at Simbi ................................................................................................ 310
Massacre at Kansi ................................................................................................ 312
Welcoming the New Prefect ............................................................................................... 313
South of Butare ................................................................................................................. 319
The Meeting of April 20 ...................................................................................................... 321
Butare: “This is an Externmination” ................................................................................................ 324
Systematic Slaughter in Town ............................................................................................ 325
Killing the Targeted Individuals ............................................................................. 325
Killing by Neighborhood ....................................................................................... 328
Slaughter at the University and the Hospital ......................................................... 331
Collective Slaughter .......................................................................................................... 334
Butare Town ......................................................................................................... 334
Ngoma Commune: Matyazo and Kabakobwa Massacres ....................................... 335
Elsewhere in the Prefecture: The Devastating Third Week of April........................... 336
The Betrayal of “Pacification” ............................................................................................ 337
The Massacres of April 30 ..................................................................................... 338
Surviving ........................................................................................................................... 340
Seeking Help ........................................................................................................ 340
Resisting .............................................................................................................. 341
Genocidal Operations ........................................................................................................ 344
The “Muscular Assistance” of the Military ............................................................. 344
The Militia and the Match Factory ......................................................................... 348
Civilian Action ...................................................................................................... 351
Butare: “Workers Who Want to Work for their Country” .................................................................... 354
“Civilian Self-Defense” in Butare ....................................................................................... 355
Leadership and Finance........................................................................................ 355
Training and Weapons .......................................................................................... 357
Security Concerns Everyone .................................................................................. 359
Barriers and Patrols: Obligatory Participation ........................................................360
Security Committees .........................................................................................................362
The Murders in May ........................................................................................................... 365
Protection .........................................................................................................................368
Given and Refused ...............................................................................................368
Partial Protection: The Group at the Prefecture ...................................................... 370
Seeking Intellectual Reinforcement: The Interim Prime Minister and the Professors ............ 372
Guhumbahumba: To Track Down the Last Tutsi .................................................................. 374
Searching the Fields, Forests and Valleys .............................................................. 376
Searching Butare Town ......................................................................................... 378
Butare: “No One Will Be Safe From Disorder” ..................................................................................380
Hutu Against Hutu ............................................................................................................. 381
Personal and Political Conflict .............................................................................. 381
Regional Conflict .................................................................................................. 383
Property and Women ............................................................................................ 385
Dissension Over the Genocide ........................................................................................... 387
Individual Protectors ............................................................................................ 387
Protection by the Community ................................................................................388
Protection on Principle .........................................................................................390
Unruly Military ................................................................................................................... 391
Law and Order ................................................................................................................... 392
Judicial Action ......................................................................................................392
Attempts at Community Control ............................................................................ 393
International Contacts ....................................................................................................... 394
Permission to Leave .......................................................................................................... 397
New Administrators, Dwindling Commitment to the Campaign ...........................................398
The Final Hunt in Butare ...................................................................................... 400
Survivors ........................................................................................................................... 401
Authority and Responsibility .............................................................................................. 405
Genocide and the International Community
Ignoring Genocide ......................................................................................................................... 408
UNAMIR ........................................................................................................................... 408
“Defensive Survival Exercise” .............................................................................. 409
The Mandate and Passive Witnesses to Genocide ..................................................411
The Evacuation Force ......................................................................................................... 415
No Locals ............................................................................................................. 418
The Ecole Technique Officielle: “Do Not Abandon Us!” ..........................................420
Belgian Policy ................................................................................................................... 424
“Suspend the Activities of UNAMIR” ..................................................................... 424
“The Security of UNAMIR” ..................................................................................... 425
U.S. Policy: “Another Somalia” and Other Misconceptions ................................................. 427
U.N. Obfuscation: “A People Fallen into Calamitous Circumstances” ..................................428
Protecting “The Innocent Civilians of Rwanda” ...................................................... 430
Reducing UNAMIR ................................................................................................ 432
An Exceptional Case: The Hotel Mille Collines ....................................................... 434
Acknowledge Genocide .................................................................................................................. 435
The End of April: Recognizing Genocide ............................................................................. 436
Statement by the Secretary-General ...................................................................... 436
Statement of the President of the Security Council ................................................ 437
Diplomacy as Usual ........................................................................................................... 438
UNAMIR II .......................................................................................................................... 441
Human Rights Agencies ..................................................................................................... 443
Arms and Ammunition ....................................................................................................... 445
“Vive La Cooperation Franco-Rwandaise” ..........................................................................448
“Getting Your Hands Dirty” ................................................................................... 448
Aid to the Rwandan Armed Forces ......................................................................... 452
French Soldiers: A Private Initiative? .................................................................................. 455
Operation Turquoise............................................................................................. 457
The Kigeme Declaration and the End to “Legitimacy” ......................................................... 470
Ending Genocide
The Rwandan Patriotic Front ........................................................................................................... 472
“Not Hutu, Tutsi, nor Twa” ................................................................................................. 472
The Ideology of National Unity .............................................................................. 472
Recruiting Hutu Supporters ................................................................................... 474
Stopping the Genocide ...................................................................................................... 475
Military Action ...................................................................................................... 475
Rejection of UNAMIR II .......................................................................................... 476
Human Rights Abuses by the RPF Before April 1994 ............................................................ 478
Killings and Other Abuses by the RPF, April to July 1994...................................................... 478
Killings in the Course of Combat ........................................................................... 479
Kwitaba Imana and Kwitaba Inama: Massacres at Public Meetings ........................ 481
Summary and Arbitrary Executions ....................................................................... 483
Summary Execution of Persons Accused of Genocide ............................................ 487
Hindering Humanitarian Assistance ...................................................................................492
Control of Information ....................................................................................................... 493
Accusations of RPF Abuses ................................................................................................ 493
The Gersony Mission .........................................................................................................494
Scope and Conclusions ........................................................................................ 495
“The Gersony Report Does Not Exist” ................................................................... 496
International Responsibility .............................................................................................. 498
Responsibility Within the RPF ........................................................................................... 498
Conclusion: Justice and Responsibility ............................................................................................ 501
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda .................................................................. 502
Relations Between the International Tribunal and National Jurisdictions ................ 504
Administration of the International Tribunal .......................................................... 504
Protection of Witnesses ........................................................................................ 505
The Prosecutions ..................................................................................................506
Rwandans and the International Tribunal .............................................................. 507
The Rwandan Prosecution of Genocide ..............................................................................509
Legislation ........................................................................................................... 510
Detentions ........................................................................................................... 513
Trials.................................................................................................................... 514
Material Compensation ........................................................................................ 517
The Executions of April 1998 ................................................................................. 518
Confessions ......................................................................................................... 519
Conditions in Prisons and Communal Lockups ...................................................... 520
Conditional Release ............................................................................................. 520
Foreign Prosecutions and Other Proceedings ..................................................................... 521
Taking Responsibility ........................................................................................................ 523
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 524
Introduction
“When I came out, there were no birds,” said one survivor who had hidden
throughout the genocide. “There was sunshine and the stench of death.”
The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: on
Nyanza ridge, overlooking the capital, Kigali, where skulls and bones, torn clothing, and scraps of
paper were scattered among the bushes; at Nyamata, where bodies lay twisted and heaped on
benches and the floor of a church; at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl,
otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the
church steps; on the shores of idyllic Lake Kivu in western Rwanda, where pieces of human bodies had
been thrown down the steep hillside; and at Nyakizu in southern Rwanda, where the sun bleached
fragments of bone in the sand of the schoolyard and, on a nearby hill, a small red sweater held
together the ribcage of a decapitated child.
In the thirteen weeks after April 6, 1994, at least half a million people perished in the Rwandan
genocide, perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of
Hutu were slain because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.
The killers struck with a speed and devastation that suggested an aberrant force of nature, “a people
gone mad,” said some observers. “Another cycle of tribal violence,” said others. The nation of some
seven million people encompassed three ethnic groups. The Twa, were so few as to play no political
role, leaving only Hutu and Tutsi to face each other without intermediaries. The Hutu, vastly superior in
number, remembered past years of oppressive Tutsi rule, and many of them not only resented but
feared the minority. The government, run by Hutu, was at war with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),
rebels who were predominantly Tutsi. In addition, Rwanda was one of the poorest nations in the world
and growing poorer, with too little land for its many people and falling prices for its products on the
world market. Food production had diminished because of drought and the disruptions of war: it was
estimated that 800,000 people would need food aid to survive in 1994.
But this genocide was not an uncontrollable outburst of rage by a people consumed by “ancient tribal
hatreds.” Nor was it the preordained result of the impersonal forces of poverty and over-population.
This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep
itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a
growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the
negotiating table, these few powerholders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide.
They believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity of the Hutu under their
leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable
peace.They seized control of the state and used its machinery and its authority to carry out the
slaughter.
1
March 1999
Like the organizers, the killers who executed the genocide were not demons nor automatons
responding to ineluctable forces. They were people who chose to do evil. Tens of thousands, swayed
by fear, hatred, or hope of profit, made the choice quickly and easily. They were the first to kill, rape,
rob and destroy. They attacked Tutsi frequently and until the very end, without doubt or remorse. Many
made their victims suffer horribly and enjoyed doing so.
Hundreds of thousands of others chose to participate in the genocide reluctantly, some only under
duress or in fear of their own lives. Unlike the zealots who never questioned their original choice,
these people had to decide repeatedly whether or not to participate, each time weighing the kind of
action planned, the identity of the proposed victim, the rewards of participating and the likely costs of
not participating. Because attacks were incited or ordered by supposedly legitimate authorities, those
with misgivings found it easier to commit crimes and to believe or pretend to believe they had done no
wrong.
Policymakers in France, Belgium, and the United States and at the United Nations all knew of the
preparations for massive slaughter and failed to take the steps needed to prevent it. Aware from the
start that Tutsi were being targeted for elimination, the leading foreign actors refused to acknowledge
the genocide. To have stopped the leaders and the zealots would have required military force; in the
early stages, a relatively small force. Not only did international leaders reject this course, but they also
declined for weeks to use their political and moral authority to challenge the legitimacy of the
genocidal government. They refused to declare that a government guilty of exterminating its citizens
would never receive international assistance. They did nothing to silence the radio that broadcast calls
for slaughter. Such simple measures would have sapped the strength of the authorities bent on mass
murder and encouraged Rwandan opposition to the extermination campaign.
When international leaders did finally voice disapproval, the genocidal authorities listened well
enough to change their tactics although not their ultimate goal. Far from cause for satisfaction, this
small success only underscores the tragedy: if timid protests produced this result in late April, what
might have been the result in mid-April had all the world cried “Never again.”
This study, summarized in the introduction, describes in detail how the killing campaign was
executed, linking oral testimony with extensive written documentation. It draws upon interviews with
those who were marked for extinction but managed to survive, those who killed or directed killings,
those who saved or sought to save others, and those who watched and tried not to see. It presents
minutes of local meetings where operations against Tutsi were planned and correspondence in which
administrators congratulated their subordinates for successfully destroying “the enemy.” It analyzes
the layers of language and the silences that made up the deceptive discourse of genocide, broadcast
on the radio and delivered at public meetings. It places the genocide in the immediate political
context, showing how local and national political rivalries among Hutu influenced the course of the
campaign to eliminate Tutsi. It traces changes in the tactics and organization of the campaign as well
as its collapse as the RPF defeated the genocidal government.
Drawing on many sources, including previously unpublished testimony and documents from
diplomats and United Nations staff, the study shows how international actors failed to avert or stop
the genocide. It ties the expansion of the killing campaign to early international inertia and it shows
that international protests against the slaughter, when they finally came, were discussed even at local
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
2
meetings on the distant hills of Rwanda. Thus the study establishes that the international community,
so anxious to absent itself from the scene, was in fact present at the genocide.
The Genocide
The Strategy of Ethnic Division
President Juvenal Habyarimana, nearing the end of two decades in power, was losing popularity
among Rwandans when the RPF attacked from Uganda on October 1, 1990. At first Habyarimana did
not see the rebels as a serious threat, although they stated their intention to remove him as well as to
make possible the return of the hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees who had lived in exile for
a generation. The president and his close colleagues decided, however, to exaggerate the RPF threat
as a way to pull dissident Hutu back to his side and they began portraying Tutsi inside Rwanda as RPF
collaborators. For three and a half years, this elite worked to redefine the population of Rwanda into
“Rwandans,” meaning those who backed the president, and the “ibyitso” or “accomplices of the
enemy,” meaning the Tutsi minority and Hutu opposed to him.
In the campaign to create hatred and fear of the Tutsi, the Habyarimana circle played upon memories
of past domination by the minority and on the legacy of the revolution that overthrew their rule and
drove many into exile in 1959. Singling out most Tutsi was easy: the law required that all Rwandans be
registered according to ethnic group. Residents of the countryside, where most Rwandans lived,
generally knew who was Tutsi even without such documentation. In addition, many Tutsi were
recognizable from their physical appearance.
But shattering bonds between Hutu and Tutsi was not easy. For centuries they had shared a single
language, a common history, the same ideas and cultural practices. They lived next to one another,
attended the same schools and churches, worked in the same offices, and drank in the same bars. A
considerable number of Rwandans were of mixed parentage, the offspring of Hutu-Tutsi marriages. In
addition, to make ethnic identity the predominant issue, Habyarimana and his supporters had to
erase—or at least reduce—distinctions within the ranks of the Hutu themselves, especially those
between people of the northwest and of other regions, those between adherents of different political
factions, and those between the rich and the poor.
From the start, those in power were prepared use physical attacks as well as verbal abuse to achieve
their ends. They directed massacres of hundreds of Tutsi in mid-October 1990 and in five other
episodes before the 1994 genocide. In some incidents, Habyarimana’s supporters killed Hutu
opponents—their principal political challengers—as well as Tutsi, their declared ideological target.
Habyarimana was obliged to end his party’s monopoly of power in 1991 and rival parties sprouted
quickly to contend for popular support. Several of them created youth wings ready to fight to defend
partisan interests. By early 1992, Habyarimana had begun providing military training to the youth of
his party, who were thus transformed into the militia known as the Interahamwe (Those Who Stand
Together or Those Who Attack Together). Massacres of Tutsi and other crimes by the Interahamwe
went unpunished, as did some attacks by other groups, thus fostering a sense that violence for
political ends was “normal.”
3
March 1999
Preparations for Slaughter
Through attacks, virulent propaganda, and persistent political manoeuvering, Habyarimana and his
group signficantly widened divisions between Hutu and Tutsi by the end of 1992. During 1993 a
dramatic military advance by the RPF and a peace settlement favorable to them—which also stipulated
that officials, including the president, could be prosecuted for past abuses—confronted Habyarimana
and his supporters with the imminent loss of power. These same events heightened concerns among a
broader group of Hutu, including some not previously identified with Habyarimana. Increasingly
anxious about RPF ambitions, this growing group was attracted by the new radio Radio Télévision
Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and by a movement called Hutu Power, which cut across party lines
and embodied the ethnic solidarity that Habyarimana had championed for three years. In late October,
Tutsi soldiers in neighboring Burundi seized and murdered the Hutu president, freely and fairly elected
only months before. In massacres touched off by the assassination, tens of thousands of Burundians
died, both Hutu and Tutsi. The crime, energetically exploited by RTLM, confirmed the fears of many
Rwandan Hutu that Tutsi would not share power and swelled the numbers supporting Hutu Power.
Meanwhile the Habyarimana circle was preparing the organization and logistics to attack the minority.
During 1993, some loyalists from Habyarimana’s party expanded the recruitment and training of the
Interahamwe. But others, perhaps concerned that the militia were too tainted by partisan rivalries,
proposed a “civilian self-defense force” which was to recruit young men through administrative rather
than party channels. The recruits were to be trained by former soldiers or communal police who would
direct them in attacking the “enemy” in their communities. In early 1993, Col. Théoneste Bagosora
sketched out elements of the program in his appointment book, the intellectual Ferdinand Nahimana
advocated such a force in a letter to friends and colleagues, and administrators began preparing lists
of former soldiers who could command its ranks.
Soldiers and political leaders distributed firearms to militia and other supporters of Habyarimana in
1993 and early 1994, but Bagosora and others concluded that firearms were too costly to distribute to
all participants in the “civilian self-defense” program. They advocated arming most of the young men
with such weapons as machetes. Businessmen close to Habyarimana imported large numbers of
machetes, enough to arm every third adult Hutu male.
Aware of these preparations, the RPF anticipated further conflict. They too recruited more supporters
and troops and, in violation of the peace accords, increased the number of their soldiers and firearms
in Kigali. They understood the risk that renewed combat would pose to Tutsi, particularly those who
had come out publically in support of the RPF in the preceding months, and warned foreign observers
to this effect.
The Attack
By late March 1994, Hutu Power leaders were determined to slaughter massive numbers of Tutsi and
Hutu opposed to Habyarimana, both to rid themselves of these “accomplices” and to shatter the
peace agreement. They had soldiers and militia ready to attack the targeted victims in the capital and
in such outlying areas as Cyangugu in the southwest, Gisenyi in the northwest and Murambi in the
northeast. But elsewhere they had not completed the arrangements. In the center of the country, they
had successfully disseminated the doctrine of Hutu Power, but they were unsure how many ordinary
people would transform that ideology into action. In other areas, particularly in the south, they had not
won large numbers of supporters to the idea, far less organized them to implement it.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
4
On April 6, the plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down, a crime for which the
responsibility has never been established. A small group of his close associates—who may or may not
have been involved in killing him—decided to execute the planned extermination. The Presidential
Guard and other troops commanded by Colonel Bagosora, backed by militia, murdered Hutu
government officials and leaders of the political opposition, creating a vacuum in which Bagosora and
his supporters could take control. Soldiers and militia also began systematically slaughtering Tutsi.
Within hours, military officers and administrators far from the capital dispatched soldiers and militia
to kill Tutsi and Hutu political leaders in their local areas. After months of warnings, rumors and prior
attacks, the violence struck panic among Rwandans and foreigners alike. The rapidity of the first
killings gave the impression of large numbers of assailants, but in fact their impact resulted more from
ruthlessness and organization than from great numbers.
Recruiting for Genocide
The genocide was not a killing machine that rolled inexorably forward but rather a campaign to which
participants were recruited over time by the use of threat and incentives. The early organizers included
military and administrative officials as well as politicians, businessmen, and others with no official
posts. In order to carry through the genocide, they had to capture the state, which meant not just
installing persons of their choice at the head of the government, but securing the collaboration of
other officials throughout the system.
Bagosora and his circle sought first to obtain the backing, or at least the acquiescence, of the majority
of military commanders. They began negotiating for this support even as troops under their command
slaughtered civilians in the streets. Bagosora’s first proposal, to take power in his own right, was
rejected by a number of influential officers as well as by the ranking representative of the United
Nations in Rwanda. But his next move, to install a regime of extremists masquerading as a legitimate
government, was accepted by the soldiers, the U.N. representative, and the international community.
The day after Habyarimana’s death, the RPF renewed combat with the government forces, a response
to the continuing attacks by the Rwandan army on civilians and on RPF headquarters. With the
resumption of the war and the ensuing pressure for solidarity, officers opposed to Bagosora found it
increasingly difficult to challenge his actions.
As the new leaders were consolidating control over military commanders, they profited enormously
from the first demonstration of international timidity. U.N. troops, in Rwanda under the terms of the
peace accords, tried for a few hours to keep the peace, then withdrew to their posts—as ordered by
superiors in New York—leaving the local population at the mercy of assailants. Officers opposed to
Bagosora realized that a continuing foreign presence was essential to restricting the killing campaign
and appealed to representatives of France, Belgium and the U.S. not to desert Rwanda. But,
suspecting the kind of horrors to come, the foreigners had already packed their bags. An experienced
and well-equipped force of French, Belgian, and Italian troops rushed in to evacuate the foreigners,
and then departed. U.S. Marines dispatched to the area stopped in neighboring Burundi once it was
clear that U.S.citizens would be evacuated without their help. The first impression of international
indifference to the fate of Rwandans was confirmed soon after, when the Belgians began arranging for
the withdrawal of their troops from the U.N. peacekeeping force. Ten of these soldiers, a contingent
different from those of the evacuation expedition, had been slain and, as the organizers of the
violence had anticipated, the Belgian government did not want to risk any further casualities.
5
March 1999
Against the backdrop of Rwandan military acquiescence and foreign flight, Bagosora and his circle
moved to recruit administrators and political leaders for the killing campaign. They expected and
received support from politicians, prefects and burgomasters associated with Habyarimana’s party,
but to expand the killing campaign more broadly they needed the collaboration also of administrators
and local leaders from the other parties, those that were predominant in central and southern Rwanda.
Adherents of these parties, stunned by the murder of their Hutu colleagues in the first days, were
ready to oppose soldiers and militia whom they believed to be fighting to restore exclusive control to
Habyarimana’s party. The new authorities hurried to dispel these concerns in a meeting of prefects on
April 11 and through radio appeals for Hutu unity broadcast by the minister of defense and influential
politicians on April 12. They stressed that partisan interests must be put aside in the battle against the
common enemy, the Tutsi.
By April 15, it was clear that the U.N. Security Council would not order the peacekeepers to try to stop
the violence and might even withdraw them completely. By this date, the organizers of the genocide
had also expanded their ranks considerably and were strong enough to remove opponents and
impose compliance with the killing campaign. On April 16 and 17, they replaced the military chief of
the staff and the prefects best known for opposing the killings. One prefect was later imprisoned and
executed and the other was murdered with his family. Three burgomasters and a number of other
officials who sought to stop the killings were also slain, either by mid-April or shortly after. The leaders
of the genocide held meetings in the center and south of the country to push hesitant local
administrators into collaboration. At the same time, they sent assailants from areas where slaughter
was well under way into those central and southern communes where people had refused to kill and
they used the radio to ridicule and threaten administrators and local political leaders who had been
preaching calm.
The Structure
By April 20, two weeks after the plane crash, the organizers of the genocide had substantial, although
not yet complete, control of the highly centralized state. The administration continued to function
remarkably well despite the disruptions in communication and transport caused by the war. Orders
from the prime minister were handed down to the prefect, who passed them on to the burgomasters,
who called local meetings throughout the communes where they read the instructions to the
population. The same language echoed from north to south and from east to west, calling for “selfdefense” against “accomplices.” Slaughter was known as “work” and machetes and firearms were
described as “tools.” Reports on the situation at the local level and minutes of meetings held by
people out on the hills were handed back up through the administrative channels.
By appropriating the well-established hierarchies of the military, administrative and political systems,
leaders of the genocide were able to exterminate Tutsi with astonishing speed and thoroughness.
Soldiers, National Police (gendarmes), former soldiers, and communal police played a larger part in
the slaughter than is generally realized. In addition to leading the first killings in the capital and in
other urban centers, soldiers and National Police directed all the major massacres throughout the
country. Although usually few in number at sites of massive killing, their tactical knowledge and their
use of the weapons of war, including grenades, machine guns, and even mortars, contributed
significantly to the death tolls in these massacres. It was only after the military had launched attacks
with devastating effect on masses of unarmed Tutsi that civilian assailants, armed with such weapons
as machetes, hammers, and clubs, finished the slaughter. In addition, the military encouraged and,
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
6
when faced with reluctance to act, compelled both ordinary citizens and local administrators to
participate in attacks, even travelling the back roads and stopping at small marketplaces to deliver the
message.
The administrators were charged with driving Tutsi from their homes and gathering them at places of
slaughter, with assembling the masses of assailants, providing transportation and “tools” for the
“work,” arranging for the disposal of the corpses, and directing the division of looted property and
confiscated land. They transformed administrative practices, benign in themselves, such as obligatory
labor for the common good (umuganda) or the use of security patrols, into mechanisms for executing
the genocide.
The political leaders provided the militia for attacks, dispatching them around the country as needed.
They prodded reluctant administrators and military officers to greater activity, sometimes using party
supporters to harass or threaten those who hesitated to participate. Political leaders also incited Hutu
to kill in more direct language than that used by officials who often spoke in ambiguous and allusive
terms.
Even as leaders of the genocide were exploiting existing hierarchies, they also created a fourth
channel dedicated to implementing the “civilian self-defense” program. The system was formalized
only late in May, but such key elements as the recruitment of participants by administrators and the
reliance on former soldiers to command them were in use during the massacres of early April. With
headquarters in Bagosora’s own office, the “civilian self-defense” hierarchy was staffed largely by
retired officers-cum-politicians, much like Bagosora himself.
Through these hierarchies, organizers carried out a killing campaign, a perversion of previous
campaigns that called on citizens and officials alike to contribute extra efforts for some public good.
The urgency and importance of the objective was deemed to justify departing from usual bureaucratic
practice. Zeal for killing took on more significance than formal rank: subordinates could prevail over
their superiors, in both civilian and military spheres, if they showed greater commitment to the
genocide. This flexibility encouraged ambition and initiative among those willing to trade human lives
for personal advantage. Actors could also bypass the usual limits set by law or administrative practice,
with politicians or soldiers speaking for government officials, militia approving candidates for
administrative position, and medical assistants calling in military strikes.
These practices, which promoted rapid and effective execution of the killing campaign, now
complicate the task of assessing responsibility for crimes. All who seek accountability for the
genocide must take care to ensure that officials of lesser rank but greater power not escape blame for
crimes that are wrongly imputed to their superiors alone.
Strategies of Slaughter
In the first days of killing in Kigali, assailants sought out and murdered targeted individuals and also
went systematically from house to house in certain neighborhoods, killing Tutsi and Hutu opposed to
Habyarimana. Administrative officials, like the prefect of the city of Kigali, ordered local people to
establish barriers to catch Tutsi trying to flee and to organize search patrols to discover those trying to
hide.
7
March 1999
By the middle of the first week of the genocide, organizers began implementing a different strategy:
driving Tutsi out of their homes to government offices, churches, schools or other public sites, where
they would subsequently be massacred in large-scale operations.
Towards the end of April, authorities declared a campaign of “pacification,” which meant not an end
to killing, but greater control over killing. Sensitive to criticism from abroad—muted though it was—
authorities ended most large-scale massacres. They also sought to rein in assailants who were
abusing their license to kill, such as by slaying Hutu with whom they had disputes or who were
allowing Tutsi to escape injury in return for money, sexual favors or other considerations. They ordered
militia and other citizens to bring suspects to officials for investigation and then murder instead of
simply killing them where they found them. Authorities used “pacification” also as a tactic to lure Tutsi
out of hiding to be killed.
By mid-May, the authorities ordered the final phase, that of tracking down the last surviving Tutsi.
They sought to exterminate both those who had hidden successfully and those who had been spared
thus far—like women and children—or protected by their status in the community, like priests and
medical workers. As the RPF advanced through the country, assailants also hurried to eliminate any
survivors who might be able to testify about the slaughter.
Throughout the genocide, Tutsi women were often raped, tortured and mutilated before they were
murdered.
Popular Participation
The density of the administrative and political hierarchies, characteristic of Rwanda for many years,
gave genocidal leaders rapid and easy access to the population, but did not guarantee mass
participation in the slaughter. As authorities played on popular fears and greed, some people picked
up their machetes and came readily. Others came more slowly and some refused to come, even at the
risk of their lives.
Both on the radio and through public meetings, authorities worked to make the long-decried threat of
RPF infiltration concrete and immediate. Throughout the country they disseminated detailed false
information, such as reports that Tutsi had hidden firearms in the bushes behind the Kibungo
cathedral, or that they had prepared maps showing fields to be taken from Hutu in Butare, or that they
had killed local administrative officials in Nyakizu. Authorities counted on such news to convince Hutu
that their Tutsi neighbors were dangerous agents of the RPF who had to be eliminated. Community
leaders and even clergy assured Hutu that they were justified in attacking Tutsi as a measure of “selfdefense.”
Authorities offered tangible incentives to participants. They delivered food, drink, and other
intoxicants, parts of military uniforms and small payments in cash to hungry, jobless young men. They
encouraged cultivators to pillage farm animals, crops, and such building materials as doors, windows
and roofs. Even more important in this land-hungry society, they promised cultivators the fields left
vacant by Tutsi victims. To entrepreneurs and members of the local elite, they granted houses,
vehicles, control of a small business, or such rare goods as television sets or computers.
Many poor young men responded readily to the promise of rewards. Of the nearly 60 percent of
Rwandans under the age of twenty, tens of thousands had little hope of obtaining the land needed to
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
8
establish their own households or the jobs necessary to provide for a family. Such young men,
including many displaced by the war and living in camps near the capital provided many of the early
recruits to the Interahamwe, trained in the months before and in the days immediately after the
genocide began. Refugees from Burundi, in flight from the Tutsi-dominated army of Burundi, had also
received military training in their camps and readily attacked Rwandan Tutsi after April 6.
In some regions, particularly those where Habyarimana’s supporters were strongest, authorities
needed to do little more than give the signal for Hutu to begin attacking Tutsi. In other areas, such as
central and southern Rwanda, where Tutsi were numerous and well integrated and where
Habyarimana’s party had little standing, many Hutu initially refused to attack Tutsi and joined with
them in fighting off assailants. Only when military and civilian authorities resorted to public criticism
and harassment, fines, destruction of property, injury, and threat of death did these Hutu give up their
open opposition to the genocide.
In some places, authorities apparently deliberately drew hesitant Hutu into increasingly more violent
behavior, first encouraging them to pillage, then to destroy homes, then to kill the occupants of the
homes. Soldiers and police sometimes threatened to punish Hutu who wanted only to pillage and not
to harm Tutsi. Authorities first incited attacks on the most obvious targets—men who had
acknowledged or could be easily supposed to have ties with the RPF—and only later insisted on the
slaughter of women, children, the elderly, and others generally regarded as apolitical.
Just as communities were readier to kill some Tutsi than others, so individual Hutu would agree to
attack one person and not another or, in an extension of the same logic, would attack one person and
save another. Hutu who protected Tutsi ordinarily helped those to whom they were linked by the ties of
family, friendship, or obligation for past assistance, but sometimes they also saved the lives of
strangers. Even such persons as Colonel Bagosora and leading figures of the interim government
saved the lives of Tutsi close to them, testimony to the extent to which ties between Hutu and Tutsi
survived even the most persistent efforts to eradicate them. In some cases, former officials now seek
credit for saving the lives of a few favored Tutsi, as if having done so reduced their responsibility for
directing or permitting the slaying of so many others.
The Masquerade of Legitimacy
Many Rwandans say that they killed because authorities told them to kill. Such statements reflect less
a national predisposition to obey orders, as is sometimes said, than a recognition that the “moral
authority” of the state swayed them to commit crimes that would otherwise have been unthinkable.
Itself the chief actor in a masquerade of legitimacy, the interim government gave its officials and
citizens the cover of “legitimate” orders to hide from themselves and others the evil they were doing.
Administrators broke the genocide down into a series of discrete tasks which they executed without
consideration of the ultimate objective of the work. Cultivators turned out for the long-standing
practice of communal labor although they knew that they were to cut down people as well as the brush
in which they found them. Priests announced public meetings without consideration of the message
to be delivered there. Businessmen contributed money to the “self-defense” fund established by the
government as they had contributed to similar collections in the past, even though the money was to
buy “refreshments” for the militia and fuel to transport them to their places of “work.”
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March 1999
As part of the”pacification” effort in late April, authorities ordered churches, schools, hospitals, and
shops to resume their functions, ignoring the absence of Tutsi who used to participate in these various
activities. They presumed to create a veneer of “normalcy” in a world where untold numbers of people
were violating the laws, religious teachings, and cultural norms that they had always lived by.
Survival Tactics
Many Tutsi and those Hutu associated with them fought to save their lives. We know of their heroic
resistance, usually armed only with sticks and stones, at such places as the hills of Bisesero, the
swamps of Bugesera, and the church at Cyahinda, but we have no way of knowing about the countless
small encounters where targeted people struggled to defend themselves and their families in their
homes, on dusty paths, and in the fields of sorghum.
Some tens of thousands fled to neighboring countries and others hid within Rwanda, in the ceilings of
houses, in holes in the ground, in the forest, in the swamps. Some bought their lives once, others paid
repeatedly for their safety over a period of weeks, either with money or with sexual services.
Many Tutsi who are alive survived because of the action of Hutu, whether a single act of courage from
a stranger or the delivery of food and protection over many weeks by friends or family members.
The End of Hutu Power
When organizers of the genocide gained control of the state, they suppressed dissent but did not
extinguish it. In May and June, when the interim government was weakened by military losses and by
the first signs of international disapproval, Hutu in one community after another began refusing to
undertake further searches or to participate in guarding barriers. As the majority of participants
withdrew, they left execution of the genocide in the hands of smaller, more zealous groups of
assailants, who continued to hunt and kill in hopes of profit or because they were committed to
exterminating the last Tutsi.
With the campaign against Tutsi no longer a strong bond, Hutu of different areas and parties once
more began to fight against each other. Some revived old battles. Others competed in new rivalries
over power or over goods and property taken from Tutsi. Interahamwe and other young men who had
been authorized to terrorize Tutsi began robbing, raping, and killing Hutu as the number of Tutsi
declined.
Hutu used the discourse of the genocide in conflicts with other Hutu: they accused each other of being
Tutsi, of having hidden Tutsi, or of supporting the RPF. Just as some charged enemies with too great
lenience towards Tutsi at this time, so others would charge their opponents with violence against Tutsi
once the genocide was ended.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front
In defeating the interim government and its army, the RPF ended the genocide. At the same time, its
troops committed grave violations of international humanitarian law by attacking and killing unarmed
civilians. Unlike the genocidal authorities who undertook a complex campaign involving all the
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
10
machinery of the state and aiming to involve all Hutu citizens, the RPF ran a straightforward military
campaign where civilians generally provided only information or support services.
The RPF permitted its soldiers to kill persons whom they took to be Interahamwe or other supposed
participants in the genocide. They killed some in the course of their military advance, but they
executed most in the days and weeks after combat had finished. They selected the victims from
among civilians grouped in camps, sometimes relying on accusations by survivors, sometimes on their
own interrogations. They executed some persons apparently because they were linked with parties
opposed to the RPF or showed potential for becoming political leaders rather than because they were
thought guilty of involvement in the genocide.
In a number of places, such as in the communes of Ntyazo, Mukingi and Runda, RPF soldiers
massacred unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, who had assembled for a meeting
on their orders. The people were told to come to receive food or to be given instructions or to gather
before being transported to another site. The RPF soldiers also massacred several hundred people in
the Byumba stadium in mid-April.
In a series of raids in Kigali in early April, RPF soldiers killed dozens of political and military leaders,
many of them past government employees or persons close to Habyarimana’s political party. They
killed family members, including women and children, in a number of these cases.
The RPF was commonly acknowledged by military experts to be a highly disciplined force, with clear
lines of command and adequate communication. Although it may have become less disciplined during
the months of the genocide due to the incorporation of new recruits, RPF commanding officers like
General Paul Kagame maintained the authority necessary to ensure compliance with their orders. The
crimes committed by RPF soldiers were so systematic and widespread and took place over so long a
period of time that commanding officers must have been aware of them. Even if they did not
specifically order these practices, in most cases they did not halt them and punish those responsible.
In early November 1994, the RPF reported that it had arrested twenty-five soldiers for capital crimes,
eight of them accused of killing civilians between June and August 1994 and by the end of the year
military prosecutors had supposedly completed investigations in some twenty such cases. One major,
one corporal and four soldiers indicted for these crimes were tried and convicted in 1997 and 1998.
The major was sentenced to life in prison and the others to imprisonment for terms ranging from two
to five years.
After some early but limited reports of killings by the RPF, the first substantial charges against RPF
forces were made by Robert Gersony, a consultant to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. After
interviewing hundreds of Rwandans inside and outside the country in July and August 1994, he
concluded that the RPF had engaged in widespread and systematic slaughter of unarmed civilians. In
September 1994, the U.N., in agreement with the U.S. and perhaps others, agreed to suppress the
report but demanded that the RPF halt the killings. The number of killings declined markedly after
September in the face of this international pressure.
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March 1999
Numbers
Establishing a reliable toll of those killed in the genocide and its aftermath is important to counter
denials, exaggerations, and lies. The necessary data have not been gathered but speculation about
death tolls continues anyway, usually informed more by emotion than by fact. In July 1998, the
Rwandan government announced plans for a census of genocide survivors.
Even the size of the Tutsi population in Rwanda on April 6, 1994 is debated. Demographer William
Seltzer, who has studied the data, estimates the number as 657,000, a figure extrapolated from 1991
census data. Some critics assert that the number of Tutsi was underreported in that census and in the
prior census of 1978 because the Habyarimana government wanted to minimize the importance of
Tutsi in the population. Although frequently said, no documentation has been presented to support
this allegation. The 1991 data show Tutsi as forming 8.4 percent of the total population. This figure
seems to accord with extrapolations from the generally accepted census data of 1952, taking into
account the population loss due to death and flight during the 1960s and the birth rate, which was
lower for Tutsi than for Hutu.
Whether or not census data were purposely altered to reduce the number of Tutsi, the figures
underestimated the Tutsi population because an undetermined number of Tutsi arranged to register as
Hutu in order to avoid discrimination and harassment. Although many Rwandans know of such cases,
there is at present no basis for estimating how many persons they represented.
Deliberate misrepresentation of ethnicity complicates assessing how many of the victims were actually
Tutsi. At a reburial ceremony for a family slain during the genocide, the only two survivors, both
priests, talked separately with our researchers. One maintained that his family was Tutsi but claimed
to be Hutu while the other declared that the family was really Hutu, but was said to be Tutsi by
neighbors who coveted their wealth. In addition to such cases of questionable identity, there are Hutu
who were killed because they looked like Tutsi.
A U.N. expert evaluating population loss in Rwanda estimated that 800,000 Rwandans had died
between April and July 1994, but this figure included those who had died from causes other than the
genocide. Seltzer estimated the number of persons killed in the genocide as at least one half million.
Professor Gérard Prunier estimated that 130,000 Tutsi were alive in July, but his figures did not include
those in Zaire or Tanzania, perhaps another 20,000. If this number of 150,000 survivors is subtracted
from an estimated population of 657,000 Tutsi, this leaves 507,000 Tutsi killed, close to Seltzer’s
minimum assessment, and representing the annihilation of about 77 percent of the population
registered as Tutsi. Using other data from Butare prefecture, our researchers computed an estimated
loss of 75 percent of the Tutsi population in that prefecture. Based on these preliminary data, we
would conclude that at least half a million persons were killed in the genocide, a loss that represented
about three quarters of the Tutsi population of Rwanda.
Estimates of persons killed at any one site vary widely, often by a factor of ten or more, perhaps
because most have been made by untrained observers. At the parish of Rukara, for example,
estimates ranged from 500 to 5,000. In 1995, a Rwandan government commission set the death toll at
the Murambi Technical School in Gikongoro at some 20,000, a figure which some have since raised to
70,000, although the bodies exhumed there at the time of the 1996 commemoration of the genocide
numbered in the range of 5,000. As many as 50,000 have been said to have perished at Bisesero, but
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
12
a recent list of persons killed at that site totaled just over 5100 names. Similarly, some claim that
35,000 were slain in the Nyamata church, which appears to have a capacity of some 3,000.
Establishing the number of persons killed in the genocide will not help much in assessing the number
of people involved in their execution. The circumstances of the crimes varied enormously: there were
professional soldiers armed with machine guns or grenade-launchers firing into crowds, each of whom
may have killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people, and there were groups of assailants armed with
clubs or sharpened pieces of bamboo who jointly killed a single person. There can be no simple
formula to assess how many killers murdered one victim or how many victims were slain by one killer.
The first estimate of numbers slain by the RPF was made by Gersony in his 1994 report. He concluded
that the RPF killed between 25,000 and 45,000 persons in the months of April to August 1994. Seth
Sendashonga, former minister of the interior and early member of the RPF, estimated that the RPF
killed some 60,000 people between April 1994 and August 1995, with more than half killed in the first
four months of that period. It seems likely, although not certain, that these estimates include persons
killed in the course of combat, both civilians and militia.
Although our research indicates considerable killing of civilians by RPF forces during this period,
including massacres and executions, we have too little data to confirm or revise these estimates. In
any case, they appear more likely to be accurate than claims that the RPF killed hundreds of
thousands of people from April to August 1994.
International Responsibility
The Rwandans who organized and executed the genocide must bear full responsibility for it. But
genocide anywhere implicates everyone. To the extent that governments and peoples elsewhere failed
to prevent and halt this killing campaign, they all share in the shame of the crime. In addition, the U.N.
staff as well as the three foreign governments principally involved in Rwanda bear added
responsibility: the U.N. staff for having failed to provide adequate information and guidance to
members of the Security Council; Belgium, for having withdrawn its troops precipitately and for having
championed total withdrawal of the U.N. force; the U.S. for having put saving money ahead of saving
lives and for slowing the sending of a relief force; and France, for having continued its support of a
government engaged in genocide. In contrast to the inaction of the major actors, some non-permanent
members of the Security Council with no traditional ties with Rwanda undertook to push for a U.N.
force to protect Tutsi from extermination. But all members of the Security Council brought discredit on
the U.N. by permitting the representative of a genocidal government to continue sitting in the Security
Council, a council supposedly committed to peace.
Tolerating Discrimination and Violence
From 1990 on, influential donors of international aid pressed Habyarimana for political and economic
reforms. But, generally satisfied with the stability of his government, they overlooked the systematic
discrimination against Tutsi which violated the very principles that they were urging him to respect.
They discussed but did not insist on eliminating identity cards that showed ethnic affiliation, cards
that served as death warrants for many Tutsi in 1994.
13
March 1999
When the Rwandan government began massacring Tutsi in 1990, crimes that were solidly documented
by local and international human rights groups and by a special rapporteur for the U.N. Commission
on Human Rights, some donors protested. At one point, the Belgian government went so far as to
recall its ambassador briefly. But none openly challenged Rwandan explanations that the killings were
spontaneous and uncontrollable and none used its influence to see that the guilty were brought to
justice.
In addition, the lack of international response to the 1993 massacres in Burundi permitted Rwandan
extremists to expect that they too could slaughter people in large numbers without consequence.
Economies and Peacekeeping
In September 1993, U.N. staff and member states wanted a successful peacekeeping operation to
offset the failure in Somalia. They believed that Rwanda promised such success because both parties
to the conflict had requested the U.N. presence and because the agreement between them, hammered
out in a year of negotiation, seemed to have resolved all major issues.
Faced with escalating costs for peacekeeping operations, the U.N. staff and members wanted not just
success, but success at low cost. Demands for economy, loudly voiced by the U.S. and others, led to
the establishment of a force only one third the size of that originally recommended and with a
mandate that was also scaled down from that specified by the peace accords. Peacekeeping staff had
proposed a small human rights division, which might have tracked growing hostility against Tutsi, but
no money was available for this service and the idea was dropped.
Belgium, too, wanted to save money. Although it felt concerned enough about Rwanda to contribute
troops to the force, it felt too poor to contribute the full battalion of 800 requested and agreed to send
only half that number. Troops from other countries that were less well trained and less well armed
filled the remaining places, producing a force that was weaker than it would have been with a full
Belgian batallion.
As preparations for further conflict grew in February 1994, the Belgians were sufficiently worried by the
deteriorating situation to ask for a stronger mandate, but they were rebuffed by the U.S. and the
United Kingdom, which refused to support any measure that might add to the cost of the operation.
The concern for economy prevailed even after massive slaughter had taken place. When a second
peacekeeping operation was being mounted in May and June, U.N. member states were slow to
contribute equipment needed for the troops. The U.S. government was rightly ridiculed for requiring
seven weeks to negotiate the lease for armored personnel carriers, but other members did not do
much better. The U.K., for example, provided only fifty trucks.
Warnings, Information and the U.N. Staff
A January 11, 1994 telegram from General Roméo Dallaire, commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force,
to his superiors was only one, if now the most famous, warning of massive slaughter being prepared in
Rwanda. From November 1993 to April 1994, there were dozens of other signals, including an early
December letter to Dallaire from high-ranking military officers warning of planned massacres; a press
release by a bishop declaring that guns were being distributed to civilians; reports by intelligence
agents of secret meetings to coordinate attacks on Tutsi, opponents of Hutu Power and U.N.
peacekeepers; and public incitations to murder in the press and on the radio. Foreign observers did
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
14
not track every indicator, but representatives of Belgium, France, and the U.S. were well-informed
about most of them. In January, an analyst of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency knew enough to predict
that as many as half a million persons might die in case of renewed conflict and, in February, Belgian
authorities already feared a genocide. France, the power most closely linked to Habyarimana,
presumably knew at least as much as the other two.
In the early months of 1994, Dallaire repeatedly requested a stronger mandate, more troops and more
materiel. The secretariat staff, perhaps anxious to avoid displeasing such major powers as the U.S.,
failed to convey to the council the gravity of warnings of crisis and the urgency of Dallaire’s requests.
The paucity of information meant little to the U.S. and France, which were well-informed in any case,
but it led other council members with no sources of information in Rwanda to misjudge the gravity of
the crisis. Instead of strengthening the mandate and sending reinforcements, the Security Council
made only small changes in the rate of troop deployment, measures too limited to affect the
development of the situation.
When the violence began, the secretary-general’s special representative, Roger Booh-Booh minimized
both the extent and the organized nature of the slayings. Meanwhile Dallaire was fairly shouting the
need for immediate and decisive action. Given the two points of view, the staff generally presented the
more reassuring assessment to council members.
By late April, representatives of the Czech Republic, Spain, New Zealand and Argentina sought
information beyond that provided by the secretariat and became convinced that the slaughter was a
genocide that must be stopped. They pushed the Security Council to support a new peacekeeping
operation with a stronger mandate to protect civilians. Had these non-permanent members been fully
informed earlier—such as on January 11—they might have found their voices in time to have called for
firm measures to avert the violence.
Obfuscation and Misunderstanding
From the first hours after the killings began, U.S., Belgian, and French policymakers knew that Tutsi
were being slain because they were Tutsi. Dallaire delivered that same information in a telegram to
U.N. headquarters on April 8. Early accounts by journalists on the spot also depicted systematic,
widespread killings on an ethnic basis. The simultaneous selective slaughter of Hutu opposed to Hutu
Power complicated the situation but did not change the genocidal nature of attacks on Tutsi and, in
any case, killings of Hutu diminished markedly after the first days. Given the pattern of killings, given
previous massacres of Tutsi, given the propaganda demanding their extermination, given the known
political positions of the persons heading the interim government, informed observers must have seen
that they were facing a genocide.
They knew, but they did not say. The U.S. may have been the only government to caution its officials in
writing to avoid the word “genocide,” but diplomats and politicians of other countries as well as staff
of the U.N. also shunned the term. Some may have done so as part of their effort at neutrality, but
others surely avoided the word because of the moral and legal imperatives attached to it.
Instead of denouncing the evil and explaining to the public what had to be done to end it, national and
international leaders stressed the “confusing” nature of the situation, the “chaos” and the “anarchy.”
After a first resolution that spoke fairly clearly about the conflict, the Security Council issued
statements for several weeks that left both the nature of the violence and the identity of its
15
March 1999
perpetrators unclear. Secretary-General Bhoutros Bhoutros-Ghali spoke of the genocide as if it were a
natural disaster and depicted Rwandans as a people “fallen into calamitous circumstances.”
Some policymakers could not get byeond the old cliches, like one official of the U.S. National Security
Council who described the genocide as “tribal killings,” an explanation echoed by President Bill
Clinton in June 1998 when he talked of “tribal resentments” as the source of troubles in Rwanda. In a
similar vein, an adviser to French President François Mitterrand suggested that brutal slaughter was a
usual practice among Africans and could not be easily eradicated. Other diplomats, more up to date,
promoted the idea of a “failed state,” ignoring all indications that the Rwandan state was all too
successful in doing what its leaders intended. They seemed unable to dissociate Rwanda from
Somalia, although the two cases had few points of comparison beyond their common location on the
African continent. Most journalists simply exploited the horror and made no effort to go beyond the
easy explanations. A leading columnist for the New York Times even managed on April 15, 1994 to put
the new and the old cliches in the same sentence, referring to a “failed state” and to a “centuries-old
history of tribal warfare.”
Genocide and War
From the start, the genocide was intertwined with the war and the war complicated efforts to halt the
extermination campaign. The organizers used the slaughter of Tutsi to draw the RPF into renewed
combat. Later, in the face of RPF advances, they demanded a cease-fire as a prerequisite for ending
the genocide. The RPF resumed the war in part to stop the massacres and insisted on an end to the
genocide as a condition for a cease-fire. An early initiative by the RPF to halt the genocide failed at
least in part because combat had resumed. RPF representatives proposed a joint operation against the
killers with Rwandan army troops not involved in the slaughter and with U.N. peacekeepers, but even
Rwandan soldiers previously opposed to Habyarimana would not switch sides during a war and U.N.
troops could not move because there was no longer a peace to keep. At about this time, France and
Belgium, and perhaps the United States, briefly discussed using troops of the evacuation force to halt
the killings, but they dropped the idea. The RPF, suspicious of French intentions, warned that it would
attack soldiers who stayed longer than was necessary to evacuate foreigners and Rwandan
government soldiers, who had already proved that they would kill Belgian troops, were presumed
ready to kill more. Whether these risks provided the real reason or merely a pretext for their rapid
departure, the French and Belgian troops boarded their planes and flew away. According to Dallaire,
the evacuation force left him and the peacekeepers “on the tarmac, with the bullets flying and the
bodies piling up” around them.
Foreign policymakers treated the genocide as a tragic byproduct of the war rather than as an evil to be
attacked directly. Accustomed to dealing with wars, not with genocides, diplomats addressed the
familiar part of the problem in the usual way, by promoting a dialogue between the belligerents and
seeking a cease-fire. To increase the chance of success, they sought to maintain a posture of neutrality
between the parties, which meant not condemning the genocide. This was true for the staff of the U.N.
as well. Dallaire was instructed to concentrate on getting a cease-fire even though he believed that
objective was unattainable and clearly secondary to ending the killings. But diplomatic hopes of
halting the genocide by ending the war could not produce results so long as the organizers of the
slaughter saw the genocide as a way of winning the war.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
16
Some policymakers, particularly in France and in Belgium, were wedded to the notion that an ethnic
majority was necessessarily the same as a democratic majority. They could not bring themselves to
condemn the genocide because they feared increasing the likelihood of an RPF victory and the
subsequent establishment of a government dominated by the minority.
Military Action and Inaction
Of approximately 7,000 Rwandan army forces in the vicinity of the capital on the day that the slaughter
was launched, some 1,500 to 2,000 elite troops—the Presidential Guard plus soldiers of the
paracommando and reconnaissance units—backed by some 2,000 militia carried out most of the
killings of civilians. When the RPF renewed hostilities with the Rwandan army late that day, their 1,000
or so soldiers drew some of the Rwandan troops away from attacks on civilians, but not enough to halt
the slaughter. Three days later, when the RPF proposed assembling a force with Rwandan army
soldiers opposed to the attacks and U.N. peacekeepers, they believed 900 soldiers would suffice to
end the killing of civilians. The commander of the Belgian contingent of the peacekeepers concluded
that the U.N. troops together with the evacuation troops present from April 9 to April 15 would have
been strong enough to halt the violence. Dallaire too agreed that a joint force could have stopped the
killers and he was ready to lead the peacekeeping soldiers themselves into action, if he received
additional troops and materiel.
The number of troops needed to restore order grew as participants from more areas were drawn into
the killing campaign, but, according to Dallaire and other military experts, 5,000 experienced soldiers
could have ended the genocide even in the later weeks.
Because the operation of the genocide was highly centralized, stopping the killing in Kigali would have
quickly quelled violence elsewhere in the country. Any serious challenge from foreign troops would
have signaled that the interim government was illegitimate in the eyes of the international community
and unlikely to receive the support it would need to survive, far less prosper. This would have
discouraged Rwandans from joining the killing campaign and might even have stimulated some
opponents of the genocide to come together to oppose it.
But instead of using the peacekeeping troops to stop the genocide, the U.N. sought primarily to
protect its soldiers from harm. Dallaire was ordered to make avoiding risk to soldiers the priority, not
saving the lives of Rwandans. To do so, he regrouped his troops, leaving exposed the Rwandans who
had sought shelter in certain outposts under U.N. protection. In the most dramatic case—for which
responsibility may belong to commanding officers in Belgium as much as to Dallaire—nearly one
hundred Belgian peacekeepers abandoned some two thousand unarmed civilians, leaving them
defenseless against attacks by militia and military. As the Belgians went out one gate, the assailants
came in the other. More than a thousand Rwandans died there or in flight, trying to reach another U.N.
post.
The next day and for several days after that, the Security Council debated the complete withdrawal of
the peacekeeping operation, a decision which would have abandoned some 30,000 unarmed civilians
then in U.N. posts, just as the others had been deserted the day before. The Belgians promoted this
idea aggressively outside the council while the U.S. led the forces in its favor at the council table. A
member of the secretariat even suggested that protection of civilians might not be an appropriate
activity for a peacekeeping operation. But Nigeria, other council members, and finally the secretary-
17
March 1999
general insisted that the lives of “innocent civilians of Rwanda” must be taken into account. They
delayed the decision long enough for U.S. policymakers and others to reconsider their position.
On April 21, the Security Council withdrew most of the U.N. troops and left only a few hundred
peacekeepers to protect civilians already directly under the U.N. flag. Eight days later, after refugees
began pouring out of Rwanda in numbers massive enough to threaten stability in the entire region, the
secretary-general and Security Council acknowledged that the war and the genocide could be
addressed separately and that they should try to halt the killings.
When the U.N. began discussing sending a new force with a stronger mandate to protect Tutsi
civilians, the RPF categorically opposed the move, fearing that such a force might intervene in the war
and rob them of a victory that they now were confident of achieving. In an April 29 press release, they
declared that a new military force would serve no purpose because “the genocide is almost
completed” and most Tutsi were already dead or had fled. At the time some 100,000 Tutsi were alive
and awaiting rescue. The RPF certainly knew of the 60,000 in Kigali, Kabgayi and Cyangugu and of
untold thousands of others clustered at Bisesero or in Bugesera and scattered throughout Butare,
where large scale killing had begun only nine days before. RPF opposition to a new U.N. force
complicated and slowed the effort to mount a rescue operation for Tutsi civilians. RPF troops had
proved their effectiveness and peacekeeping staff and member states preferred not to risk direct
combat with them. Whether the RPF would in fact have fired on a U.N.force seems unlikely: it would
later make similar threats against the French but in the end reached an accomodation with them.
Discussion about the size, mandate, and strategy for a new peacekeeping force continued until May
17, in part because of U.S. rigidity in applying its new standards for approval of peacekeeping
operations, in part because of hesitations sparked by RPF opposition to any intervention.
Manoeuvering by nations supplying troops and those supplying equipment consumed another two
months, so that the second peacekeeping force landed only after the RPF had defeated the genocidal
government. The slowness and ineptness of national and international bureaucracies in mounting the
operation was not unusual, nor was the attempt by participating nations to get the most or give the
least possible. What was extraordinary was that such behavior continued to be acceptable in the
context of genocide, by then openly acknowledged by national and international leaders.
In early April some French authorities considered using the soldiers of their evacuation force to back
the Rwandan army against the RPF but decided not to do so. In mid-June they undertook Operation
Turquoise purportedly to save lives but also to preserve “territory and legitimacy” for the interim
government. French soldiers went to rescue Tutsi in southwestern Rwanda, to the general acclaim of
press and public. Others who went to the northwest, ready to impede the RPF advance and to protect
the interim government, were hailed by RTLM but drew little foreign notice. Some French soldiers were
slow to act to save Tutsi, as at Bisesero, apparently because they accepted the official Rwandan
explanation that the Tutsi were RPF infiltrators. In the humanitarian zone which they established,
French troops took some measures against the militia but they permitted genocidal officials to
continue exercising their functions. Even after conceding a RPF victory, the French took no action
against the genocidal authorities, permitting—and apparently in some cases assisting—them to flee
the country.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
18
Some 2,500 well-equipped elite French forces saved 15,000 to 17,000 lives. The barely 500 U.N.
peacekeepers, poorly equipped and minimally supplied, protected about twice that number during the
course of the genocide.
Tolerating Genocide
During the first weeks, when firm opposition to the genocide would have saved hundreds of
thousands of lives, international leaders refused even simple actions which would have required no
military force and no expense. Complicit in the refusal to speak the word “genocide,” they failed to
denounce the evil, either jointly—which would have been most effective—or even singly, in outraged
voices. Condemning evil, warning of its consequences, and naming the authorities apparently
responsible for it would have made clear to Rwandans that these leaders were branded outlaws by the
world community. Representatives of various governments and branches of the U.N. were in touch
with Rwandan authorities and may have criticized the genocide, but they did so discreetly. Anthony
Lake, national security adviser to the president, did issue a single appeal to Rwandans leading the
genocide, calling on them by name to stop the killings. This innovative step, excellent in itself, was not
followed by the others needed to give it real force.
In 1994, as for the preceding several years, Rwanda depended heavily on foreign financial support.
Donor nations and the World Bank had withheld aid or threatened to do so to pressure the Rwandan
government at several critical moments, including when it balked at signing the peace accords. All
Rwandans in positions of responsibility understood the importance of foreign financial support: even
burgomasters and communal councils were responsible for raising funds for local development
projects by direct appeals to foreign governments. Any public condemnation of the genocide by the
combined donors and the World Bank, particularly if accompanied by an explicit warning that they
would never fund a genocidal government, would have shown Rwandans that the interim government
was unlikely to succeed and made them less likely to implement its orders.
Radio RTLM, which had incited to genocide before April 6, communicated the orders for implementing
the killings after that date. It instructed people to erect barriers and carry out searches; it named
persons to be targeted and pointed out areas which should be attacked. Even the more restrained
national radio, Radio Rwanda, broadcast directives important to the execution of the genocide. So
important was this means of communication that officials admonished citizens to keep listening to
the radio for instructions from the interim government. Broadcasts from these stations could have
been interrupted without military action on the ground. The U.S., and perhaps other nations,
considered jamming the radio broadcasts, but in the end rejected the measure.
After more than two weeks of massacres, most governments refused to admit Rwandan
representatives sent to try to justify the genocide. Egypt and France, however, did receive them. The
French action had great importance—because France was the strongest past supporter of the Rwandan
government, because the delegation was received at the highest levels, and because one of the
Rwandans was the effective head of the most virulently anti-Tutsi party in the country and clearly
identified with the genocide. Two weeks later, when a Rwandan army officer came to Paris to request
aid, a high-ranking official told him that France had just sent some communications equipment to
Rwanda and that further aid could be forthcoming if Rwanda managed to end bad publicity about the
slaughter.
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March 1999
Members of the Security Council gave more importance to maintaining diplomatic procedures than to
condemning perpetrators of genocide. Rather than demand that the Rwandan representative resign
from the council, they continued collaborating with him, thus treating his government as an honorable
member of the world community. They did not insist that he absent himself from discussions about
Rwanda or even that he observe the usual custom of abstaining from such discussions. They thus
afforded him the chance to know and communicate to his government all proposals for U.N. action in
Rwanda.
The Security Council also received the delegation meant to repair the Rwandan image abroad and
heard it out with the customary courtesy. Faced with representatives just arrived from the capital of a
genocidal government, most members of the council failed to denounce the slaughter clearly and
forcefully. On an occasion of great symbolic importance, they once more put decorum before the
obligation to speak as the conscience of the international community.
Although many genocidal killings were done with machetes, clubs, or other such weapons, military
and militia used firearms to begin major massacres, to execute some persons, and to threaten
opponents of the genocide into compliance. Rwandan soldiers also needed ammunition for the war
against the RPF. Imposing an embargo on arms to Rwanda would have been another effective, costfree way of indicating international condemnation of the interim government, but this measure, first
raised in the Security Council at the end of April, was implemented only on May 17.
During the genocide, the frequently ignored nonpermanent members of the Security Council in the end
showed the strongest committment to action. Nigeria made an effort in the first week to have the U.N.
force strengthened and reminded others to think not just about the foreigners, relatively little at risk,
but also about the Rwandans who were targeted by the violence. Later, the Czech Republic, Spain,
Argentina, and New Zealand demanded that a second and stronger force be sent to Rwanda. As the
Czech representative declared at one point, “Rwanda is not a priority for the Czech government, but as
a human being I cannot sit here and do nothing.”
Rwandans Listened
When foreign governments, the pope, and the secretary-general began to find their voices, Rwandans
listened. The major business and financial leaders feared loss of international funds and high-ranking
military officers feared interruption of the supply of arms and ammunition. Leading intellectuals
debated strategies to counter international criticism and diplomats were sent on mission to persuade
the world of a series of lies: that the killings were less serious than depicted abroad, that they were a
spontaneous outburst of rage by a grief-stricken people, that they were justified by the need of “selfdefense,” and that—in any case—they had been halted.
After France insisted that Rwanda avoid further international criticism, Radio RTLM immediately
broadcast the news that the French were ready with further aid, but on condition that there be “no
more cadavers visible on the roads” and that people “no longer kill...while others stand around and
laugh.” After the U.S. communicated its disapproval, Rwandan authorities cared enough to send
orders down to the hills that killings should be brought under control and removed out of sight. At a
communal council meeting in remote Bwakira commune in the western prefecture of Kibuye, the
burgomaster warned local leaders that satellites passing over head could track continued violence
and that such displays would make re-establishment of good relations with the U.S. impossible.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
20
International censure, timid and tardy though it was, prompted Rwandan authorities to restrict and
hide killings. If instead of delaying and temporising, international leaders had immediately and
unambiguously called the genocide by its awful name, they would have shattered the masquerade of
legitimacy created by the interim government and forced Rwandans to confront the evil they were
doing. Once Rwandans were faced with the consequences for themselves as individuals and for their
nation of being declared international outlaws, they would have made choices in a different context.
Perhaps those completely committed to exterminating Tutsi would have continued that course. But
they had been few at the start and they would have found it more difficult to recruit others—or to retain
their loyalty—once it was clear that the interim government could not succeed in the international
arena.
For international condemnation to achieve maximum effect would have required complete and public
support by all major international actors in Rwanda. These policymakers sadly lacked the breadth of
vision to see that genocide in Rwanda was detrimental to the interests of their own nations and the
world community as well as to the people of Rwanda. They placed lesser diverse interests of their
governments before the need to avert or end a genocide and so violated the pledge of “Never again”
made nearly fifty years before.
The Future
Even as the international community resolves not to repeat the culpable passivity of 1994, it risks yet
another kind of inertia: that of not acting until confronted by a catastrophe similar in kind and scale to
that of the genocide. Circumstances have changed. Although some of the insurgents currently
attacking the Rwandan government may intend to continue exterminating Tutsi, they lack the means to
execute campaigns of the extraordinary scale and speed of the 1994 genocide. Rather they carry out
limited but ongoing slaughter that deadens public concern simply by its very repetitiveness.
Meanwhile the Rwandan government, eschewing any genocidal ideology, has nonetheless engaged in
massive slaughter of civilians whom it counts as supporters of the enemy, both in Rwanda and in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is increasingly difficult to assess the nature and extent of violence and to identify leaders
responsible for it. Faced with possible punishment for massacring large numbers of civilians,
government officials have restricted access to troubled regions, interfered with efforts to gather
testimony, destroyed evidence, and misrepresented events. Their opponents, the insurgent leaders,
often remain in the shadows, with their programs and even their names unknown. Although their
alleged crimes are generally more widely publicized, it is difficult to find the information needed to
assess the truth of the charges against them.
International leaders, chasing the ever-moving goal of stability, ignore crimes against humanity and
tolerate obstruction of efforts to reveal the full horror of ongoing abuses in the region. By failing to
demand accountability for current crimes, they undermine the credibility of justice being meted out for
the genocide and by tolerating impunity for present slaughter, they help perpetuate insecurity. As long
as they decline to take a principled, public and effective stand against the killings of civilians, they
offer neither model nor encouragement to forces—whether in government or in the insurgency—who
themselves might oppose such violence. By accepting the “normality” of slaughter for political
21
March 1999
reasons, they may be contributing to the conditions that will produce the very repetition of genocide
they have vowed to prevent.
The Research Project
Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) each
documented human rights abuses in Rwanda before, during and since the genocide. The two
organizations joined with the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development and
the Interafrican Union of Human and Peoples’ Rights to sponsor an international commission that
reported in 1993 on massacres of Tutsi and other human rights violations by the Rwandan government
and on abuses by the RPF. In addition, the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch documented the
arms trade and military preparations of both the Rwandan government and the RPF in 1993 and later
arms deliveries to former Rwandan army soldiers and militia in camps in Zaire.
When the April 1994 slaughter was launched, Human Rights Watch and FIDH fought together with
other human rights and humanitarian organizations to oblige policymakers, the press and the public
to recognize the genocidal nature of the killings and to honor moral and legal obligations to intervene
to halt the genocide.
Since 1994 staff and lawyers associated with both organizations have initiated and helped Rwandans
initiate legal actions in the U.S. and in Belgium against persons accused of genocide. They have
served as expert witnesses and supplied documentary evidence to prosecutors in legal proceedings
related to the genocide in the U.S., Canada, Belgium and Switzerland and at the International Tribunal.
They have provided testimony and documentation also to the Belgian Senate, the French National
Assembly and the U.S. Congress in their inquiries into the genocide.
In early 1995, the two organizations began documenting the genocide, attempting to analyze the
killing campaign from the level of the local security committee to the that of the U.N. Security Council.
Researchers carried out hundreds of interviews and located, organized, and translated administrative
records from communes and prefectures. They also amassed extensive materials from judicial cases
and from various diplomatic sources.
The study presents both an overview of the genocide throughout the country and a closer examination
of its course in southern Rwanda, where people opposed the killing campaign longer than elsewhere
in the country and where the role of the authorities in directing the genocide is particularly clear.
The researchers comprised an international team of historians, political scientists, and lawyers with
extensive experience in the region. All acknowledge with deep respect and appreciation the
contributions of hundreds of Rwandans to this work, most of whom are not named for their own
protection.
Alison Des Forges directed the research for this project, assisted by Eric Gillet. Des Forges wrote this
study with the collaboration of Gillet for the chapter on justice and of Timothy Longman and Michele
Wagner for the chapters on Nyakizu. In addition to these persons, the research team included Lynn
Welchman, Kirsti Lattu, Trish Hiddleston, Catherine Choquet, and Christine Deslaurier. Deslaurier and
Anne Boley prepared the maps. Janet Fleischman supplied critical advice, logistical assistance and
encouragement and Jemera Rone helped establish the field project in Butare. Georgette Uwase,
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
22
Alphonse Nkunzimana, Medard Ndawumungu, Daniel Kanyandekwe, and Aimable Twagirimana
provided skilled assistance with translation from Kinyarwanda into French and English.
Michael McClintock and Peter Takirambudde edited the English version of the report and Eric Gillet,
Catherine Choquet, Valerie Pons-Mello and Emmanuelle Robineau-Duverger edited the French version.
Mariam Abou-Zahab translated the report from English to French. Juliet Wilson, Roger Des Forges, Peter
Bouckaert, Patrick Minges and Sybil Liebhafsky assisted with the production of the English version of
the report. Kim Mazyk, Marcus Watson and Maria-Theresia Schütte helped with classifying documents.
Gilles Peress graciously contributed his photograph for the cover.
The research team gratefully acknowledges the assistance and cooperation of officials from the
Rwandan Ministry of Justice and from the prefectural and communal administrations in Butare,
Gikongoro, Gitarama and Kibuye.
The team thanks Alter-Ciné, Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Alain Destexhte, André Guichaoua, Lindsey Hilsum,
Chris McGreal, Catharine Newbury, David Newbury, Gasana Ndoba, Gérard Prunier, Filip Reyntjens,
William Seltzer, Astri Suhrke, and Claudine Vidal for assistance with documentation and in
interpreting evidence.
The research team gratefully acknowledges the funding which made this study possible. NovibNetherlands, Oxfam, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation supported the work of Human
Rights Watch in this project and FIDH was funded by the Comité Catholique Contre la Faim pour le
développement; Développement et paix (Canada); Broederlink Delen; Oxfam (Canada); Trocaire;
Swiss Cooperation and Danida.
The public interest demands that crimes as grave as those committed in Rwanda be known and that
those responsible for them be identified. We understand the limitations of even the most careful
investigative techniques and recognize that despite our best efforts this work may contain errors. We
stress that this work does not and is not meant to establish “judicial truth” as to the guilt or innocence
of any person, which is the responsibility of legally established national and international tribunals.
Indeed, we publish the results of our research in part to encourage public support for the efforts of
judicial authorities responsible for finding and judging those guilty of genocide.
All who have invested their energy and resources in this study hope that it will contribute to a deeper
analysis of events and to a more honest and complete delineation of responsibility both inside and
outside Rwanda.
Language, Spelling and Names
Kinyarwanda is generally pronounced as written, with the accent on the second to last syllable of the
word. The singular or plural of nouns is indicated by the prefix: an accomplice is icyitso, two or more
accomplices are ibyitso. Most Kinyarwanda terms in this study are written with the prefix, but in
conformity with general practice, the nouns Tutsi, Hutu and Twa are used without the prefix and in the
same form in the singular and the plural.
Kinyarwanda has been written only since the beginning of the century. Although there is an official
orthography, it is not always followed. In citations, Kinyarwanda terms are reproduced here as they
23
March 1999
were found in the original sources. The term for burgomaster, for example, may be found as
burugumestri or burugumesteri.
Most Rwandans have names particular to themselves and do not share a common family name. When
two people have the same name, this is usually a coincidence rather than an indication that they are
related.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
24
The Context of Genocide
History
Rwandans take history seriously. Hutu who killed Tutsi did so for many reasons, but beneath the
individual motivations lay a common fear rooted in firmly held but mistaken ideas of the Rwandan
past. Organizers of the genocide, who had themselves grown up with these distortions of history,
skillfully exploited misconceptions about who the Tutsi were, where they had come from, and what
they had done in the past. From these elements, they fueled the fear and hatred that made genocide
imaginable. Abroad, the policy-makers who decided what to do—or not do—about the genocide and
the journalists who reported on it often worked from ideas that were wrong and out-dated. To
understand how some Rwandans could carry out a genocide and how the rest of the world could turn
away from it, we must begin with history.
The Meaning of “Hutu,” “Tutsi,” and “Twa”
Forerunners of the people who are now known as Hutu and Tutsi settled the region over a period of two
thousand years. Originally organized in small groups based on lineage or on loyalty to an outstanding
leader, they joined in building the complex state of Rwanda. They developed a single and highly
sophisticated language, Kinyarwanda, crafted a common set of religious and philosophical beliefs,
and created a culture which valued song, dance, poetry, and rhetoric. They celebrated the same
heroes: even during the genocide, the killers and their intended victims sang of some of the same
leaders from the Rwandan past.1
In early times, as now, most people in the region were cultivators who also raised small stock and
occasionally a few cattle. A far smaller number of people scorned cultivation and depended on large
herds of cattle for their livelihood. Cultivators and pastoralists lived interspersed in most areas,
although the cool, wet highlands of the north had few pastoralists and the drier, hotter east had more.
With fertile soil and regular rainfall, the region was productive and population grew to a point where
Rwanda was in 1994 the most densely populated nation on the African continent.
When Rwanda emerged as a major state in the eighteenth century, its rulers measured their power in
the number of their subjects and counted their wealth in the number of their cattle. The two were
usually related. Giving or temporarily granting cattle was a way of winning supporters; a large number
of supporters helped to win cattle, both in conflicts with other members of the elite and in adventures
abroad. But not all cattle-owners held state positions. The pastoralists known as Bagogwe, clustered
in the northwest, and those called Bahima, located in the northeast, sought to avoid state power
rather than to share in it. Conversely, not all members of the elite were born rich in cattle, although
those lacking such wealth ordinarily acquired it along with power. Cultivators skilled in making war
and able to mobilize large groups of followers rose to importance through the military system,
particularly under the late nineteenth century ruler Rwabugiri, who brought Rwanda to the height of its
Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Jean-François Dupaquier, Marcel Kabanda, Joseph Ngarambe, Rwanda, Les média du génocide (Paris:
Editions Karthala, 1995), p. 358.
1
25
March 1999
power. In its drive to expand, Rwanda attacked neighboring peoples regardless of whether they were
pastoralists or cultivators and regardless of whether they were organized in lineages or in states.2
Rwandan institutions were shaped by both pastoralists and cultivators. Although the power of the
ruler derived from control over the military and over cattle, his authority was buttressed also by rituals
firmly rooted in agricultural practices.3 By the end of the nineteenth century, the ruler governed the
central regions closely through multiple hierarchies of competing officials who administered men,
cattle, pasturage, and agricultural land. He exercised a looser kind of suzerainty over other areas,
particularly on the periphery, which were dominated by powerful lineage groups, some of them
pastoralists, some cultivators. In addition, he tolerated the existence of several small states within the
boundaries of Rwanda, usually because their rulers were thought to control rainfall, crop pests, or
some other aspect of agricultural productivity important for Rwanda as a whole. The late President
Habyarimana and his circle counted themselves as the proud contemporary representatives of
Bushiru, the largest such state within Rwanda at the beginning of the colonial era.
As the Rwandan state grew in strength and sophistication, the governing elite became more clearly
defined and its members, like powerful people in most societies, began to think of themselves as
superior to ordinary people. The word “Tutsi,” which apparently first described the status of an
individual—a person rich in cattle—became the term that referred to the elite group as a whole and the
word “Hutu”—meaning originally a subordinate or follower of a more powerful person—came to refer
to the mass of the ordinary people. The identification of Tutsi pastoralists as power-holders and of
Hutu cultivators as subjects was becoming general when Europeans first arrived in Rwanda at the turn
of the century, but it was not yet completely fixed throughout the country. Rulers of small states
embedded in the larger nation, important lineage heads and some power-holders within the central
state hierarchy exercised authority even though they were people who would today be called “Hutu.”
Most people married within the occupational group in which they had been raised. This practice
created a shared gene pool within each group, which meant that over generations pastoralists came to
look more like other pastoralists—tall, thin and narrow-featured—and cultivators like other
cultivators—shorter, stronger, and with broader features. Within each group there were also subgroups, the result of some distant common ancestry or of more recent patterns of marriage. Thus
among pastoralists, some whose ancestors had arrived centuries ago were distinctly shorter, plumper,
and redder-skinned than the taller and blacker-skinned descendants of nineteenth-century
immigrants. Cultivators, who were relatively sedentary and chose mates from areas close to home,
often exhibited traits characteristic of their places of origin: those from the south, for example, were
generally shorter and slighter than those from the north central region.
Although it was not usual, Hutu and Tutsi sometimes intermarried. The practice declined in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the gap widened between Tutsi elite and Hutu
commoners, but rose again after Tutsi lost power in the 1959 revolution. With the increase in mixed
marriages in recent decades, it has become more difficult to know a person’s group affiliation simply
by looking at him or her. Some people look both “Hutu” and “Tutsi” at the same time. In addition,
2
Alison L. Des Forges, “When a Foreign Country Rebels: The Ideology and Practice of War in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century
Rwanda,” Symposium on Warfare and Society in Africa, Yale University, 1990.
M. D’Hertefelt and A. Coupez, La Royauté Sacrée de l’Ancien Rwanda (Tervuren: Musée Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, 1964).
3
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
26
some people who exhibit the traits characteristic of one group might in fact belong to the other
because children of mixed marriages took the category of their fathers, but might actually look like
their mothers.4 During the genocide some persons who were legally Hutu were killed as Tutsi because
they looked Tutsi. According to one witness, Hutu relatives of Col. Tharcisse Renzaho, the prefect of
the city of Kigali, were killed at a barrier after having been mistaken for Tutsi.5
The Twa, a people clearly differentiated from Hutu and Tutsi, formed the smallest component of the
Rwandan population, approximately 1 percent of the total before the genocide. Originally forest
dwellers who lived by hunting and gathering, Twa had in recent decades moved closer to Hutu and
Tutsi, working as potters, laborers, or servants. Physically distinguishable by such features as their
smaller size, Twa also used to speak a distinctive form of Kinyarwanda. While the boundary between
Hutu and Tutsi was flexible and permeable before the colonial era, that separating the Twa from both
groups was far more rigid. Hutu and Tutsi shunned marriage with Twa and used to refuse even to share
food or drink with them. During the genocide, some Twa were killed and others became killers.
Because Twa are so few in number and because data concerning them are so limited, this study does
not examine their role.
Colonial Changes in the Political System
The Germans, who established a colonial administration at the turn of the century, and the Belgians
who replaced them after the First World War, ended the occasional open warfare that had taken place
within Rwanda and between Rwanda and its neighbors. Both Germans and Belgians sought to rule
Rwanda with the least cost and the most profit. Making use of the impressive indigenous state was the
obvious way to do so, but the colonialists found its complexities troublesome. The multiple
hierarchies which had allowed the ruler to maximize his control by playing off rival officials now
permitted both ruler and his subordinates to evade control by the colonialists. The dense
administration within central Rwanda—with the least important representatives of the ruler sometimes
governing only a few hundred people—required a relatively high proportion of local goods and labor
for its support. The colonialists preferred to have these resources at their own disposal, to cover their
expenses and to pay the costs of building an infrastructure to link Rwanda to the world economy. At
the same time, the Belgians saw the autonomous enclaves, where central control was light, as
anomalies potentially disruptive of good order.
In the 1920s, the Belgians began to alter the Rwandan state in the name of administative efficiency.
Always professing an intention to keep the essential elements of the system intact, they eliminated
the competing hierarchies and regrouped the units of administration into “chiefdoms” and “subchiefdoms” of uniform size.They used force to install state officials in the autonomous enclaves,
destroying the power of the heads of lineages and of local small states. They fixed and made uniform
the goods and services that local officials could demand, thus—they thought—reducing the burdens
on the population.
Rwandan officials were not helpless pawns but rather real players in the game of administrative
reform. Politically astute, they understood how to evade the intent of European orders even while
4
5
If the child were born out of wedlock, he or she would take the classification of the mother.
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, June 30, 1995.
27
March 1999
apparently conforming to them. Chiefs and sub-chiefs seemed to accept the reduction in numbers of
officials, but in fact kept on using unofficial representatives out on the hills who continued living off
the local people. As a result, the density of administration and consequent customary burdens on the
people diminished little, if at all, in the central part of the country, while in the north and southwest,
they actually increased because of the installation of resident officials. At the same time, the chiefs
and sub-chiefs—and later other administrative agents—enforced a series of wholly new demands
imposed by the colonialists as part of their effort to integrate Rwanda into the world economy. They
often found ways to turn these new requirements, such as building roads or planting cash crops, to
their personal profit.
The elite profited not just from direct European backing but also from the indirect and unintended
consequences of the administrative changes. Under the old system of multiple officials, power-holders
ordinarily limited demands on subordinates, knowing that those who felt unreasonably exploited
could seek protection from rivals or could move elsewhere, even clearing new land in the forest, if
need be, to escape exactions. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Belgians made it far harder for the weak to
escape repressive officials; not only did they eliminate the multiple hierarchies but they also restricted
changes in residence from one region to another and they prohibited new settlement in the forests.
The one avenue of escape still possible was migration abroad and thousands took that route
beginning in the 1920s. But those who preferred not to leave Rwanda had little choice but to submit to
increased exploitation of officials now freed from the constraints that once limited their demands.
European administrators generally overlooked the abuses of those officials who got the taxes
collected, the roads built, and the coffee planted. They established European-style courts which they
expected would protect the ordinary people, but they usually did not. The judges saw themselves as
defenders of the elite, not the masses.
At the same time that the Belgians enabled the officials to demand more from the people, they
decreed that Tutsi alone should be officials. They systematically removed Hutu6 from positions of
power and they excluded them from higher education, which was meant mostly as preparation for
careers in the administration. Thus they imposed a Tutsi monopoly of public life not just for the 1920s
and 1930s, but for the next generation as well. The only Hutu to escape relegation to the laboring
masses were those few permitted to study in religious seminaries.
The Transformation of “Hutu” and “Tutsi”
By assuring a Tutsi monopoly of power, the Belgians set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda. Such
was not their intent. They were not implementing a “divide and rule” strategy so much as they were
just putting into effect the racist convictions common to most early twentieth century Europeans. They
believed Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa were three distinct, long-existent and internally coherent blocks of
people, the local representatives of three major population groups, the Ethiopid, Bantu and Pygmoid.
Unclear whether these were races, tribes, or language groups, the Europeans were nonetheless certain
that the Tutsi were superior to the Hutu and the Hutu superior to the Twa—just as they knew
themselves to be superior to all three. Because Europeans thought that the Tutsi looked more like
themselves than did other Rwandans, they found it reasonable to suppose them closer to Europeans
6
They also removed women who had exercised authority.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
28
in the evolutionary hierarchy and hence closer to them in ability. Believing the Tutsi to be more
capable, they found it logical for the Tutsi to rule Hutu and Twa just as it was reasonable for Europeans
to rule Africans. Unaware of the “Hutu” contribution to building Rwanda, the Europeans saw only that
the ruler of this impressive state and many of his immediate entourage were Tutsi, which led them to
assume that the complex institutions had been created exclusively by Tutsi.
Not surprisingly, Tutsi welcomed these ideas about their superiority, which coincided with their own
beliefs. In the early years of colonial rule, Rwandan poets and historians, particularly those from the
milieu of the court, resisted providing Europeans with information about the Rwandan past. But as
they became aware of European favoritism for the Tutsi in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they saw the
advantage in providing information that would reinforce this predisposition. They supplied data to the
European clergy and academics who produced the first written histories of Rwanda. The collaboration
resulted in a sophisticated and convincing but inaccurate history that simultaneously served Tutsi
interests and validated European assumptions. According to these accounts, the Twa hunters and
gatherers were the first and indigenous residents of the area. The somewhat more advanced Hutu
cultivators then arrived to clear the forest and displace the Twa. Next, the capable, if ruthless, Tutsi
descended from the north and used their superior political and military abilities to conquer the far
more numerous but less intelligent Hutu. This mythical history drew on and made concrete the
“Hamitic hypothesis,” the then-fashionable theory that a superior, “Caucasoid” race from
northeastern Africa was responsible for all signs of true civilization in “Black” Africa. This distorted
version of the past told more about the intellectual atmosphere of Europe in the 1920s than about the
early history of Rwanda. Packaged in Europe, it was returned to Rwanda where it was disseminated
through the schools and seminaries. So great was Rwandan respect for European education that this
faulty history was accepted by the Hutu, who stood to suffer from it, as well as by the Tutsi who helped
to create it and were bound to profit from it. People of both groups learned to think of the Tutsi as the
winners and the Hutu as the losers in every great contest in Rwandan history.
The polished product of early Rwando-European collaboration stood unchallenged until the 1960s
when a new generation of scholars, foreign and Rwandan, began questioning some of its basic
assumptions.7 They persuaded other scholars to accept a new version of Rwandan history that
demonstrated a more balanced participation of Hutu and Tutsi in creating the state, but they had less
success in disseminating their ideas outside university circles. Even in the 1990s, many Rwandans
and foreigners continued to accept the erroneous history formulated in the 1920s and 1930s.
Once the Belgians had decided to limit administrative posts and higher education to the Tutsi, they
were faced with the challenge of deciding exactly who was Tutsi. Physical characteristics identified
some, but not for all. Because group affiliation was supposedly inherited, genealogy provided the best
guide to a person’s status, but tracing genealogies was time-consuming and could also be inaccurate,
given that individuals could change category as their fortunes rose or fell. The Belgians decided that
the most efficient procedure was simply to register everyone, noting their group affiliation in writing,
once and for all. All Rwandans born subsequently would also be registered as Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa at
the time of their birth. The system was put into effect in the 1930s, with each Rwandan asked to
7
Among the new Rwandan historians were Emmanuel Ntezimana, distinguished also for his courage as a human rights activist,
and Ferdinand Nahimana, now indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for his role in fomenting hatred of the
Tutsi through broadcasts of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines.
29
March 1999
declare his group identity.8 Some 15 percent of the population declared themselves Tutsi,
approximately 84 percent said they were Hutu, and the remaining 1 percent said they were Twa. This
information was entered into records at the local government office and indicated on identity cards
which adult Rwandans were then obliged to carry. The establishment of written registration did not
completely end changes in group affiliation. In this early period Hutu who discovered the advantages
of being Tutsi sometimes managed to become Tutsi even after the records had been established, just
as others more recently have found ways to erase their Tutsi origins. But with official population
registration, changing groups became more difficult.
The very recording of the ethnic groups in written form enhanced their importance and changed their
character. No longer flexible and amorphous, the categories became so rigid and permanent that
some contemporary Europeans began referring to them as “castes.” The ruling elite, most influenced
by European ideas and the immediate beneficiaries of sharper demarcation from other Rwandans,
increasingly stressed their separateness and their presumed superiority. Meanwhile Hutu, officially
excluded from power, began to experience the solidarity of the oppressed.
The Hutu Revolution
Belgium continued its support for the Tutsi until the 1950s. Then, faced with the end of colonial rule
and with pressure from the United Nations, which supervised the administration of Rwanda under the
trusteeship system, the colonial administrators began to increase possibilities for Hutu to participate
in public life. They named several Hutu to responsible positions in the administration, they began to
admit more Hutu into secondary schools, and they conducted limited elections for advisory
government councils. Hardly revolutionary, the changes were enough to frighten the Tutsi, yet not
enough to satisfy the Hutu. With independence approaching, conservative Tutsi hoped to oust the
Belgians before majority rule was installed. Radical Hutu, on the contrary, hoped to gain control of the
political system before the colonialists withdrew.
The ruler who had been in power since 1931, Mutara Rudahigwa, had served to reassure all parties and
to keep the situation calm. But he died unexpectedly in 19599 and was succeeded by a young halfbrother, Kigeri Ndahindurwa, who appeared to be heavily influenced by the most conservative Tutsi
group. Moderate parties that sought to organize across the Hutu-Tutsi divide lost ground as the
Parmehutu (Parti du mouvement de l’émancipation des Bahutu), identified exclusively with Hutu, and
the Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), a royalist Tutsi party, gained in strength. In November 1959,
several Tutsi assaulted a Hutu sub-chief. As the news of the incident spread, Hutu groups attacked
Tutsi officials and the Tutsi responded with more violence. Several hundred people were killed before
the Belgian administration restored order. The Belgians then replaced about half the Tutsi local
authorities by Hutu. With the help of many of these local administrators, the Parmehutu easily won the
first elections in 1960 and 1961. In September 196l, some 80 percent of Rwandans voted to end the
8
It is often said that all Rwandans who owned ten or more cattle were classed as Tutsi, but this is not correct. Tax regulations in
the 1930s did indeed distinguish between owners of ten or more cattle and those who had fewer, but the procedure for
population registration took no account of ownership of cattle.
9
Mutara collapsed and died just after seeing a Belgian doctor in Bujumbura, the capital of neighboring Burundi. Conservative
Tutsi accused the Belgians of having poisoned him, a charge which some Rwandans still believe, although no proof has been
advanced to support it.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
30
monarchy, thus confirming the proclamation of a republic the previous January 1961 by the Parmehutuled government. These events became known as the “Hutu Revolution.”
In later years, and particularly during the genocide, Hutu politicians waved the flag of the revolution,
knowing they would get an overwhelming response from their audiences. In fact the revolution was
neither so heroic nor so dramatic as it was later presented. In their struggle for power, the Hutu were
“helped” considerably by the Belgians, both politically and militarily. At the start, Hutu attacked
power-holders and those related to them, leaving their ordinary Tutsi neighbors in peace. They usually
sought to drive Tutsi away rather than to destroy them. The assailants cleared the north most
completely, the area where Tutsi officials had been installed three decades before by the colonial
administration. Many displaced Tutsi resettled elsewhere in Rwanda, particularly in the sparsely
populated region known as Bugesera, but another 10,000 took the road to exile.
In 1961 some of these refugees began to attack Rwanda, an effort they would repeat ten times over
the next six years. After these incursions, Hutu officials led reprisal attacks on Tutsi still within the
country, accusing them of having aided the invaders—the same kind of charges often repeated at the
time of the genocide.10 Only one of these attacks, that of late December 1963, posed a real threat to
the new republic. But Hutu leaders used them all to bolster the sense of Hutu solidarity, to solidify
their own control and to eradicate the last vestiges of respect for Tutsi authority. From these attacks
they crafted the myth of the Hutu revolution as a long and courageous struggle against ruthless forces
of repression. For them, the battle had been legitimate as well as brave: the Hutu, as the “great
majority,” the “rubanda nyamwinshi,” had the right to rule over the minority. In their eyes, the ethnic
majority was necessarily the same as the democratic majority.
At this time, Hutu politicians also established the link between “patriotism” and profit. In attacking
the supposed enemies of the nation and the revolution, the Hutu stood to gain, both in the short term
from goods pillaged and in the long term from lands appropriated from Tutsi who were driven away.
Given the political and material gains from anti-Tutsi violence, officials and others had strong
incentives to widen the circle of people targeted from the narrow group of former power-holders to all
Tutsi. By 1967 when both the incursions and the attacks on Tutsi within Rwanda ended, Tutsi were at
risk of attack for the simple fact of being Tutsi. During these years, some 20,000 Tutsi were killed and
more than 300,000 were forced to flee abroad.11
The new republican government continued labeling all Rwandans as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, but the
identity cards which had once served to guarantee privilege to Tutsi now served as a means to
discriminate against them, both in employment and in education. Just as the new leaders maintained
population registration, so they perpetuated the distorted concepts that had underlain the practice.
Hutu used the ideas once prized by the Tutsi—ideas about Tutsi distinctiveness, foreign origins, and
complete control over the Hutu—to justify the violence of the revolution and the discriminatory
measures of the years after.
Following the revolution, the percentage of Tutsi in the Rwandan population declined sharply, partly
because many had been massacred or fled, partly because some found ways to redefine themselves
René Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi (New York: Praeger, 1970), pp. 222-26.
10
11
Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p.62.
31
March 1999
as Hutu. Said to represent 17.5 percent of the population in 1952, Tutsi were counted as only 8.4
percent of the total in 1991.12
Habyarimana in Control
Over a period of several years, the Parmehutu leaders, who were based in the south, eliminated Hutu
rivals as well as the once powerful Tutsi and created what was in effect a single party state. By the end
of the first decade of the republic, however, they were increasingly challenged by Hutu from the north
who saw that all rhetoric about Hutu solidarity notwithstanding, the southerners were monopolizing
the benefits of power. In the face of this growing split between Hutu of the north and Hutu of the
south, “Public Safety Committees” and other groups began a campaign of intimidation and assaults
on Tutsi in early 1973. Some attributed the attacks to southerners who hoped to minimize differences
with northerners by reminding them of the common enemy; others laid them to northerners who
hoped to create sufficient disorder to legitimate a coup d’état by the army, an institution dominated by
northerners. Regardless of which group had initiated the campaign, the tactic was clear: seek to
resolve differences among Hutu at the expense of the Tutsi.
In July 1973, General Juvénal Habyarimana, the most senior officer in the army, took power, promising
to restore order and national unity. He established the second republic in what was at the time a
bloodless coup, although some fifty of the most prominent leaders of the first republic subsequently
were executed or died in prison.
The Single-Party State
Two years after the coup, in 1975, Habyarimana made Rwanda officially a single-party state under the
National Revolutionary Movement for Development (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le
Développement, MRND).13 All Rwandans of whatever age were automatically members of the party.
Over the years, Habyarimana constructed a cohesive monolith, with himself as president of the
republic and president of the party and, at each level below him, the relevant government official
simultaneously heading the corresponding level of the party.
At this time, Rwanda was divided into ten prefectures,14 each of which included sub-prefectures,
administrative units without much political importance. Below them were the communes, the
essential building blocks of the administration. Numbering 145 in 1991, the communes ranged in
population from less than 30,000 for the smallest to over 100,000 for the largest, with most counting
between 40,000 and 50,000 residents. The head of the commune, the burgomaster, of course ranked
below the prefect or sub-prefect, but he exercised more immediate and pervasive power over the
ordinary people than did his superiors. In a style that harked back to the pre-colonial and the colonial
era, the burgomaster held court one or more times a week, receiving the ordinary people who brought
him their grievances or who came to give thanks for help received. He determined the use of land that
belonged to the commune or was temporarily under its control. He mediated conflicts over property,
12
See discussion in the Introduction.
13
The party changed its organization somewhat in April, 1991 and adopted the name of National Republican Movement for
Democracy and Development but kept using the same initials.
14
An eleventh prefecture was added in 1992 when the city of Kigali was established as an independent unit and a twelfth,
Mutara, was formed in the northeast in August 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
32
settled family disputes, found places in secondary school, dispensed political advice, and even
judged a substantial number of cases that in principle should have been taken to court. In accord with
the communal council, he hired and fired the employees of the commune, including the communal
policemen who were at his command, and he also intervened in personnel decisions of local schools,
health centers, and development projects, although sometimes the presence of expatriates on project
staffs limited his influence in this domain. The ultimate authority at the local level, he was clearly and
directly the president’s man out on the hills. Although nominally responsible to the minister of the
interior, the burgomasters were named by Habyarimana and removed by him. All were known to him
and some were very close to him personally.
The communes were divided into sectors, each of which had a population of some 5,000 people. The
sectors were represented by elected councilors who together formed the communal council that
supposedly advised the burgomaster, but more often simply implemented his decisions. The sector
was in turn composed of cells, each of which grouped together approximately 1,000 people. The cell
had an elected committee of five persons, headed by a responsable (cell head), who were charged
more with executing orders from above than with representing the views from below. That small part of
the population employed in urban salaried jobs participated in the party at their place of work, where
the work unit was also a party cell.
This intensive administration had two objectives: control and mobilization. The control was
implemented not just by the high ratio of officials to ordinary people but also by regulations governing
population registration and movement. The Habyarimana government continued the use of identity
cards and also required people moving from one location to another to register with the local
authorities. Each commune submitted monthly, quarterly, and yearly reports of births, deaths, and
movement into and out of the commune. The burgomaster kept agents of the secret service informed
of any suspicious persons seen in his district. In his first months in office, Habyarimana ordered
important government employees with master’s degrees or higher to take military training, apparently
with the intention of providing one more channel for instilling habits of obedience to orders.
The mobilization of the population aimed at first towards building the economic infrastructure and
improving conditions for agriculture. Exploiting the practice of unpaid, communal labor imposed by
the colonial administration, the MRND required the population to do umuganda, work for the public
good, such as repairing roads, digging anti-erosion ditches, or clearing the brush. Umuganda was
supervised by the nyumbakumi, a neighborhood leader in charge of a group of ten households, who
had the power to fine those who failed to appear for the communal work sessions.
Once the MRND was firmly established, mobilization took on an added aspect: glorifying the party and
its head. In addition to the work days, people were obliged to participate in weekly sessions of
animation, propaganda meetings leavened with poetry, music, and dance created to honor
Habyarimana and the MRND. Propaganda teams of singers and dancers vied for honors in regular
competitions, often dressed in fine costumes bought by contributions from the party faithful.
Rwandans often proclaimed their loyalty to Habyarimana, wore his image on portrait pins, and posted
his picture in their houses or places of business.
The Army, the Church and the Akazu
As head of the army, Habyarimana had the allegiance of some 7,000 troops of the Rwandan Armed
Forces (Forces Armées Rwandaises, FAR), about 1,200 of whom were part of the National Police
33
March 1999
(Gendarmerie). He was loyally supported especially by the elite units, made up largely of men from his
home region: the Presidential Guard, estimated at between 1,000 and 1,300 troops, the
paracommandos and the reconnaissance troops. He occasionally had to counter plots by other
officers, however, including that attributed to Col. Alexis Kanyarengwe in 1980. Kanyarengwe, who had
served as minister of interior, was forced to flee the country.
Habyarimana also enjoyed active support from the heads of the parastatal corporations that controlled
public services like gas, water and electricity, or bus transport, and those that oversaw the production
and marketing of cash crops. He knew he could count on the intellectual elite, including professors at
the national university and heads of hospitals. To keep their posts, they would avoid criticizing him
even if some declined to join in glorifying him. He could call on the heads of private enterprises to
contribute materially and politically to his cause, knowing they needed his approval for the state
concessions that made their businesses profitable.
He benefited enormously from the support of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, which counted 62
percent of Rwandans among its adherents. The church, initially a pillar of support for the Tutsi elite,
switched sides even before the colonial administration did and helped make the Hutu revolution.
Although the majority of clergy, religious brothers, and sisters were Tutsi—some 70 percent according
to one knowledgeable estimate—seven of the nine bishops in place at the start of the genocide were
Hutu.15 The archbishop of Kigali, Mgr. Vincent Nsengiyumva, was an ardent supporter of the president,
known for wearing Habyarimana’s portrait pin on his cassock while saying mass. He served as a
member of the central committee of the MRND for many years and resigned only when church
authorities insisted that he end his openly political role in 1985.
The various Protestant churches, representing 18 percent of the population, had no unified position
towards Habyarimana, but the Anglican hierarchy and the Baptist church generally supported him. The
president of the Presbyterian Church was a member of the prefectural committee of the MRND in
Kibuye.
Both Catholic and Protestant clergy cooperated with officials by passing on state announcements
from the pulpit and by serving on councils, particularly those that reviewed development projects at
the prefectural or communal level.
One more link strengthened the connections from top to bottom of this highly structured system: the
network of personal relations. Members of the elite who left home for positions in the capital or at the
university maintained close ties to their communes of origin, where they had parents or other
relatives. They visited home often and were the messengers of choice if some special order needed to
be transmitted from the top to local officials. This practice existed long before Habyarimana took
power—in December 1963, for example, ministers had gone home to organize the killings of Tutsi out
on the hills, but he exploited it to maximum advantage, as did those who took over from him during
the genocide.
The akazu, or “little house,” was a special circle within the larger network of personal connections that
worked to support Habyarimana. It was composed mostly of the people of Habyarimana’s home
Guy Theunis, “Le Role de l’Eglise Catholique dans les Evénements Récents,” in André Guichaoua, ed., Les Crises Politiques au
Burundi et au Rwanda (Lille: Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille, second edition, 1995), p. 293.
15
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
34
region, with Madame Habyarimana and her relatives playing a major role. Some exercised authority
openly, such as Protais Zigiranyirazo, who was once prefect of Ruhengeri, or Seraphin Rwabukumba,
who headed a powerful enterprise, La Centrale, while others operated behind the scenes, such as
Colonel Elie Sagatwa, who was Habyarimana’s private secretary. When necessary, this group drew on
military officers, like Col. Théoneste Bagosora, Major Leonard Nkundiye, and Captain Pascal
Simbikangwa, to ensure their continued hold on power.16 Christophe Mfizi, once close to Habyarimana
and head of the national information service, denounced the activities of this group, which he called
the “Zero Network.” In an August 15, 1992 public letter to the president resigning his membership in
the MRND, he declared that the intimates surrounding Habyarimana had taken control of the state and
were milking it for private benefit.17
Prosperity, Short-Lived and Superficial
At the head of what was taken to be an honest and energetic administration, Habyarimana attracted
substantial foreign assistance in the 1970s and 1980s. With such help, the government constructed an
impressive infrastructure, particularly of roads and telephone and electric service. For the first decade,
the economy did better than others in the same region, with a net increase in gross national product in
relation to population, an achievement all the more remarkable given that Rwanda also had one of the
highest rates of population growth on the continent.18 Donor nations applauded these
accomplishments, regarding Rwanda as one of the few promising “models” in Africa. The expatriate
experts who implemented the assistance projects in the country took great satisfaction not just in the
results obtained but also in the personal ties that they developed with Rwandan counterparts. 19
Some Rwandans were indeed getting rich: those who worked for the state directly, those employed by
its offshoots, parastatal enterprises, and those who ran economic development projects controlled by
state officials. State employees and the military also used access to preferential treatment to build
profitable private businesses. But the prosperity was both fragile and superficial. The mass of the
people stayed poor and faced the prospect of getting only poorer. More than 90 percent lived from
cultivation and while the population grew, the amount of land did not. The land available to ordinary
cultivators actually diminished in some regions as local officials appropriated fields for development
projects and as members of the urban elite bought out the poor, establishing themselves as absentee
landlords. According to a government study done in 1991, the richest 16 percent of landowners held 43
percent of the land, while the poorest households tried to eke out a living on holdings that ranged
from one quarter to three-quarters of a hectare, or less than an acre of land.20 In the most densely
populated regions, some young people could not marry because they could not find land and,
according to custom, a man without land could not take a wife. This situation was so critical in Ngoma
commune, Butare prefecture, that large numbers of young people were cohabiting and having children
16
Professor Filip Reyntjens and Senator Willy Kuypers identified members of the akazu at a press conference reported in La
Libre Belgique, October 3, 1992.
Christophe Mfizi, “Le réseau zéro,” Kigali: August 15, 1992; Filip Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en Crise (Paris: Editions
Karthala, 1994), pp. 189-190.
17
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 35.
18
19
On May 13, 1998, former French Minister of Cooperation Robert Galley told the French National Assembly inquiry on Rwanda
that, for many, Rwanda was the model of transition from the colonial period to democracy. See Peter Uvin, Aiding Violence, The
Development Enterprise in Rwanda (West Hartford, Kumarian Press, 1998).
James K. Gasana, “La Guerre, La Paix et La Démocratie au Rwanda,” in Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, pp. 214-15.
20
35
March 1999
without marrying, a practice that broke dramatically with past standards of behavior. Of the births
registered in Ngoma, Butare prefecture, in January 1994, nearly 50 percent of the children had been
born out of wedlock.21
At the end of the 1980s, coffee, which accounted for 75 percent of Rwanda’s foreign exchange,
dropped sharply in price on the international market. Suddenly Rwanda found itself among the many
debtor nations required to accept strict fiscal measures imposed by the World Bank and the donor
nations. The urban elite saw its comfort threatened, but the rural poor suffered even more. A drought
beginning in 1989 reduced harvests in the south and left substantial numbers of people short of food.
Habyarimana at first refused to acknowledge the gravity of the food shortage, an attitude that
exemplified the readiness of the urban elite to ignore suffering out on the hills.22
The imbalance in wealth and power was a question not just of the usual urban-rural disparities but
also of increasingly evident discrimination against Tutsi and against Hutu from areas other than the
“blessed region,” that is, the northwest. Habyarimana had established a system of quotas,
supposedly to assure equitable distribution of resources and opportunities to all Rwandans. In fact,
officials used the system to restrict the access of Tutsi to employment and higher education, and
increasingly to discriminate against Hutu from regions other than the north. By the mid-1980s,
Habyarimana’s home prefecture of Gisenyi, one of ten in the country at the time, had provided the
office holders for one-third of the most important jobs in government as well as virtually all the leaders
of the army and security service. Gisenyi and the adjacent prefecture of Ruhengeri enjoyed a similarly
disproportionate share of national resources, whether measured in terms of funds for development or
places available for higher education.23
Threats to the MRND Monolith
Opposition within Rwanda
Confronted by the dramatic economic decline and the evidence of increasing corruption and favoritism
on the part of Habyarimana and his inner circle, political leaders, intellectuals, and journalists began
demanding reforms. These critics within Rwanda echoed demands for greater democracy being heard
elsewhere in Africa and in other parts of the world. They were in turn backed by donor nations that now
saw political reform as necessary for economic progress. In July 1990, Habyarimana agreed to discuss
change and announced that a national commission would be formed to examine the question. Two
months later, a group of thirty-three intellectuals and leaders of the awakening civil society declared
that in their view the issue needed no further examination: Rwanda should return to a multi-party
system. In that same month of September, four journalists were brought to trial for having published
reports of government corruption. They were led by Abbé André Sibomana, editor of Kinyamateka, the
21
Raporo y’abaturage, ukwezi kwa Mutarama, annex to letter of Joseph Kanyabashi, Burgumestri wa Komini y’Umujyi ya Ngoma
to Bwana Responsable wa Service Statistique, no. 99/04.05/l 16 February 1994. [N.B. Provenance of unpublished documents is
noted in parentheses after the first mention of each, except where the document was delivered on condition that its source not
be revealed. This document was found by our research team at the Butare prefecture.]
22
For economic development in Rwanda, see Catharine Newbury, “Recent Debates over Governance and Rural Development,” in
G. Hayden and M. Bratton, eds., Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder: Lynne Riemer, 1992) and F. Bezy, Rwanda. Bilan
socio-économique d’un régime, 1962-1989 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Institut d’étude des pays en développement, Etudes et
Documents, 1990).
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, pp. 33-34.
23
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
36
oldest and most influential newspaper in the country. In denouncing abuses of power, Sibomana
broke with the position of the archbishop and others in the hierarchy, who continued to give
Habyarimana apparently unquestioning support.24 After presenting considerable evidence to
substantiate their charges, the four were acquitted in a decision that seemed both to confirm the
accuracy of the reports and to herald a new era of freedom for the press. The next week, Habyarimana
named the members of the commission to examine political reform. Just as these changes were
promising greater participation in the political system, the RPF attacked Rwanda.
The RPF Attack
By the late 1980s, the Rwandan community in exile had swelled to approximately 600,000 people,25
most of whom lived in the countries surrounding Rwanda. Except in Tanzania, where the government
had encouraged their integration into the local population, the refugees existed precariously, with few
rights or guarantees. In Uganda, thousands of refugees had been expelled to Rwanda in 1982, only to
be pushed back again across the border shortly after. In 1986 Rwandan authorities had declared that
the country was too overpopulated to permit the return of the refugees, a statement that helped spark
renewed activity in the refugee community. At a meeting in Washington D.C. in 1988 Rwandans
affirmed their right to return home, by force if necessary. In 1989 the Rwandan government created a
commission to deal with the refugee problem. It met jointly with Ugandan authorities three times, the
last in July 1990, and appeared to be making some progress in clearing the way for the refugees to
return.
The RPF, however, decided to go home on its own terms, proclaiming its goals to be not just the return
of the refugees, but also the ouster of Habyarimana and the establishment of a more democratic
government. Its leaders, part of a generation that had grown up in Uganda, were well prepared to
launch this effort. Many of them had learned to make war in the forces of the National Resistance
Army, where they had helped Yoweri Museveni win control of the Ugandan state. Among them was
Paul Kagame, once deputy head of military intelligence for the NRA, who took command of the
Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA),26 the fighting force of the RPF, in the early days of the war. His forces
consisted of some seven thousand soldiers, about half of whom were Rwandan refugees who had
deserted from the Ugandan army, bringing along their arms and other equipment.27
The Government Response to the Attack
Rumors that the RPF was about to attack had circulated in both Uganda and Rwanda since midSeptember 1990. The Rwandan commander at the frontier, aware of these reports, wired headquarters
to ask for reinforcements. He got none, leading him and others to speculate that Habyarimana wanted
24
Sibomana would continue to publicize corruption and human rights violations in the months to come, at considerable risk to
himself. He would also serve as the chief inspiration for an extraordinary pastoral letter issued by the Kabgayi presbyterium on
December 1, 1991, “Convertissons-nous pour vivre ensemble dans la paix” which criticized the closeness of the church to the
political establishment.
25
André Guichaoua, “Vers Deux Générations de Réfugiés Rwandais?” in Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p. 343.
26
Although the fighting force of the RPF is properly known as the Rwandan Patriotic Army, we use the term RPF for both the army
and the political organization before July 17, 1994 in order to avoid confusion with the current Rwandan army which is also
known as the RPA.
Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Arming Rwanda, The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan War,” A
27
Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 6, issue 1, January 1994, p. 8.
37
March 1999
the invasion. On October 1, 1990, the RPF crossed the border, easily overpowered the small
detachment there, and headed for the capital.28
The attack offered Habyarimana the opportunity to rebuild his eroding base of power by rallying
Rwandans against the enemy. In response to the news, the great majority of people, Tutsi and Hutu
opponents of the regime included, came to the support of the government. But Habyarimana
understood that the attack posed a risk as well as an opportunity: it might embolden the opposition
within the country and even lead to its alliance with the enemy. Rather than rely on a spontaneous
coalescing of support from all sides, Habyarimana decided to pursue a more forceful strategy, to
sacrifice the Tutsi in hopes of uniting all Hutu behind him.
On October 4, the RPF had advanced a considerable distance into Rwanda but was still forty-five miles
from Kigali. That night, however, heavy firing shook the capital for several hours. In the morning the
government announced that the city had been attacked by RPF infiltrators who had been driven back
by the Rwandan army. Under the pretext of assuring security, the government began making massive
arrests in Kigali and elsewhere in the country, eventually imprisoning some 13,000 people. The
detainees would be held without charge, thousands of them for months, in deplorable conditions.
Many were tortured and dozens died. The last of them were finally liberated in April 1991. 29
Many Rwandans and apparently all foreign observers believed the government account of the battle
and the infiltration. In fact, the attack had been faked. Habyarimana staged the event to have credible
grounds for accusing Tutsi of supporting the enemy. He disclaimed any such intention, declaring on
October 5 that there was no question of considering “our brothers and sisters of whatever ethnic
group” responsible for what had had happened.30 But certainly he knew and approved of the plan as
well as of the arrests that resulted from it. The minister of justice spoke more openly. In the first use in
the 1990s of the term that was to become so famous, he declared that the Tutsi were ibyitso,
“accomplices” of the invaders. He continued that “to prepare an attack of that scale required trusted
people [on the inside]. Rwandans of the same ethnic group offered that possibility better than did
others.”31
In accusing the Tutsi, the authorities reverted to the tactics of the 1960s, but in a departure from the
earlier practice, they included Hutu as well among the “accomplices.” Unwilling to wait for the
scapegoating of the Tutsi to produce solidarity among the Hutu, they sought to hasten the effect by
imprisoning Hutu opponents, hoping to silence and perhaps even eliminate some while at the same
time intimidating others into rallying to the president.
The faked attack served another purpose: to ensure help from friendly foreign nations. When asked the
reason for all the firing on the night of October 4, one Rwandan army officer is reported to have replied,
“It was fireworks to welcome our friends, the French,” who did, in fact, arrive that night.32 Pretending
28
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, January, 1993.
29
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, October 19, 1997; Africa Watch, “Rwanda: Talking Peace and Waging War,
Human Rights Since the October 1990 Invasion,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 4, issue no. 3, February 27, 1992, pp.
7-11.
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 94, note 10.
30
31
Ibid., p. 94.
32
Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, November 8, 1991.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
38
that even the capital was at risk, Habyarimana was able to enlist immediate support from Belgium and
Zaire as well as from France. The Belgian forces stayed only a month and the Zairian soldiers were sent
home for indiscipline, but the French soldiers remained to become a solid support for the Rwandan
army and the Habyarimana regime.
With the help of foreign troops, Rwandan soldiers drove the RPF back towards the Ugandan border. As
they advanced through the region called Mutara, the Rwandan forces killed between 500 and 1,000
civilians. The unarmed victims were Bahima, a people usually identified with Tutsi, and they were
accused of having aided the RPF.33
The government instituted a series of security measures, including requiring citizens to participate in
patrols at night and to man barriers to monitor traffic on roads and paths. The neighborhood official,
the nyumbakumi, was responsible for enforcing these measures and for keeping track of any strangers
who entered his part of the commune. Except in communes adjacent to battle zones, these measures
did not last long, but they did help convince people that there was a real danger of enemy infiltrators.
Consolidating the Opposition
The imprisonments of October reinforced the image of the Habyarimana government as a repressive
regime and instead of driving Tutsi and Hutu opposition apart, strengthened bonds between them. In
a January 1991 letter, prefects urged Habyarimana “to vigorously destroy the manoeuvers of the
enemy, both...the INYENZI34 terrorists and those of the opposition that has developed inside the
country.” They advised him to “fight openly against what could be called the ‘Kanyarengwe effect’
which poses a serious threat to the necessary solidarity of the BAHUTU.”35 Colonel Kanyarengwe, the
important officer who had fled Rwanda in 1980 after accusations that he was plotting against
Habyarimana, had joined the RPF and was serving as its president. Because he was a Hutu—and from
northern Rwanda besides—his participation in the RPF exemplified the dreaded union of dissatisfied
Hutu and the RPF.
Knowing of RPF pressure on the regime, its opponents were encouraged to demand more rapid
change. The Rwandan human rights movement was stimulated by the massive arrests at the start of
the war. The first of the groups, the Rwandan Association for the Defense of Human Rights
(Association Rwandaise pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme, ARDHO) had been established the
night before the RPF attack and faced its first challenge in dealing with the arrests. Two others were
founded directly in reaction to the imprisonments: the Rwandan Association for the Defense of Human
Rights and Public Liberties (Association Rwandaise pour la Défense des Droits de la Personne et des
Libertés Publiques, ADL) developed from a network of those who tried to bring relief to the prisoners
33
Africa Watch (later Human Rights Watch/Africa), International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, Interafrican Union for
Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development, “Report of the
International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990,” March 1993, p. 34.
Hereafter cited as “Report of the International Commission.”
Inyenzi, literally cockroaches, was a term used to describe Tutsi who invaded Rwanda in the 1960s. It was revived in 1990 to
refer to members of the RPF.
34
35
Jean Marie Vianney Mugemana, Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal to Monsieur le Président de la
République Rwandaise, no. 035/04.09.01/16, January 31, 199l (Butare prefecture).
39
March 1999
and their families and Kanyarwanda was established by former prisoners once they were liberated.36
These organizations quickly began insisting on reforms necessary to permit full enjoyment of civil and
political rights. Donor nations, too, urged Habyarimana to open up the political system, hoping this
would speed an end to the war.
In announcing the national commission on reform in July 1990, Habyarimana had anticipated a twoyear period of study before it would submit its report. But only eleven months later, in June 1991, he
was obliged to accept the constitutional amendment that made multiple political parties legal. Even
before the amendment was adopted, opponents began to organize the Democratic Republican
Movement (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain, MDR), which would constitute the chief threat to
the MRND. Within months another fifteen parties had been formed, the most important of which were
the Social Democratic Party (Parti Social Démocrate, PSD), Liberal Party (Parti Libéral, PL) and the
Democratic Christian Party (Parti Démocrate Chrétien, PDC).
With the organization of parties, the opposition had structures to mobilize protest against the
establishment. Their first goal was to force Habyarimana to accept a coalition government which
would give them a chance to share in power. He resisted their demands for some months but after the
opposition parties mounted massive street demonstrations early in 1992, he was obliged to begin
talks with them. As these negotiations were going on, a group of Hutu announced the establishment of
a new party, the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (Coalition pour la Défense de la République,
CDR). They asserted that “no party, no institution, no person had been able to defend the interests of
the majority [i.e., the Hutu] publicly and consistently,” and so they must take their fate in their own
hands.37 The CDR openly criticized the MRND and even Habyarimana personally for conceding too
much to the opposition parties and to the RPF. Despite this criticism, the CDR collaborated frequently
with the MRND, leading some observers to conclude that this bitterly anti-Tutsi party existed only to
state positions favored by the MRND but too radical for them to support openly.
Habyarimana agreed to incorporate the major opposition parties in a coalition government, which took
office in April 1992. In it, Habyarimana continued as president of the republic and the MRND was able
to retain nine of the nineteen cabinet posts, including the key ministries of defense and interior. But
the largest of the new parties of opposition, the MDR, obtained the post of prime minister as well as
two other ministeries. In addition, the PL and the PSD each had three seats and the PDC had one. The
new CDR, representing only a small number of adherents, was not included.
Once at the cabinet table, the opposition parties next aimed to divorce the MRND from the state, the
natural consequence of introducing a multi-party system. At their insistence, the minister of interior
36
Two other human rights organizations were later established: the Association of Volunteers for Peace (Association pour les
Voluntaires de la Paix, AVP) and the Christian Human Rights League (Ligue Chrétienne pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme,
LICHREDHOR, later renamed League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights in Rwanda, Ligue Pour la Promotion et la
Défense des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda, LIPREDHOR). In July 1992, the five groups formed the Coalition of Leagues and
Associations for the Defense of Human Rights (Collectif des Ligues et Associations de Défense des Droits de l’Homme,
CLADHO). Kanyarwanda withdrew some months later but often acted informally with CLADHO even after having dissolved its
official link with the committee.
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 127. Reyntjens indicates that Shyirambere Jean Barahinyura was the primary force
behind this party, which appears surprising since he was not long before a member of the central committee of the RPF.
Barahinyura was, however, only one of several important politicians who changed position dramatically toward the Hutu-Tutsi
problem. Both Colonel Kanyarengwe and Pasteur Bizimungu, now president of Rwanda, were known previously for hostility to
the Tutsi.
37
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
40
directed administrative officials to show neutrality in the exercise of their functions instead of being
cheerleaders for the MRND.38 Once able to count on buildings, vehicles, office equipment, and
supplies that belonged to the state, the MRND would henceforth have to provide its own resources.
The divorce was faster and more complete in regions where the opposition parties had established a
solid base, less so in the northwest where the continued preeminence of the MRND made it futile to
protest its privileges. Wherever possible, the MRND naturally delayed yielding its advantage. Radio
Rwanda, for example, continued for some time to play MRND songs, supposedly because it had no
other tapes in its music collection.
To make their participation in power real and convincing—and hence to draw more adherents to their
flags—the opposition parties had to end the MRND monopoly over government posts. They had to
deliver to their members the jobs usually associated with controlling the state and they had to be in a
position to ensure that the policies they favored would be executed. They quickly put their own people
behind the desks in the ministries they headed, but determining appointments in Kigali was not
enough. They needed to control at least some of the local administration whose support was usually
essential to winning elections. Within a few months of joining the government, the MDR, the PL and
the PDC each had gotten one post of prefect. It was even more important for them to have the support
of burgomasters, who could do much to sway election results within their communes. This took longer
and it was only in February 1993 that the MRND agreed to changing burgomasters in about one third of
the communes.
One of the first domains where the opposition ended exclusive MRND control was access to education.
In 1991, only 8 percent of Rwandan children were able to study at secondary school.39 Through the
Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, the MRND had regulated access to governmentsupported high schools, supposedly assigning places according to quotas for ethnic and regional
groups. The quotas were both inaccurately computed and unfairly applied, favoring children from the
northwest or those whose families could pay in money or other benefits for access to education. With
the April 1992 government, Agathe Uwilingiyimana took office as minister of primary and secondary
education.40 A representative of the MDR, she promptly abolished the quota system and decreed that
access to higher education would be decided on merit alone. Almost immediately after, she was
assaulted by armed men who forced their way into her house and beat her. Thousands of students and
mothers turned out to march in support of her new policy.41
Kubohoza, “To Help Liberate”
In the early months after the parties were established, their supporters saw the new organizations as
the hope of the future—for themselves personally as well as for the nation. In a brash and exuberant
rush to publicize their cause and to recruit new members, party activists sporting caps and shirts with
the party colors held demonstrations and meetings in small commercial centers out on the hills as well
38
Ministeri y’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe, Bwana Su-perefe, Bwana Burugumesitiri, no.
585/04.09.01, Kigali, August 5, 1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
Martial Laurent, “Panorama Succinct des Economies de la Région des Grands Lacs Africains,” in Guichaoua, Les Crises
39
Politiques, p. 424
40
Named prime minister in July 1993, the first woman to hold this office in Rwanda, she was killed by Rwandan army soldiers on
April 7, 1994.
41
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, pp. 115-16.
41
March 1999
as in the capital. Local leaders flew the party flag on poles outside their homes or businesses, proud
to be identified as the key persons for mobilizing adherents in that area. Party leaders organized
groups of singers or dancers to enliven meetings with musical versions of party propaganda, mirroring
the “animation” that had once been the exclusive domain of the MRND.
MRND officials naturally feared the development of opposition parties. The prefect of Butare, for
example, wrote his subordinates in early 1992 to warn that parties posed a risk to the “unity of the
popular masses.” Like many others at the time, he cast the danger in terms of defeat by the enemy,
not in terms of the loss to some rival political party within the country. He insisted that if Hutu
opponents continued contesting MRND control, the Tutsi would take power.42 MRND leaders at the
national level were concerned enough about the threat from other contenders to direct local
authorities, still all nominally MRND supporters at that time, to do a poll of political loyalties within
some of their districts. In Bwakira commune, sector leaders reported that in some places Habyarimana
and the MRND would be chosen by only 50 percent of the voters.43
The MRND authorities did their best to slow the organizing efforts of rivals by using security
regulations to hinder their travel and public meetings. They looked the other way when MRND
members disrupted demonstrations of the opposition and stole or destroyed their party insignia. In
some places they tolerated or even encouraged MRND supporters to assault members of the
opposition or to burn and pillage their houses. Seeing the power of the state used for partisan ends,
adherents of opposition parties also adopted force as a means of winning the political struggle. Taking
political recruits by force or by threat became known as kubohoza or “to help liberate,” an ironic use
which suggests that the captive might have been “freed” against his or her will. Originally undertood
to mean liberating from the MRND monolith, the term later was used to refer to aggressive action
against any political opponent.
The parties organized youth wings which increasingly engaged in violence against rivals. The MDR
youth wing, the Inkuba or “Thunder,” led in harassing MRND supporters, sometimes with the help of
the Abakombozi, “The Liberators” of the PSD. Confronted with this opposition, the MRND moved to a
new level of intimidation by transforming its youth group, the Interahamwe, into a real militia. Besides
being more numerous and better organized than the youth of other parties, the Interahamwe received
military training from regular soldiers beginning in 1992. They were sometimes backed by the CDR
youth group, the Impuzamugambi, “Those With a Single Purpose.” During 1992 and 1993, politically
motivated attacks by Interahamwe and other groups took some 200 lives and injured scores of people
in different communities.44
If the target to be “liberated” was sufficiently important, the process could involve rewards as well as
threats. In the commune of Nshili, Gikongoro prefecture, for example, an ambitious young teacher
42
Justin Temahagali, Préfet de Butare, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, January 3, 1992,
enclosing the minutes of a meeting he had held with all the burgomasters and sub-prefects (Butare prefecture).
43
Documents identified by sector, but otherwise unlabeled, listing seven questions about local political opinions and the
results for each sector (Bwakira commune).
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric: Continuing Human Rights Abuses in Rwanda,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol.
5, no. 7, June 1993, pp. 6-10. See also, Ligue Indépendante pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme (LIDEL), Rwanda: Le Non-Dit
sur la Violation des Droits de l‘Homme, Kigali, January 1993. This group, apparently a tool of the Habyarimana government,
published data on abuses by other political parties against members of the MRND.
44
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
42
named Paul Kadogi decided to join the MDR in part because he was having difficulties with the
burgomaster, an MRND stalwart who had held the post for some thirty years. Because Kadogi,
described by MRND higher authorities as a “very virulent” propagandist for the MDR, was attracting
considerable support among teachers and others in the commune, the MRND dispatched a “mission”
in June 1991 to win Kadogi back. The senior member was secretary-general of the Ministry of the
Interior and a native of the region. He was assisted by a burgomaster from an adjacent commune who
was also a member of the prefectural committee of the MRND and by the sub-prefect of the region. The
MRND emisssaries combined what they called “muscular persuasion” with the promise to name
Kadogi himself burgomaster if he agreed to rejoin the MRND “with all the people who had followed
him into the MDR.” On August 12, 1991 the prefect of Gikongoro “took great pleasure” in writing the
minister of the interior to announce that the “recovery” of Kadogi and his numerous followers had
been completed. The prefect had just returned from the ceremony installing Kadogi as burgomaster of
Nshili where he had “forcefully and enthusiastically” invited all the MDR members in the crowd to
follow his example of rejoining the MRND. In his report on the mission, the sub-prefect stressed the
effectiveness of visits by important officials from the capital who were native to the region in rallying
people to the MRND. The prefect, in his report, assured the minister of the interior that: “We remain
vigilant and ready to dismantle in the same way any effort or campaign that might be launched
here...by other parties developing at the expense of the MRND.”45
The MDR adherents did not count themselves defeated although it apparently took them some months
to recover from Kadogi’s defection. By November 1992, they were ready to use kubohoza and went so
far as to attack and take hostage National Policemen. A month later, the police shot and killed a
member of the MRD youth group in the same region. This provoked MDR activists in several communes
to threaten the sub-prefect and the prefect whom they accused of using the police to destroy their
party. The prefect, Laurent Bucyibaruta, protested his complete neutrality and his readiness to permit
demonstrations by other political parties, provided their organizers were willing to “take the
consequences if another part of the population decides to react against these demonstrations.” 46
In this case, the prefect and sub-prefect avoided assault, but other MRND authorities, higher as well as
lower in rank, were attacked, particularly in 1992 and early 1993. Several burgomasters were driven
from their communes and forced to resign. The minister of youth was assaulted while driving through a
commune hostile to him. The home of the minister of labor was attacked in the prefecture of
Kibungo.47
The illegitimate use of public powers for private or partisan benefit discredited not just the officeholders, but also the institutions themselves in the eyes of the population. In communes where the
burgomaster was accused of governing badly, people refused to pay taxes, the situation in a
considerable number of communes by mid-1992. In those places where the land-hungry cultivators
had been obliged by the state to cede fields to development projects that brought no visible
45
Gérard Terebura, Sous-préfet, Rapport de Mission effectuée samedi 29/6/1991 auprès de certains adherents du MDR dans la
commune Nshili, 2/7/1991; Joseph Habiyambere, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal,
no. 1111/04.09.01, August 12, 1991 (Gikongoro prefecture).
46
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no. CN 132/04.17.02,
December 14, 1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
LIDEL, Rwanda, Le Non-dit, p. 93.
47
43
March 1999
improvement to their lives, they took back the land by force. In communes where umuganda obligatory
work was bringing no benefit to the ordinary people, they began refusing to turn out for the day of
labor.
Impunity and Insecurity
When people engaged in kubohoza, they sometimes covered their faces with chalk, wore banana
leaves, attacked at the signal of a whistle, marched to a drum and manned barriers along the roads to
catch their prey. During the genocide, some assailants did the same things. More important by far
than these surface resemblances was the continuation of an attitude spread by kubohoza, an attitude
that accepted violence as “normal” in the pursuit of political ends. Just as MRND officials frequently
tolerated or encouraged violence by MRND members, so did officials of other parties condone or incite
the use of force by their supporters. When authorities halted or punished violence, it was often
because the perpetrators belonged to political parties to which they themselves were opposed. The
National Police and soldiers sometimes refused to assist civilian officials who were attempting to
maintain order and sometimes they even launched politically motivated attacks themselves against
opponents of the MRND or CDR.48 The judiciary did no better than the executive branch in upholding a
state of law. The courts, underfunded and understaffed, rarely functioned as they should have.49
During 1992 and 1993, apparently random attacks by unindentified assailants increased dramatically:
grenades thrown into houses, bombs placed in buses or at markets, and mines laid along roads. The
Rwandan army general staff issued a press release identifying RPF infiltrators and their “accomplices”
as responsible for this violence, an assessment generally accepted by supporters of Habyarimana.50
Those opposed to Habyarimana attributed the attacks to his agents, who, they charged, were
operating a death squad which they called by Mfizi’s name of the “Zero Network.” The International
Commission of Investigation On Human Rights Violations in Rwanda, a group sponsored by four
international human rights organizations that examined the situation in Rwanda in early 1993,
concluded that the Zero Network was linked to the highest circles of power in Kigali and was
responsible for many of the attacks.51 Whether executed by agents of Habyarimana or by others, the
random violence, like the targeted violence of kubohoza, showed Rwandans that the government
either could not or would not protect its citizens.52
In the absence of an impartial, effective enforcement of the laws, those who attacked with political
motives multiplied their abuses. Common criminals profited too from the laxity of law enforcement to
increase assaults and robberies. Firearms had suddenly become easy to get, partly as a result of the
war-time increase in the circulation of guns, partly as the result of distribution of weapons by officials.
Grenades could be bought at the market for less than U.S.$2.53 The availability of guns and grenades
made the work of criminals easier, more certain to be profitable, and more likely to prove fatal for the
48
Jean-Baptise Habyalimana, Préfet, to Alison Des Forges, Butare, February 8, 1993.
For an examination of the problems with the judiciary, see François-Xavier Nsanzuwera, La Magistrature Rwandaise dans
l’Etau du Pouvoir Executif (Kigali: Editeur CLADHO, 1993).
49
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête sur la tragédie rwandaise (1990-1994), Tome I, Rapport, pp.
94, 113.
50
51
“Report of the International Commission,” p. 43.
52
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” pp. 12-14.
53
Ibid., p.14.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
44
victims. In some communities, National Police and soldiers raped, pillaged, or even murdered the
civilians they were supposed to be protecting.54 Unable to count on protection from the state, lawabiding Rwandans who feared attack because of their politics or their wealth also invested in guns,
some of which were registered as required by law, others of which were kept hidden until the
genocide.55
The Military Defines “The Enemy”
After the initial RPF attack in October 1990, the Rwandan government forces, assisted particularly by
the French, repulsed the invaders, killing many of them. The RPF regrouped and, in a surprise attack,
took the important northwestern town of Ruhengeri in January 1991, but held it for only one day. 56
Reduced to only about 3,000 soldiers, the RPF retreated into a series of guerrilla incursions which were
met with ripostes from the Rwandan army.57 The combat was punctuated by occasional efforts at
cease-fires and negotiations, but it was only after the MDR, the PL, and the PSD joined the government
in April 1992 that they were able to oblige Habyarimana to enter into serious negotiations with the
RPF. At the same time, the RPF launched an important offensive in the northeast, apparently to assure
a strong position at the start of peace talks. They drove Rwandan army troops back from several
communes in Byumba prefecture along with some 350,000 civilians who thus began years of misery
as displaced persons. The RPF and the Rwandan government signed a cease-fire at Arusha, Tanzania
in July 1992 and in August 1992 they signed the first of a series of agreements that would be known as
the Arusha Accords. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) facilitated the negotiations and agreed to
provide a small observer force to monitor the cease-fire.
By the time serious talks with the RPF began in 1992, the Rwandan army had grown to some 30,000
soldiers. An important number of them opposed the negotiations, not just because they did not want
to give up the fight, but also because they dreaded demobilization. The thousands of troops who had
been recruited since the start of the war had become accustomed to the advantages of the military
life. The MRND and the CDR fed their fears by spreading rumors that soldiers would be thrown out onto
a disintegrating economy without hope of finding work. The prime minister, Dismas Nsengiyaremye of
the MDR, attempted to reassure the troops by talking of using demobilized soldiers in economic
development projects, such as draining marshes to obtain new land for cultivation. This proposal
incensed the soldiers further; it was just such menial labor that they thought they had left behind in
their new military careers.
In May and June, 1992, soldiers mutinied in the northern towns of Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, and Byumba
killing scores of civilians and pillaging or destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
54
Ibid., p. 8; “Report of the International Commission,” pp. 32-33.
55
See, for example, James Gasana, Ministre de la Défense, to J.B. Hakizamungu, Sous-préfet, no. 0913/06.1.9, March 11, 1993;
Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, Préfet, to Messieurs les Bourgmestres (tous), no. 138/04.09.01 April 16, 1993 and Joseph
Kanyabashi, Bourgmestre de la Commune Urbaine de Ngoma, to Monsieur le Préfet, no. 308/04.09.01, April 30, 1993 (Butare
prefecture).
56
In the brief day or so when the RPF controlled Ruhengeri, they freed prisoners from the local jail, including Col. Théoneste
Lizinde, an important officer imprisoned by Habyarimana at the time of the 1980 coup attempt. He retreated with the RPF and
joined their forces, another example of the feared “Kanyarengwe effect.”
57
Col. Déogratias Nsabimana to Liste A, Comdt Sect OPS (Tous), No. 1437/G2.2.4, Kigali, September 21, 1992 (International
Commission).
45
March 1999
property. Soldiers rebelled again briefly in October at the Kanombe military base near the capital. 58
Responding to pressure from the military as well as from civilian hard-liners, Habyarimana disavowed
the Arusha Accords in a speech in Ruhengeri on November 15. Making clear that he did not intend to
implement the agreement that he had signed three months before, Habyarimana called the Accords “a
scrap of paper.”
In principle prohibited by law from membership in political parties, soldiers and police nonetheless
did not hesitate to demonstrate their political leanings. Habyarimana himself was only the most
obvious case, serving until 1992 as general and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces while also
being president of the MRND. Particularly those soldiers who shared a northern origin with
Habyarimana, of whom there were many, put loyalty to the president above all else. Some officers of
the army general staff promoted fear and hatred of Tutsi and of Hutu opposed to Habyarimana both
among the troops and among the civilian population. In early December 1991, the high command of
the Rwandan army issued two press releases that proclaimed in a pro forma way their support for
democratization and neutrality towards all political parties. But the military leaders then went on to
condemn Rwandans who “knowingly or unknowingly, aided the enemy under the cover of political
party activities.” They declared that newpapers critical of the president were subsidized by the RPF.
They blamed RPF infiltrators and their “acolytes” for the increase in crime and acts of random violence
and they concluded one press release by asking the secret police to “neutralize all collaborators
identified with the enemy.”59 Col. Léonidas Rusatira, then secretary-general of the Ministry of Defense,
apparently opposed the broadcast of these releases, but he was overruled by Habyarimana himself
who decided to make them public.60 The minister of the interior circulated the first of these press
releases, directing that burgomasters make its contents widely known. The prefect of Kibuye, passing
on the order, told burgomasters to “use it [the press release] to its full value in meetings to raise the
consciousness of the population about the ideals of peace and unity.”61 The release must certainly
have had the opposite effect, itself fueling the “ethnic and regional tensions” that it accused
opponents of fostering.
On September 21, 1992, Colonel Déogratias Nsabimana, chief of staff, sent a top secret memorandum
to his commanders identifying and defining “the enemy.”62 The memorandum was part of a report
from a commission of ten officers established the previous December to examine how to defeat the
enemy “in the military, media and political domains.” Among the measures recommended by the
commission was the removal of some high-ranking officers who held these posts by virtue of their
connections to members of the akazu, particularly Madame Habyarimana, rather than by virtue of their
military abilities. Habyarimana had accepted their recommendations in June 1992 and had obliged a
number of officers to retire, among them Colonels Serubuga and Rwagafilita.63 The memorandum
remained restricted to a small circle of high-ranking officers until Nsabimana ordered its
dissemination in September, several weeks after the signing of the first of the Arusha Accords.
“Report of the International Commission,” p. 33; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 118.
58
59
Africa Watch, “Rwanda: Talking Peace and Waging War,” pp. 20-21.
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 185.
60
61
Gaspard Ruhumuliza, Préfet de Kibuye, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre (Tous), December 12, 1991.
62
Col. Déogratias Nsabimana to Liste A, September 21, 1992.
63
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, August 29, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
46
Rwandan military authorities at this time feared a new RPF offensive was being prepared and
Nsabimana hoped the memorandum would “lead our men to be more vigilant and to not count on
political negotiations alone.” He ordered:
You will distribute this document widely, insisting especially on the sections relating
to the definition of the enemy, identification of the enemy, as well as the groups
within which the enemy is recruited. You will inform me of the impact made by the
contents of this document on the men under your orders.
The report divided the enemy into two categories, the principal enemy and partisans of the enemy. The
principal enemy was:
the Tutsi inside or outside the country, extremist and nostalgic for power, who have
NEVER recognized and will NEVER recognize the realities of the 1959 social revolution
and who wish to reconquer power by all means necessary, including arms.
The partisans of the enemy were defined as anyone who supported the principal enemy. Like the
December 1991 press releases, the document made the necessary nod towards democratic openness:
Political opponents who want power or the peaceful and democratic change of the
current political regime of Rwanda are NOT to be confused with the ENI [enemy] or
with partisans of the ENI.
Again like the earlier communiques—and sometimes in the same language—the fourteen page
document then went on to condemn Tutsi and those Hutu who opposed Habyarimana and his party.
Nowhere did it caution against confusing the RPF as a political group with Tutsi as an ethnic group. In
several places, it used “Tutsi” as equivalent to enemy. As one of the advantages of the enemy, it listed
“A single political will and a single political ideology, which is Tutsi hegemony.”
The document deplored the loss of Hutu solidarity, which it blamed on enemy machinations rather
than on understandable resentment of the corruption and repression of the Habyarimana regime. It
listed the establishment of multiple political parties as an advantage for the enemy and warned that
infiltrators had convinced these parties to support the RPF. Repeating the accusation of the December
1991 press release that the enemy was sharpening conflict between individuals and regions, the
memorandum asserted that opponents were “turning public opinion from the ethnic problem to the
socio-economic problem between the rich and the poor.” It stated that the enemy and its partisans
were recruited primarily among:
Tutsi refugees
the NRA (Ugandan army)
Tutsi inside the country
Hutu dissatisifed with the regime in power
Unemployed people inside and outside the country
Foreigners married to Tutsi wives
the Nilo-Hamitic people of the region
criminals in flight [from the law]
47
March 1999
The document warned that the enemy had infiltrated the government and had corrupted various
officials by offering them advantageous business deals, which was easy for them to do because the
enemy predominated in business circles. It identified a number of “enemies” by name, including
Evariste Sissi and Antoine Sebera.64
Many of the themes of this document sent to the soldiers on September 21 are echoed in a CDR tract
issued the next day. In its “Notice No. 5,” the CDR warned of the dangers from enemies inside Rwanda,
who were supposedly aiding the RPF. It asserted that these enemies had highly placed friends in the
government, who were permitting them to work against the interests of the great majority, the rubanda
nyamwinshi. Among the enemies named are the same Evariste Sissi and Antoine Sebera who were
cited in the military document. The CDR finished by demanding action:
The CDR party calls upon the government and the president to deal with this problem.
If it does not, the great mass [rubanda nyamwinshi] cannot stand by and do nothing.
An enemy is an enemy. Anyone who cooperates with the enemy is a traitor to
Rwanda.65
The similarities in the statements of CDR radicals and of high military authorities foreshadowed their
later cooperation which made the genocide possible.
Propaganda and Practice
Rwandans—Tutsi as well as Hutu—were frightened by the RPF attack. Tutsi recalled the reprisal killings
at the time of invasions by refugee groups in the 1960s and feared they would be targeted again. Hutu
remembered the slaughter of tens of thousands of Hutu by Tutsi in neighboring Burundi in 1972, 1988,
and in 1991 and dreaded killings on a similar scale by the RPF. Authorities at the highest level knew
that the RPF had been reduced by losses during the first months to a number less than half that of the
Rwandan army and that their own army was backed by several hundred highly trained and well-armed
French troops. Well aware of the fears of their own subordinates and of ordinary citizens, they could
have put the danger in perspective and calmed the population.66 Instead Habyarimana and his
advisers exaggerated the risk in hopes of increasing support for themselves. As one Rwandan put it,
“With the invasion, the politicians began to beat the drum.” The drum was both a usual signal of
attack and the instrument used to keep all the dancers moving to the same rhythm.
Propagandists echoed and magnified the hatred and suspicion sown by Habyarimana and officials
around him. Under the cover of the newly-established freedom of the press, they blared forth
messages disseminated more discreetly by officials, such as many of the conclusions about the
“enemy” presented in the military memorandum of September 21, 1992.
64
65
Col. Déogratias Nsabimana to Liste A, September 21, 1992.
Itangazo no. 05 ry’ishyaka CDR, 22 September 1992 (International Commission).
66
Joseph Habiyambere, Préfet de Gikongoro, to Monsieur le Président de la République Rwandaise, no. 794/04.17.02, May 29,
1991; no. 831/04.17.02, June 5, 1991; no. 842/04.17.02, June 7, 1991; Paul Kadogi, Bourgmestre de la Commune Nshili, to
Monsieur le Préfet de Gikongoro, no. 661/04.17.02, September 6, 1991; Préfet de Gikongoro to Monsieur le Col. Elie Sagatwa,
November 21, 1991; Col. Athanase Gasake to Liste A Comdt Secteurs OPS (Tous), May 21, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
48
Propagandists developed the same themes over and over, both before and during the genocide. While
some of the similarities in their messages may result simply from sharing the same cultural milieu,
other similarities in technique suggest deliberate coordination among propagandists and between
them and government officials. In a mimeographed document entitled “Note Relative à la Propagande
d’Expansion et de Recrutement,” found in Butare prefecture, one propagandist tells others how to
sway the public most effectively. Obviously someone who had studied at university level, the author of
the note presents a detailed analysis of a book called Psychologie de la publicité et de la propagande,
by Roger Mucchielli, published in Paris in 1970.
The author of the note claims to convey lessons learned from the book and drawn from Lenin and
Goebbels. He advocates using lies, exaggeration, ridicule, and innuendo to attack the opponent, in
both his public and his private life. He suggests that moral considerations are irrelevant, except when
they happen to offer another weapon against the other side. He adds that it is important not to
underestimate the strength of the adversary nor to overestimate the intelligence of the general public
targeted by the campaign. Propagandists must aim both to win over the uncommitted and to cause
divisions among supporters of the other point of view. They must persuade the public that the
adversary stands for war, death, slavery, repression, injustice, and sadistic cruelty.
In addition to these suggestions, the propagandist proposes two techniques that were to become
often used in Rwanda. The first is to “create” events to lend credence to propaganda. He remarks that
this tactic is not honest, but that it works well, provided the deception is not discovered. The “attack”
on Kigali on October 4-5, 1990 was such a “created” event, as were others—the reported discovery of
hidden arms, the passage of a stranger with a mysterious bag, the discovery of radio communications
equipment—that were exploited later, especially during the genocide.
The propagandist calls his second proposal “Accusation in a mirror,” meaning his colleagues should
impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do. He explains, “In this way,
the party which is using terror will accuse the enemy of using terror.” With such a tactic, propagandists
can persuade listeners and “honest people” that they are being attacked and are justified in taking
whatever measures are necessary “for legitimate [self-] defense.”67 This tactic worked extremely well,
both in specific cases such as the Bugesera massacre of March 1992 described below and in the
broader campaign to convince Hutu that Tutsi planned to exterminate them. There is no proof that
officials and propagandists who “created” events and made “accusations in a mirror” were familiar
with this particular document, but they regularly used the techniques that it described.
The Media
One of the most virulent voice of hate, the newspaper Kangura, began spewing forth attacks on the
RPF and on Tutsi immediately after the October 1990 invasion. It was joined soon after by other
newspapers and journals that received support from officials and businessmen linked to the regime.
According to authors of an intensive study of the media of genocide, at least eleven of the forty-two
new journals founded in 1991 were linked to the akazu.68 The newspapers were published and sold in
the capital, but urban workers who often went home for weekends carried copies of the better-known
67
Anonymous, “Note Relative à la Propagande d’Expansion et de Recrutement,” mimeographed, undated (Butare prefecture).
68
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 45.
49
March 1999
newspapers out to the hills. Some 66 percent of Rwandans are literate and those who knew how to
read were accustomed to reading for others. In many cases, the written word was underscored by
cartoons, most of which were so graphic that they could not be misinterpreted.
The radio was to become even more effective in delivering the message of hate directly and
simultaneously to a wide audience. Before the war, Rwanda had only one radio station, the national
Radio Rwanda, but listening to the radio was a popular distraction among ordinary people and elite
alike. In 1991, some 29 percent of all households had a radio.69 The number of radio sets was
presumably much higher by the start of the genocide. In some areas, the government distributed
radios free to local authorities before the genocide and they may have done so after the killing began
as well.70 One foreign religious sister who traveled from Kibuye to Butare during the height of the
genocide reported that she had seen new radios at every one of the dozens of barriers where she had
been stopped en route.71 People without radios listened to broadcasts in the local bar or got
information from neighbors.
Until 1992, Radio Rwanda was very much the voice of the government and of the president himself. It
announced prefectural or national meetings, nominations to and removals from government posts,
and the results of admissions examinations to secondary schools.72 Before the daily news programs,
Radio Rwanda broadcast excerpts of Habyarimana’s political speeches. This national radio sometimes
broadcast false information, particularly about the progress of the war, but most people did not have
access to independent sources of information to verify its claims.
In March 1992, Radio Rwanda warned that Hutu leaders in Bugesera were going to be murdered by
Tutsi, false information meant to spur the Hutu massacres of Tutsi. Following the establishment of the
coalition government in April 1992, the MDR, PL, and PSD insisted on a new direction for Radio
Rwanda. Ferdinand Nahimana, a stalwart supporter of the MRND, was removed from his post at the
Rwandan Office of Information (ORINFOR), where he had supervised Radio Rwanda. Several months
later, Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, a member of one of the parties opposed to Habyarimana, was named
director to steer the radio towards a more nonpartisan stance. By December 1993, Radio Rwanda had
agreed to include the RPF among political parties participating in its broadcasts, although the decision
had not been implemented by the time the genocide began.73
Soon after the start of the war, the RPF established its own station, Radio Muhabura, but its signal did
not reach throughout the country. At first, many Rwandans were afraid to listen to it, but its audience
grew steadily during 1992 and 1993. Although it glorified the RPF, it did so in a nationalist rather than
69
In urban areas, the figure was far higher, 58.7 percent, while in rural areas 27.3 percent of the households owned radios.
Recensement général de la population et de l’habitat au 15 août 1991 (Kigali: Service National de Recensement, July 1993), p.
31.
70
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 15, 1997; Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 57, 74.
71
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 6, 1996.
72
Clément Kayishema, former Prefect of Kibuye, and Sylvain Nsabimana, former Prefect of Butare, are among the officials who
say that they learned of their appointments from radio announcements. Human Rights Watch interview, Kibuye, July, 1992;
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Nairobi, March 25, 1996.
Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, “Distorsions et Omissions dans l’ouvrage Rwanda, Les médias du génocide,” Dialogue, no. 190,
avril-mai 1996, p. 166.
73
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
50
an ethnic context, consistent with the general RPF emphasis on minimizing differences between Hutu
and Tutsi.74
With the new direction at Radio Rwanda and the voice of the RPF increasingly strong, Hutu hard-liners
decided to create their own station. They began planning their radio in 1992, incorporated it as Radio
Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in April 1993, and began broadcasting in August 1993.
Of the fifty original founders, forty were from the three prefectures of northern Rwanda, all but seven of
those from Gisenyi and Ruhengeri, the region identified with Habyarimana. One of the chief financiers
of the project was Félicien Kabuga, a wealthy businessman whose daughter was married to a son of
President Habyarimana. Another contributor was Alphonse Ntilivamunda, a son-in-law of President
Habyarimana, and an important official at the Ministry of Public Works. Two ministers were among the
founders, Augustin Ngirabatware, the minister of planning, and son-in-law of Kabuga, and André
Ntagerura, the minister of telecommunications. Simon Bikindi, an employee of the Ministry of Youth
who was also an extremely popular musician best known for his virulently anti-Tutsi songs, was part of
the group, as was Pasteur Musabe, general director of the Banque Continentale Africaine. Augustin
Ruzindana, governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, joined later. The MRND was represented among
the founders by Joseph Nzirorera, subsequently its executive secretary, and later by Mathieu
Ngirumpatse, who served as president of the MRND after President Habyarimana left that post. In
addition, Georges Rutaganda, vice-president of the MRND militia, the Interahamwe, was among the
founders. The CDR was represented by Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, its chief ideologue, and by Stanislas
Simbizi. Subsequently the minister of defense, the officer who would become chief of staff of the
Rwandan army, and a protestant bishop would buy shares in the station.75
Although nominally private and opposed to Radio Rwanda, RTLM in fact was linked in a number of
ways with the national radio, with other state agencies and with the MRND. RTLM was allowed to
broadcast on the same frequencies as the national radio between 8am and 11am, when Radio Rwanda
was not transmitting, an arrangement that encouraged listeners to see the two as linked, if not as
identical. The new station also drew personnel from Radio Rwanda, including Nahimana, who played a
leading role at RTLM after having been dismissed from ORINFOR, and announcer Noel Hitimana. Its
editor-in-chief, Gaspard Gahigi, and announcer Kantano Habimana had previously worked for
Umurwanashyaka, party organ of the MRND. Gahigi had also been employed by Radio Rwanda and
was a member of the central committee of the MRND.76 The ostensibly private station used equipment
belonging to various government ministries and perhaps some equipment taken from Radio Rwanda.
It had access to an emergency source of electric power which some said was a free-standing
generator, but others said was linked to the emergency electrical system of the presidential residence,
across the street from its studio.77
According to Rwandans who listened to RTLM, the station won an audience rapidly because of its lively
music and informal style. Higiro, the director of Radio Rwanda, analysed its initial success this way:
74
See chapter on the RPF below.
75
François-Xavier Nsanzuwera, Manuscript on the RTLM.
76
Higiro, “Distorsions et Omissions,” p. 161.
77
Ibid., p. 164; Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 70.
51
March 1999
These broadcasts were like a conversation among Rwandans who knew each other
well and were relaxing over some banana beer or a bottle of Primus [the local beer] in
a bar. It was a conversation without a moderator and without any requirements as to
the truth of what was said. The people who were there recounted what they had seen
or heard during the day. The exchanges covered everything: rumors circulating on the
hills, news from the national radio, conflicts among local political bosses...It was all
in fun. Some people left the bar, others came in, the conversation went on or stopped
if it got too late, and the next day it took up again after work.78
Introducing the concept of interactive broadcasting to Rwanda, RTLM invited listeners to call in to
express their opinions. People called to ask for a song to be broadcast or to pass on some piece of
news or gossip. The announcers broadcast this information without ever checking on it. RTLM
departed from the more staid and formal tone of Radio Rwanda. The announcer Kantano Habimana
was known for his wit, which was appreciated even by some Tutsi who were the objects of his barbs.
Another, Valerie Bemeriki, was remarkable for the speed and passion of her delivery, which increased
when she had violence to report.
Rwandans learned from experience that RTLM regularly attributed to others the actions its own
supporters had taken or would be taking. Without ever having heard of “accusations in a mirror,” they
became accustomed to listening to RTLM accusations of its rivals to find out what the MRND and CDR
would be doing.
RTLM took up many of the same themes, sometimes in the same words, that were being popularized
in the written press. Hassan Ngeze, the editor of Kangura, welcomed the arrival of the new ally in the
“fight to defend the republic.”79 Before long, RTLM, with its greater drawing power, was displacing
Kangura and other journals as the voice of extremism. Once the genocide began, Radio Rwanda was
pulled into the orbit of RTLM. Its director Higiro fled the country, himself targeted for death by RTLM
broadcasts, and was replaced by Jean-Baptiste Bamwanga, a journalist fired from Radio Rwanda in
1992 for his role in inciting the massacre of Tutsi in Bugesera. RTLM announcer Kantano Habimana
celebrated the transformation of Radio Rwanda from a “rival” to a “sister.”80 During the genocide,
when communications and travel became difficult, the radio became for most people the sole source
of news as well as the sole authority for interpreting its meaning. At that time, RTLM and Radio Rwanda
collaborated to deliver a single message about the need to extirpate the “enemy.”
Validating the Message
Propagandists naturally wove references to political authorities past and present into their materials
as often as possible. Grégoire Kayibanda, the father of the revolution and first president of the
republic, as well as Habyarimana, appeared often in pictures and through use of their quotations. In
addition, the propagandists acknowledged the great respect Rwandans have for formal learning by
occasionally asserting that their information came from “intellectuals” or “professors at the national
university.” A large number of university faculty were from Habyarimana’s home region—because they
78
Higiro, “Distorsions et Omissions,” p. 171.
79
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 68.
80
Ibid., p. 79; Higiro, “Distorsions et Omissions,” p. 178.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
52
had been the ones to profit from university education and study abroad—and ranked among his
sincere supporters. Others teaching at the university or at government-sponsored schools (the vast
majority in the country), as well as the staff of research institutes, knew that advancement and
perhaps continued employment could depend on backing the government position. Both those within
Rwanda and those studying abroad wrote letters and made public statements that reported facts
wrongly or misinterpreted data to support the official line (see below).81
Two academics left the university to devote themselves to supporting Habyarimana through
propaganda and active political organizing. One was Nahimana, a historian from the northwestern
prefecture of Ruhengeri, who had benefited from the opportunity to study in Paris. He gave up teaching
to take charge of government propaganda at ORINFOR. After being forced from this position,
Nahimana was supposed to become the Rwandan ambassador in Bonn, but the German government
refused to accept him. He tried to go back to the university, but his colleagues there also protested
against his return. Appointed then to direct RTLM, he regained the opportunity to shape public
opinion, this time through the most effective propaganda medium in Rwanda.
The other professor-turned-propagandist was Léon Mugesera, who had done advanced university
studies in Canada. After teaching briefly at the National University of Rwanda, he moved on to
positions with the Ministry of Information, the national headquarters of the MRND, and the Ministry for
the Family and the Promotion of Women. The author of two propaganda pamphlets in 1991, he is even
better known for a speech that is analyzed below.
In addition to calling on political and intellectual leaders to support their ideas, propagandists used
religion and the church to validate their teachings. Umurava Magazine declared “It is God who has
given Habyarimana the power to direct the country, it is He who will show him the path to follow.” 82
Most propagandists did not go so far, but they did frequently couch their ideas in religious language or
refer to passages from the Bible. Cartoons sometimes portrayed Habyarimana as a saint or a priest,
and one depicted God cursing the leaders of the political opposition. Following killings of Hutu in
Burundi in 1991, Kangura featured the Christ child with Mary and Joseph on the cover of the January
issue. Mary asks the Christ child to save the Hutu of Burundi. He replies that he will tell them to love
each other. Joseph comments, “No, instead tell the Hutu of the world to unite.”83 In a country where 90
percent of the people called themselves Christian and 62 percent were Catholic, these references to
religion helped make the teachings of fear and hate more acceptable.
The Message
The propagandists built upon the lessons Rwandans had learned in school. It was hardly necessary
even to repeat the basic assumption that Hutu and Tutsi were different peoples by nature,
representatives of the larger and equally distinct “Bantu” and “Nilotic” (“Nilo-Hamitic,” “Hamitic,” or
“Ethiopid”) groups. In some passages, propagandists equated the Hutu-Tutsi difference with the
fundamental difference between male and female.84 Those who married across group lines produced
81
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 97.
82
Ibid., p. 46.
83
Ibid., pp. 37l-74, 256.
84
Ibid., pp. 96-97.
53
March 1999
“hybrids” for children and people from one group who tried to pass for members of another were said
to be like “beings with two heads.”85 The radicals rejected the idea that Rwandans were a single
people, charging that this concept was a Tutsi trick to divide and weaken the Hutu by destroying their
sense of ethnic identity. As Kangura assured the Hutu, “You are an important ethnic group of the
Bantu...The nation is artificial but the ethnic group is natural.”86 The propagandists stressed that Tutsi
were foreign to the area and had stolen Rwanda from its rightful inhabitants. The ruthless conquerors
had ground the Hutu under their heel in a “repressive and bloody regime...epitomized by [the queenmother Kanjogera who] to get up from her seat leaned on two swords planted between the shoulders
of two Hutu children!”87 But when the great mass—rubanda nyamwinshi—had become conscious of its
own strength and had come together, it had been able to overthrow the “feudal” oppressors in the
great revolution of 1959.88
“Tutsi Unity”
To these assumptions, propagandists added the myth of Tutsi unity, a clannishness held to have
facilitated their conquests in the past and to enable them to continue exercising undue influence in
the present. In the September 21, 1992 memorandum mentioned above, the military officers listed
singleness of purpose as an advantage of the enemy. The propagandists linked Tutsi living inside
Rwanda today both with those who had exploited Hutu in the past and with the RPF. Thus the circle
was complete and the links among Tutsi of different times and places were said to be solid and
unbreakable. In March 1993, Kangura published an article entitled “A cockroach cannot give birth to a
butterfly.” After 1990, opponents of the RPF called its troops Inyenzi, cockroaches, while the RPF itself
used the term Inkotanyi, a name taken from a nineteenth-century military formation. The article said:
We began by saying that a cockroach cannot give birth to a butterfly. It is true. A
cockroach gives birth to another cockroach...The history of Rwanda shows us clearly
that a Tutsi stays always exactly the same, that he has never changed. The malice,
the evil are just as we knew them in the history of our country. We are not wrong in
saying that a cockroach gives birth to another cockroach. Who could tell the
difference between the Inyenzi who attacked in October 1990 and those of the 1960s.
They are all linked...their evilness is the same. The unspeakable crimes of the Inyenzi
of today...recall those of their elders: killing, pillaging, raping girls and women, etc.89
Like the soldiers who wrote the September 21, 1992 memorandum, propagandists often used the
terms Tutsi and RPF together or interchangeably. One example of the association of Tutsi and RPF is
the cover of the December 1993 issue of Kangura. Below the ironic title “Tutsi, Race of God” are shown
a machete and the question, “What weapons can we use to defeat the Inyenzi once and for all?” And
to complete the association, the final question asks “What if someone brought back the Hutu
Revolution of 1959 to finish off these Tutsi cockroaches?”90 During the genocide, officials would
85
Ibid., pp. 102, l08.
86
Ibid., pp.111, 109.
87
Ibid., p. 110.
88
Ibid., p. 118.
89
Ibid., p.156.
90
Ibid., pp. 114, 119, 128, 257.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
54
occasionally declare that not all Tutsi were “accomplices” of the RPF, but such statements were too
few and too late to destroy the widespread and carefully constructed identification between them.
“Infiltration”
The propagandists asserted that the Tutsi, as Ethiopids or Nilotics, had no right to inhabit Central
Africa and that they had deviously infiltrated all aspects of Rwandan state and society. Many Tutsi
were found in the Liberal Party but some had made their way into other parties as well. Kangura,
among others, insisted that this “infiltration” must stop and that Tutsi should not join parties that
belonged to the Hutu majority. The propagandists said the Tutsi had infiltrated the economy,—at one
point Kangura claimed that 70 percent of the rich in Rwanda were Tutsi—monopolized credit at the
banks, and won a disproportionate share of the highly coveted import and export licenses. In a clear
effort to divert the resentment otherwise directed towards Hutu from Habyarimana’s region,
propagandists argued that it was Tutsi, not other Hutu, who occupied the jobs which southern Hutu
wanted and failed to get. They also accused the Tutsi of having taken a disproportionate share of
places in secondary school and university and, because of their educational advantages, of having
dominated the professions and government. They claimed that even the church had been infiltrated by
Tutsi. On all these points, the propagandists were delivering to the public the same message sent by
the Rwandan general staff to its troops in the memorandum defining the enemy. 91
If Tutsi men failed to penetrate some aspect of national life, said the propagandists, they sent in their
women to seduce the Hutu who controlled that domain. According to Kangura, “The inkotanyi will not
hesitate to transform their sisters, wives and mothers into pistols” to conquer Rwanda. 92 The
propagandists, like the authors of the military memorandum, agreed that Tutsi wives and mistresses
manipulated foreign men for the Tutsi cause. They agreed, too, that male and female Tutsi had
infiltrated international organizations, including both official agencies, like the U.N., and
nongovernmental organizations, like human rights groups.93
To support the argument that Tutsi had slipped “like snakes” into places unnoticed, propagandists
asserted that many people who claimed to be Hutu were in fact Tutsi who had changed their identity
papers. In a wildly exaggerated estimate, Kangura charged that 85 percent of Tutsi had changed their
ethnic identification. It warned:
The other calamity...is the detestable habit that many Tutsi have adopted
of...changing their ethnic group...which allows them to pass unnoticed and to take
places normally reserved for Hutu in the administration and the schools. If this
disease is not treated immediately, it will destroy all the Hutu.94
“Real” Hutu were cautioned to be on the lookout for such people, recognizable usually by their too
great tolerance for Tutsi and their lack of commitment to Hutu solidarity. To demonstrate how the
91
Ibid., pp. 92, 159-60.
92
Ibid., p. 161. For propaganda against Tutsi women, see Human Rights Watch/Africa, Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights
Project, and the Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme, Shattered Lives, Sexual Violence during the
Rwandan Genocide and Its Aftermath (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996).
93
Ibid., p. 269-73, 318. In March 1997, a message on the internet asserted that a Rwandan woman wrote the reports of Human
Rights Watch/Africa.
94
Ibid., pp. 103, 159.
55
March 1999
pretense might be discovered, the journal Ibyikigihe published an examination of the background of
Faustin Twagiramungu in its December 1993 issue. Twagiramungu, then the head of the MDR, was
accused of being Tutsi, a wolf disguised in sheep’s clothing. To document its charges, the newspaper
published excerpts from local government records going back to 1948.95
Effective in discussions of economic, social, and political life, this notion of “infiltration” was even
more powerful when transferred to the domain of actual warfare. Echoing the position adopted by the
government in October 1990, the propagandists fulminated that “It is because of this Tutsi infiltration
into society that the country has no more secrets and they have been able to invade it with no trouble
at all.” The Tutsi as “accomplice” was said to be everywhere. Kangura estimated in 1991 that 85
percent of all Tutsi were “accomplices” who never put down their arms, “who were working night and
day....”96 The propagandists sometimes added specifics to these general charges. In one of two
pamphlets he produced, the professor-turned-propagandist Léon Mugesera justified imprisoning
thousands of persons “suspected of plotting with the enemy”:
...because they were found with stocks of weapons, supplies of ammunition, radios
for communicating with the enemy, or compromising documents, such as
descriptions of the authorities and plans for attack.97
Officials and propagandists would use the same excuses—“created” events—to cover arrests and
attacks on Tutsi and their Hutu allies for the next three years and throughout the genocide.
“Restoring the Old Regime”
From the first days of the war, officials and propagandists alike warned that the RPF had come to reestablish their total Tutsi control over the Hutu. One Rwandan army officer stationed near the Ugandan
frontier in October 1990 reported that his superiors ordered him to spread the word among the civilian
population that the RPF had attacked to restore the monarchy.98 In defining the “enemy,” the military
high command focused on those Tutsi “who refused to accept the revolution and wanted to reconquer
power by any means.” Civilian administrators in Butare, acting in the same vein, organized
demonstrators in November 1990 to protest against any attempt to recreate the old regime. The
demonstrators were sent out into the streets with signs like:
“Let slavery, servitude and discord be finished forever!”
“We condemn the exploitation and servitude of the people!”
“Long live the republic! Down with the monarchy!”
95
Ibid., p. 101.
96
Ibid., p. 149.
97
Association des Femmes Parlementaires pour la Défense des Droits de la Mère et de l”Enfant en collaboration avec Dr.
Mugesera Léon, “Respect des Droits de la Personne par le Rwanda,” Kigali, April 1991, p. 3 (Obtained from Comité Pour le
Respect des Droits de l’Homme et de la Democratie au Rwanda).
98
Alison Des Forges, “The Ideology of Genocide,” Issue, A Journal of Opinion, vol. XXIII, no. 2, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
56
“No more feudalism! No more Kalinga!” [the drum that symbolized the power of the
ruler]99
Propagandists insisted that an RPF victory would mean a return to all the evils of “feudalism,” with
Hutu whipped and forced to work without pay for Tutsi masters. The singer Simon Bikindi stressed that
danger in one of his most famous songs, “Bene Sebahinzi,” “The Descendants of Sebahinzi,” a proper
name which means the “Father of the Cultivators.” In a refrain that was repeated endlessly on RTLM,
Bikindi sang about the importance and benefits of the 1959 revolution, “a heritage that should be
carefully maintained...and transmitted to posterity”: He went on:
...the servitude, the whip, the lash, the forced work that exhausted the people, that
has disappeared forever. You, the great majority [rubanda nyamwinshi], pay attention
and, descendants of Sebahinzi, remember this evil that should be driven as far away
as possible, so that it never returns to Rwanda.100
Bikindi sang that the revolution should be preserved “especially by we who have benefited from it,” a
reminder that should the Tutsi win, they would not just reverse all the political changes of the
revolution but also reclaim all the property that had once been theirs, leaving many Hutu destitute.
This argument carried great weight with cultivators who were working lands received after the
expulsion of the Tutsi and who feared above all being reduced to landless laborers.
“Genocide of the Hutu”
The propagandists went further. They insisted that not just the freedom and prosperity of Hutu were at
risk but their very lives. They warned that the Tutsi minority could not hope to reestablish their control
over the majority without killing large numbers of Hutu. By December 1990, Kangura had begun
charging that the Tutsi had prepared a war that “would leave no survivors.” Another pamphlet
produced by Mugesera declared in February 1991 that the RPF planned “to restore the dictatorship of
the extremists of the Tutsi minority,” by “a genocide, the extermination of the Hutu majority.” 101 As the
conflict progressed, the warnings became increasingly explicit and hysterical. By mid-1993,
propagandists were asserting, “We know that they have attacked us with the intention of massacring
and exterminating 4.5 million Hutu and especially those who have gone to school....”102 Particularly
after April 6, 1994, propagandists and media circulated the story that Tutsi had prepared pits to serve
as mass graves for the Hutu. RPF troops had indeed dug trenches to protect their positions, which may
have given some support to these rumors. Hard-liners even claimed that Tutsi had prepared holes in
the dirt floors of their houses to accommodate Hutu corpses. That custom—not to mention concerns of
99
Anonymous, Amwe Mu Magambo Yanditse Ku Byapa Abamilitante n’Abamilita Bitwaje Mu Rugendo Rwo Gushyigikira Ingabo
Z’u Rwanda n’Umugaba Wazo W’Ikirenga, Mu Mujyi wa Butare Kuwa 3 Ugushyingo 1990 (Butare prefecture).
100
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 347, 353.
101
Association des Femmes Parlementaires pour la Défense des Droits de la Mère et de l’Enfant en collaboration avec Dr.
Mugesera Léon, “Toute la Vérité sur la Guerre d’Octobre 1990 au Rwanda,” Kigali, February 1991, p. 5. An English version of the
pamphlet, published in March 1991 under the title “The Whole Truth on the October 1990 War Imposed upon Rwanda by the
Aggressors from Uganda Armed Forces” differs slightly in wording from the original French (International Commission).
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp.159-60, 180, 186, 290-91, 293, 323. In making this argument, propagandists often
recalled the slaughter in Burundi of tens of thousands of Hutu, particularly “intellectuals,” by the Tutsi-dominated military in
1972.
102
57
March 1999
health and odor—made such burial unthinkable did not discourage speculation that they intended to
dispose of the bodies in this way.103
In warning that the Tutsi were planning a genocide against the Hutu, several publications appear to
have have followed closely the propaganda tactic of “accusation in a mirror.” Some attributed to Tutsi
the words that Hutu themselves would eventually use in inciting the slaughter of Tutsi. In September
1991, La Médaille Nyiramacibiri stated that the Tutsi wanted to “clean up Rwanda...by throwing Hutu in
the Nyabarongo [River]”, a phrase that would become notorious when Mugesera applied it to Tutsi a
year later. Kangura reported that RPF soldiers captured by the government forces said that they “had
come to clean the county of the filth of Hutu.”104 During the genocide, Hutu would often talk of
cleansing their communities of the filth of the Tutsi. In April 1992, the newspaper Jyambere charged
opposition parties with distributing arms to their youth wings, revealing by its “accusations in a
mirrror” exactly what the Habyarimana forces were then doing.105
The Regional Context
Echoing the military memorandum which had identified the “Nilo-Hamitic people of the region,” in
general, and Tutsi in Uganda, Zaire, and Burundi, in particular, as sources of support for the “enemy,”
propagandists stressed the regional aspect of the RPF attack. The RPF had launched its operation from
Uganda with the support, though unacknowledged, of the Ugandan authorities. Some of the most
important leaders of the RPF had served in the Ugandan army under the command of Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni, who supposedly was related through a grandmother to the Bahima. The
Bahima are pastoralists, a small number of whom lived in northeastern Rwanda, and are generally
grouped with Tutsi. In neighboring Burundi, Tutsi dominated the army and economy, although they
briefly lost control of political power after the election of a Hutu president and his party in June 1993.
Tutsi were also powerful in adjacent regions of Zaire. From these disparate pieces of information,
propagandists like those at Kangura concluded that:
There is indeed a diabolical plan prepared by the Tutsi and related groups and
targeting the systematic extermination of the Bantu population as well as the
extension of a Nilotic empire from Ethiopia...and Douala to the sources of the Nile
and from...Gabon to Lesotho going through the vast basins of the Kongo, the Rift
Valley of Tanzania...down to the Cape and the Drakensberg Mountains....What are
the Bantu peoples waiting for to protect themselves against the genocide that has
been so carefully and consciously orchestrated by the Hamites thirsty for blood and
for barbarian conquests and whose leaders dispute the golden medal of cruelty with
the Roman emperor Nero....106
In his pamphlet, Mugesera weighed in with the same idea, asserting that the Tutsi intended to:
Solidarité Internationale pour les Réfugiés Rwandais, Le Non-Dit sur les Massacres au Rwanda, vol. 2, January 1995, p. 11 and
vol. 3, July 1995, pp.124-37; Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p.266.
103
104
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 160, 176.
105
Ibid., p. 255.
106
Ibid., p. 169.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
58
“Establish in the Bantu region of the great lakes (Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Tanzania,
Uganda) a vast kingdom for the Hima-Tutsi, an ethnic group that considers itself
superior, on the model of the Aryan race, and which uses Hitler’s Swastika as its
emblem.”107
Mugesera’s linking the plot for a Tutsi empire to the Nazis was picked up by Kangura several months
later. In its September 1991 issue, it repeats the charge that neo-Nazi Tutsi, nostalgic for power, dream
of “colonial expansion,” and adds to this the accusation that they are cannibals besides.108 Mugesera
and Kangura appear to have been implementing the tactic of “accusation in a mirror” by connecting
the Tutsi with the Nazis. It may have been Habyarimana and his intimates instead who were the
admirers of Hitler. Copies of films about Hitler and Naziism were apparently found in Habyarimana’s
residence after the family fled in early April 1994.109
The propagandists buttressed their argument about the plan to create a grand Tutsi empire by referring
to an apparently apocryphal letter, dated 1962, about a Tutsi program to “re-colonize” the region
starting from the Kivu region of Zaire. They also talked of a plan supposedly formulated by a Tutsi
politician named Arthémon Simbananiye in Burundi for killing off the Hutu population over a period of
decades. This purported plan, frequently discussed by Hutu in Burundi, seemed credible in a country
where Tutsi had in fact slaughtered tens of thousands of Hutu.110
“The Hutu as Innocent Victim”
Underlying much of this propaganda is the image of the Hutu as the innocent victim—victim of the
original aggression by Tutsi conquerors some centuries ago, of the “infiltration” of the state and
society, and of the 1990 invasion. After April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana himself would become
the ultimate symbol of Hutu as innocent victim.
When the government was criticized for killing Tutsi in the years before the genocide, officials and
propagandists alike tried to demonstrate that the Tutsi had slaughtered more than the Hutu. In
September 1991, the pro-Habyarimana publication La Medaille Nyiramacibiri discounted reports that
Hutu officials had been responsible for killing Tutsi and offered instead to give readers lists of the
Hutu killed by Tutsi so “then you will know who are the real criminals.”111
In 1992 and 1993, Habyarimana came under increasingly severe attack for human rights abuses,
including the slaughter of some 2,000 Tutsi. In February 1993 the RPF violated a cease-fire and killed
hundreds of civilians in their military advance and several dozen others by summary executions.
Hoping to divert attention from the criticism against Habyarimana, propagandists and officials like the
Rwandan ambassador to the U.S. launched exaggerated accusations against the RPF. Depicting the
Hutu as the true victims, they asserted that the RPF had killed 40,200 civilians.112 In a letter to the
pope and various heads of state, a group of people identifying themselves as “intellectuals of the city
107
Associations des Femmes Parlementaires, “Toute la Vérité sur la Guerre d’Octobre 1990 au Rwanda,” p. 5.
108
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 178.
109
Ibid., photo facing p. 257.
110
Ibid., pp. 163, 167.
111
Ibid., p. 177.
112
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” p. 23.
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of Butare,” and using the Butare campus of the National University as their return address, accused
the RPF of genocide. They went so far as to indicate how many of the 40,200 victims had come from
each of the communes affected by the latest RPF attack. Even had the number of estimated victims not
raised suspicions, such spurious detail would have caused doubts, given that the letter was dated
only eleven days after the attack. A group of seventeen Rwandans studying in the United States sent
out a similar letter to American political leaders and organizations on February 24. 113 In a speech on
March 23, 1993, President Habyarimana did not go so far, but claimed merely that the RPF had
slaughtered several tens of thousands of civilians.114
“The Tutsi Cause Their Own Misfortune”
According to the propagandists, the suffering of the Hutu was real and grievous, but the misery of the
Tutsi was a sham or, if real, had been their own fault. Those Tutsi apparently killed by official direction
had in fact committed suicide, they said, or had left the country to go join the RPF. Those who had
been driven from homes that had then been burned and pillaged had actually destroyed their own
property to give Hutu a bad name or to cover their departure for the ranks of the RPF. In a speech to
military commanders on March 13, 1993, President Habyarimana suggested that it was possible that
the RPF itself had “organized and aggravated” the massacres of the Tutsi that had taken place at the
end of January 1993 (see below) in order to give themselves a pretext for violating the cease-fire.115
And, once again relying on the easy identification of all Tutsi with the RPF, propagandists said Tutsi
deserved whatever ill befell them because it was they who had launched the war in the first place.
“Hutu Solidarity”
Propagandists and officials constantly reminded Hutu that they had one important advantage in facing
this ruthless and insidious enemy: they were rubanda nyamwinshi, the great majority. Kangura
encouraged them, “Your unity, your mutual understanding, your solidarity are the certain weapons of
your victory.” But this advantage could be thrown away. As Kangura warned, “you understand that
when the majority people is divided, [then] the minority becomes the majority...” 116 Hutu must not be
divided by regionalism or by conflicting party loyalties. Any who trusted in the Tutsi rather than in their
fellow Hutu would suffer the consequences. Should the Tutsi win, they would pay no attention to place
of origin or political party membership—they would oppress all Hutu in the same way.
The propagandists, like the authors of the military memorandum, railed against any Hutu who would
dare to break ranks: such traitors could not possibly act from worthy motives but must have
succumbed to money or women offered by the Tutsi. The need to maintain Hutu purity and to avoid
contamination from the Tutsi was taught in a notorious set of “Ten Commandments.” It specified that
any Hutu who married or consorted with Tutsi women were traitors, as were any who engaged in
business with Tutsi. It demanded that all strategic posts in politics or administration be reserved for
113
Letter with four pages of signatures, a total of 104 names, to the pope and other international dignitaries, Butare, February
19, 1993; Letter from the Cercle Rwandais de Reflexion to Africa Watch, February 24, 1993.
114
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” p. 23.
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 63, 155, 177, 337; Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” p.16; “Report of the
International Commission,” p. 25.
115
116
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 154, 220.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
60
Hutu and that the armed forces be exclusively Hutu.117 The virulence of the attacks against Hutu who
opposed Habyarimana showed how much the president and his supporters dreaded the
“Kanyarengwe effect.” Discrediting those already in the opposition was not enough; they had to make
it unthinkable for others to join them.
The popular singer Simon Bikindi spread this message in a song entitled “I Hate Hutu.” In one version,
he particularly targets the Hutu of Butare:
Let us start in the region of Butare where they like feudalism [the reign of the Tutsi],
who would blame me for that? I hate them and I don’t apologize for that. I hate them
and I don’t apologize for that. Lucky for us that they are few in number...Those who
have ears, let them hear!118
Once propagandists had established the supposedly overwhelming threat to Hutu—to their lives and
to their very existence as a people, as well as to their freedom and material well-being—it was an easy
step to arguing their right—indeed their duty—to defend themselves, their country, and the revolution.
The best-known expression of this idea before the genocide came in a speech delivered on November
22, 1992 by Léon Mugesera.
The Mugesera Speech: “Do Not Let Yourselves Be Invaded”
Party meetings offered propagandists an essential opportunity to spread the doctrine. In emotionfilled gatherings, where music, dancing performances and beer warmed the audience, propagandists
could send their message directly into the hearts of their listeners. Speakers caught up in the
excitement of playing to a responsive crowd often delivered the message of the moment in a more
dramatic and intense form than what might be printed in a newspaper or broadcast over the radio.
They could also use the opportunity to test what ideas could be made acceptable to the party faithful.
Few such speeches are available for analysis, but one has been preserved in its entirety, probably
because its ideas and style of expression were so extreme and called forth a vigorous response from
the opposition.
The setting was an MRND meeting at Kabaya, not far from Habyarimana’s home, in the northwestern
prefecture of Gisenyi. The speaker, Mugesera, was then vice-president of the MRND for the prefecture
as well as an official of the Ministry for the Family and the Promotion of Feminine Affairs. The date was
November 22, 1992, one week after a well-publicized speech by President Habyarimana in the
adjacent prefecture of Ruhengeri in which he had disavowed the Arusha Accords. Habyarimana had
also talked about elections that would someday be held in Rwanda, promising that the MRND militia,
the Interahamwe, would serve as a striking force to ensure his victory.
In a speech that weaves together the major themes of pro-Habyarimana propaganda, Mugesera
stresses above all the danger of being invaded. In opening his remarks, he tells the audience: “At
whatever cost, you will leave here with these words...do not let yourselves be invaded.” And after
having returned to the phrase about not being invaded another ten times in the half hour speech, he
concludes, “I know you are men...who do not let themselves be invaded, who refuse to be scorned.”
117
Ibid., pp. 141-42.
118
Recording of RTLM broadcasts, October 17-31, 1993 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
61
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The invasion to which he refers is two-pronged: of course, that of the RPF, and, in addition, that of the
political parties opposed to Habyarimana. In the most frequently cited passages, Mugesera attacks
the “Inyenzi”—he insists that they must be called Inyenzi, never the more respectful Inkotanyi—but he
assails with equal force those political parties which he labels “accomplices” of the RPF. He condemns
the MDR, the PL, and the PSD as “traitors” for talking with the RPF and for demoralizing and causing
mutinies in the Rwandan army by raising the question of its eventual demobilization. He accuses them
of having given away the prefecture of Byumba because they favored a cease-fire and negotiations
after the RPF had taken part of that region. He insists that ministers of opposition parties who pretend
to represent Rwanda in the peace negotiations do not in fact speak for the nation. “They are Inyenzi
talking to [other] Inyenzi.” Taking his cue from Habyarimana’s rejection of the Arusha Accords the
previous week, he asserts that “we will never accept these things.”
Mugesera shows concern also for the way the MDR, PL, and PSD are destroying Hutu unity. He berates
them for having “invaded” the MRND in various ways: by bringing their party flags and regalia into the
northwestern prefectures, by “tak[ing] our men,” by challenging MRND leadership in Nshili commune
(see above), and by replacing MRND functionaries with their own supporters in ministeries under their
control. Saying that the MRND is “at war” with members of these parties, he warns that these
opponents are armed and have “begun to kill.” He demands that they clear out of the region because
“we cannot accept that such people shoot us down while pretending to live among us.”
Saying that the enemy’s objective is extermination, Mugesera exhorts his audience to “rise up...really
rise up” in self-defense. He cites the Bible several times and declares that the MRND has a new
version of the Biblical adage to turn the other cheek: “If you are struck once on one cheek, you should
strike back twice...” He says that the law provides the death penalty for both politicians inside the
country and “Inyenzi” who have betrayed the national interest. If the judicial system is not going to act
to execute this punishment, then the people have the right to do so themselves and “to exterminate
this scum.” In referring to the “Inyenzi,” he says that it was a mistake that some of them were allowed
to get away in 1959. He recounts a conversation in which he warned a member of the PL, “I am telling
you that your home is in Ethiopia, that we are going to send you back there quickly, by the Nyabarongo
[River].” For the audience, “member of the PL” could not have meant anything other than Tutsi, and
the mention of transportation by the Nyabarongo had to be understood as killing the people in
question and dumping the bodies in the river, a usual practice in past massacres of Tutsi. [The
Nyabarongo feeds into the rivers of the Nile watershed and hence is supposed to permit passage to
Ethiopia.] Mugesera directs the faithful to keep careful track of all the people who come into their
neighborhoods and to “crush” any accomplice so that “he will not be able to get away.”
Speaking before Rwandans, who ordinarily value sophisticated, allusive rhetoric, Mugesera chose
unusually blunt words to convey his message. Using a coarse term not often heard in a public address,
he talks of members of other parties coming to MRND territory to defecate. He depicts the opponent as
dying, in the agony of death, knocked down, and under ground. He calls them “vermin” that must be
“liquidated.” And at the end, he gives a final warning, “Know that the person whose throat you do not
cut now will be the one who will cut yours.”5119
119
Léon Mugesera, “Discours Prononcé par Léon Mugesera lors d’un Meeting du M.R.N.D. Tenu à Kabaya le 22 novembre 1992.”
The version of the speech quoted here was the French text submitted by the Canadian government in legal proceedings against
Mugesera in September 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
62
Mugesera’s speech was tape-recorded. Excerpts were broadcast on the national radio and copies of
the cassette were circulated among people in Kigali and other towns. One newspaper published the
text. Many persons, and not all of them opposed to the MRND, expressed outrage at this bald
summons to slaughter. Jean Rumiya, a professor at the university and former colleague of Mugesera,
wrote him an open letter to criticize this “true call to murder.” He remarked that Mugesera, someone
who had done much textual analysis in his work, certainly understood exactly what he was doing with
his use of coarse language and terms like “cutting throats.” He pointed out that whether by
coincidence or by design, Mugesera had used the same kind of language heard at the time of recent
Tutsi massacres in the northwest. As a former member of the central committee of the MRND, he
regretted that a speech so full of ethnic hatred and political intolerance could be presented at a MRND
meeting and particularly without eliciting a protest from the audience. He had believed, he wrote, that
“the time of ritual murders for political ends was finished.”120
The minister of justice, a member of the PL, issued a warrant for Mugesera’s arrest for inciting to
violence. Mugesera dropped from view. According to some witnesses, he sought refuge at a military
camp for a few weeks before pro-Habyarimana soldiers helped him escape from the country in early
1993. He returned to Canada where he had once studied at Laval University. On July 11, 1996, the
Canadian arbiter Pierre Turmel, ajudicator in an administrative proceeding brought by the Ministry of
Citizenship and Immigration, found that Mugesera had incited to genocide by his November 1992
speech and ordered him expelled from Canada on a number of charges.121
Practicing Slaughter
To execute a campaign against Tutsi effectively took practice. Before the grim background of war,
economic distress, violent political competition, insecurity and impunity, and to the accompaniment
of virulent propaganda, radicals staged the practice for the catastrophe to come. The rehearsals took
place in more than a dozen communities, the most important being the commune of Kibilira in
October 1990, March 1992, December 1992, and January 1993; in several communes in northwestern
Rwanda, including Mukingo, Kinigi, Gaseke, Giciye, Karago, and Mutura in January and February 1991;
in the region known as Bugesera, commune Kanzenze, in March 1992; in several communes of Kibuye
in August 1992; and again in the northwest in December 1992 and January 1993. 122 These attacks
slaughtered some 2,000 Tutsi and dozens of Hutu and established patterns for the genocide of 1994.
Choosing the Target
The organizers launched the attacks where they could be sure of success, in regions most identified
with Habyarimana and his supporters. Of the seventeen incidents of serious violence in the years
120
Jean Rumiya, Lettre ouverte à M. Mugesera Léon, Butare, December 9, 1992 (International Commission).
La Commission de l’Immigration et du statut de réfugié, Section d’Arbitrage, Décision dans la Cause entre Léon Mugesera et
Le Ministre de la Citoyenneté et de l’Immigration, Dossier no. QML-95-00171, Montréal, 11 juillet 1996. Mugesera appealed the
decision, but the appeal was rejected in November 1998.
121
122
Information for this section is drawn from two reports published by Africa Watch, “Talking Peace and Waging War” and
“Beyond the Rhetoric,” and from the “Report of the International Commission,” which treat these massacres in detail. See also
Human Rights Watch, Slaughter Among Neighbors; The Political Origins of Communal Violence (New Haven: Human Rights
Watch and Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 13-32; Eric Gillet and Andre Jadoul, “Rapport de Deux Missions Effectuées par Eric
Gillet et André Jadoul, avocats au barreau de Bruxelles, au Rwanda du 9 au 17 janvier et du 2 au 5 février 1992,” Bruxelles, mai
1992; and the 1992 and 1993 reports of the Rwandan human rights group ADL.
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1990-1993, fourteen took place in the northwest quadrant of the country and the fifteenth took place
in Bugesera, where considerable numbers of Hutu from the northwest had settled relatively recently.
Authorities tolerated and incited small-scale, sporadic killings of Tutsi throughout this period, but they
also initiated five more important attacks, each time in reaction to challenges that threatened
Habyarimana’s control. They sought to use ethnic violence to transform the threats into opportunities
to strengthen their position. The first two challenges were military, the October l, 1990 invasion and
the lightning strike by the RPF at Ruhengeri on January 22, 1991. Massacres of Tutsi began ten days
after the first, almost immediately after the second. By organizing reprisals against the Tutsi, the
regime got rid of some “enemies” and fostered solidarity among Hutu who actually or vicariously
joined in the killing. At the same time, it was able to claim to have located the reason for the setback—
“infiltrators”—and to have dealt with it successfully.
The other three challenges were political. The first was the unexpectedly strong demand by the new
parties of opposition for a place in the government. They were able to turn out tens of thousands of
demonstrators in January 1992 and kept up pressure on Habyarimana throughout discussions during
the following month. The next was the first protocol of the Arusha Accords, which Habyarimana signed
under heavy domestic and international pressure in August 1992. The last was the January 1993
signature of a further protocol of the Accords concerning the transitional government that was to
govern in the interim between the signature of the peace treaty and elections. In these three instances,
Habyarimana and his supporters used massacres of Tutsi to create the appearance of massive
opposition to concessions to other political parties and to the RPF.
The first three of these rehearsals for slaughter targeted only Tutsi. But during the August 1992 attack
and the violence at the end of 1992 and in early 1993, assailants killed both Tutsi and Hutu members
of parties opposed to Habyarimana, presaging the catastrophe of 1994.
Feeding the Fear
Before these attacks, authorities used lies, exaggeration, and rumors about the local situation to make
the general propaganda against Tutsi more immediate and frightening. They staged incidents or
reported events which had not in fact occurred to “prove” that Tutsi inside Rwanda were
“accomplices” of the RPF. This accusation, repeated constantly and by officials and community
leaders alike, was itself a recurring “created” event, meant to bring the threat inside and to make the
danger real.
In Kibirira in October 1990, some officials told people that Tutsi planned to exterminate the Hutu and
had killed two Hutu in their region. Others told the local population that Tutsi had killed two important
military men from the region, Colonel Serubuga and Colonel Uwihoreye. Still others spread the rumor
that Tutsi had attacked children at local schools.
To incite Hutu to kill the Bagogwe, generally seen as a subgroup of the Tutsi, in the communes of
northwestern Rwanda in early 1991, authorities blamed them for having helped the RPF stage its
surprise attack on Ruhengeri on January 23, 1991. To increase fear further, the military followed the
successful precedent of the October 1990 “attack” on Kigali and staged a fake assault on the
important Bigogwe military camp in the region. This worked so well that in one commune the
burgomaster had trouble persuading the Hutu not to flee—their immediate reaction—but instead to
stay and attack their Bagogwe neighbors.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
64
In Bugesera, where large numbers of recent Hutu migrants from the northwest had settled adjacent to
groups of Tutsi resident there since the revolution, local authorities whipped up Hutu sentiment
against Tutsi by publicizing the departure of young Tutsi who crosssed the nearby Burundi border to
join the RPF. In late February and early March 1992, Hassan Ngeze, editor of Kangura, visited Bugesera
several times to spread tracts and rumors about the danger of “Inyenzi” infiltration and attacks.
Following a local meeting of the PL on March 1, such a tract was distributed in the community accusing
the PL leader of being a rebel and an assassin and closing with words reminiscent of Mugesera’s
speech a few months before: they must not escape us! On March 3, Radio Rwanda five times
broadcast the “news” that a “human rights group” in Nairobi had issued a press release warning that
Tutsi were going to kill Hutu, particularly Hutu political leaders, in Bugesera. Some Hutu took this to be
the truth and the next night began slaughtering Tutsi.
In communes in northwestern Rwanda in December 1992 and January 1993, officials warned that
killers were lurking in the nearby Gishwati forest and they organized the population to “clear the
brush.” “The brush” referred to Tutsi who were thought to provide cover to the RPF, allowing them to
infiltrate without being noticed because they looked like resident Tutsi. Also in this region officials
cautioned that strangers had been sighted, including a “man with a red bag,” a shadowy figure who
had also supposedly put in an appearance in Kibirira at one time. They also asserted that a young
Tutsi who had left—to join the RPF, they said—had returned carrying a suspicious-looking bag.
Directing the Attacks
Local officials at the level of cell, sector, and commune directed the early massacres. In several places,
such as the communes of Gaseke and Giciye, they told the people that participating in the attacks was
their umuganda or communal work obligation. Other community leaders, such as teachers, health
workers, the staff of developments projects, and party heads also helped turn out killers.
In Bugesera in March 1992, authorities used the Interahamwe to slaughter Tutsi for the first time.
Drawing on experience gained in the violence of kubohoza, the militia knew how to take the lead,
making it possible for government officials to play a less public part in the slaughter. At the end of
1992 and in early 1993, they again supported Hutu attacking Tutsi in the northwest, confirming their
usefulness in ethnic violence.
Officials determined the end as well as the start of the slaughter. In Kibirira, for example, authorities
needed only to send two policemen to blow their whistles and announce the end to the killing. The
police did not need to fire a single shot to restore order. In January 1993 two burgomasters halted the
attacks against Tutsi during the visit of an international commission investigating human rights
violations, saying the slaughter would resume when the group left. Indeed, the killings began within
hours of its departure.
Officials often directed assailants first to pillage property, guaranteeing them immediate profit as they
accustomed themsleves to attacking their neighbors. In communities where people showed no
enthusiasm for even this level of violence, the attacks went no further. But where officials were able to
generate enough fear and greed, assailants moved to the next stage of destroying houses and then to
killing the inhabitants of the houses.
Just as the attacks could increase in intensity, so they could increase in area, with attacks in one
sector or commune sparking similar crimes in the adjacent regions.
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Once massacres began in an area, authorities held victims hostage by refusing them the permits
needed to leave for other regions or by physically barring their escape routes with barriers. Tutsi
attempting to pass the barriers were usually identified by their identity cards and then slain. Those
who decided not to flee were killed in their homes.
Civilian authorities played the major role in directing attacks, but they occasionally called on the
military for support. In northwestern Rwanda in early 1991, soldiers rounded up Bagogwe to be slain
and helped civilians when they encountered resistance from their intended victims. In Bugesera in
March 1992, soldiers in civilian dress joined groups of killers while others in uniform disarmed Tutsi
and kept them cornered until the killing teams could arrive.
In the northwest and in Bugesera, civilian and military authorities occasionally rounded up groups of
several dozen people to be massacred all at one time at a site such as a communal office. But for the
most part, they did not attack large groups who gathered spontaneously at such sites—particularly at
churches. Instead they cut their access to food and water to force them to return home. They were not
yet ready to launch the large-scale attacks that became usual during the 1994 genocide.
Lying about the Violence
When confronted with reports of killings, the authorities often simply denied that the slaughter had
taken place. This strategy worked best in cases where the killings had taken place in an inaccessible
location. Because the Bagogwe, for example, lived far from the capital and in an area where access
was controlled by the military, the authorities were able to continue pretending there had been no
slaughter until outside investigators insisted on visiting the region and revealed the lie. 123
When the massacre was too widely known to be plausibly denied, authorities had ready a range of
excuses, most of which asserted that the victims had brought the slaughter on themselves—by
boasting of imminent RPF victory, by threatening Hutu, or by having planned to attack Hutu. They
ordinarily concluded by equating Tutsi with the RPF and declaring that Tutsi were being killed because
they had launched an unjustified war against Rwanda in the first place.
Well aware of how easily foreigners accepted explanations of “ancient, tribal hatreds,” the authorities
repeatedly underlined the “tribal” nature of the killings when called to account by the international
community. They insisted that they had been simply unable to control the outburst of spontaneous,
popular rage. Then, turning the explanation into a plea for additional foreign support, they would
express regrets that the government was so poor that it could not provide officials with the needed
resources to keep order in such difficult circumstances.
Impunity
No one, neither official nor ordinary citizen, was ever convicted of any crime in connection with these
massacres. Some suspected assailants were arrested after the Kibilira massacre, but were released
several weeks later. The prefect of the adjacent prefecture warned in early 1991 that the killings might
begin again because those apparently guilty at Kibilira had been liberated and “were boasting of
123
“Report of the International Commission,” p.17.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
66
‘brave deeds’ that had gone unpunished.”124 The government removed several officials from their
posts in areas where attacks had occurred, particularly after foreign criticism of the killings and after
the installation of the coalition government when officials opposed to Habyarimana could influence
appointment of personnel. But, more discreetly, national authorities also removed local officials who
had protected Tutsi or tried to prevent the spread of violence against them.
International Response to the Massacres
In pursuing ethnic violence as a way to keep political power, Habyarimana and his supporters stayed
alert to any international reaction to the killings. Even before the war, Rwanda needed foreign financial
assistance to keep the government running. With military expenditures, the war-time damage to the
economy and the burden of feeding hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, it had become even
more dependent on donor nations, both for direct aid and for support through such multilateral
institutions as the World Bank and the European Union. Leaders of whatever political persuasion—
even radicals of the CDR—understood the importance of maintaining some level of international
respectability.
Foreigners—diplomats, aid experts, clergy, technocrats resident in the country—also wanted to
maintain the positive image of this clean, well-organized, hard-working little country. Even as evidence
of human rights abuses mounted, many were reluctant to admit wrongdoing by the government. In July
1991, consultants from outside the system and thus unaffected by this enthusiasm for the
Habyarimana regime found representatives of the major donors in Kigali unwilling to admit that ethnic
conflict posed serious risks. When they advised donors to insist on the removal of ethnic classification
on identity cards as a condition for continued aid, none of them took the advice. 125
Donors hoped to correct what they viewed as inadequacies in the regime by fostering the growth of a
“civil society,” including Rwandan human rights groups. Activitists like Monique Mujyawamariya of
ADL, Alphonse-Marie Nkubito of ARDHO, Bernadette Kanzayire of AVP, and Fidele Kanyabugoyi of
Kanyarwanda pressured the government for reforms and also kept diplomats in Kigali well-informed of
violations. On the occasion of particularly egregious abuses, such as the Bugesera massacre, they
actually took diplomats to witness the events. When confronted by such evidence, the diplomats
ordinarily intervened with the Rwandan government, discreetly in less important cases, more formally
by a joint visit to the authorities in cases like that of Bugesera. These occasional protests sometimes
resolved short-term problems but failed to affect Habyarimana’s overall policy. Donor nations
regarded human rights abuses generally as the result of the war and they chose to work on ending the
war rather than on addressing the violations as such. Many would adopt the same position at the time
of the genocide. Habyarimana understood the foreign reluctance to intervene and when questioned
about massacres, he was always ready with suitable expressions of regret and promises to avoid such
mishaps in the future. The foreign donors easily swallowed this reassurance.
124
Gaspard Ruhumuliza, Préfet de Kibuye, to Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense Nationale, no. 017/04.18, February 11, 1991
(Kibuye prefecture).
125
A team of consultants gave this advice in July 1991 to a group that included ambassadors and others from the embassies of
the U.S., France, Canada, Germany, and Belgium. The French at one point recommended that Rwandans remove ethnic
categories from identity papers but failed to exert the necessary pressure to have this done.
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The International Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda
Rwandan activists expected more from the donors who always spoke so highly about the importance
of human rights. To focus foreign attention on the seriousness of the problem, the activists in the
coalition CLADHO pressed international human rights organizations to mount a joint commission to
examine the human rights situation in Rwanda. Four agreed to do so: Human Rights Watch (New York),
the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (Paris), the International Center for Human
Rights and Democratic Development (Montreal) and the Interafrican Union of Human and Peoples’
Rights (Ouagadougou).
During an inquiry in Rwanda in January 1993, the International Commission amassed substantial data
to show that “President Habyarimana and his immediate entourage bear heavy responsibility for these
massacres [from October 1990 through January 1993] and other abuses against Tutsi and members of
the political opposition.”126
The commission also presented evidence of abuses by the RPF, but given that the RPF then controlled
a population of only 3,000 people, this part of the report attracted relatively little attention.
The commission report, published on March 8, 1993, put Rwandan human rights abuses squarely
before the international community. It was widely distributed among donor nations and was even
handed out by the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs to representatives meeting to discuss
assistance to Rwanda.127 International donors accepted its conclusions and expressed concern, but
took no effective action to insist that the guilty be brought to justice or that such abuses not be
repeated in the future. French President François Mitterrand directed that an official protest be made
and explanations demanded from the Rwandan government, but French authorities made no public
criticism of the massacres documented in the report.128 Belgium reacted most strongly by recalling its
ambassador for consultations but in the end made no significant changes in its aid program. The U.S.
redirected part of its financial aid from official channels to nongovernmental organizations operating
in Rwanda so that the Rwandan government could not profit from it, and Canada also cut back on its
aid. But both donors weakened the impact of their decisions by linking them to Rwandan fiscal
mismanagement or shortage of their own funds as much as to human rights abuses.
The report of the International Commission was presented to the United Nations Human Rights
Commission, but it declined to discuss the matter in open session, reportedly because it had too
many other African nations already on its docket. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Summary,
Arbitrary and Extrajudicial Executions undertook a mission to Rwanda in April 1993 and produced a
report in August 1993 that largely confirmed the report of the International Commission. Referring to
the possibility, raised by the International Commission, that the massacres of the Tutsi might
constitute genocide, the special rapporteur concluded that in his judgment the killings were genocide
according to the terms of the 1948 Convention for the Suppression and Punishment of Genocide.
126
“Report of the International Commission,” p.51.
Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, Early Warning and Conflict Management, Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to
Rwanda, March 1996, p. 32. This is the second volume of a larger study of the international response to the Rwandan crisis,
now commonly called “the Danish report.” Funded by a consortium of the donor nations, it provoked a critical response from
France, which withdrew its sponsorship of the report.
127
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête sur la tragédie rwandaise (1990-1994), Tome III, Auditions,
Volume 1, pp. 322, 330.
128
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
68
To forestall any further damage to his image, Habyarimana responded to the charges of the
International Commission in a formal statement, signed jointly with Prime Minister Dismas
Nsengiyaremye on April 7, 1993. In it, the Rwandan government “recognizes and regrets the human
rights violations committed in our country.” But continuing to deny that officials had taken the
initiative in any of these abuses, the government declared only that it had failed to assure the security
of citizens who were attacked. It did, however, promise to undertake a series of human rights reforms
that closely followed the recommendations of the commission. Habyarimana at the same time
launched efforts to discredit the commission, calling into existence four fake human rights
organizations that published a scurrilous pamphlet attacking commission members and sponsored a
European speaking tour for two representatives to refute the report. The attempt to discredit the
commission was too clumsy to succeed, but Habyarimana had secured the continuing favor of donors
in any case by his April 7 profession of good intentions.
In the months after the publication of the report, there were no more massacres of Tutsi and the
international community hoped that the ethnic violence would not be repeated. But its willingness to
accept excuses for lesser massacres and its continuing acceptance of impunity for killers in official
positions contributed to the very result they wished to avoid, more slaughter and this time
catastrophic in scale and unambiguously genocidal in nature.
In the episodes of violence from 1990 to 1994, Habyarimana’s supporters perfected some of the
tactics they would use during the genocide: how to choose the best sites to launch attacks, how to
develop the violence—both in intensity and in extent—from small beginnings, how to mobilize people
through fear, particularly fear aroused by “created” events, how to use barriers and bureaucratic
regulations to keep a target group restricted to one place, and how to build cooperation between
civilian, military, and militia leaders to produce the most effective attacks. Perhaps equally important,
they had learned that this kind of slaughter would be tolerated by the international community.
Choosing War
The Rwandan government and the RPF signed a cease-fire in July 1992 and the first protocol of the
Arusha Accords the next month, but progress to peace was one step forward and two steps back. On
August 17, 1992, the day after the protocol was signed, Habyarimana declared on the radio that he
would not permit negotiators to “lead our country into an adventure it would not like.”129 Three days
later, MRND and CDR supporters killed dozens of Tutsi and members of parties opposed to
Habyarimana in the Kibuye massacre described above. During these weeks, the president was
apparently conducting private negotiations with the RPF through a Jesuit priest, seeking to obtain
assurance of a amnesty for himself in return for his resignation. As it was becoming clear that these
talks would lead nowhere, Habyarimana and his supporters learned that more than a million dollars
worth of arms had been seized in Orlando, Florida. They supposed that these arms, apparently en
route to Kampala, were meant to resupply the RPF and they anticipated an RPF attack at the end of
September or beginning of October.130 It may have been these events which prompted the Rwandan
army high command to disseminate on September 21 its memorandum defining the enemy, which had
129
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p.161.
130
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Lausanne, August 29, 1996.
69
March 1999
been sitting in a drawer for a number of months. In mid-October, the MRND ministers indicated that
the government was divided over peace negotiations and three days later, the CDR took to the streets
to protest the talks. At the end of October, nonetheless, the Rwandan government and the RPF signed
the second part of the Arusha Accords. Two weeks later, Habyarimana disavowed the agreements in
his “scrap of paper” declaration, and a week after that MRND propagandist Mugesera invited his
fellow party members to engage in mayhem against Tutsi and Hutu opposed to the MRND.131
At the end of December 1992, the MRND (with Habyarimana as party president), the CDR, and several
allied smaller parties issued a vigorous rejection of the Accords, calling it “a plan for treason” which
“[we] must prepare to defeat.”132 Two weeks later, the Rwandan government agreed to another part of
the Accords, the one which decided political arrangements for the transitional period before elections.
But not quite two weeks after that, the secretary-general of the MRND, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, again
denounced the Accords, a position echoed several days later by Habyarimana himself who said that
certain provisions must be re-negotiated.133 The MRND and CDR mobilized their followers in the streets
to protest the agreement and launched the January 1993 massacre, described above, to disrupt the
whole peace process.
He Who Wishes for Peace Prepares for War
Arms
Even as peace talks lurched uncertainly forward, the Rwandan army prepared for further war. After
having obtained U.S.$6 million worth of arms from Egypt the previous March, the Ministry of Defense
took delivery of a further U.S.$5.9 million worth of arms and ammunition from South Africa on October
19, 1992. The March purchase included some 450 Kalashnikov rifles, a standard infantry assault
weapon and the one then used by most Rwandan soldiers, and the October purchase included 20,000
R-4 rifles. At the time of the March purchase, the Rwandan army also bought two thousand rocketpropelled grenades, which require a significant amount of instruction to use effectively, but no hand
grenades; in October they purchased 20,000 hand grenades, which could be used by persons with
relatively little training.134
The October purchase of small arms seems remarkably large, given that the armed forces then
numbered some 30,000 men and was not being expanded. Any recruitment then being carried out was
just to replace deserters.135 Although there were perhaps a thousand or so deserters per year, they did
not all leave with their guns, and arming their replacements did not require 20,000 new weapons.136
131
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, pp. 204-05; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp. 162-63, 171.
132
Antoine Jouan, “Rwanda 1990-1994: de la transition politique au génocide,” Fondation Médecins sans Frontières, December
1995, pp. 34-35.
133
Jouan, “Rwanda 1990-1994,” p. 35; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 205.
134
Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Arming Rwanda,” p. 22.
135
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Lausanne, August 29, 1996.
136
Estimates based on correspondence between the prefect and burgomasters of Gikongoro concerning the identification of
deserters throughout 1992 and 1993, particularly Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Bourgmestre (Tous), no. 169/04.09.01/1,
August 9, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
70
Some of the newly purchased weapons may have been intended for resale to other governments but
thousands of them were distributed to members of the armed forces, making possible the recycling of
their weapons to communal police and ordinary citizens.137
Not quite two weeks after the first part of the peace accords was signed, burgomasters were ordered to
prepare lists of materials needed by their local police, usually a force of ten or so policemen and
ordinarily armed lightly, if at all. Several burgomasters submitted unremarkable requests for raincoats
and handcuffs, but others, perhaps alerted to the possibilities by some unofficial communication,
presented very different lists. The burgomaster of Nyamagabe reported that his police needed three
Kalashnikov rifles and one BREN machine gun with amunition. The burgomaster of Nshili—who had
been successfully brought back to the MRND by the kubohoza described above—asked for twelve
automatic weapons and six other arms as well as 1,000 bullets of one kind and fifty of another. The
burgomaster of Mudasomwa, one of the first communes to launch genocidal killing in April 1994,
requested eight automatic weapons and two pistols.138
At this time, the training and arming of communal police was supervised by Col. Alphonse Ntezeliyayo,
who was seconded from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of the Interior. Colonel Ntezeliyayo,
originally from the southern prefecture of Butare, was apparently not well-regarded by his colleagues
from the north, who taxed him with being too accommodating to Tutsi and Hutu dissidents, a position
he would change during the genocide.139
Presumably at Ntezeliyayo’s direction, authorities began in January 1993 to distribute new weapons to
some communes considerably in excess of the number of policemen who were slated to use them. The
commune of Ngoma, in the prefecture of Butare, added eight new Kalashnikovs to its supply of twentysix rifles and at the same time received 960 bullets. Six months later, it received an additional 144
bullets, although it had used only fifteen.140 At the time, the commune had eighteen policemen, an
unusually large force because it served the needs of the important town of Butare, but not one that
would have required thirty-four rifles. Given the severe financial problems of the government and the
cost of firearms, it is unlikely that a surplus of sixteen rifles was simply stored in Ngoma without some
plans for their use.141
Lists
The distribution of arms to the communes, presumably for the communal police but apparently for
others as well, indicates that some highly placed military officers anticipated fighting an “enemy”
dispersed in the population, not just concentrated on a war front. In the months that the arms were
being distributed, both civilian and military authorities were gathering information on the “enemy”
and where to find him.
137
In March 1993, a jeep loaded with weapons destined for Palipehutu insurgents in Burundi was involved in an accident in
Kigali. The weapons had been sold or otherwise delivered by soldiers at the Kanombe military camp.
138
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet de Gikongoro, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no.
039/04.15, le 22/9/1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
139
See the chapters below on Butare prefecture.
140
Joseph Kanyabashi, Bourgmestre, to Monsieur le Préfet, Butare, no. 68/04.17, January 31, 1993; no. 257/04.17, April 13,
1993; and no. 904/04.17.01, November 24, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
141
Ibid.
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March 1999
In September and October 1992, prefects relayed secret orders to the burgomasters to compile lists of
people who were known to have left the country surreptitiously. The lists, for “the purpose of security”
were to include complete identification and were to be provided urgently. The prefects told the
burgomasters to remove the registration cards of these people from the usual file and to put them
aside until further instructions.142 Burgomasters were providing lists of “persons who joined the ranks
of the inkotanyi” at least through August 1993.143 In his November 1992 speech, Mugesera several
times attacked families that permitted their children to go join the RPF, insisting that these people
should leave Rwanda while they still could, because “the time has come for us also to defend
ourselves.” Mugesera asked the crowd, “Why do we not arrest these parents who have sent their
children away and why do we not exterminate them?” A moment later, he continued,
I would like to tell you that we are now asking for those people to be put on a list and
for them to be brought to court so that they can be judged before us. If they [the
judges] refuse...we should do it ourselves by exterminating this scum.144
In late September or early October 1992, the army general staff directed all units and military camps to
provide lists of all people said to be “accomplices” of the RPF. When the order came to light in
February 1993, Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye, protested against this “witch hunt” and
demanded that any lists so compiled be turned over immediately to the Ministry of Justice for
appropriate action.145 His initiative was apparently ignored by the military.
Several weeks later, the chief of staff, Colonel Nsabimana—the same man who had signed the
September 21 letter circulating the definition of the enemy—was injured in an automobile accident.
After he was taken to the hospital, a document was found in his car entitled cynically “Memo for the
Protection of Human Rights” (Aide-Mémoire pour la protection des droits de la personne). It included a
“list of persons to contact” (Personnes á contacter), 331 persons thought to be supporters of the RPF.
The notes for some persons gave a brief description of the charges against them as well as their
names and locations. Some were accused of having allowed their children to go abroad to join the
RPF, others of having held suspicious meetings of Tutsi in their houses or of having stockpiled arms for
the RPF. Several were named because they had been detained as “accomplices” in the October 1990
arrests.146 In the prefecture of Butare, and presumably in other prefectures as well, lists had been kept
of all local people arrested in 1990. Some of the lists had been brought up to date with more current
information about the persons named.147 All these lists offered a ready source of information for any
who wanted to attack Tutsi and Hutu opponents of Habyarimana.
142
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, no. Ls 23/04.17.02, September 2, 1992; Laurent Bucyibaruta, to
Monsieur le Bourgmestre, Nyamagabe, Mudasoma, Karama, Kinyamakara, Rwamiko, Kivu, Karambo, Musange, Muko,
Musebeya, No. LS 047/04.17.02, October 2, l992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
143
François Xavier Njenyeli, Bourgmestre, Commune Gituza, to Préfet, Byumba, no. 247/04.17.02, August 2, 1993, Dossier
Planification Genocide (RPF Human Rights Commission, Kigali).
144
Léon Mugesera, “Discours Prononcé par Léon Mugesera lors d’un Meeting du M.R.N.D. Tenu à Kabaya le 22 novembre 1992.”
145
Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye, Premier Ministre, to Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense, no. 071/42.3.5, February 2, 1993
(ARDHO).
Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, pp. 662-67. Note that the document is incorrectly dated to March 1994; it should be March
1993.
146
147
Justin Temahagali, Préfet, to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini, no. 090/04/01, April 5. 1991 (Butare prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
72
As the existence of some of these lists became publically known, people from all sides found it
increasingly easy to believe rumors of other lists and adversaries frequently traded accusations about
such compilations. During the genocide, assailants often justified killing Tutsi by claiming that they
had found lists of Hutu marked for execution on the person or property of their intended victims. Many
such accusations were false, although some RPF supporters did apparently make lists of likely backers
or opponents as part of the data about local communities that they supplied to the RPF. 148
The Militia and “Self-Defense”
Beginning in March 1992 the Interahamwe had proved their effectiveness in attacking Tutsi and Hutu
who supported the MDR, the PSD, or the PL. Foreseeing the role they could play against such
“enemies” in case of renewed combat, Habyarimana and his supporters stepped up the recruitment
and training of the militia. Hoping to keep the effort secret, they sent the recruits to training camps
distant from the capital. One was at Gabiro, near a hotel in the Akagera game park, and another was in
the northwestern Gishwati forest, adjacent to the Hotel Mont Muhe, which belonged to Habyarimana
and his circle. The recruits at Gishwati lived in tents in the forest and were visited on the weekends by
important MRND officials and businessmen who came up from Kigali to cheer them on. According to a
witness present on one such occasion in January 1993, the hotel staff killed and roasted a cow to
honor the visitors and the trainees. The tired and sweaty recruits came out of the forest fifteen or so at
a time to enjoy the barbecue and plentiful beer. After several groups had eaten, they gathered the
remaining food and drink and transported it into the forest in a pickup truck for their fellow trainees.
When the festivities were finished, the dignitaries spent the night at the Mont Muhe Hotel or at hotels
in the nearby town of Gisenyi.149
The militia, however, were limited by their close identification with the MRND. They would not seek to
recruit—or would not in any case be able to recruit successfully—young men committed to other
parties. Because of the bitterness of past kubohoza struggles, members of other parties regarded
them with suspicion and sought to discover and expose their training programs, particularly any that
used Rwandan army soldiers. The need for secrecy required complicated and sometimes costly
logistical arrangements to get recruits to the remote training sites.
A government program of civilian self-defense offered a simpler, cheaper, and perhaps equally
effective way of mobilizing civilians for eventual action against the “enemy.” Immediately after the RPF
invasion, the government had instituted such a program, similar to one established by authorities to
counter guerrilla attacks in the 1960s.150 It required citizens to man blockades on roads and to carry
out patrols at night. But the effort lapsed throughout most of the country soon after the RPF was driven
back at the end of October 1990. In late December 1990, a group of university faculty including ViceRector Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi and Professor Runyinya-Barabwiriza proposed that the
minister of defense establish a “self-defense” program for all adult men. Citing the adage, “He who
wishes for peace prepares for war,” the group advocated a population in arms as a way to “assure
security” inside the country if the army were occupied in defending the frontiers. It suggested that men
148
Col. Théoneste Lizinde to Abahuza-Bikorwa Ba FPR mu Rwanda (Bose), March 22, 1994, includes a questionnaire about
political, social and economic conditions to be filled out by RPF agents in the various communes (Kibuye prefecture).
149
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, June 23, 1995.
150
Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi, p. 223.
73
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be trained locally, within the comune, under the command of soldiers, and that they should
particularly learn to fight with “traditional weapons,” because they were cheaper than firearms.151
The idea was not implemented at the time but in September 1991, as the RPF multiplied its incursions
across the Ugandan border, Colonel Nsabimana, then the local commander, proposed training and
arming one person from each unit of ten households. The persons to be armed would be chosen by
the communal council, would be ideally between twenty-five and forty years old, married, patriotic,
and of high moral character. They would be locally trained and would continue to live at home, going
into action under the orders of National Policemen, or, if they were not available, of soldiers from local
military units. The program was to be implemented first in three communes near the Ugandan frontier
and then extended to the rest of the country as money became available to pay for the arms. 152
During 1992, small groups of local residents carried out patrols and engaged in skirmishes near the
border, usually in the company of one or two soldiers. Often one or two of the civilians were armed
with guns while others carried such weapons as machetes, spears or bows, and arrows. According to
the local people, they fought more fiercely than the professional soldiers, but some in the top ranks of
the army opposed the program, claiming that many civilians fled at the first sign of danger, leaving
their guns behind for the RPF to pick up.153
The AMASASU and Colonel Bagosora
The high-ranking officers associated with the akazu were among those who continued to favor civilian
self-defense. Col. Laurent Serubuga, for example, lent his prestige to Léon Mugesera, sitting on the
platform while the MRND propagandist called repeatedly for the people to rise up and defend
themselves.
The congruence of interest between hard-line soldiers and anti-Tutsi militants reappeared in January
1993 just after the third of the Arusha protocols was signed. On January 20, a group of soldiers calling
themselves AMASASU sent an aggressive open letter to Habyarimana.154 They explained that their
name meant The Alliance of Soldiers Provoked by the Age-old Deceitful Acts of the Unarists (Alliance
des Militaires Agacés par les Séculaires Actes Sournois des Unaristes); Unarists referred to the Tutsi
royalist party from the years of the revolution. The real meaning of the cumbersome name lay not in
the component words but in the acronym: amasasu means bullets in Kinyarwanda. “Commandant
Mike Tango,” writing for the Supreme Council of the AMASASU, appears to have shared ideas with
Mugesera, including the increasingly familiar phrase, “He who wishes for peace prepares for war.”
Both warn that supporters of the RPF had better clear out of the country before it is too late. Both
threaten to deliver their own form of “justice” to the “accomplices” if the competent authorities fail to
act against them. Commandant Mike goes even further. He declares that the RPF is preparing a major
attack and he asks Habyarimina, if that happens, “how do you expect to stop us from delivering an
151
Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Vice Rector of the U.N.R., Butare Campus, to the Minister of National Defense, P218/813/90, December 26, 1990 (Butare prefecture).
152
Col. Déogratias Nsabimana to Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense Nationale, no. 181/G5.3.0, September 29, 1991
(International Commission).
153
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Rebero, January 19, 1993; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone,
Lausanne, August 29, 1996.
154
Commandant Tango Mike to Monsieur le Président de la République Rwandaise, January 20, 1993 (International
Commission).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
74
exemplary lesson to traitors inside the country? After all, we have already identified the most virulent
of them and will strike them like lightning.”
Repeating Mugesera’s call for self-defense, Commandant Mike advocates establishing in each
commune at least one battalion of “robust young men,” who will receive a minimum of military
training on the spot. “They will stay [at home] on the hills, but will be ready to form a popular army” to
support the regular army. The Ministries of Youth, Defense and the Interior will take charge of training
and commanding this “popular army.”
Commandant Mike was a pseudonym, of course, but it seems likely that he is either Col. Théoneste
Bagosora or someone working closely with him. Bagorosa was born in 1941 in the commune of Giciye,
next to Habyarimana’s home commune, and had devoted his life to the Rwandan army. He describes
himself as the son of a “Christian and relatively well-off” family, with a father who was a teacher. He
took military courses in Belgium and France and commanded the important military camp of Kanombe
in Kigali until 1992. When the recently-installed coalition government made changes in the army high
command in June 1992, forcing the retirement of Colonel Serubuga, Col. Pierre-Celestin Rwagafilita,
and others, Habyarimana sought to have Bagosora named chief of staff. Ministers of opposing
political parties refused this arrangement, seeing Bagasora as no improvement over the other hardliners. In a compromise, Colonel Nsabimana, thought to be more moderate, was named to head the
general staff and Bagosora was installed as head of the administration at the Ministry of Defense,
where he was well placed to keep an eye on Minister of Defense James Gasana, who was seen as
unsympathetic to hard-line positions. According to some observers, Habyarimana actually distrusted
Bagosora, who had been trying for years to escape from Habyarimana’s shadow. The two presented
much the same political profile, with Bagosora somewhat more militantly anti-Tutsi, and they drew on
the same constituencies. Bagosora, who was ambitious, was said to believe that he, too, was
qualified to run Rwanda and hoped for the chance to do so. Bagosora reportedly enjoyed the support
of Habyarimana’s wife and her brothers and of his own younger brother, Pasteur Musabe who directed
a large commercial bank, and was described by one insider as the most important civilian in the
akazu.155
In an essay entitled “L’assassinat du Président Habyarimana ou l’ultime opération du Tutsi pour sa
reconquête du pouvoir par la force au Rwanda,” Bagosora makes clear that he held firmly to the
radical ideas of the CDR, as propagated by RTLM and such newspapers as Kangura. He has no
hesitation in stating repeatedly that the struggle, one that is age-old (séculaire), is between the “Hutu
people” and the Tutsi, not between political groups.156 For this reason, the negotiations at Arusha
should have been between Hutu and Tutsi rather than between political parties and any future
discussions should be held between two ethnically defined sides. The same theme is sounded in
Kangura, which in February 1993 published a call for discussions between the head of the CDR and
Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the exiled former king of Rwanda, instead of wasting further time with
negotiations at Arusha where the real actors were not present.157 For Bagosora, the Hutu are the
155
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, August 30, 1996; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 167.
156
Colonel BEMS Bagosora Théoneste, “L’assassinat du Président Habyarimana ou l’ultime opération du Tutsi pour sa
reconquête du pouvoir par la force au Rwanda,” Yaoundé, October 30, 1995, p. 7. See also Jean-Marie Aboganena, “Bagosora
S’Explique,” Africa International, no. 296, July-August 1996, p. 18.
157
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 136.
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legitimate possessors of the region, where they lived “harmoniously” with the Twa since the ninth
century. The Tutsi “never had a country of their own to allow them to become a people”; they are and
will remain “naturalised nilotic immigrants” who have arrogantly tried to impose their supremacy over
the rightful local inhabitants.158 Repeating all the usual clichés about the supposed nature of these
peoples, Bagosora describes the Tutsi as “masters of deceit,” “dictatorial, cruel, bloody,” “arrogant,
clever and sneaky,” while he speaks of the Hutu as “modest, open, loyal, independent and
impulsive.”159
Like Commandant Mike, the authors of the September 21 memorandum defining the enemy, and many
of the anti-Tutsi propagandists, Bagosora is insistent that the RPF is simply a continuation of the old
UNAR, determined to restore “feudal-royalist servitude.” Like them, he stresses the RPF reliance on
support from Uganda and its president Museveni, whose supposedly Hima origins he points out. Like
Kangura, he refers to the “Simbananiye plan” that Tutsi had purportedly created to eliminate Hutu in
Burundi, and he attributes to the RPF the assassination of Hutu political leaders of varying political
views in Rwanda.160
Like the propagandists of Hutu solidarity, Bagosora refers to Kayibanda, the leader of the 1959
revolution, whose supposed words he uses to validate his argument that the Tutsi have brought
suffering on themselves. He asserts that in attacking the Rwandan government, the Tutsi have
knowingly and “coldly decided to expose their brothers to reprisals.” In a reference that is inaccurate
both in its date (March 11, 1963 instead of 1964) and in its content, Bagosora quotes Kayibanda as
warning that further Tutsi attacks from outside the country would mean “the total and precipitate end
of the Tutsi race.”161
The essay, intended as a public justification for his position, shows how Bagosora fit into the
ideological context of anti-Tutsi extremism. A second document, not intended for publication, shows
how he intended to implement this ideology. When Bagosora fled Kigali in 1994, he left behind in his
house a small black appointment book. On the cover is “Agenda 1993, Banque de Kigali,” and inside
is written Bagosora’s name and telephone number.162
Beginning on the page for February 1 is a series of notes sketching out a plan for civilian self-defense.
As with previous proposals, recruits are to live at home and to be trained locally. Bagosora writes,
“The communal police should be up to training its militia,” indicating by his use of the word “militia”
the link he is making between the community-based self-defense units and those organized by the
party. If they are not available, military reservists, meaning former soldiers, would give the instruction.
The recruits are to be married men “who have something to defend” and, in a later passage, “reliable
persons” chosen among those displaced by the war. Elsewhere he adds that each cell and each sector
158
Bagosora, “L’assassinat,” pp. 12-l3.
159
Ibid., pp. 12, 14, 18; see also Communiqué de Presse du Parti CDR, February 25, 1993 (Provided by Comité pour le respect des
droits de l’homme et la démocratie au Rwanda, CRDDR).
160
Chrétien et al., Rwanda. Les médias, p. 237.
161
Ibid., p. 16. The printed text of Kayibanda’s speech does not include these words. République Rwandaise, Commission
Spéciale sur les problèmes des émigrés rwandais, Le Rwanda et le problème de ses refugiés (Kigali: 1990), pp. 95-6.
162
Human Rights Watch/FIDH researchers examined and copied the original of this document, held by an RPF representative.
An expert in handwriting analysis found the writing in the appointment book to be consistent with a sample of Bagosora’s
handwriting.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
76
are to elect the men to be armed. In one entry, Bagosora indicates that three times as many men are to
be trained as there are arms available; in another he notes that sixty men should be trained for each
commune. They are to be organized by sector with coordination between military authorities and the
local administration, including communal councilors, and local police.
Bagosora identifies the city of Kigali and the prefectures of Byumba, Ruhengeri, and Gisenyi as the
areas where the self-defense program should be launched first. He projects the need for 2,000
weapons, 300 for Kigali, 700 for the prefecture of Byumba, 600 for Ruhengeri, and 400 for Gisenyi,163
and seems to indicate that the first 2,000 recruits should be trained by soldiers, perhaps to get the
program started in the right way. An entry later in the month of February speaks of ordering 2,000
Kalashnikovs “to bring to 5,000 the number for the communes.” On this page, he scribbles a proposal
that three to five weapons be distributed for each cell. On another page, he jots the note “hand
grenades” next to a list of the names of six communes. Aware of the possible conflicts that might arise
out of arming a part of the population, Bagosora remarked on the importance of “avoiding partisan
considerations during the distribution.”
Not just a planner, Bagosora was evidently also involved in implementing the details of the selfdefense program. He is concerned with obtaining vehicles and with finding appropriate storage places
for the weapons. He even sketches out the main headings of a training program that would teach the
use of the hand grenade, the rifle, bows and arrows, and spears. He proposes making targets out of
empty tins with bulls eyes painted on or marked with chalk. One task to which he refers often is that of
“organizing information,” that is, propaganda. On one page, he notes “censorship of the radio” and
“listen to all radio broadcasts.” On another, he writes about radio broadcasts by heads of the political
parties. Elsewhere he proposes the contents of a radio program which, he writes, should include
songs by Bikindi, the singer well-known for his anti-Tutsi lyrics. He proposes entrusting a more general
propaganda campaign, aimed at human rights organizations and the diplomatic corps, to Col. Gasake,
a respected older soldier who had recently returned from years of diplomatic service abroad. Bagosora
also jotted down remarks about the need to ban meetings of political parties and the possibility of
amnesty for war crimes.
In a first effort to launch the self-defense program in northwestern Rwanda, Bagosora ordered about
500 firearms distributed in the communes of Mutura, Giciye, Karago, Rubavu, and Rwerere at the end
of January or the beginning of February 1993. In doing so, he overrode the specific orders of the
minister of defense. According to a document obtained at the time by Human Rights Watch, 193
firearms were delivered in the commune of Mutura to primary school teachers, government employees,
communal councilors, army reservists, and shopkeepers, just the same kinds of people who would be
found using guns during the genocide.164 On March 1, 1993, the burgomaster of the commune Gituza
wrote to the prefect of Byumba, acknowledging delivery of forty-four firearms and thanking him in the
name of the population for his efforts to provide for their security and self-defense.165
163
There appears to be a mistake in arithmetic here because five Gisenyi communes are listed, Karago, Mutura, Rwere (an error
for Rwerere), Rubavu, and Kanama, each with the number 100 next to it, which would make 500 for the prefecture and a total of
2,100 weapons needed.
164
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” p. 14.
165
François Xavier Njenyeli, Burgomestre, Commune Gituza, to Préfet, Byumba, March 1, 1993, Dossier Planification Genocide
(RPF Human Rights Commission, Kigali).
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March 1999
Defense Minister Gasana, who had been away at the Arusha negotiations, returned to Kigali and
learned of the distribution. He ordered the 500 firearms collected, but not all of them were returned to
the authorities.166 Bagosora and other hard-liners tried to discredit Gasana within the MRND.167
Perhaps anticipating the success of this attempt, Bagosora noted in his datebook in early March that
Gasana would be replaced as minister by Felicien Ngango, a lawyer who was an important member of
the PSD. The information was wrong and Gasana continued to serve until July 1993. With Gasana still
in place and political conditions not yet ripe, Bagosora temporarily shelved his plans for distributing
guns to civilians.
Locating Potential Leaders
On the page for February 21 of his appointment book, Bagosora had noted the need for “identification
of reservists.”168 A store of relevant information already existed, assembled by administrative
authorities who tracked the location of former soldiers for a variety of reasons from mid-1992 on. By
March 1993, the continued gathering of such information became more discreet, linked to political
loyalties. At this time, the prefect of Kigali city asked two burgomasters who were MRND supporters to
provide lists of former soldiers who were living in the capital, but he did not address the same request
to the third, who was a member of the PSD. When that burgomaster asked why he had not been told to
gather this information, he was informed that the order had come from the party, not from the
administration.169
As the problems of insecurity grew throughout 1993, local officials enlisted increasingly active citizen
participation in security committees that included judicial, police or military personnel,
administrators, heads of local political parties, clergy, and other community leaders. In a number of
communes, the security committees established patrols of citizens or of watchmen paid by citizens to
supplement the inadequate efforts of local police.170 Although the involvement of ordinary citizens in
police functions may have brought short-term improvements in security in some places, it created a
precedent that would be exploited for the opposite purpose during the genocide.
The February 1993 Attack
On February 8, 1993, the RPF violated the July 1992 cease-fire and launched a massive attack all along
the northern front and rapidly drove back the government troops. The civilian population also fled
south, joining hundreds of thousands of persons displaced earlier in the conflict to make a total of
some one million displaced, about one seventh of the total population. The RPF, critical of
international inaction, claimed that they had to attack to halt the late January massacres of Tutsi and
others.171 In fact, the slaughter of Tutsi had stopped more than a week before the RPF moved,
166
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Washington, D.C., September 10, 1996.
167
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, August 30, 1996.
168
Correspondence between the prefect and burgomasters of Gikongoro concerning the identification of deserters throughout
1992 and 1993, particularly Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre (Tous), no. 169/04.09.01/1, August 9, 1993
(Gikongoro prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 13, 1996.
169 41
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 14, 1996.
170 42
Minutes of the meetings of these committees can be found in communal or prefectural archives in the prefectures of
Butare, Gikongoro, and Kibuye. See, for example, Damien Biniga, Sous-Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, Rwamiko, no.
494/04.17.02, August 13, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
171
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Washington, D.C., September 10, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
78
suggesting that the real motive for the attack had been to force progress on the negotiations that
Habyarimana had sought to stall by killing Tutsi.
The RPF initiative was a great success in military terms, but far less so in political terms. The MDR,
PSD, and PL, cooperating more or less successfully with the RPF since May 1992, felt betrayed by the
sudden resumption of combat. Some of their members began to question if the RPF really wanted a
negotiated peace, or if it was determined to win an outright victory and impose its own control,
replacing one repressive regime with another. Rwandan and international human rights organizations
published credible charges that the RPF had assassinated at least eight Rwandan government officials
and their families, had executed some fifty persons thought to be supporters of the MRND, and had
killed at least two hundred other civilians in the course of its advance.172 News of these abuses
contributed to disillusionment about RPF methods and goals among Rwandans and foreigners alike.
Faced with this growing discontent, the RPF was also militarily over-extended on a very wide front and
so badly placed to risk open combat with French troops that had been brought in to reinforce the
Rwandan army. The RPF agreed to a new cease-fire and pulled back to its original positions, leaving a
sizable buffer zone between its lines and those of the government army.
After the RPF attack, more voices clamored for a civilian self-defense program. In a radio address four
days after the RPF attack, Habyarimana advocated a self-defense force armed with traditional weapons
rather than with guns.173 He repeated this idea in a speech to sector commanders of the Rwandan army
on March 13, when he called for the population to “organize to defend itself.”174 Political activist
Ferdinand Nahimana wrote others of the political and intellectual elite, urging that young people,
especially those displaced by the RPF advance, be trained as part of a “civil defense operation.” Like
the academics who had advocated self-defense in 1990, he stressed the usefulness of this popular
force in “safeguarding peace inside the country,” implying that it would act against civilians rather
than against the RPF. He proposed that the force should be provided with “arms and other light
materials that could be used directly in the defense of the population.”175 In February, Kangura wrote:
We must remark to the Inyenzi that if they do not change their attitude and if they
persevere in their arrogance, the majority people will establish a force composed of
young Hutu. This force will be charged with breaking the resistance of the Tutsi young
people [literally, children]. We should stop fooling around.176
In a press release dated February 25, 1993, the CDR warned that the RPF were planning a genocide of
Hutu throughout the country in their pursuit of a Hima-Tutsi empire. It demanded that the government
provide the people with the means necessary to defend themselves.177
172
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” pp. 23-24.
173
Pasteur Bizimungu to Africa Watch, February 13, 1993.
174
General Juvénal Habyarimana, “Exposé Introductif du Général-Major Habyarimana Juvénal à la Réunion des Commandants de
Secteurs du 13 mars 1993.”
175
Ferdinand Nahimana, “Le Rwanda: Problèmes Actuels, Solutions,” February 21, 1993, included in a letter of Nahimana to
Chers amis, March 28, 1994 (confidential source).
176
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 136.
177
Communiqué de Presse du Parti CDR, February 25, 1993.
79
March 1999
Splitting the Opposition
Even before the February 8 attack, some hard-liners sensed a new possibility of attracting members of
rival parties—particularly the MDR—back to the side of the MRND. In the January 20 AMASASU letter,
for example, Commandant Mike is conciliatory towards Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye of the
MDR, a position far different from that taken by Mugesera, who had equated him with the devil in his
speech three months before. Foreign advisers also saw the benefit of an MDR-MRND alliance. In a
letter dated January 20, Alain De Brouwer, political counselor of the Christian Democratic International,
(Internationale Démocrate Chrétienne, IDC) advised Mathieu Ngirumpatse, secretary-general of the
MRND, to explore a “permanent and open MRND-MDR collaboration.” He suggested calling a “national
conference” to form an alliance that would allow these parties to seize the initiative from the RPF, both
at the next round of peace talks and beyond.178 The IDC, a conservative, European-based coalition of
Christian Democratic political parties, firmly supported the MRND. At the end of February, the French
minister of cooperation, Marcel Debarge, added his voice and urged creating a “common front”
against the RPF.179
Habyarimana needed no lessons in how to play the game. In early March he called a “national
conference”—in fact a small-scale meeting—that attracted members of the MDR, PSD, and PL, as well
as a number of less important parties. This first effort led nowhere. The MDR, PSD, and PL had just
finished papering over their differences with the RPF, and their leaders disavowed those party
members who “had neither the mandate nor the power” to carry on discussions with Habyarimana. 180
But this was only Habyarimana’s opening shot in what would eventually be a successful campaign to
win back disaffected Hutu. Those who attended his first meeting included Donat Murego of the MDR
and Stanislas Mbonampeka of the PL, both already hostile to the elected presidents of their respective
parties and both major actors in leading segments of their parties into an alliance with Habyarimana
by the end of the year.
As Habyarimana sought new ties with the MDR and other parties, he was attacked by the CDR which
exploded in anger at the terms of the new cease-fire with the RPF. In a press release issued March 9,
the CDR called acceptance of the cease-fire “an act of high treason” and said that by signing it,
Habyarimana showed that he no longer cared about the interests of the nation.181
Just how crucial alliances with other parties would be to Habyarimana’s future was made clear at the
end of March 1993 when a form of limited election was held to replace burgomasters removed for
unsatisfactory performance or who had fled or resigned their posts as a result of kubohoza. In each
commune, the councilors, members of cell committees, heads of development projects, clergy, and
heads of local political parties were permitted to vote, a group that amounted to some fifty people in
most communes. The MRND won only sixteen of the forty posts contested, all those available in the
northern prefectures of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri with the rest scattered elsewhere in the east and
southwest. In contrast, the MDR took eighteen posts, including all those in the central prefecture of
178
Alain De Brouwer, Conseiller Politique, Internationale Démocratique Chrétienne, to Mathieu Ngirumpatse, January 20, 1993
(CRDDR). For an analysis of the role of conservative Christians in Rwanda, see Léon Saur, Influences Parallèlles: L’Internationale
Démocrate Chrétienne au Rwanda (Brussels: Editions Luc Pire, 1998).
179
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp. 178.
180
Ibid., pp. 178-79.
181
Ibid., p. 182.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
80
Gitarama, the stronghold in the 1960s of the Parmehutu party, of which the MDR was the direct
descendant. The PSD and the PL divided the rest of the posts, all of them in the south.The results
represented only a rough approximation of political strength—and in somewhat less than a third of the
communes in the country.182 But, the MRND had also lost burgomasters—and others—who had
switched parties in communes where no elections were held. Habyarimana and his party would have
to win back followers or build solid alliances with other parties if they were to hope to dominate
political life. Habyarimana would clearly be strongest if he were to win back support from adherents of
the MDR, PSD, and PL and at the same time attract backing from those who had joined the CDR.
At the same time as Habyarimana was working to put together a new coalition, a promising and wellconnected young politician named Emmanuel Gapyisi was also exploring a realignment of political
forces across party lines in a new group called the Peace and Democracy Forum (Forum Paix et
Démocratie). A leader of the MDR from Gikongoro prefecture, Gapyisi hoped to bring together all those
who were equally opposed to the RPF and to Habyarimana, regardless of party affiliation. He attracted
a number of restless politicians, among them several who had been engaged in discussions with
Habyarimana in March, including Murego of the MDR and Mbonampeka of the PL. Just as Gapyisi’s
movement was beginning to gather steam, he was assassinated on May 18, 1993 by a very efficient
hit-squad. With his death, the Forum movement collapsed, leaving the field open to the original
actors. Habyarimana used the assassination to try to discredit his political adversaries and accused
the RPF and some MDR leaders of the killing. They in turn charged Habyarimana with the crime, an
allegation substantiated by an investigation but never brought to court.183
Gapyisi’s assassination focused attention on the increased insecurity and the continuing impunity for
both political and common crime. After Gapyisi’s killing, attempts were made to slay PL leader
Stanislas Mbonampeka, CDR leader Dr. Céléstin Higiro, and Defense Minister Gasana. Soldiers in
Kigali were killing civilians at the rate of four or five a day and did not hesitate even to strangle a man
at noon in front of the Kigali post office, then walk off leaving his corpse behind. Abuses by soldiers
reached such a level that Habyarimana himself found it necessary to criticize military misconduct in a
speech to sector commandants on March 13, 1993. Random violence continued as well, with bombs
exploding at markets and other public places in Butare, Gisenyi, and Kigali. Tutsi in some rural
communes were so afraid of night-time attacks that they regularly slept outdoors instead of at
home.184 A number of local administrators cited the growing insecurity as a reason for requesting
permission to own a gun or to obtain a gun from the Ministry of Defense.185
182
In a second election of the same kind in September 1993, the MRND won all eight places being contested, but once again,
these were all in the north. Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 227. Our statistics for the earlier elections differ slightly
from those given by Reyntjens, p. 226, and are based on a tally provided by Rwandan government sources at the time.
183
Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p. 629; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp. 182-85.
184
Africa Watch, “Beyond the Rhetoric,” pp. 7-14; Joseph Matata, Permanent Secretary of ARDHO to Alison Des Forges, May 12,
1993; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Lausanne, August 29, 1996.
185
James Gasana, Ministre de la Défense, to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous), no. 0655/06.1., February 23, 1993; Ministre de la
Défense to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no. 0895/06.1.0, March 10, 1993; Laurent
Bucyibaruta, Préfet to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, no. 483/04.06, May 19, 1993; Jean Baptiste Hakizamungu, Sous-préfet, to
Monsieur le Ministre de la Défense, February 12, 1993; James Gasana, Ministre de la Défense, to Monsieur Hakizamungu Jean
Baptiste, no. 913/06.1.9, March 11, 1993 (Butare and Gikongoro prefectures).
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March 1999
Efforts at compiling lists of enemies continued during these months. Col. Nsabimana told a family
member that a list of some 500 people to be killed existed in April 1993.186 In a secret memorandum to
all commanders, Col. Athanase Gasake, temporarily replacing Nsabimana as chief of staff, distributed
the names of families whose sons had purportedly left to join the RPF. He reported that the Collège
APACOPE in Kigali was a hotbed of RPF activity and noted that its students could not be bothered now
because the government was on the point of signing a peace agreement with the RPF, but that the
appropriate services had identified them and recorded their names. He also warned of infiltrators who
were operating as household help, clerks, watchmen, tailors, prostitutes, traders, and especially taxi
drivers. In an exaggerated way, the memorandum stressed the possibility of imminent attack from
Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Zaire, or all four at once and urged the officers to communicate the need
for constant vigilance to all their soldiers.187
Against this background of unpunished abuses and preparations for further violence, the prime
minister wrote to Habyarimana, accusing him of wanting to cause troubles inside Rwanda and to start
the war again in order to get a settlement that would protect his own power:
Terrorist groups are now preparing attacks on various politicians and disturbances
throughout the country to try to start the war again. In other words, you feel you must
find a subterfuge that would enable you to avoid signing the peace agreement, to
bring about the resignation of the present government—so as to put in place a
bellicose government devoted to you—to begin the hostilities again in an effort to
push the RPF troops back to their former positions...and to demand the renegotiation
of certain terms of the protocols that have been signed already.188
The violence feared by Nsengiyaremye was not launched immediately, perhaps because Habyarimana
had not yet pulled enough dissidents back to his side. In mid-July, Habyarimana and his supporters
moved nearer that goal when the MDR, the chief threat to the MRND, split apart. The immediate issue
was replacing Nsengiyaremye, whose mandate as prime minister had ended, but this question
covered a larger struggle for control of the party—complicated by personal ambitions—and a division
over the issue of how far to trust the RPF. As the prospects for peace grew, politicians looked forward
to the distributions of posts that would take place when a transitional government was formed and
they sought to position themselves as advantageously as possible. The president of the MDR, Faustin
Twagiramungu, who stood for continued cooperation with the RPF, named Agathe Uwilingiyimana,
minister of primary and secondary education, as the party’s choice for prime minister. Dissident
leaders like Donat Murego and Frodouald Karamira, suspicious of the RPF since its February attack,
challenged Twagiramungu’s control at a national congress. They designated Jean Kambanda, a lesser
known politician from Butare, as the party choice for prime minister.189 They went so far as to expel
both Twagiramungu and his nominee Uwilingiyimana from the party. Twagiramungu ignored the
dissidents’ effort to expel him and continued to regard himself as the president of the party, while the
186
Marie-France Cros, “Jean Birara: ‘Belges et Français auraient pu arrêter les tueries.’” La Libre Belgique, May 24, 1994.
187
Col. Athanase Gasake Chef EM AR(ai) to Liste A, Comdt Sect OPS (Tous), May 21, 1993 (CRDDR).
188
Dismas Nsengiyaremye, Premier Ministre, to Monsieur le Président de la République Rwandaise, no. 528/02.0, June 6,
crossed out and replaced by July 6, 1993 (ARDHO).
189
Disappointed at this time, Kambanda would later serve as prime minister of the interim government.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
82
dissidents, greater in numbers by far than Twagiramungu’s supporters, claimed that they were in fact
the MDR.
Habyarimana accepted Twagiramungu’s nomination of Uwilingyimana and rejected the protests of the
dissidents, seeing this as a way to widen the gap between the two parts of the MDR. On July 18, 1993,
the new government was established with Uwilingiyimana as prime minister, the first woman to serve
in this capacity, and the struggle over which part of the MDR was the real MDR was moved to the
courts. On July 19, James Gasana, who was supposed to continue in his post as minister of defense,
fled to Europe, to be followed not long after by the former prime minister, Dismas Nsengiyaremye.
Both said their lives were threatened. They no doubt had in mind recent assassinations, attempted
assassinations, massacres and random violence when they decided it was too dangerous to stay in
Rwanda, but perhaps they also knew more than most others about the risk of future violence.
French Support for Habyarimana
From the outset of the war with the RPF, Rwanda had been firmly backed by France. Able to rely on this
steady support from a major international actor, Habyarimana was in a strong position to confront
threats from the RPF, reproaches from other foreign powers, and opposition from dissidents within
Rwanda. Fluent in French, apparently a devout Catholic, Habyarimana impressed French president
François Mitterrand and others with his assimilation of French values. In the French system, where the
president exercised enormous control over African policy, Mitterrand’s bond with Habyarimana
counted for a great deal. The French ambassador in Kigali, Georges Martres, also was close to
Habyarimana, whose home he visited frequently. Habyarimana found his support so precious that he
wrote Mitterrand in January 1993 asking that Martres not be retired for reasons of age, as French
regulations required, but rather allowed to continue his service in Kigali. Mitterrand, to his regret,
could prolong his term only until April 1993. High-ranking military officers, both those in the field and
those in Paris, were strongly committed to helping their Rwandan colleagues fight a force that some of
them labeled the “Khmers Noirs,” a reference to the Khmer Rouge terrorists in Cambodia. The French
Foreign Ministry officials were less enthusiastic about the Rwandan president; but they could do little
to change policy so long as he enjoyed the firm support of Mitterrand and the military. 190
The readiness to back Habyarimana rested on broader bases than personal connections. Mitterrand,
like many French policy-makers, believed that France must continue to have strong links with African
allies if it were to have any stature on the international scene. By definition, such allies were Frenchspeaking. Among them, Rwanda had a special status because it was not a former French colony, but
an ally that had been won away from Belgium, its old colonial master. Backing Rwanda offered the
chance not just to outdo Belgium but also to humiliate the Anglo-Saxon forces thought to be behind
the largely English-speaking RPF. According to former French minister Bernard Debré, Mitterrand
believed that the U.S. had “hegemonic aims” in the region.191 François Leotard, former minister of
defense, agreed with this assessment. He told members of the French assembly,
The President of the Republic was the person who in his comments seemed to define
best the balance of power between the Anglo-Saxons and the French in this part of
190
Jouan, “Rwanda 1990-1994,” p. 23.
191
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 1, p. 413.
83
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the world, and to do so with the greatest precision and sense of strategy and
history.192
This reasoning, so redolent of nineteenth-century colonial passions, seems in fact to have motivated
much of French policy about Rwanda. The French dreaded an upset in Rwanda, which they had come
to regard as part of their backyard, le pré carré. If Habyarimana were to lose, it would be the first time
that a regime loyal to France had been removed without prior French approval. Powerholders
dependent upon French support elsewhere on the continent were watching the outcome carefully and
might judge the usefulness of a continuing French alliance according to the result.193 Gérard Prunier,
an analyst well-informed about the French Defense Ministry, has suggested that Habyarimana may
have helped France with some illegitimate business in the past, perhaps passing on arms shipments
to embargoed countries, and thus made the French feel more obligated to support him. 194
In addition to these general considerations, French policymakers also supported Rwanda in order to
have a firm base for dealing with potential crises in Zaire. In January 1993, a report by the Treasury
concluded that “with the risks of Zaire disintegrating, Rwanda remains an interesting pole of political
and economic influence in the region.”195
Habyarimana and his supporters appreciated French backing and welcomed French troops warmly. In
the December 1990 issue where Kangura presented the “Ten Commandments of the Hutu,” it printed a
picture of Mitterrand on the back cover with the comment, “It is in hard times that you know your real
friends.” When the CDR demonstrated against peace negotiations in October 1992, they
acknowledged French support by chanting “Thank you, President Mitterrand” and “Thank you, French
people.”196
Besides steady political and moral backing, France gave Rwanda more immediately practical help, a
contingent of soldiers in October 1990 and reinforcements in later times of crisis. Although French
authorities generally asserted that only some 600 soldiers were in Rwanda, they in fact maintained as
many as 1,100 there at one time.197 The troops included two groups, one called the Noroît detachment,
supposedly there to protect French citizens, and the other, a military assistance mission to “train”
Rwandan soldiers. The “protection of French citizens” was only a cover—the French numbered only a
few hundred and were not threatened—but the training was real. As the Rwandan army expanded from
fewer than 10,000 to more than 30,000 soldiers, the French played an important role in training both
the combatants and soldiers who would in turn serve as instructors for others. Some of these Frenchtrained soldiers passed on their knowledge to the party militia Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. 198
192
Ibid., p. 112.
193
Hubert Vedrine, minister of foreign affairs, expressed such a concern. Ibid., p. 212.
194
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp. 102-6, 147-49, 163-64, 278-79; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, pp. 178-79.
195
Jouan, “Rwanda, 1990-1994,” p. 24.
196
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 163.
197
Ibid., p. 164, n. 9.
198
Several foreign diplomats based in Kigali, who had seen French soldiers at a militia training site at Gabiro, in the game park
in eastern Rwanda, even asserted that the French themselves had trained militia. Prunier, usually well-informed about French
military matters, has said that the French may well have trained militia without distinguishing them from regular recruits, who
were receiving training so summary that it differed little from that given to the irregulars. Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning,
p. 87, n. 50; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Washington, December 9, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
84
French soldiers sometimes delivered their “training” in a surprisingly direct manner. On February 3,
1992, the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote to the French embassy in Kigali to ask approval for
naming Lieutenant Colonel Chollet, head of the French military assistance mission, adviser to
Habyarimana. In this capacity, Chollet would advise on “organization of the defense and on the
operations of the military,” duties which would require him to “work in close collaboration” with
officers even at the local level. The arrangement would have effectively placed responsibility for
military operations in French hands. The letter was leaked to the press and the proposal seemed to
have been aborted. But, in April 1992, Lt. Col. Jean-Jacques Maurin was named adjoint to the French
military attache in Kigali and filled just the role proposed for Chollet. He advised the Rwandan chief of
staff in such tasks as drawing up daily battle plans, accompanied him around the country, and
participated in daily meetings of the general staff.199 In addition, French soldiers on the ground were
assisting in combat, in interrogating military prisoners, and in enforcing control measures on the
civilian population.200 A former French army chief of staff later denied that French troops joined in
fighting, but admitted that, given the small size of the country, French troops were “close to
combat.”201 The former Rwandan minister of defense, James Gasana, stated that Rwandan military
could use heavy weapons given by France only after having received French permission to use them.202
According to one French “instructor,” French trainers positioned the heavy artillery to bombard the RPF
and then stood back to let Rwandan soldiers push the button to fire the weapon. French soldiers
played such a key role in defending Ruhengeri in January 1991 that a French commander asked the
Rwandan government to award medals to some of the troops.203
France officially supported peace efforts and was one of the sponsors of the Arusha Accords which
stipulated the withdrawal of all foreign troops, except those involved in bilateral military cooperation
arrangements. According to Gasana, however, who participated in some of the Arusha negotiations,
the French were far less intent on a negotiated solution than were the U.S. and Belgium. Their support
for Habyarimana and the MRND was such that they gave the impression that they actually favored a
military solution to the conflict.204 On August 26, 1992, three weeks after the first part of the Accords
was signed, Ambassador Martres formally agreed with the Rwandan government to expand the limited
French military training program to the whole Rwandan army, making it possible to increase the
number of “instructors” while removing combat troops. On January 18, 1993, Mitterrand addressed the
delicate problem of continued military assistance in a letter to Habyarimana. Remarking that he would
not want France to be reproached with having undermined the Arusha Accords, he continued, “I wish
Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, pp. 712-13; Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I,
Rapport, pp. 151-52.
199
Testimony of Eric Gillet, reported in L’événement du Jeudi, June 25-July 2, 1992; Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information
commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, pp. 158-68.
200
201
Testimony of Amiral Lanxade, Mission d’Information, May 6, 1998; Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune,
Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 1, p. 241.
202
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 2, p. 47.
Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Arming Rwanda,” p. 24; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, pp. 176-77; Prunier, The
Rwanda Crisis, pp. 149, 177; Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, pp. 22-23 and notes; Stephen Smith, “France-Rwanda: Lévirat
Colonial et Abandon Dans la Région des Grands Lacs,” in Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p.450; Guichaoua, on pages 720-21,
reprints the important account of French military activity by Hervé Gattegno, published in Le Monde, September 22, 1994.
203
204
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 2, p. 53.
85
March 1999
to confirm that on the question of the presence of the Noroît detachment [the combat troops], France
will act in accord with [the wishes of] the Rwandan authorities.”205
In February 1993 French authorities once more proved their support by sending more than 500 troops
to “indirectly command” and assist the Rwandan forces in halting the RPF advance.206 They also
stepped up delivery of arms and ammunition, sending up to twenty tons of arms a day, enough to cut
into the stocks of the French army itself.207 After a visit to Rwanda to assess the situation, then
Minister of Cooperation Marcel Debarge reported to Mitterrand that the “indirect military support”
provided by France was not enough and that a “real intervention force” (une veritable force
d’interposition) was necessary to enforce the Arusha Accords. Unwilling to have France supply such a
force, Mitterrand then ordered his subordinates to get the U.N. more involved. 208 French diplomats
worked so hard to get a U.N. peacekeeping force to replace its soldiers in aiding their ally that,
according to one member of the Security Council, the effort became “a standing joke.” 209
From the beginning of the war in 1990, French authorities understood the risk of genocide. Colonel
Rwagafilita, Habyarimana’s close associate, told the general who directed French military cooperation
in Rwanda that the Tutsi “are very few in number, we will liquidate them.”210 Many of the French who
dealt with Habyarimana believed that he wanted to keep the extremists in check and could do so only
with their continued political and military support. They were well aware of the massacres and other
human rights violations carried out by his government and they pressed him—but only discretely—to
end such practices. Reluctant to weaken their loyal client in any way, they sought to minimize any
criticism of him. Thus Ambassador Martres dismissed reports of massacres as “just rumors” 211 and a
supporter within the French Foreign Ministry wrote soon after the International Commission published
its report that the Habyarimana regime was “rather respectful of human rights and on the whole
concerned about good administration.” In a shocking echo of extremist Hutu propaganda, this author
explained that the RPF, and not Habyarimana, should be blamed for the massacres of the Tutsi,
because their agents (provocateurs) had infiltrated and caused the Bugesera massacre as well as the
slaughter of the Bagogwe in 1991.212 As part of an effort to shore up Habyarimana and discredit further
the RPF, the French secret service (Direction Générale des Services Extérieurs, DSGE) planted news
stories about supposed Ugandan support for the guerrilla movement. On February 21, 1993, the
reputable Le Monde published an account of a RPF massacre of hundreds of civilians that had in fact
never taken place.213
When the French National Assembly held an inquiry on Rwanda in 1998, French political leaders,
bureaucrats, and military officers all declared that their policy was intended to encourage political
205
Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p. 714; Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, p. 205; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p.173.
206
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, pp. 157, 159.
207
Smith, “France-Rwanda,” p. 450.
208
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 2, p.14.
209
Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 27.
210
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, p. 276.
Smith, “France-Rwanda,” p. 451; Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions,
Volume 1, p. 122.
211
212
Jouan, “Rwanda 1990-1994,” p. 31.
213
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 176 and note.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
86
reform and respect for human rights within Rwanda as well as to avoid a military victory by the RPF. On
the basis of the unstinting support received from Mitterrand on down, Habyarimana and his circle
concluded that the French valued the second objective more than the first. Thus convinced, they dared
to continue the campaign against the Tutsi that would finally reach the point of genocide.
The Costs of War
Fragile at the start, the Rwandan economy had crumbled under the burden of the costs of war. In 1990
war-related expenses accounted for 15 percent of the budget, but by 1993, they consumed some 70
percent of the operating expenses of the state.214 In 1993, agricultural production, the mainstay of the
economy, declined 15 percent, partly because hundreds of thousands of displaced persons were no
longer able to work their fields, partly because of poor weather conditions. Foreign assistance
increased nearly 100 percent from 1989 to 1993, when it amounted to U.S.$334 million, to which was
added some U.S.$130 million in direct emergency aid in 1993. The additional support
notwithstanding, living conditions worsened dramatically, as per capita income that stood at
U.S.$320 in 1989 (nineteenth poorest in the world) fell to U.S.$200 in 1993.215
Under the provisions of the structural adjustment program, government expenses were supposedly
carefully regulated, both in amount and in intended use. To evade these regulations and escape
supervision by foreigners, Rwandan officials diverted resources intended for civilian purposes to use
by military or militia, such as buying military trucks with money allocated for civilian vehicles.
Authorities at the Ministry of Health permitted Interahamwe to requisition vehicles from the ministry
and to collect gas coupons each week for their fuel. Military officers imported luxury goods that
escaped the high tax ordinarily imposed on such imports and sold them in special shops for profits
that were used for the war effort. Authorities at the National Bank, under the direction of
Habyarimana’s brother-in-law, Séraphin Rwabukumba, reportedly hid deductions of foreign exchange
used for arms purchases in a category of “errors and omissions.” In addition, authorities apparently
siphoned off funds from the government employees pension fund and other sources to fund military
expenditures.216
Despite these various efforts, the Rwandan government was close to bankrupt by mid-1993 and
desperately needed foreign assistance to keep operating.
Although the nation suffered enormously from the costs of war, Habyarimana personally seems to
have profited from the conflict. According to one banker, the president earned commissions on arms
sales and deposited the money in European bank accounts held by several of his associates and their
children.217
214
Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume 1, p. 165.
215
Laurent, “Panorama Succinct,” pp. 423-27.
216
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Pierre Galand, by telephone, Brussels, March 27, 1997, based on his work and that of
Professor Michel Chossudovsky; Frédéric Moser, “Rwanda: Comment le Nord a Financé le Génocide, Télé Moustique, No.
9/3708, February 19, 1997; Jean-François Pollet, “Rwanda: les fonds internationaux ont financé le génocide,” Demain le Monde,
no. 12/13, mars-avril 1997; Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Compte-rendu de la Commission rogatoire
internationale exécutée au Rwanda du 5 juin au 24 juin 1995, dossier 57/95 (confidential source).
217
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Compte-rendu...du 5 juin au 24 juin 1995.
87
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The Arusha Accords
In July 1993, after a year of negotiations, agreement, disavowal, and then renewed negotiations,
Habyarimana was still looking for ways to avoid signing the final peace treaty. He was finding it
increasingly difficult to delay because even France was pushing him to accept the Accords.
Habyarimana’s most ardent supporters in the French military may have flinched little at the successful
RPF thrust in February. But others, particularly those at the Foreign Ministry who had believed for some
time that Habyarimana could not win the war, used the RPF military success to support their argument
for a negotiated settlement. At the same time, a change of ambassador in Kigali in April 1993 removed
one of Habyarimana’s strong supporters and in Paris the installation of Edouard Balladur as prime
minister brought to power someone who cared less for African adventures than did his predecessor.
By late July, the donor nations—including France—had lost patience and used the ultimate threat. In
combination with the World Bank, they informed Habyarimana that international funds for his
government would be halted if he did not sign the treaty by August 9. With no other source of funds
available, Habyarimana was obliged to sign along with the other parties, on August 4, 1993. 218
The international actors celebrated this hard-won success, particularly important as the first peace
negotiated with the assistance of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Tanzania had served as the
chief facilitator. France, Belgium, the U.S., Germany, Burundi, Senegal, Uganda, and Zaire had been
represented throughout and the U.N. had sent observers for the final sessions. The international
community so present in forging the treaty promised also to help implement it by providing a U.N.
peacekeeping force.
The Accords appeared to have dealt with all the major issues in a detailed series of agreements that
covered the establishment of the rule of law, the transitional institutions to govern until elections
could be held, the repatriation of refugees, the resettlement of displaced persons, and the integration
of the two opposing armies. They laid out a clear schedule for implementation of the Accords. In the
broad-based transitional government, power was to be shared among three forces: Habyarimana and
his group, the RPF, and the block of MDR, PSD, and PL, with the addition of the Democratic Christian
Party (PDC). Habyarimana would remain as president, but would lose most of his power to a Council of
Ministers, and in that body the MRND was to have only five of nineteen places, instead of the nine held
previously. The RPF also was to hold five seats, but received in addition the newly-created post of vice
prime minister. The MDR, PL, PSD, and PDC were to have nine ministries plus the post of prime
minister, which remained in the hands of the MDR. The parties that composed the broad-based
transitional government were also to dominate the transitional legislative assembly with a small
number of additional seats allocated, one each for less important parties.219
In the integrated army, the Rwandan government was to provide 60 percent of the troops, but would
have to share command posts fifty-fifty down to the level of battalion with the RPF. The new army was
to count no more than 19,000 soldiers and 6,000 national police, so both forces, the Rwandan army
218
Human Rights Watch/Africa interview, Brussels, February 12, 1994.
Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs, gives a clear and complete analysis of the Accords, pp. 248-256. See also Adelman
and Suhrke, Early Warning, pp. 24-27.
219
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
88
with more than 30,000 soldiers and national police and the RPF with some 20,000 troops, would have
to demobilize at least half their military personnel.220
The carefully calibrated three-part division of power in the government made it unlikely that any one
group could dominate and thus be able to disrupt the movement toward elections and real peace. But
the hope of progress depended on each of the groups remaining coherent and able to act as a
counterweight to the others. As the negotiators all knew, that was a doubtful premise given the
division of the MDR just three weeks before the signature of the treaty. The Accords actually named
Faustin Twagiramungu, head of the smaller of the two MDR factions, as the prime minister to take
office when the broad-based transitional government was installed. This designation, approved by
Habyarimana, permitted the signature of the Accords, but did not resolve the dispute within the MDR.
The division in its ranks and the possibility that similar splits could take place—or could be caused—in
other parties offered opponents of the settlement the chance to upset the whole peace process.
Opposition to the Accords
Even as the crowds were celebrating peace in the streets of Kigali, the radicals were hardening their
opposition to the terms of the Accords. Two days after the treaty was signed, Belgian military
intelligence reported much dissatisfaction among both soldiers and civilians, warning that “a wave of
demonstrations, clashes and even assassination attempts” might begin within the next few days. 221
Many soldiers were angry that Habyarimana had yielded to foreign pressure when the army had not
been decisively defeated. Despite their rapid retreat before the RPF the previous February, some
continued to believe that the Rwandan army could win if the battle were begun again. Soldiers
disavowed the accords for personal as well as for political reasons. With the planned demobilization,
many would lose the chance to live relatively well—from exactions if not from salary. This was
particularly true for senior officers, many of them of Habyarimana’s age-group, who would be among
the first demobilized because of their age. Colonel Bagosora, although already retired, spoke for those
whose careers would be ended by the Accords. He was completely opposed to the agreement and
scorned those Hutu who had signed it as “House Hutu and opportunists.”222 Presumably he included
Habyarimana among this group.
Like the soldiers, some burgomasters and prefects feared losing their positions when the Accords
were implemented. Administrators were to be subject to review within three months of the installation
of the broad-based transitional government and those found to be incompetent or involved in prior
human rights abuses were to be removed. Having seen a similar review process remove about one
quarter of the burgomasters in February 1993, many administrators had no desire to expose
themselves to the same fate. 223
The CDR, opposed to the Accords from the start, had no place in the transitional institutions and
continued to attack the agreement. Although CDR leader Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza held an important
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, 1993-1996 (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information,
1996), p. 224.
220
Sénat [Belge], Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc Rwanda à la Commission des Affaires Etrangères,” [Hereafter Sénat, Rapport du
Group AdHoc] January 7, 1997, p. 22.
221
222
Aboganena, “Bagosora S’Explique,” p.18-19.
223
Article 46, Protocol of Agreement on Power Sharing, Part I, signed October 30, 1992.
89
March 1999
post in the foreign affairs ministry that had participated in negotiating the treaty, he visited the
Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs two weeks after its signing to “explain the reasons why the Arusha
Accords are unacceptable and why their implementation will bring even more bloodshed.”224 Radicals
found their fears of Tutsi domination confirmed by the terms of the Accords, but even moderate Hutu,
first disillusioned by the February 1993 attack, experienced growing concern that the RPF had gotten
more than its fair share of power and might not want to continue cooperating with other parties.
In the months following the signing of the Accords, hard-liners pushed ahead with activities that
appear linked to the “self-defense” program. In entries in his appointment book early in the year,
Bagosora several times stressed the importance of controlling the flow of information to the public. In
August the radio station RTLM began broadcasting, drawing listeners primarily with its popular music,
building an audience for the time several months later when it would begin blasting forth propaganda
and directives.
Buying Machetes
If the war were to resume and a self-defense force were to be put into action, its recruits would need
arms. According to an entry in the appointment book, Bagosora had foreseen being able to provide
firearms for only one third of the recruits. The others were to operate with traditional weapons: spears,
bows and arrows, and machetes. Spears and bows and arrows were not easily available on the world
market, but machetes were another matter. Requests for import licenses from January 1993 through
March 1994 show that 581,000 kilograms of machetes were imported into Rwanda as part of a larger
quantity of 3,385,000 kilograms of metal goods including also hammers, picks, and sickles. Assuming
the average weight of a machete to be one kilogram, this quantity would equal some 581,000
machetes or one for every third adult Hutu male in Rwanda. This was about double the number of
machetes imported in previous years. These importations were remarkable not just for the
extraordinary quantity but also for the identity of the importers. The most significant was Félicien
Kabuga, a businessman from Byumba and friend of Habyarimana, to whom he was connected through
the marriage of their children. Kabuga had built his wealth through the export of coffee and the import
of a variety of goods, chiefly used clothing, food, and household goods. During this period, Kabuga
ventured into large-scale importation of metal goods, including machetes, for which he received seven
licenses for a total value of 95 million Rwandan francs, or about U.S.$525,000. One cargo of 987
cartons of machetes, weighing some 25,662 kilograms, was shipped to him from the Kenyan port of
Mombasa on October 26, arriving in Kigali in early November.225
The only local manufacturer of machetes was Rwandex Chillington, a joint venture between Plantation
& General Investments, based in the United Kingdom, and Rwandex, a coffee processing company.
According to La Lettre du Continent, a Chillington employee said that in February 1994, the company
had sold more machetes than it had during the entire preceeding year. The news account reported that
Chillington officials found this so alarming that they had notified representatives of the United Nations
peacekeeping force.226 Sebastian Hobhouse, Executive Director of Plantation & General Investments,
224
Sénat, Rapport du Group AdHoc, p. 58.
225
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Pierre Galand, March 27, 1997; Elisabeth Levy, “Un protégé de Berne a importé 25
tonnes de machettes au Rwanda,” Le Nouveau Quotidien, January 16, 1997. Levy provided the copy of the receipt published
here.
226
La Lettre du Continent, no. 213, June 26, 1994.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
90
categorically denied this information, saying there was no increase in sales whatsoever during the first
three months of 1994.227 But, according to the production manager, quoted in the Sunday Times, the
Chillington factory sold “an unusually high number” of the 16,000 machetes produced between
August and December 1993 to two Rwandex employees, Eugene Mbarushimana and François Burasa.
228
Mbarushimana was secretary-general of the Interahamwe and a son-in-law of Kabuga. Burasa, a
retired member of the armed forces, was the older brother of CDR leader Barayagwiza. Researchers
from Human Rights Watch and FIDH questioned both the local manager, Joe Hazel, and Hobhouse
about machete production and sales as well as about general operating procedures of the plant during
these months. Hazel found Hobhouse’s information that the company supplied only 5 percent of the
local machete market (a figure that Hobhouse subsequently raised to 8 percent) to be far too low, but
he refused to provide his own assessment without consulting London. Hazel declared that there had
been no foreign manager of the plant for about six months before his arrival in March 1994 and that
the plant had been managed by Rwandan staff with only occasional visits by foreign staff based
outside Rwanda. Hobhouse, on the other hand, asserted that there had been no gap in resident
foreign supervision.229 These contradictions suggest that further investigation might produce useful
information on the production and distribution of machetes in the months before the genocide.
Recruiting Supporters
In late 1993 and early 1994, hard-liners stepped up the recruitment and training of militia. As the
training became increasingly public knowledge, Minister of Finance Marc Rugenera raised a question
about it in the Council of Ministers. The minister of defense at the time, Augustin Bizimana, admitted
that the training was going on, but said it was only to prepare the young men to be guards for the
national parks and forests. In a document dated June 1996, Col. Bagosora and eleven others accused
of genocide gave the same explanation.230 When the burgomaster of Butamwa commune asked
questions about militia training at a cassiterite pit in his commune in early 1994, the military trainers
told him that the trainees were preparing for work with private security companies and that the
training program had been authorized by Minister of Defense Bizimana.231
The radical military group AMASASU had proposed in their January 1993 letter that the Ministry of
Youth join with the Ministries of Interior and Defense to mount the civilian self-defense program. The
minister of youth at the time was Callixte Nzabonimana, an MRND member, who has been accused of
participating in the genocide in his home commune. In mid-October, the Ministry of Youth notified
burgomasters that it would henceforth provide the salary for youth leaders at the commune level. Such
posts had existed in the past but had been eliminated in many communes because of lack of funds.
The financial situation of the national government had not improved in the meantime, but the minister
of youth had decided nonetheless that the services of professional youth leaders were important
227
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Sebastian Hobhouse, London, October 4, 1996.
228
Jason Burke et al, “British Firm Sold Machetes to Hutu Killers,” Sunday Times (London), November 24, 1996.
229
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Sebastian Hobhouse; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Joe Hazel, by telephone,
Kigali, April 26, 1996. Letter from Sebastian Hobhouse to Human Rights Watch, May 9, 1996.
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair and Defiance (London: 1995), pp. 55-56; Théoneste Bagosora et al., “Le Conseil de
Sécurité de l’ONU Induit en Erreur sur le Prétendu ‘Génocide Tutsi’ au Rwanda,” June 1996, p. 13.
230
231
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, January 25, 1997.
91
March 1999
enough to justify subsidizing their salaries.232 The subsidy allowed at least one of the communes,
Nyakizu, to hire a youth organizer who was said to be an anti-Tutsi extremist and who may have
assisted in the militia training programs that were carried out in Nyakizu in the months before the
genocide. Youth organizers apparently continued to work throughout the genocide in Kibuye, when
most other public services were not functioning.
Recruitment by the RPF
Not convinced that the Accords would be implemented, the RPF continued to enlist young people to be
soldiers and trained them in the part of northern Rwanda under their control. At the same time, it
intensified preparations for the political struggle. Since the start of the war, a small number of
supporters had worked for the RPF within Rwanda, largely collecting money for the guerrilla effort. In
late July or early August 1993, the RPF brought increasing numbers of young people to their zone to
train them as political agents to broaden this network within the country. They prepared them with two
or three weeks of theoretical and Marxist lectures on philosophy, history, and economics and then
sent them home to gather information on local conditions and to organize sympathizers for the
movement. According to witnesses who participated in or observed this program, only one day or one
half day was spent on training in arms and most trainees were allowed to fire only one bullet. An
apparently authentic notebook kept by a trainee and later captured by the Rwandan army
substantiates this information. Of forty-seven pages of notes, only one and a half record information
on guns, information apparently delivered in one two-hour session.233
RPF supporters organized several hundred cells during 1993, each including between six and twelve
members. Leaders apparently insisted that each group include Hutu as well as Tutsi because they
feared groups of Tutsi alone would be too easily isolated and attacked. If adherents could not attract
Hutu participants, then the group was not to be formally constituted as a cell. Unarmed and virtually
untrained in combat skills, these young agents hardly constituted a military threat. Even in the
political domain, they did not yet threaten the Habyarimana regime. Some bolder supporters
publically declared their affiliation with the RPF after the peace treaty was signed, but most still kept
their preference hidden. Although the majority operated quietly, particularly outside of Kigali, the elite
of Habyarimana supporters, military and civilian, knew they had arrived. Here, they said, were the
“infiltrators” they had been talking about for so long.234
The United Nations Peacekeepers
The U.N. Security Council was still smarting under the failure of its peacekeeping efforts in Somalia
when the request for a Rwandan force was presented. Members of the council were reassured by the
detailed nature of the Accords and they were impressed that a joint delegation representing both
sides had come to ask for a peacekeeping force. As one diplomat remarked, they thought “Rwanda
232
J.M. Vianney Habineza, Bourgmestre, Commune Maraba, to Monsieur l’Encadreur Préfectoral de la Jeunesse et des
Associations, Butare, no. 472/04.09.01/10, December 21, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
233
Notebook provided by Solidaire-Rwanda, a nongovernmental organization close to the former Rwandan government.
234
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, March 22, 1996; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, February
14, 1997; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR à la Recherche de la Verité sur le
Drame Rwandais,” Décembre, 1995, pp. 39, 42-43.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
92
would be a winner.”235 Had they consulted the diplomats who had extracted the signature from the
reluctant Habyarimana, they might have had a more realistic assessment of the chances of future
success. Partly because they counted on an easy success, partly because they were not disposed to
invest much in resolving the situation in Rwanda anyway, the Security Council failed to devote the
resources necessary to ensure that the hard-won Accords were actually implemented.
From the start, Rwandans and some knowledgeable foreign observers recognized the precariousness
of the Accords. The longer the delay before the installation of the broad-based government, the greater
the likelihood that the entire structure would collapse into renewed war. The Accords called for a U.N.
peacekeeping force to arrive thirty-seven days after the signing of the agreement. As experienced
diplomats certainly knew, it would be impossible to keep to such a schedule. It took three weeks
beyond the thirty-seven days for the Security Council even to pass the resolution creating the force.
Despite the warning by the U.N. secretary-general that delay would “seriously jeopardize” the
agreement, it was another two months before substantial numbers of peacekeepers were in the
country. As critical observers later commented, the Rwandan operation lacked a powerful patron
among council members to force the normally slow pace of the U.N. bureaucracy. Only France had the
interest to play that role, but its effectiveness was undercut by its close identification with the
Habyarimana government.236
Resources and Mandate
Not only was the U.N. slow, it was also stingy. The United States, which was assessed 31 percent of
U.N. peacekeeping costs, had suffered from the enormous 370 percent increase in peacekeeping
expenses from 1992 to 1993 and was in the process of reviewing its policy on such operations. In the
meantime, it was determined to keep the costs of the Rwandan operation as low as possible, which
meant limiting the size of the force. One U.N. military expert had recommended that UNAMIR include a
minimum of 8,000 soldiers. General Romeo Dallaire, named as commander, had asked for 4,500. The
U.S. initially proposed 500. When the Security Council finally acted on October 5, 1993, it established
the U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) at a level of 2,548 troops.237
The UNAMIR budget was formally approved on April 4, 1994, two days before the beginning of the
genocide. The delay in funding, in addition to other administrative problems, resulted in the force not
receiving essential equipment and supplies, including armored personnel carriers and ammunition.
When the killing began in April, UNAMIR lacked reserves of such basic commodities as food and
medicine as well as military supplies.238
Constrained by the relatively small size of the force as well as by a determination not to repeat the
mistakes made in Somalia, the diplomats produced a mandate for UNAMIR that was far short of what
would have been needed to guarantee implementation of the Accords. In a spirit of retrenchment, they
weakened several important provisions of the Accords. Where the Arusha agreement had asked for a
force to “guarantee overall security” in Rwanda, the Security Council provided instead a force to
“contribute to” security, and not throughout the country, but only in the city of Kigali. At Arusha, the
235
Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 35.
236
Ibid., p. 36.
237
Ibid., pp.35-6.
238
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Plainsboro, New Jersey, June 14, 1996; Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 36.
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parties had agreed that the U.N. peacekeepers would “assist in tracking of arms caches and
neutralization of armed gangs throughout the country” and would “assist in the recovery of all
weapons distributed to, or illegally acquired by, the civilians.” But, in New York, diplomats conscious
of the difficulties caused by disarmament efforts in Somalia completely eliminated these provisions.
In the Accords, the peacekeepers were to have been charged with providing security for civilians. This
part of the mandate was first changed to a responsibility for monitoring security through “verification
and control” of the police, but in the end it was limited to the charge to “investigate and report on
incidents regarding the activities” of the police.239
Paragraph 17
Rules of Engagement translate the general policy directives—the mandate—of the Security Council into
regulations that govern the conduct of the soldiers. Soon after General Dallaire and his staff arrived in
Rwanda, they drew up these rules for UNAMIR. Like other such operations, UNAMIR was to use
weapons “normally for self-defense only.” The use of force for deterrence or retaliation was forbidden
and self-defense, which was legitimate, was defined to mean “resistance to attempts by forceful
means to prevent the Force from discharging its duties under the mandate of UNAMIR.” The overriding
rule was to be the use of minimum force. In accord with these directions, the force was lightly armed.
Dallaire specified that the maintenance of law and order was normally the job of Rwandan police,
assisted, if necessary, by the U.N. police unit, UNCIVPOL. He added that it was “a very real possibility”
that UNAMIR soldiers might be required to assist UNCIVPOL and local authorities in maintaining law
and order.
In paragraph 17, Dallaire spelled out in extraordinarily strong and clear language the responsibility of
the force if confronted with crimes against humanity. It reads:
There may also be ethnically or politically motivated criminal acts committed during
this mandate which will morally and legally require UNAMIR to use all available
means to halt them. Examples are executions, attacks on displaced persons or
refugees, ethnic riots, attacks on demobilized soldiers, etc. During such occasions
UNAMIR military personnel will follow the ROD240 outlined in this directive, in support
of UNCIVPOL and local authorities or in their absence, UNAMIR will take the
necessary action to prevent any crime against humanity.241
The first paragraph of the document indicates that these Rules of Engagement “are drafted by the
Force, but are approved by the U.N. and may only be changed wth U.N. authority.”242 This document
was a second version that included changes proposed in Kigali by Belgians and others involved in
UNAMIR. Although the document was marked “interim,” it was accepted by U.N. headquarters in New
239
Compare articles B1, B3 and B4 of the Arusha Accords with articles 3a and 3h of Security Council Resolution 872 of October
5, 1993.
240
This is apparently a typographical error for ROE or Rules of Engagement.
241
Force Commander, “Operational Directive No. 02, Rules of Engagement (Interim), File No. 4003.1, 19 November 1993, U.N.
Restricted, p.7 (emphasis added).
242
Force Commander, “Operational Directive No. 02,” p. 1.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
94
York and was not amended by it. It was circulated to the member states that provided troops to
UNAMIR and was in effect at the time of the genocide.243
The Assassination of Melchior Ndadaye and Violence in Burundi
Had the situation in the region remained stable, there would have been at least some hope for actual
implementation of the Accords. But it did not. On October 21, 1993, Tutsi army officers assassinated
Melchior Ndadaye, the president of Burundi, setting off massive killings of both Hutu and Tutsi. This
nation just to the south of Rwanda has a similar population of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, but had
experienced a different political history, in part because Tutsi retained power after independence in
1962. Hutu had tried to win control several times, only to be put down by the Tutsi-dominated army,
most savagely in 1972 when some 100,000 Hutu were slaughtered. In 1988, Hutu attacks on Tutsi had
provoked excessive and unjustified military repression in parts of northern Burundi near the Rwandan
frontier and tens of thousands of Hutu refugees fled into Rwanda. Under international and domestic
pressure, the Burundi government then had initiated a series of reforms that culminated in a free and
fair election in June 1993. The victor, Ndadaye, was the first Hutu to hold this office and his election
was hailed as a great victory by Hutu in Rwanda as well as in Burundi. A moderate, he named a Tutsi
prime minister244 from the opposing party and approved a politically and ethnically balanced cabinet.
Ndadaye moved to establish his party’s control over the administration, but left the Tutsi-dominated
army largely untouched. Hutu in Rwanda, where he had once been a political refugee, followed his
progress with interest and pride. Those Rwandans who most feared the RPF were reassured by
Ndadaye’s election because, they believed, it would eliminate the possibility that a Tutsi-dominated
Burundi government might permit the RPF to invade Rwanda from the south.
Four months after the election, soldiers murdered Ndadaye and leading members of his government
during an attempted coup. Although forced by apparently unanimous international pressure to return
to the barracks and restore power to a civilian government, the soldiers had nonetheless taken the
first step to a gradual reassertion of Tutsi control over the administrative system. In the days after the
murder, Hutu retaliated, killing thousands of Tutsi, often at the incitement of local administrative
officials. Under the guise of restoring order, the Tutsi army took savage reprisals, even in communities
where there had been little or no violence against Tutsi.
The murder of Ndadaye and the ensuing killings worsened the situation in Rwanda immediately and
dramatically. Moderates who had hoped that a peaceful transition in Burundi would show that Hutu
and Tutsi could share power found it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic about the peaceful
integration of the RPF into the government.Tutsi saw their fears of slaughter by Hutu justified once
more and concluded that Tutsi control of the state was the only way to protect themselves. The CDR
and MRND hard-liners saw the assassination as irrefutable proof that Tutsi were bent on dominating
the entire region and would use force, if necessary, to achieve that goal.
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 81. At a meeting in Washington on December 9, 1998, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General
Alvaro De Soto asserted that UNAMIR troops used a different and shorter version of the rules of engagement which did not
include paragraph 17. A senior UNAMIR commander, however, confirmed that troops were operating under the rules cited here,
including paragraph 17. Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, December 14, 1998.
243
244
The prime minister was a capable economist, Sylvie Kinigi, the first woman to serve in that capacity in this part of Africa. The
nomination of Agathe Uwilingiymana as Rwandan prime minister the next month created the remarkable situation of two
women serving as heads of governments in adjoining central African nations.
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For the anti-Tutsi propagandists, the assassination of the Burundian president offered just the kind of
tragedy most helpful to their cause. It gave RTLM the chance to establish itself as the most virulent
voice in the campaign against Tutsi. Eager to whip up revulsion against the assassins, its announcer
Habimana Kantano came on the air for the evening news declaring:
Burundi first. That’s where our eyes are looking now. Even when the dog-eaters are
few in number, they discredit the whole family. That proverb was used by the
[Burundian] minister of labor, Mr. Nyangoma, meaning that those Tutsi thugs of
Burundi have killed democracy by torturing to death the elected president, Ndadaye.
Those dog-eaters have now started mutilating the body. We have learned that the
corpse of Ndadaye was secretly buried to hide the mutilations that those beasts have
wrought on his body.245
The press, too, circulated accounts that Ndadaye had been tortured and, some said, castrated before
death. Even the national television, not ordinarily much involved in such propaganda, displayed a
bloated and mutilated body for hours, wrongly claiming it was Ndadaye’s corpse. All the reports of
torture and mutilation were false.246
Rwandans in the southern prefectures of Butare and Gikongoro were more directly touched by the
killings in Burundi than people who lived further from the border. Some 300,000 refugees streamed
into southern Rwanda in the weeks after the Ndadaye assassination.247 They joined several tens of
thousands of Burundians who had sought refuge in Rwanda following earlier episodes of violence. By
the very misery of their existence in refugee camps, as much as by the tales of horror they related,
these refugees showed Rwandan Hutu the damage that could be done by a Tutsi-run army.
Since at least the end of December 1991, several hundred Hutu guerrillas from Burundi had been living
and training in refugee camps in Gikongoro.248 With the arrival of the new flood of refugees, the
training increased to such a level that a representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
wrote to the Rwandan authorities, reminding them that such activities violated international
agreements on refugees. In late November, Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana visited the largest camps to
insist that the training stop.249 Camp directors and local authorities ignored her orders. The training
even expanded to include recruits from Rwandan militia. By January, many diplomats in Kigali had
245
Recording of RTLM broadcasts, October 17-31, 1993 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
246
Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, SOS-Torture, and the Human Rights League of
the Great Lakes organized an international commission of inquiry similar to that which had documented abuses in Rwanda. The
commission arranged for an autopsy by a forensic physician who found that Ndadaye had been killed by several blows of a
sharp instrument, probably a bayonet. The body had not been mutilated and showed no signs of torture. See Commission
Internationale d’Enquete sur les Violations des Droits de l’Homme au Burundi depuis le 21 octobre 1993, Rapport Final, New
York and Paris, July, 1994, Annexe B.
247
Butare prefecture received the largest number, with 276,626 refugees in mid-November. Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, Préfet,
to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no. 1389/04.09.01/1, November 14, 1993 (Butare
prefecture).
248
Préfet, Gikongoro, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, December 19, 1991; Bourgmestre,
Nshili, to Monsieur le Préfet, February 11, 1992; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du
Développement Communal, February 19, 1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
249
Telegram, S/Préfet, Busoro, to Mininter, no. 375/04.09.01/14, December 3, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
96
heard reports of the training from representatives of international humanitarian agencies working in
the camps.250
The murder of Ndadaye had great impact on the Rwandan situation in one further way: it showed once
again that the international community was willing to tolerate slaughter in the pursuit of political ends.
Once the Burundian army had bowed to international pressure and apparently returned control of the
government to civilians, donor nations did nothing to insist that the guilty be brought to trial, neither
those army officers responsible for the assassinations of the political leaders and the killing of other
Hutu civilians, nor the Hutu administrators and ordinary people who had slaughtered Tutsi. Those
most implicated in the killings continued to exercise power as they had before.251
In the days after the murder of Ndadaye, Hutu attacked Tutsi in many parts of Rwanda. They killed
some forty in Cyangugu, twenty each in Butare and Ruhengeri, seventeen in Gisenyi, thirteen in Kigali
and drove many others from their homes. Assailants tried to assassinate Alphonse-Marie Nkubito, a
high-ranking judicial official and human rights activist who had frequently defended Tutsi, although
himself a Hutu.252
Hutu Power
The movement known as Hutu Power (pronounced Pawa in Kinyarwanda), the coalition that would
make the genocide possible, was built upon the corpse of Ndadaye. The doubts about RPF intentions,
sown by the February 1993 attack and fed by the extent of RPF gains at Arusha, ripened following the
assassination in Burundi. As one political leader commented during the genocide, “...Who didn’t have
his eyes opened by what happened in Burundi...[where they] elected President Ndadaye, who really
wanted Hutu and Tutsi to live together, but you know what they did [to him]....” 253
First announced at a meeting in Gitarama, Hutu Power drew widespread support at a rally in Kigali on
October 23, 1993 where adherents met to deplore Ndadaye’s assassination and to draw lessons from
it. Present were members of the part of the MDR now resolved to reject cooperation with the FPR,
members of the MRND and CDR, and even some Hutu members of the PL, increasingly sceptical of
their party’s link with the RPF. The second vice-president of the MDR, Froduald Karamira, took to the
podium to declare that the RPF, including specifically its leader General Kagame, were among the
plotters who had killed Ndadaye. Asserting that Kagame was depriving the people of Burundi of
democracy, Karamira went on to say he would do the same thing in Rwanda because “he lied to us in
Arusha when they were signing for peace and democracy...” Karamira called for all Hutu in Rwanda to
stand up and take “appropriate action” which, he said, does not mean “uttering words just to ‘heat
heads,’” but rather unifying into one effective Hutu mass. Sounding very much like the MRND
propagandist Mugesera one year before, Karamira reviled Twagiramungu, the MDR president who had
been named to serve as prime minister in the transitional government, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, prime
minister at the time, and Anastase Gasana, one of the chief negotiators for the Accords, calling them
Inyenzi or “puppets of the Tutsi.”
250
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Washington, October 26, 1996.
251
Commission Internationale d’Enquete, Rapport Final.
252
CLADHO to Madame le Premier Ministre, October 29, 1993 and CLADHO, Memorandum Adressé à la Minuar et aux Missions
Diplomatiques en Rapport avec les Tueries en Cours dans le Pays, December 8, 1993.
253
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 294.
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He continued, “We are not simply ‘heating heads’ by saying we have plans ‘to work’....” 254 and then he
told the crowd that they must help authorities “to look for what is within us. The enemy among us
here. We cannot sit down and think that what happened in Burundi will not happen here, since the
enemy is among us.” Karamira insisted that Hutu who work against Hutu solidarity are also part of the
enemy. “We have clarified what we must avoid. Avoid fighting another Hutu. We have been attacked,
so let us not attack ourselves. Let us avoid the invasion of the enemy who may steal our government.”
In a conclusion that evoked wild enthusiasm from the crowd, Karamira shouted:
Hutu Power! MRND Power! CDR Power! MDR Power! Interahamwe Power! JDR Power!
All Hutu are One Power!
After each shout, the crowd roared its response, “Power! Power! Power!”255
The split in the Liberal Party, signaled by the attendance of some of its leading members at this rally,
was formalized several weeks later. After months of effort, Habyarimana had achieved his objective of
splitting two of the parties that opposed him. The politicians immediately responsible for the rifts were
hardly naive pawns in the game. They made their choices knowingly, based as much on calculations of
personal interest as on their supposedly more principled opposition to the RPF. Some members of the
MDR would try to repair the rift in their ranks in December, but without success.256 Rivalries among
leaders troubled the PSD, too, but members would desert its ranks for the Power movement only after
the genocide began.
With the consolidation of Hutu Power, party allegiances faded before the imperative of ethnic
solidarity: political life was reorganized around the two opposing poles of Hutu and Tutsi. Hutu Power
was the coalition that Habyarimana needed, but it was not yet his for sure. In his speech, Karamira
had criticized the president, reiterating the CDR stand of the previous March that Habyarimana had
conceded too much to the RPF. To take leadership of the Power movement, Habyarimana would have
to carry through to its logical conclusion the position he had advocated since 1990. He would have to
stand up to the RPF and rid the country of their “accomplices.”
Hutu Power was to be implemented by the “popular army of strong young men” as sketched out by the
AMASASU and by Bagosora the previous January. This army of self-defense was to supplement rather
than to replace the party militia. Just a week after the Hutu Power rally, a commission of the Rwandan
armed forces met to plan its organization. Perhaps aware of Bagosora’s early caution that party
considerations should be avoided in the distribution of guns, they decided that firearms should be
distributed “within the framework of legal work” and that trainees who received them should be
recruited so as “to avoid suspicions among the different layers of population and among political
parties.” They called for clear definition of administrative and technical responsibilities for what was
now called “popular self-defense” or “civilian self-defense.”257
254
“To work” in this context means “to kill Tutsi,” a usage developed in the 1959 revolution.
255
Recording of RTLM broadcasts, October 17-31, 1993 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
256
The parts of the MDR and the PL associated with Hutu Power will be referred to as MDR-Power and PL-Power.
257
Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” Décembre, 1995, Chapitre V, L’AutoDéfense Populaire.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
98
At the end of March 1994, army officers—presumably members of the same commission—met again at
the operations center to plan “defense of neighborhoods [and] the tracking down and neutralisation of
infiltrators.” In a letter to the minister of defense reporting on the meeting, Chief of Staff Colonel
Nsabimana again echoed the ideas of Bagosora and the AMASASU. He specified that soldiers living
outside their camps as well as former soldiers would command the recruits and, because the supply of
firearms was limited, he proposed that the civilian population in communes outside Kigali should be
instructed in the use of machetes, spears, swords, and bows and arrows.258
Rwandan military authorities writing later asserted that the new self-defense mechanisms were not yet
in place when the catastrophe began. It appears that the system might indeed not have been fully in
place by April 7, but what was already there served the intended purpose most effectively.
Warnings
The U.N. had to move first to implement the Arusha Accords: its peacekeeping force had to be in place
in Kigali so that representatives of the RPF could also take up residence in the capital and begin to
function as part of the broad-based transitional government. At the end of December 1993 UNAMIR
had finally deployed nearly 1,300 peacekeepers in Rwanda, some 400 of them Belgian soldiers
assigned to the capital.259 UNAMIR was then able to escort the RPF civilian leaders, accompanied by
some 600 of their soldiers, into Kigali. The RPF contingent was quartered at the national parliament
building, the Conseil National de Développement (CND), an imposing structure set on a hillside a short
distance from downtown Kigali. The choice seemed reasonable: there was no other space large
enough and secure enough to house the troops. But it underlined how much the old regime had lost to
the newcomers.
With UNAMIR in place, the next move fell to the Rwandans. Whether still hoping to win new ground
through political maneuvering or whether simply to gain time for more preparations for war,
Habyarimana—with the help of members of the Hutu Power block of the PL and MDR—launched a
series of challenges to the interpretation of the Accords. He sought to assure ministerial posts for
representatives of the PL Power and MDR Power wings and to get a seat in the transitional assembly
for the CDR. He was most anxious to be able to count on one-third plus one of the total votes in the
transitional assembly, the amount needed to block decisions of major importance—such as
impeachment proceedings that could strip him of his power and leave him vulnerable to prosecution
for past crimes.260 The RPF refused all such initiatives. As one weary observer remarked, the struggle
during these months was like negotiating the Accords all over again. The installation of the new
government, originally set for January, was postponed to February and then postponed again to March
25, and then again to March 28, and then again to early April.
258
Ibid.; Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p. 514.
259
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 28.
260
Cmdr. HQ Sector [Col. Luc Marchal, Commander of the Belgian contingent, UNAMIR] to COPS, no. 1554, January 15, 1994
(confidential source); Filip Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours Qui Ont Fait Basculer l’Histoire (Brussels: Institut Africain, 1995), pp.
17-18.
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As the weeks passed, preparations for renewed conflict increased. The warnings of catastrophe
multiplied, some public, like assassinations and riots, some discreet, like confidential letters and
coded telegrams, some in the passionate pleas of desperate Rwandans, some in the restrained
language of the professional soldier. A Catholic bishop and his clergy in Gisenyi, human rights
activists in Kigali, New York, Brussels, Montreal, Ouagadougou, an intelligence analyst in Washington,
a military officer in Kigali—all with the same message: act now or many will die.
In Kigali, diplomatic representatives followed events carefully. Belgium, the U.S., France, and Germany
all had good sources of information within the Rwandan community and frequently consulted with
each other, even though there was little formal interchange among their military intelligence
services.261 Like other U.N. peacekeeping operations, UNAMIR itself had no provision for gathering
information about political and military developments. Belgian troops within UNAMIR, however, set up
their own small intelligence operation and also gathered information informally from Belgian troops
who were present as part of a military assistance project unrelated to the peacekeepers. Occasionally
UNAMIR passed on confidential information to some of the diplomats, in one case only to find they
already knew about it.262 Diplomats rarely shared what they knew with the peacekeepers. Dallaire later
commented on this in the Canadian press:
“A lot of the world powers were all there with their embassies and their military
attachés,” Dallaire said. “And you can’t tell me those bastards didn’t have a lot of
information. They would never pass that information on to me, ever.”263
Obviously no one observer, whether in Kigali, in a capital abroad or at U.N. headquarters, followed all
the ominous signs during the months before the genocide. But, as the compilation below makes clear,
the warnings of catastrophe were many and convincing; although international decision makers did
not know everything, they knew enough to have understood that disaster lay ahead.
Chronology
November 1993
Lt. Marc Nees, an intelligence officer with the Belgian paratroopers, among the first UNAMIR troops to
arrive in Rwanda, reported that a meeting chaired by Habyarimana on November 5 at the Hotel Rebero
decided “to distribute grenades, machetes and other weapons to the Interahamwe and to CDR young
people. The objective is to kill Tutsi and other Rwandans who are in the cities and who do not support
them [i.e., the Interahamwe and CDR]. The distribution of the weapons has already begun.” 264 These
measures may have been linked to the military meeting on “self-defense” held at the end of October.
November 17-18: Unidentified assailants killed some forty persons, including local authorities, in a
highly organized attack in the northern communes of Nkumba, Kidaho, Cyeru, and Nyamugali. One
Sénat de Belgique, Commission d’enquête parlementaire concernant les événements du Rwanda, Rapport, 6 Décembre
1997, pp. 334-5 [Hereafter cited as Commission d’enquête, Rapport]. Note that this report reprints the report of the Groupe Ad
Hoc of the Belgian Senate.
261
262
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, October 25, 1997.
263
Allan Thompson, “Nightmare of the Generals in 1994,” The Sunday Star, October 5, 1997.
Walter de Bock and Gert Van Langendonck, “Legerstaf wist alles over nakende genocide Rwanda,” De Morgen, November 4,
1995, p. 1.
264
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
100
attack was in the immediate vicinity of a U.N. military observer post. UNAMIR investigated the killings,
but never published any results. This was the first case to suggest that UNAMIR could not in fact
assure the security of civilians nor even bring assailants to justice.265
November 23: The human rights group, Association des Volontaires de la Paix, issued a statement
describing attacks on civilians throughout the country, many by members of the MRND and the CDR.
Among other measures, they recommended closer supervision of Burundian refugee camps to ensure
that the international prohibition of military activity in the camps was respected.266
November 23: The CDR issued a press release calling for the resignation or dismissal of the president
and prime minister if they failed to act following the killings of November 17-18. If they do nothing, the
CDR said, it would consider them “accomplices” of the RPF. The CDR asked the “majority population”
to be ready to “neutralize by all means its enemies and their accomplices.”267
November 26: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali reported to his ministry of foreign affairs that RTLM
had called for the assassination of Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana and of Prime Minister-designate
Twagiramungu.268
A Belgian Red Cross truck was deliberately targeted by government soldiers and blown up by a mine. 11
November 29-30: Unidentified assailants killed more than a dozen persons in the northwestern
commune of Mutura.269
December 1993
Early December: Six buses full of Interahamwe trainees stopped to refuel at a military camp en route
home from a training session at Gabiro. The officer in charge, unsure if he was authorized to provide
fuel to the Interahamwe, radioed an inquiry to Kigali. He was later reprimanded for having asked his
question over the nation-wide military communications network and having thus revealed official
support for the Interahamwe. He then changed his story to say the trainees were park guards.270
Early December: UNAMIR received reports of suspicious movements by armed militia. It noted that
RTLM was broadcasting relentless and increasingly inflammatory propaganda urging Hutu to stand up
to Tutsi. U.N. representatives asked diplomatic missions in Kigali to become more actively involved in
expediting the installation of the transitional government.271
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, pp. 69, 74; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des
FAR,” p. 24; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview with diplomat present in Kigali at the time, by telephone, Washington, January
13, 1997.
265
266
“Declaration de l’Association des Volontaires de la Paix sur la Sécurité au Rwanda depuis la Signature des Accords
d’Arusha,” November 23, 1993 (AVP).
267
Communiqué du CDR, signed by Martin Bucyana, Kigali, November 23, 1993 (RPF Human Rights Committee, Kigali).
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 70.
268 10
11
Ibid., p. 29.
269
Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” p. 22; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview
with diplomat present in Kigali at the time, by telephone, Washington, January 13, 1997.
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, January 26, 1996, Brussels, August 13, 1998; Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p.
87, n. 50.
270
271
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology,” Document by U.N. staff member not otherwise identified (confidential source).
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March 1999
December 1: The Rwandan human rights organization ARDHO published a report of recent attacks on
Tutsi, warning that the assailants “declare that this population is an accomplice of the Inkotanyi
because it is mostly Tutsi and its extermination would be a good thing.”272
December 2: Assailants armed with machine guns fired on a UNAMIR patrol in northern Rwanda.273
December 3: Senior officers of the Rwandan Armed Forces wrote to General Dallaire, drawing his
attention to recent killings of civilians at Kirambo, Mutura, and Ngenda and informing him that “More
massacres of the same kind are being prepared and are supposed to spread throughout the country,
beginning with the regions that have a great concentration of Tutsi....This strategy aims to convince
public opinion that these are ethnic troubles and thus to incite the RPF to violate the cease-fire, as it
did in February 1993, which will then give a pretext for the general resumption of hostilities.”
The officers specified also that opposition politicians would be assassinated, including the Prime
Minister-designate Twagiramungu and Félicien Gatabazi, head of the PSD. They remarked that
Habyarimana himself initiated this “Machiavellian plan” with the support of a handful of military
officers from his home region. They identified themselves as having been part of this circle until
recently when a sense of the national interest “inspired us with revulsion against these filthy
tactics.”274
December 3: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali informed his foreign ministry that the Presidential
Guard was training young men in three camps for “raids”on Kigali.275
December 8: The human rights coalition CLADHO addressed a memorandum about killings throughout
the country to UNAMIR and the diplomatic missions in Kigali. They asked that the militia be
disarmed.276
December 17: A coalition of nongovernmental organizations working for development issued a press
release asking the army to discipline its troops and calling for disarming and dismantling the militia. 277
December 24: According to its mandate, UNAMIR was charged with contributing to the security of
Kigali, which was to be free of weapons. On this date, the procedures for establishing the weaponsfree zone went into effect. UNAMIR, in cooperation with the National Police, was to enforce the ban on
weapons.278
December 27: Belgian intelligence reported on a meeting of military commanding officers held from 11
am to 3 pm December 22 in the office of Chief of Staff Nsabimana, promoted several months before to
272
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 70.
273
Ibid., p. 37.
274
Anonymous to Monsieur le Commandant de la Mission des Nations unies pour l’assistance au Rwanda, December 3, 1993
(confidential source). The letter is reprinted in Guichaoua, Les Crises Politiques, p. 654, where General Rusatira is listed among
the signers. Rusatira, however, denies having signed the letter.
275
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 65.
276
CLADHO, Memorandum Adressé à la Minuar et aux Missions Diplomatiques en Rapport avec les Tueries en Cours dans le
Pays, December 8, 1993.
277
Consultative Council of Organizations Supporting Grass-roots Initiatives (Conseil de Concertation des Organisations d’Appui
aux Initiatives de Base, CCOAIB), Communiqué de Presse, December 17, 1993.
278
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 83.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
102
the rank of general. A number of officers were ordered to supply light arms, ammunition, spare parts,
and uniforms to Hutu extremists. The report said, “The Interahamwe are armed to the teeth and on
alert. Many of them have been trained at the military camp in Bugesera. Each of them has ammunition,
grenades, mines and knives. They have been trained to use guns that are stockpiled with their
respective chiefs. They are all just waiting for the right moment to act.”279
December 28: The bishop and clergy of the diocese of Nyundo, in northwestern Rwanda, issued a
press release in which they noted the distribution of weapons in their parishes and asked the
authorities “to explain clearly to the public the use [intended] for these weapons that have been
handed out recently.”280
The Kigali prosecutor asked the help of UNAMIR in arresting Setiba, head of a militia group that had
been receiving training by the Presidential Guard in the Gishwati forest. UNCIVPOL, the police attached
to UNAMIR, undertook the mission but returned empty-handed because a detachment of Rwandan
soldiers was camped in the vicinity of Setiba’s house and appeared ready to protect him.281
With the installation of the RPF in the capital at the end of December, young people began taking
political training courses in their Kigali headquarters. Others were recruited to go to RPF areas in the
north for military training.282
January 1994
January 1-2: According to a report submitted by Belgian intelligence, Rwandan army units surrounded
the CND building where the RPF were quartered and checked to be sure the building was within range
of their weapons at those locations. They then withdrew to their own barracks.283
January 3: Belgian UNAMIR troops under the command of Colonel Luc Marchal seized hidden stocks of
arms, ammunition, and explosives. But later they returned the weapons to the Rwandan army, which
was said to have been their owner.284
January 4: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali reminded his ministry of foreign affairs about the
distribution of weapons by supporters of the president. At a meeting the same day, Belgian officers
had discussed the locations of stocks of arms and of training camps. This information was reported to
General Dallaire.285
January 5: A crowd of CDR supporters attacked the Tanzanian ambassador whom they regarded as too
favorable to peace negotiations.286
279
Walter de Bock, “Belgische ‘Wijkagenten’ zagen voorbereiding genocide,” De Morgen, November 4, 1995, p. 5.
280
Msgr. Wenceslas Kalibushi and priests of Kibuye and Gisenyi, Communiqué de Presse, December 28, 1993 (ADL).
281
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, January 26, 1997.
282
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, July 2, 1995; Kigali, July 13, 1996.
283
Walter de Bock, “Belgische ‘Wijkagenten’ zagen voorbereiding genocide,” De Morgen, November 4, 1995, p. 5.
284
Document 6, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 8, 1994 (confidential source).
285
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, pp. 61, 65.
286
Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 38.
103
March 1999
January 6: In a cable to the U.N. in New York, Dallaire reported that UNAMIR had no proof of who
committed killings in northern Rwanda in November, but “the manner in which they were conducted,
in their execution, in their coordination, in their cover-up, and in their political motives, leads us to
firmly believe that the perpetrators of these evil deeds were well-organized, well-informed, wellmotivated and prepared to conduct premeditated murder. We have no reason to believe that such
occurrences could not and will not be repeated again in any part of this country where arms are prolific
and ethnic tensions are prevalent.”287
January 6: The Security Council reviewed the situation, as was stipulated in the resolution establishing
UNAMIR, to ensure that progress had been made toward implementing the Accords. It decided to
deploy troops designated for phase II of the operation, even though the broad-based transitional
government which was supposed to have been installed prior to the deployment had not been sworn
in. General Dallaire requested the additional troops because he feared that violence might spread
from Burundi to southern Rwanda and he wanted to post troops there. The Security Council stressed
that continued support for UNAMIR depended on full and prompt implementation of the Accords. 288
January 8: During a violent demonstration by Interahamwe—involving also the sub-prefect of Kigali and
soldiers of the Presidential Guard in civilian clothes—the National Police did nothing to intervene. In a
meeting afterwards, U.N. officers remarked that the events of the morning make “us think how few
possibilities we have to deal with this kind of action.” They acknowledged that UNAMIR might have to
intervene more actively “to compensate for the lack of effectiveness of the National Police,” even if
doing so worsened relations with the population, which was already shouting anti-Belgian slogans
that morning.289
January 8: Belgian intelligence reported on a January 7 meeting at MRND headquarters that reportedly
brought together MRND president Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Minister of Defense Augustin Bizimana, Army
Chief of Staff Nsabimana, National Police commander Gen. Augustin Ndindiliyimana, and the
president of the Interahamwe, Robert Kajuga, as well as agents of the secret police (SCR). In response
to the UNAMIR arms raid five days before and to avoid further losses, they decided that weapons
would be stored at the homes of army officers loyal to the MRND and that their owners would come get
them when necessary.
The leaders decided also to remove all hidden arms to new locations and to order Interahamwe to
fight, with stones if necessary, to defend the weapons from UNAMIR.
In addition, the leaders resolved to disrupt relations between Rwandan police and the UNAMIR officers
who were working with them and to create trouble between the Rwandan population in general and
UNAMIR, particularly its Belgian contingent.290
287
General Dallaire to U.N., New York, Code Cable MIR 39, January 6, 1994 (confidential source).
288
Anonymous, “Chronology-Rwanda,” Draft document by U.N. staff member not otherwise identified, March 16, 1994
(confidential source).
289
Service de Police Judiciaire auprès de la Justice Militaire, En cause de Dewez Joseph and Marchal Luc, Annexe A/5 au PV no.
1210 du 6/11/95; Major Hock to Maison Militaire du Roi Ministre de la Défense Nationale and others, February 2, 1994
(confidential source).
290
Document 6, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 8, 1994.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
104
January 8: The association Professional Women United (Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe), the human rights
coalition CLADHO, and the council representing nongovernmental organizations working for
development, CCOAIB, issued a declaration appealing to Rwandan and international leaders to
implement the Arusha Accords rapidly. They deplored the insecurity in the country, including
massacres and grenade attacks, the terror caused by the army and the militia, and the risk of resumed
war. They called on politicians and the media to cease their incitation to hatred and “condemned
unreservedly” the distribution of weapons to civilians by those who seek “to provoke a civil war that
would be devastating for the country.”291
January 9: General Ndindiliyimana explained to Belgian UNAMIR officers that the National Police had
not intervened in the demonstration the day before in order to avoid confrontations “that would
inevitably lead to losses, especially when the population had many grenades.”292
January 9: RTLM broadcast that UNAMIR was opposed to the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi and in
favor of the RPF and parties allied to it. Such propaganda had begun sometime before in the written
press and had stressed the supposed success of Tutsi women in seducing UNAMIR soldiers, including
the commander himself.293
January 10: A five hour meeting took place between leaders of the CDR and of the Palipehutu, an exiled
guerrilla group from Burundi active in the Burundian refugee camps.294
January 10: Belgian UNAMIR officers met with an informant named Jean-Pierre, an Interahamwe
commander, who offered to show the location of a weapons cache in return for protection for himself
and his family. He said the Rwandan Armed Forces provided these weapons, as well as training, to the
militia. He asserted that he could move the weapons wherever UNAMIR would like them put and that
he could get back part of the guns already distributed. He also informed the officers that UNAMIR had
been infiltrated with informers and that he was aware of everything that went on inside the U.N. forces.
He revealed that the January 8 demonstration had been meant to provoke a confrontation with the
Belgian UNAMIR soldiers, but that since no conflict had developed, he had never given the order to
open fire.
January 11: Interahamwe and CDR supporters demonstrated again, with the participation of Ministers
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and Callixte Nzabonimana and authorities of Kigali prefecture.295
January 11: In a coded cable to Gen. Maurice Baril at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in
New York, General Dallaire passed on information received the previous day from Jean-Pierre. He
reported that, according to the informant, the Interahamwe had trained 1,700 men, 300 of them since
UNAMIR had arrived, in three-week sessions at Rwandan army camps. The training had focused on
“discipline, weapons, explosives, close combat and tactics.” Jean-Pierre stated that he had believed
291
Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe, CLADHO, CCOAIB, “Declaration des Collectifs Relative au Retard de la Mise sur Pied des
Institutions de Transition Definies dans l’Accord de Paix d’Arusha,” January 8, 1994 (CLADHO).
292
Service de Police Judiciaire auprès de la Justice Militaire, En cause de Dewez Joseph and Marchal Luc, Annexe A/5 au PV no.
1210 du 6/11/95.
293
Document 7, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 9, 1994 (confidential source).
294
Document 8, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 10, 1994 (confidential source).
295
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, August 13, 1998; Augustin Ndindiliyimana, “Témoignage à la Commission
Spéciale Rwanda,” Brussels, April 21, 1994, (sic) p. 20.
105
March 1999
that the Interahamwe were to defend Kigali against the RPF. But since the arrival of UNAMIR [late
November and early December], his superiors had ordered him to make lists of all Tutsi in Kigali,
which persuaded him that the Interahamwe were to be used for a different purpose. Dallaire wrote:
“Informant states he disagrees with anti-Tutsi extermination. He supports opposition to RPF, but
cannot support killing of innocent persons.” The informant estimated that the men he had trained,
who were scattered in groups of forty throughout Kigali, could kill up to 1,000 Tutsi in twenty minutes.
He had distributed 110 guns and had a stockpile of another 135 which he was willing to show to
UNAMIR.
The informant confirmed that the January 8 demonstration, which he had commanded, had been
meant in part to create conditions for killing Belgian UNAMIR soldiers, in the expectation that this
would cause Belgium to withdraw its troops from Rwanda. He also confirmed that forty-eight Rwandan
paracommando soldiers and some National Policemen in civilian dress had participated in the
demonstrations for which the Rwandan army and the Interahamwe had provided radio
communication.
In the chain of command, Jean-Pierre reported directly to the chief of staff of the Rwandan army and to
the president of the MRND. Speaking of Habyarimana, he stated that “the president does not have full
control over all elements of his old party/faction.” He also warned, “...hostilities may commence again
if political deadlock ends.”296
Dallaire had some reservations about the “suddenness of the change of heart” of the informant and
said the possibility of a trap was not excluded. Two days later he sent a UNAMIR officer to verify the
information about hidden arms and found it to be accurate.
Dallaire informed New York that he planned to seize the arms within thirty-six hours. He concluded by
saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Let’s do it.” Dallaire also asked for protection for the
informant, who wanted to be assured of a U.N. guarantee before providing further information.297
January 11: The French military attaché, Colonel Cussac, and the Kenyan ambassador came separately
to ask UNAMIR officers about evacuation plans for foreigners in the event of a serious crisis. They may
have been reacting to the demonstration on January 8 and to the latest failure to install the transitional
government.298
January 12: Dallaire received a response from Iqbal Riza, writing over the signature of Kofi Annan, head
of peacekeeping operations, stating that the UNAMIR mandate did not permit the planned operation
against the arms caches. Riza directed Dallaire to discuss Jean-Pierre’s information with Habyarimana
and to inform the ambassadors of Belgium, France, and the U.S. He stated further that the U.N. could
not offer protection to Jean-Pierre.299
296
Emphasis added. As is shown above, Habyarimana and his circle often used massacres and other violence to disrupt a
political process which was working.
297
Outgoing Code Cable from DallaireUNAMIRKigali to BarilDPKOUNations New York, January 11, 1994.
298
Service de Police Judiciaire auprès de la Justice Militaire, En cause de Dewez Joseph and Marchal Luc, Annexe A/6 au PV no.
1210 du 6/11/95 (confidential source).
299
Philip Gourevitch, “The Genocide Fax,” The New Yorker, May 11, 1998, pp. 43-46.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
106
January 12: The Secretary-General’s Special Representative Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, the diplomat
reponsible for political matters for the U.N. in Rwanda, joined Dallaire in meeting with representatives
of the Belgian, French, and U.S. embassies. In a fax to New York the next day, Booh-Booh and Dallaire
reported that these diplomats “expressed serious concern about the alleged activities and indicated
that they would consult with their capitals for instructions and would act accordingly.” Shortly after
talking with the diplomats, Dallaire and Booh-Booh met President Habyarimana and warned him that
the Security Council would be informed immediately if any threat of violence were carried out.
According to the fax, Habyarimana “appeared alarmed by the tone of our démarche. He denied
knowledge of alleged activities of the militia and promised to investigate.” The U.N. team went on to
meet with the president and secretary-general of the MRND, who suggested that any problems—
apparently such as those at the demonstration of January 8—came from “infiltrators and bandits” who
hid behind MRND party insignia. Booh-Booh and Dallaire concluded:
The initial feedback that we have received indicates that both the president and
officials of his political party were bewildered by the specificity of the information at
our disposal. The president of MRND seemed unnerved and is reported to have
subsequently ordered an accelerated distribution of weapons.300
Adding that the extent of UNAMIR knowledge of their plans might force Habyarimana and the MRND to
“decide on alternative ways of jeopardizing the Peace Process,” the force commander and special
representative of the secretary-general said they would continue to coordinate their strategies with the
ambassadors of Belgium, France, and the U.S.301
January 13: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali reported to his ministry of foreign affairs that UNAMIR
would have problems acting against the Interahamwe because its mandate was limited strictly to
peacekeeping. Any investigation would have to be done together with the National Police, but since
many of them were apparently involved with the militia, such an effort would be futile. For this reason,
Boutros-Ghali decided instead to do a rapid démarche to Habyarimana and to push him to act within
forty-eight hours. The ambassador remarked that any action by Habyarimana was unlikely.302
January 13: Belgian UNAMIR officers discussed Jean-Pierre’s information with the Belgian ambassador
and later saw Jean-Pierre himself, who was still ready to share information and to indicate the location
of the arms caches. The informant urged prompt action, saying that the weapons might be moved
before Tuesday of the following week. A Senegalese officer of UNAMIR visited several of the arms
caches with him, including one at the headquarters of the MRND. One of the Belgian officers
concluded after meeting with the informant, “The situation seems more and more ripe and with the
information in our possession, it seems really unfortunate to not be able to intervene. New York has
not changed its position.”303
300
Fax from Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh and General Dallaire to DPKO, U.N., January 13, 1994 (confidential source).
301
Ibid; “Answers to Questions Submitted to Major-General Dallaire by the Judge-Advocate General of the Military Court,” pp. 78 (confidential source).
302
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 85.
303
Service de Police Judiciaire auprès de la Justice Militaire, En cause de Dewez Joseph and Marchal Luc, Annexe A/6 au PV no.
1210 du 6/11/95.
107
March 1999
January 13: CLADHO again appealed to the international community and Rwandan leaders to
implement the peace accords and once more condemned the violent broadcasts of RTLM, the
distribution of arms, the military training for militia, as well as numerous exactions of the Rwandan
army.304
January 14: Acting in the name of Dallaire, Colonel Marchal, who headed the Kigali sector of UNAMIR,
asked the Belgian Ambassador Johan Swinnen to give asylum to Jean-Pierre and his family. After long
discussion, the request was refused for fear of compromising Belgian neutrality within the UNAMIR
force.305
January 14: The Belgian and U.S. ambassadors and the French chargé d’affaires visited Habyarimana
to urge implementations of the Arusha Accords. The secretary-general had asked these diplomatic
representatives to stress the urgency of acting on the information from the January 11 telegram, but
they said nothing specific about it, apparently because the French opposed doing so. 306
January 14: The secretary-general prohibited the operation to confiscate arms (apparently confirming
the decision of his subordinates) because he feared an escalation that would force UNAMIR into a
peacemaking rather than a peacekeeping role. According to the Belgian ambassador in Kigali,
Boutros-Ghali was:
concerned about the serious political repercussions that such an action would cause
and therefore before beginning such an operation, there must be serious
reflection....That is why New York insists on inquiries and measures from
Habyarimana’s side.307
If Habyarimana did not act, Booh-Booh was to report this to the secretary-general who was to report to
the Security Council which would make all this public and take appropriate measures.308
January 14: In Belgium, the military intelligence service briefed military commanders on fears that the
Interahamwe might attack the peacekeepers, particularly those who were Belgian. They reported
“Indeed, there are increasingly well substantiated indications of secret links and/or support to
Interahamwe by high ranking officers of the Rwandan army or National Police.”309
January 15: Colonel Marchal, who originally thought that Rwanda would prove to be “a textbook case”
of peacekeeping, had become so concerned about the prospects of “grave troubles” that he asked his
commanding officers in Belgium what role he should play in case of evacuation of foreigners. Would
he keep his blue beret as a UNAMIR officer or would he act as a member of the Belgian military? He
304
CLADHO, “Memorandum Relatif au Retard de la Mise en Place des Institutions de la Transition Elargie Adressé aux Hommes
Politiques Rwandais,” January 13, 1994 (AVP).
305
Col. Luc Marchal, “Considérations relatives aux conditions dans lesquelles j’ai exercé ma fonction de Commandant du
Secteur Kigali au sein de la MINUAR (Mission des Nations Unies d’Assistance au Rwanda) du 04 décembre 1993 au 19 avril
1994” (confidential source).
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 41; United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 32. According to the report of
the French National Assembly, the three diplomats made a demarche to Habyarimana “in the same sense”—but not identical
to—that of the U.N. representatives. Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, p. 203.
306
307
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 86.
308
Ibid, p. 86.
309
Ibid., p. 41.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
108
also urgently requested heavier arms than had thus far been provided to the force, foreseeing the
need for such weapons if the airport had to be defended to assure a foreign evacuation. 310
January 15: In a long message to his ministry of foreign affairs, the Belgian ambassador in Kigali
reported that UNAMIR would have to act soon because otherwise the arms were going to be
distributed to Interahamwe and other civilians. The ambassador expressed the opinion that UNAMIR
regulations permitted Dallaire to seize the arms, but, he said, the commander was unwilling to act
without explicit approval from New York.311
January 16: Four thousand to five thousand MRND supporters, many from outside the city, met at the
Nyamirambo stadium in Kigali. The meeting looked like a general mobilization, but it was calm, with
no indication of why it had been called. In one of the speeches, Justin Mugenzi, leader of the Hutu
Power faction of the Liberal Party, played on ethnic divisions. Two days later, UNAMIR officers learned
that arms were distributed at this meeting.312
January 17: Booh-Booh told assembled African diplomats that “We have proof of the existence of
training camps for many recruits.” He added that weapons of different calibres had been distributed
widely to the population.313
January 18: Because none of the countries contacted (Belgium, France, U.S.) was willing to offer him
asylum, Jean-Pierre ended his contacts with UNAMIR but he continued speaking informally with a
Belgian officer for several more weeks.314
January 19: In a letter to MRND ministers, Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana accused the minister of
defense of refusing to implement the order of the council of ministers to collect arms that had been
illegally distributed to the population.315
January 20: Assassins tried to kill Justin Mugenzi, president of the Liberal Party and head of its Hutu
Power faction.316
January 20: The Belgian ambassador to the U.N. reported to his ministry of foreign affairs that he had
met Iqbal Riza, the assistant to Kofi Annan, to voice Belgian concerns over the situation in Rwanda and
over the safety of its troops. Riza explained that the U.N. had chosen a diplomatic approach to try first
to make Habyarimana take responsibility and, if that did not work, they would inform the Security
Council. Riza also said that Habyarimana’s behavior should be evaluated in two areas: first, disarming
the population and dismantling the stocks of weapons and second, forming the transitional
310
Comdr. HQ Sector to COPS, Nb Cir. 1554, January 15, 1994 (confidential source).
311
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 86.
312
Marchal, “Considerations relatives,” p. 14; Annexe A/7 au PV no. 1210 du 6/11/95 du Service de Police Judiciaire auprès de la
Justice Militaire.
Walter de Bock and Gert Van Langendonck, “Falende VN-bureaukratie werd blauwhelmen fataal,” De Morgen, November 7,
1995.
313
314
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, p. 253.
315
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 62.
316
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
109
March 1999
government. He admitted that first reports from Kigali were not encouraging since the militias were
apparently continuing to distribute arms to the population.317
January 21-22: A French DC-8 landed secretly at night with a load of arms including ninety boxes of
sixty mm mortars originally made in Belgium but coming from France. UNAMIR discovered the
shipment, which violated the terms of the Arusha Accords, and put the arms under joint UNAMIRRwandan army guard.318
January 22: Dallaire again appealed to New York for a broader interpretation of the mandate.319
January 22: Belgian intelligence reported that RTLM was planning to install a new broadcast tower of
1,000 watts on Mont Muhe, in Habyarimana’s home region, and that it had been assigned two new
frequencies for broadcasting. It later began broadcasting from the new tower.320
January 24: Booh-Booh complained to the press that “weapons are distributed from arms caches
around Kigali and even inside town.”321
January 24: Interahamwe were arrested for bombing a house in Kigali and other Interahamwe rioted in
the streets.322 In a separate incident, assailants shot at Belgian peacekeepers guarding Booh-Booh’s
residence.323
January 25: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali informed his ministry of foreign affairs that Dallaire had
appealed to New York for new instructions concerning the UNAMIR mandate, indicating that the force
must either be allowed to enforce the ban on arms in Kigali more strictly or UNAMIR must be
withdrawn completely.324 He also reported a meeting with Donat Murego, secretary of the MDR, an
intellectual of considerable standing who had become increasingly identified with Hutu Power.
Murego warned that the Interahamwe were going to launch a civil war in which they would exploit
hostility against the Belgians. He blamed Habyarimana, the businessman Kabuga, MRND president
Ngirumpatse and propagandist Nahimana for fostering this anger against the Belgians.325
January 26 and 27: Two grenades exploded at the CND building where the RPF were quartered. 326 In
another incident, assailants fired on Belgian peacekeepers who were on patrol.327
January 26: MRND leaders, including Joseph Nzirorera, Edouard Karemera, Jean Habyarimana, and
Robert Kajuga, president of the Interahamwe, reportedly met to discuss ways to create conflict beween
317
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, pp. 44, 87.
318
Ibid; Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 133; Filip Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 19.
319
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
320
Document 12, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 22, 1994 (confidential source); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview,
Brussels, August 13, 1998.
321
Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 38.
322
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
323
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 38.
324
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 87.
325
Ibid., p. 45.
326
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
327
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 38.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
110
Interahamwe and Belgian soldiers of UNAMIR. The militia were ordered to never obey orders from
Belgian soldiers, to call Interahamwe from surrounding areas whenever confronted by Belgians, and to
get as many local people as possible to witness the confrontation. The final order was to try to create
“a collective psychosis” among UNAMIR troops by using all possible deceptions.328
January 27: RTLM broadcast a call for Hutu to defend themselves to the last man. After a long diatribe
against UNAMIR, the radio station called on the population to “take responsibility” for what was
happening because otherwise the Belgian soldiers would give Rwanda to the Tutsi.329
January 30: Colonel Marchal reported to his superiors that UNAMIR found it impossible to act
effectively and that the troops of other nations in the force were of poor quality. After 924 mobil
patrols, 320 foot patrols, and establishing 306 checkpoints, UNAMIR had collected only nine
weapons.330
January 30-31: A Belgian soldier threw stones and broke windows at the home of Jean-Bosco
Barayagwiza, the CDR leader, and supposedly threatened him. RTLM and Radio Rwanda both
broadcast the news that Belgian soldiers had tried to kill Barayagwiza. The incident focused attention
on the inappropriate behavior of some Belgian soldiers who clearly showed their disdain for proHabyarimana forces.331 In another incident, an assailant threw a grenade at UNAMIR headquarters.332
The same day, RTLM broadcast that “the time has come to take aim at Belgian targets.” 333
Late January: According to a confidential source, a U.S. government intelligence analyst estimated the
potential loss of life should there be renewed conflict in Rwanda. He reportedly described three
possibilities, the worst of which would result in the loss of one half million lives. A colleague of the
analyst told a Human Rights Watch researcher that this person’s work was usually highly regarded but
that his superiors did not take this assessment seriously.334
Late January: The Human Rights Watch Arms Project published a report documenting the flow of arms
into Rwanda. After detailing the distributions of arms to civilians, it concluded:
It is impossible to exaggerate the danger of providing automatic rifles to civilians,
particularly in regions where residents, either encouraged or instructed by
authorities, have slaughtered their neighbors. In light of the widespread and horrific
abuses committed by Hutu civilian crowds and party militia armed primarily with
machetes and spears, it is frightening to ponder the potential for abuses by large
numbers of ill-trained civilians equipped with assault rifles.335
328
Document 15, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 29, 1994 (confidential source).
329
Document 14, Belgian Military Intelligence, January 27, 1994 (confidential source).
330
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 88.
331
Document 16, Belgian Military Intelligence, February 1, 1994 (confidential source).
332
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 38.
333
Ibid., p. 46.
334
Human Rights Watch interview, Washington, December 8, 1995.
335
Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Arming Rwanda,” p. 27.
111
March 1999
February 1994
February 2: In a thirteen-page memorandum on the Interahamwe to various Belgian authorities,
including Lieutenant General Mertens at the Maison Militaire du Roi and the Chef du Cabinet of the
Ministry of Defense, Belgian military intelligence summarized much of what was known about the
militia. It described their plan to attack Belgian UNAMIR troops in order to get Belgium to withdraw its
soldiers from Rwanda, their targeting of Tutsi and members of parties opposed to Habyarimana, and
their training and arming by the Rwandan army. The memo remarked that close links were reported
between the Interahamwe and some Rwandan soldiers, particularly some in the Presidential Guard
and the National Police. Noting that both Habyarimana and the president of the MRND denied the
military activities of the Interahamwe, an intelligence officer concluded that the denials changed
nothing and that there were strong indications that authorities close to the president of the republic
and to the party were involved.336
February 2: Booh-Booh cabled New York that Habyarimana had done nothing to investigate or act on
the security issue.337
February 3: Dallaire cabled New York:
We can expect more frequent and more violent demonstrations, more grenade and
armed attacks on ethnic and political groups, more assassinations and quite
possibly outright attacks on UNAMIR installations...Each day of delay in authorizing
deterrent arms recovery operation will result in an ever deteriorating security
situation and may if the arms continue to be distributed result in an inability of
UNAMIR to carry out its mandate in all aspects.”338
In response, U.N. headquarters increased somewhat Dallaire’s authority to make decisions on his
own. It permitted him to assist Rwandan authorities in recovering weapons, but continued to insist
that the mandate did not permit UNAMIR to conduct such operations alone. 339
February 3: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali reported to his ministry of foreign affairs that UNAMIR
was powerless and that it was urgent to halt the distribution of arms and to eliminate the stocks
already built up.3 The same day, in Belgium, officers of the general staff informed the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs that in their opinion the grenade attacks that caused insecurity in Kigali were the result
of “an organized plan.”340
336
Major Hock, Service Générale du Renseignement et de la Sécurité, to Maison Militaire du Roi, Ministre de la Défense
Nationale, and others, February 2, 1994.
337
Fax from Booh-Booh to DPKO, New York, February 2, 1994 (confidential source).
338
General Dallaire to U.N., New York, Code Cable MIR 267, February 3, 1994 (confidential source).
339
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 88.
83
340
Ibid., p. 71.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
112
February 6: Marchal and Dallaire suspended weapons searches at UNAMIR checkpoints following a
number of incidents with Rwandan soldiers, the most recent with Chief of Staff Nsabimana himself.
Marchal feared “a deliberate intention to create incidents with soldiers of the Belgian detachment.”341
February 8: Marchal asked Dallaire to take action against the “continuous propaganda” of RTLM.342
February 11: Belgian Foreign Minister Willy Claes warned Boutros-Ghali that Rwandan leaders
themselves “admit that a prolongation of the current political deadlock could result in an irreversible
explosion of violence.” He welcomed Boutros-Ghali’s instructions to Booh-Booh to push harder for the
installation of the transitional government and added,
It seems to me, however, that this higher profile of the United Nations on the political
level should be accompanied by a firmer stance on the part of UNAMIR with respect
to security. I am aware of the complexity of the situation, and of the constraints
imposed on you under Security Council resolution 872. Nevertheless, unless the
negative developments we are witnessing are halted, UNAMIR might find itself
unable to continue effectively its basic mission of playing a major supporting role in
the implementation of the Arusha Peace Agreement.343
February 14: The Belgian ambassador at the U.N. reported that the reaction of the secretariat to the
foreign minister’s February 11 letter was “rather perplexed” because they had already authorised
Dallaire to help local authorities collect arms and dismantle weapons stocks. Dallaire had not come
back to the issue of a more active role for UNAMIR although the week before he had said he would
make some concrete proposals.344
February 14: The first February issue of Kangura published a cartoon on its cover depicting the prime
minister and the minister of finance as rats. Both were Hutu opposed to Habyarimana. A man is about
to strike them with a wooden club studded with nails, a weapon that was often used in the genocide.
The assailant refers to himself as “No Pity,” recalling one of the Ten Commandments of the Bahutu
which directs Hutu to have no pity on the Tutsi.
February 15: Dallaire and Booh-Booh again insist on the importance of recovering illegal weapons and
ask for clarification of the mandate.345
February 15: Belgian military intelligence reported that the Rwandan army chief of staff had put all
troops on alert, canceled leaves, ordered a check of stocks of ammunition and other war materials,
and asked for recruitment of more soldiers.346
341
Ibid., pp. 47, 89.
342
Colonel L. Marchal to Force Commander, Nr CO/008, February 8, 1994 (confidential source).
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 244, where the letter is dated 14 March 1994. The Sénat, Rapport du
Groupe Ad Hoc publishes extracts in French, p. 89, and dates the letter to February 11. This date is confirmed in the Rapport of
343
the Commission d’enquête, p. 242, n. 1.
344
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, pp. 380-81.
345
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
346
Document 17, Belgian Military Intelligence, February 17, 1994 (confidential source).
113
March 1999
February 17: Senior officers of the National Police met with Habyarimana to express fears that war
might resume. Habyarimana responsed, “If the RPF begins the war, we have plans to deal with their
accomplices.” When they asked for details, Habyarimana suggested that Minister of Defense Augustin
Bizimana brief them. Bizimana declined and sent them to the Army Chief of Staff Nsabimana. He too
refused to explain the plan.347
February 17: In response to information from the secretary-general delivered on February 10 and
February 16, the Security Council “expressed concern” over delays in establishing the transitional
government and over the deterioration in the security situation. It discreetly reminded the parties to
“respect the weapons-free zone” and warned that UNAMIR would be supported only if they rapidly
implemented the Arusha Accords. In a blunter release issued in Kigali, UNAMIR called for an end to
militia training and “massive arms distributions.”348
Mid-February: The Rwandan minister of defense requested landing authorization for three planes
carrying arms. UNAMIR refused.349
February 20: Assassins tried to kill Prime Minister-designate Twagiramungu and did kill one of his
bodyguards.350 In another incident, a crowd stoned Belgian peacekeepers and they had to fire 63
shots in the air in order to free themselves.351
February 20: Army Chief of Staff Nsabimana showed a relative, repected banker Jean Birara, a list of
1,500 persons to be eliminated in Kigali.352
Late February: Major Stanislas Kinyoni reportedly summoned the heads of National Police brigades in
Kigali and told them to prepare lists of persons suspected of ties with the RPF. Some of the National
Police officers refused and the effort was dropped.353
February 21: Assassins killed the minister of public works and head of the PSD party, Félicien
Gatabazi. This murder, like that attempted the day before on Twagiramungu, had been predicted by
high-ranking military officers in their December 3 letter to Dallaire, mentioned above. Investigations by
UNCIVPOL reportedly revealed participation by several persons close to Habyarimana, including
Captain Pascal Simbikangwa, long identified with secret service tortures, and Alphonse Ntilivamunda,
son-in-law of Habyarimana.354 When U.N. police later helped arrest a suspect, RTLM reviled them.
Several persons, including Simbikangwa, threatened the Kigali prosecutor who had ordered the
arrest.355
347
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, May 26, 1997, August 13, 1998.
348
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, pp. 32-33, 243; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 205.
349
Human Rights Watch interview, General Romeo Dallaire, by telephone, Kigali, February 25, 1994.
350
Anonymous, “Chronology-Rwanda.”
351
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 38.
Marie-France Cros, “Jean Birara: ‘The Belgians and French Could Have Stopped the Killing,’” La Libre Belgique, Foreign
Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Central Africa, May 25, 1994.
352
353
Anonymous, “La Milice Interahamwe.”
354
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 6l.
355
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview by telephone, Brussels, January 26, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
114
February 22: Martin Bucyana, president of the CDR, was killed by a mob in Butare in retaliation for the
killing of Gatabazi. In another incident, a UNAMIR convoy escorting the RPF was attacked with
grenades; one RPF soldier was killed and a U.N. military observer was wounded. High-ranking RPF
leaders were supposed to have been part of the convoy but at the last minute changed their plans.356
February 23: UNAMIR peacekeepers sent to rescue a judge exchanged fire with attackers.357
February 22-26: Interahamwe killed some seventy people and destroyed property in Kigali. Belgian
officers described the situation as “explosive,” but UNAMIR, limited by its mandate, could do little to
stop the violence.358
February 24: Boutros-Ghali called Habyarimana to insist that the Accords must be implemented and to
warn that the international community would not take responsibility if the situation exploded.359
February 25: The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote the Belgian ambassador at the U.N. about
the need to strengthen the UNAMIR mandate. Among its points were the following:
“[A] new bloodbath” could result from the political murders and unrest. (Point 1.)
Under the present mandate, UNAMIR cannot carry out “a strong maintenance of public order.”
(Point 4.)
“In case the situation were indeed to deteriorate and the UNAMIR orders mentioned above
remain in force, public opinion would never tolerate having Belgian peacekeepers remain passive
witnesses to genocide and having the U.N. do nothing.” (Point 5.) [Emphasis added.]
“UNAMIR should play a more active role and raise its profile to reinforce the credibility of the
international community.” (Point 6.)
“The question is whether this is possible without a new mandate from the Security Council. If
strengthening UNAMIR requires a new mandate (a new Security Council resolution), there would
be problems given the current policy of the United States. At this point, an extension of the
operation (peacekeepers, funding) appears excluded for them.” (Point 7.)
“It will be extremely important to see how the action can be reinforced under the present
mandate (including Austrian peacekeepers? More decision-making powers for Dallaire?
Temporary deployment of peacekeepers from other operations in the region?) and how to
effectively increase diplomatic and political pressure.” (Point 8.)
The memorandum closed by stressing that the Belgians themselves had made no decisions, but that
they wanted these points taken into consideration (presumably at the U.N.) before new steps were
taken.360
356
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 38; Anonymous, “Chronology-Rwanda.”
357
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, pp. 48-49.
358
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Deposition de Témoin, dossier 57/95, September 18, 1995 (confidential source);
Ibid., p. 38.
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 34. According to another source, the call may have been made several
days later, following growing Belgian pressure. Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, October 25, 1997.
359
115
March 1999
In response, the Belgian ambassador at the U.N. replied that he had discussed the matter with the
secretariat and with principal members of the Security Council. (From minutes of a meeting between
the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense on March 3, it is clear that “secretariat” in fact means the
secretary-general himself.361) The discussions yielded the following conclusions:
1.
that it is unlikely that either the number of troops or the mandate of UNAMIR would be enlarged;
that the United States and Great Britain oppose this both for financial reasons and because the
operation was undertaken under chapter 6;
2. that it is also unlikely that the ROE [Rules of Engagement] would be modified;
3.
that Austrian troops could be called on only when troops were rotated and then only after Austria
had formally requested this;
4.
that General Dallaire could help Rwandan authorities plan and carry out the elimination of
weapons stocks and could do this in a visible way;
5.
that two companies of the Ghanaian battalion will be transferred from the demilitarized zone [in
northern Rwanda] to Kigali.362
February 25: Robert Kajuga presided over a meeeting of Interahamwe leaders that recommended
greater vigilance against Tutsi in the city of Kigali and asked that lists of Tutsi be drawn up. The
leaders decided on a system of communication using telephones, whistles, runners, and public criers.
They ordered militia members to be ready to act at any moment using traditional weapons and, for the
more experienced—former soldiers and trained militia members—using firearms. In directions
presaging collaboration between political parties during the genocide, leaders told the Interahamwe
to be ready to come to the aid of members of the militias of the CDR and the MDR. Interahamwe were
advised to have nothing to do with thugs who stole, raped, or otherwise harassed people in the name
of Interahamwe.363
February 25: The human rights group AVP issued a declaration enumerating victims of recent violence
in Kigali, condemning calls for the extermination of the Tutsi heard on RTLM, and urging UNAMIR to
establish security in the city.364
February 25: Habyarimana warned Booh-Booh that his life was in danger.365
February 27: Dallaire again sought approval from New York for a plan to confiscate weapons. He also
requested reinforcement by a company of 150 soldiers. On this date or shortly after, he expressed
fears about a civil war. The peacekeeping office reminded him that the Rules of Engagement permitted
The Senate Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc publishes points 1 and 5 as part of a telex dated February 25, 1994 (p. 77) and points 4
and 6-9 as part of a telex dated February 24, 1994 (p.90). The report of the Commission d’enquête (p. 393) shows them to have
been part of the same document, dated February 25.
360
361
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 91.
362
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 77.
363
Document 18, Belgian Military Intelligence, [February 27, 1994?] (confidential source).
364
AVP, “Declaration de l’Association des Volontaires de la Paix sur l’Assassinat des Hommes Politiques Rwandais et les
Massacres des Populations Civiles par les Milices CDR et Interahamwe,” February 25, 1994.
365
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology;” Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, October 25, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
116
the use of weapons only for self-defense and told him to concentrate on getting the new transitional
government installed.366
February 27: Belgian intelligence reported on continuing arms deals for the Rwandan army. The arms,
bought from Unita in Angola, supposedly were delivered through the Zairean military base at Kamina.
From there they were sent to Goma and then across the border into Gisenyi, in northwestern
Rwanda.367
February 25-28: The clearly anti-Tutsi character of continuing violence drove Tutsi to seek shelter in
religious centers and with U.N. employees. On February 28, the U.N. opened two centers, one near
Amahoro stadium and another at the Magerwa storehouse, for Tutsi who were seeking protection.368
February 28: A shell struck between the CND building where the RPF was quartered and the UNAMIR
headquarters.369
Late February: The second issue of Kangura for February talked of “The Final Attack” that the RPF was
supposedly preparing to make on Kigali. Saying that they knew where Inyenzi were hiding, the
journalists mentioned that many were in the part of the city called Biryogo. They ask that “all who are
concerned by this problem” be on the alert because “We will not perish little by little.”370
March 1994
March 1: According to the Belgian ambassador in Kigali, RTLM was broadcasting “inflammatory
statements calling for the hatred—indeed for the extermination” of the Tutsi.371
March 2: An MRND informant told Belgian intelligence that the MRND had a plan to exterminate all the
Tutsi in Kigali if the RPF should dare to resume the war. The informant said this was possible because
now “all Hutu speak the same language and are behind a Hutu leader, that is, President
Habyarimana.” Regional divisions are now ended and the morale of the army is higher than ever. The
informant concluded that “if things go badly, the Hutu will massacre them without pity.” 372
March 3: UNAMIR Major Podevijn reported to Dallaire about the distribution of weapons to militia in
Gikondo, a section of Kigali.373
March 6: A jeep involved in an automobile accident near the RPF headquarters at the CND was found
to be fully loaded with ammunition and grenades. Assumed by many to have been destined for the
RPF, the weapons had actually been sold by Rwandan soldiers to Burundian insurgents.374
366
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
367
Document 19, Belgian Military Intelligence, February 27, 1994 (confidential source).
368
Sénat, Rapport du Group Ad Hoc, pp. 71-72.
369
Ibid., p. 39.
370
Kangura, no. 57, février 1994, p. 4.
371
Sénat, Rapport du Group Ad Hoc, p. 78.
372
Document 20, Belgian Military Intelligence, March 2, 1994 (confidential source).
373
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p.63.
374
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 19; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, July 29, 1998.
117
March 1999
March 10: UNAMIR discovered the manifest of a shipment of heavy weapons for the Rwandan army.375
March 10: Belgian intelligence again reported new arms and new recruits for the Rwandan army and
improvement in its morale.376
March 10: Belgian intelligence reported that the MRND executive committee was angry that
Habyarimana had gone off for discussions with President Museveni of Uganda without consulting
them. The president of the party, Mathieu Ngirumpatse, said this constituted “a serious political
error.” Habyarimana had to explain his actions to the party leaders.377
March 13: Dallaire again requested reinforcements of 150 soldiers.378
Mid-March: Dallaire once more sought authorization to seize arms caches, again without success.379
Mid-March: After visiting Rwanda, Belgian Minister of Defense Léo Delcroix reported that Kigali,
supposedly a weapons-free zone, was full of arms. He proposed that the mandate, soon to be
renewed, be amended to provide “more freedom of movement,” and “more persuasive action.” 380
March 14: Marchal asked his Belgian superiors to respond promptly to his January 15 request for more
ammunition. Five days later he remarked that the likelihood of serious conflict was “hardly a
fantasy.”381
March 15: The sponsors of the International Commission on Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda (Human
Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, the International Center for
Human Rights and Democratic Development, and the Interafrican Union of Human Rights) were joined
by Amnesty International in a declaration deploring the growing violence in Rwanda, the distribution of
arms, the delays in implementing the Arusha Accords and the efforts of the MRND to obtain a promise
of amnesty for those involved in previous human rights abuses.382
March 15: The Belgian ambassador in Kigali reported that UNAMIR had blocked the delivery of loads of
arms for the Rwandan army from the Mil-Tec Corporation of the United Kingdom and the Société DylInvest of France.383
March 17: A repected source in the National Police (probably Chief of Staff Ndindiliyimana) told
Belgian officers that the UNAMIR mandate should be strengthened so that it could take the initiative
375
Anonymous, “Rwanda, Chronology.”
376
Document 21, Belgian Military Intelligence, March 10, 1994 (confidential source).
377
Ibid.
378
Adelman and Suhrke, Early Warning, p. 88, n. 60.
Walter de Bock and Gert Van Langendonck, “Falende VN-bureaukratie werd blauwhelmen fataal,” De Morgen, November 7,
1995, p. 6.
379
380
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 91.
381
Comdr. HQ Sector to COPs, Nb Ctr: 2600, March 14, 1994 and Luc Marchal to Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, March 20, 1994
(confidential source).
382
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Interafrican Union of Human Rights, International Center for Human Rights and
Democratic Development, International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, “Declaration of Five International Human Rights
Organizations Concerning the Delays in the Implementation of the Peace Agreements in Rwanda,” March 15, 1994.
383
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 133.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
118
and act more firmly. According to him, the National Police was unable alone to carry out the role
assigned to it by the Arusha Accords.384
March 22: Georges Ruggiu, a Belgian announcer on RTLM radio, warned that the Belgians wanted to
impose a RPF government of bandits and killers on Rwanda and that the Belgian ambassador had
been plotting a coup. He told the Belgians to wake up and go home because, if not, they would face a
“fight without pity,” “a hatred without mercy.”385
Third week of March: The officer in charge of intelligence for the Rwandan army told a group including
some Belgian military advisers that “if Arusha were implemented, they were ready to liquidate the
Tutsi.” (Si Arusha était exécuté, ils étaient prets a liquider les Tutsis.)386
March 26: Dallaire told New York that he needed contingency plans in case an “extreme scenario takes
place.”387
March 28: Ferdinand Nahimana sent around to members of the elite his call for “self-defense”
originally circulated in February 1993 and asked for suggestions for a “final solution” to the current
problems. In the document, he calls for national unity, condemns “the Tutsi league” with its plan for a
“Hima empire” and insists that the elite not remain “unconcerned” but rather work with local
administrators to rouse the population to the danger of war.388
March 30: CLADHO issued a declaration detailing attacks by soldiers, including the Presidential Guard,
and Interahamwe. It again demanded that the soldiers be disciplined and the militia be disarmed. 389
March 31: Assailants killed Alphonse Ingabire (known as Katumba), operational head of the CDR.
Militia of the CDR killed a member of the PSD and wounded three others.
March 31: In the last days of March, RTLM broadcast increasingly bitter attacks on UNAMIR, including
Dallaire, the Belgians, and some Rwandan political leaders.
March 31: With the UNAMIR mandate about to expire, leaders of Rwandan human rights associations
and other nongovernmental organizations issued a plea to the Security Council “to maintain and
reinforce” UNAMIR because its withdrawal “would be interpreted as abandoning the civilian
population to the worst of calamities.”390
384
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 91.
385
Ibid., p. 49.
386
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, p. 334.
387
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, October 25, 1997.
388
Nahimana, “Le Rwanda: Problèmes Actuels, Solutions.”
389
CLADHO, “Declaration sur les Violations Systematiques et Flagrantes des Droits de l’Homme en Cours dans le Pays Depuis
Les Tentatives de Mise en Place des Institutions de Transition,” March 30, 1994 (CLADHO).
390
Société Civile, c/o Centre Iwacu, “Déclaration de la Société Civile au Rwanda dans sa réunion du 31 mars 1994.”
119
March 1999
April 1994
April 2: RTLM announced that military officers had met with the prime minister to plan a coup against
Habyarimana.391
April 2: Army Chief of Staff Nsabimana told Colonel Marchal that the Rwandan military expected an
offensive soon by the RPF.392
April 3: RTLM broadcast a prediction that the RPF would do “a little something” with its bullets and
grenades on April 3 to April 5 and again from April 7 to 8. This may have been an “accusation in a
mirror”—like that advocated by the disciple of the propaganda expert Mucchielli—with Hutu hardliners accusing Tutsi of preparing to do just what they themselves were planning.393 The prediction
increased fears in an already tense situation. Some people who felt at risk sent their children away
from Kigali while others took refuge in places thought to be safe havens.
April 3: The German ambassador, speaking for the European Union, expressed concern about
increasing insecurity, proliferation of weapons and the “unacceptable role of some media.” He
suggested that continued support depended on implementing the Accords.394
April 4: At a party to celebrate the national day of Senegal, Bagosora told people that “the only
plausible solution for Rwanda would be the elimination of the Tutsi.” Among those present at the time
were Dallaire, Booh-Booh, Marchal, and Shariyah Khan, adviser to Booh-Booh. Bagosora reportedly
told Marchal that if the RPF attacked successfully, the Rwandan forces had plans for guerrilla warfare
against them.395
The U.N. Response to the Warning
The preparations for violence took place in full view of a U.N. peacekeeping force. The commander of
that force reported evidence of the worsening situation to his superiors who directed him to observe
the narrowest possible interpretation of his mandate. He was in effect to do nothing but keep on
talking with the authorities while they kept on preparing for slaughter.
The secretary-general and his subordinates ordered this apparently aberrant interpretation of
peacekeeping in an effort to keep within the constraints set by the Security Council. They knew that
council members did not regard Rwanda as a priority and were reluctant to invest any more troops or
funds in keeping the peace there. Stopping the preparations for slaughter required firm action, which
itself might lead to an escalation of violence and the need for more troops and funds. Staff feared that
requests for more resources might provoke the council simply to end the mission, thus marking
another in a series of failures for the U.N. and its peacekeeping office.396
391
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, August 4, 1998.
392
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, July 24, 1998.
393
RTLM, April 3, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19).
394
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis,p. 209.
395
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, p. 79; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, July 24, 1998.
396
See the statement of Kofi Annan, then Undersecretary-general for Peacekeeping. Assemblée Nationale, Mission
d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, p. 204.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
120
When Dallaire sent his January 11 telegram, he understood his mandate to permit seizing illegal arms:
he stated that he was undertaking the operation rather than requested authorisation for it. But his
initiative drew an immediate and supposedly unanimous negative response from the secretariat staff.
Recalling that an attempt to confiscate arms had sparked violence and subsequent failure for the U.N.
operation in Somalia, they ordered Dallaire not to act. Hiding behind legalities, they insisted that
UNAMIR had no authority to create an arms-free zone, only to enforce one created by other parties.397
Dallaire sent five more messages about the need for action, on January 22, February 3, February 15,
February 27 and March 13.398 In the last two, sent after the violence set off by Gatabazi’s assassination
on February 21, Dallaire requested more troops as well as for a broader interpretation of the mandate.
Dallaire’s demands for action and grim predictions caused friction with his superiors, including the
U.N. senior military adviser, Gen. Maurice Baril. Dallaire later protested that he never considered
himself “a cowboy,” that is, someone ready to leap to action without forethought, but Baril—a former
classmate—and others saw him that way. Baril felt he had to keep Dallaire “on a leash” and other
secretariat staff believed he was right to do so.399 Authorities in New York, apparently including the
secretary-general, preferred Booh Booh’s reports to those of Dallaire. A diplomat from Cameroon,
Booh Booh reportedly thought highly of Habyarimana and presented optimistic assessments of his
intentions. Following the late February killings of Tutsi, for example, Booh-Booh reported that there
was no proof that the attacks had been ethnically motivated.400
With the UNAMIR troops limited to a passive role, Dallaire’s predictions proved accurate. Unable to
seize arms, to prevent the bloodshed of late February, or even to interrupt the broadcasts of RTLM, the
force lost credibility rapidly.
Having prohibited Dallaire from acting militarily, the secretary-general sought to move Habyarimana
through talk—his own, that of his special representative, and that of other foreign diplomats—
combined with threats to take the matter to the Security Council if Habyarimana remained
intransigent. On January 13, Boutros-Ghali set a goal of getting Habyarimana to halt the preparations
for violence within forty-eight hours, but he then waited until February 10 to take the matter to the
Security Council, despite indications much earlier that the Rwandan president did not intend to
cooperate. The mild statement issued by the council on February 17 “expressing concern” over the
situation only reinforced the impression of U.N. timidity—or perhaps indifference—in face of the
preparations for slaughter.
Even though discussions seemed to be leading nowhere, Boutros-Ghali refused to push the Security
Council to strengthen the mandate because he believed it was futile to propose a change that the U.S.
was sure to oppose. Through early March, he also refused Dallaire’s request for new troops, although
he did permit the transfer of 200 Ghanaian peacekeepers from the demilitarized zone in the north to
Kigali, changing the location but not the number of soldiers.
397
Sénat, Rapport du Groupe Ad Hoc, pp. 89-91; United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 32.
398
One request was for permission to raid Habyarimana’s home commune where military had reportedly stored heavy weapons
removed from the capital to evade monitoring by UNAMIR. It was denied “because of the political implications.” Thompson,
“Nightmare of the Generals in 1994.”
399
Jess Sallot and Paul Knox, “Rwanda a Watershed for Baril,” Globe and Mail, September 25, 1997.
400
Code Cable MIR 409, 24 February 1994 (confidential source).
121
March 1999
When the omens of disaster were multiplying, Boutros-Ghali kept on with the usual practices of the
U.N. bureaucracy, doing his best to avoid any open conflict with the powerful members of the Security
Council. Accused later of having failed to bring like the January 11 telegram to the attention of the
Security Council, Boutros-Ghali and some of his staff asserted that they laid the matter—if not the
document itself—before the Security Council the next day. This is not true.401 Although one staff
member drew attention to the importance of the telegram by placing it in a black folder, the usual
signal that this was a matter for urgent attention, the cable was not delivered to the council members
nor were its contents communicated in summarized form, as was often the case for such messages.
The subsequent treatment of the document suggests that someone regarded it as potentially
damaging. When researchers consulted files from this period, they found the January 11 cable present
but not in the appropriate order. Attached to it was the explanation that it had been at one point
missing from the folder and was later put back into it. Some months after the genocide, a
representative of a nongovernmental organization delivered a copy of the telegram to one high-ranking
U.N. official who had stated that there was no such telegram and that rumors of its existence were
propaganda by Rwandan extremists.402
In a confidential assessment of the Rwandan crisis, one U.N. staff member concluded that the
peacekeeping office had failed to respond to Dallaire’s calls for support and that it was “too
conservative in meeting the challenge...[H]ad we used our imagination we could have prevented the
crisis by advising the [Security] Council of the increased tensions and rearmament activities that were
going on.”
Such readiness to admit error is welcome from staff, but the ultimate responsibility naturally rests with
the secretary-general. His decision not to inform the council fully about the situation limited the
possible courses of action open to council members. Even if discussion of the risks of massive
slaughter—and of genocide—had not altered the policies of such members as the U.S., the U.K., and
France, it might have prompted action by members who ultimately behaved responsibly after April 6.
Had these members, the representatives of the Czech Republic, Argentina, Nigeria, New Zealand, and
Spain been apprised of the preparations, they might have countered the inertia of others. And had the
general public been alerted to the genocidal plans, some citizens and nongovernmental organizations
would have had the chance to use the information to press their governments to take the issue
seriously.
Responses of the French, U.S., and Belgian Governments
As the foreign governments most involved with Rwanda, France, the U.S., and Belgium followed the
deteriorating situation and cooperated with the U.N. and with each other in trying to speed
implementation of the Arusha Accords. Despite the clear signs of imminent violence, both France and
the U.S. failed to respond with any new initiatives and continued to operate within the same
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 32; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews with a council member and
others, in New York and by telephone, March 8, 1995, February 19, 1996, December 23, 1997. Iqbal Riza, then Assistant
Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, admitted in a British Broadcasting Company telecast on December 7, 1998
that the secretariat had not given the telegram the importance it deserved. He had confirmed in an earlier Canadian
Broadcasting Company telecast that the telegram had never been presented to the Security Council.
401
402
Human Rights Watch interviews, Washington, December 8, 1995; by telephone, April 26, 1998. According to one source,
there were two cables, one coded and one not, one dealing with more political matters, the other with more military issues.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
122
constraints that had shaped their policy towards Rwanda for some time. Belgium, spurred by the
added responsibility of having troops on the ground, sought a greater international commitment to
prevent the disaster, but failed to invest the energy needed to make the other powers respond.
With close ties to Habyarimana and other high-ranking Rwandan officials and with an undercover
intelligence operation in place, France certainly knew about the preparations for killing Tutsi and
opponents of Hutu Power. French diplomats and military officers discussed the risk of genocide
beginning in 1990 and, according to former Ambassador Martres, the 1994 genocide could have been
foreseen in October 1993.403 Bound by its old loyalties, however, France continued to support the
Rwandan government diplomatically, in discussions in the Security Council, for example, and
militarily, with the delivery of arms. After the January 11 telegram, Boutros-Ghali had looked to France,
Belgium, and the U.S. to support his efforts to get Habyarimana to halt the preparations for violence.
According to Belgian diplomatic correspondence, it was France that prevented the three from
addressing the issue when they met with the Rwandan president. Along with the others, France
refused to give shelter to the informant.
In the U.S., senior officials may not have listened to the prediction of potential widespread carnage
from within their own ranks, but, according to Anthony Lake, then national security adviser to the
president, they were aware of Belgian efforts to alert them to such a risk. On one occasion, civilian and
military authorities discussed the possibility of sending more troops to Rwanda, but they decided that
the number was already too large if the soldiers were there only to observe and that if the proposed
reinforcements were sent, the force would still be too small to stop a conflict.404 The U.S. was ready to
use diplomatic pressure to improve the situation in Rwanda—and sent Associate Secretary of State for
African Affairs Prudence Bushnell to Rwanda for that purpose—but it was not ready to spend more
money. U.S. officials refused to support broadening the mandate or any other measure that would
substantially increase the expense of UNAMIR.
Belgium tried hardest to respond to the warnings of imminent slaughter. Its representative at the U.N.
pushed the secretary-general and members of the peacekeeping staff to permit Dallaire greater
freedom of action and to demand faster progress from Habyarimana. Although Foreign Minister Claes
conceded on February 11 that broadening the mandate was out of the question, he changed his mind
after the killings of late February and actively campaigned for a stronger mandate. One Foreign
Ministry official acknowledged the risk of genocide in late February—even using that term—and argued
that “If conditions deteriorate, the U.N. and Belgium could not really allow themselves to withdraw
from Rwanda.”405
The first Belgian effort to strengthen the mandate failed when the U.S., along with the U.K., refused to
consider the proposal and even suggested they would favor a complete withdrawal should the
difficulties continue. In mid-March, after the visit of Minister of Defense Léo Delcroix to Rwanda, the
Belgians again raised the issue. In discussions with representatives of France and the U.S. on March
22, Belgium proposed that the mandate, about to expire, should be renewed for only a brief period
403
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome I, Rapport, pp. 226, 281, Tome II, Annexes pp. 133-4.
404
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Washington, May 4, 1998 and Washington, July 16, 1998; Commission
d’enquête, Rapport, pp. 244, 336.
405
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, p. 393.
123
March 1999
and should be strengthened. France refused to support a stronger mandate, but all agreed that the
new term of the mandate should be brief, in order to exert greater pressure on the parties for concrete
progress. Delcroix still maintained the importance of a more flexible mandate and on March 29 even
threatened to end Belgian participation in UNAMIR if no revision were made.406 Although Belgian
authorities invested far less energy in trying to change the mandate than they would several weeks
later when attempting to end UNAMIR completely, they still did more than other international actors to
try to interrupt the movement towards catastrophe.
A Solemn Appeal
On March 28, at the end of the seventh month since the signing of the Accords, Habyarimana and his
supporters failed to appear for yet another of the ceremonies scheduled for swearing in members of
the broad-based transitional government. The issue this time was whether the CDR should have a seat
in the assembly. The RPF and other parties had refused, insisting that the Accords provided for
representation of only those parties that subscribed to the Accords, which, at the start, the CDR
vociferously did not. But recently the CDR had changed its position and finally subscribed to a code of
ethics for political parties, an essential precondition for participation in the assembly. Habyarimana
was determined to have the CDR seated because it could provide him with the final vote necessary to
block any effort to impeach him.
The same day, the special representative of the secretary-general, the apostolic nuncio, the
ambassadors of Belgium, France, Germany, the U.S., Zaire, Uganda, Burundi, and the representative of
the Tanzanian facilitator joined in “a solemn appeal” to all parties to resolve their differences and
implement the Accords. They expressed the opinion that all political parties in existence at the time
the Accords were signed should be represented in the Assembly, that is, that the CDR should have a
place. This was in line with the thinking of many diplomats since the beginning—that it was wiser to
include the extremists than to attempt to shut them out of power.
With this concession from the international community in hand, Habyarimana set off for Dar es Salaam
a few days later to meet with heads of neighboring states. It was expected that this meeting of his
peers would exact from him a final commitment to install the new government. Col. Elie Sagatwa,
responsible for the security of the president, met twice with Colonel Marchal to plan for the installation
ceremonies, which also contributed to the impression that Habyarimana really meant to permit the
new government to take power.407 The international actors also knew, as the French ambassador
reported to Paris on March 28, that “the cash-drawer was empty.”408 Since the donor nations refused
to provide more money until the broad-based government was installed, they may all have counted on
near-bankruptcy forcing cooperation, as had been the case with the signing of the Accords the
previous August.
Renewing the Mandate
Although some of the signs at the very end of March seemed promising, they did not outweigh the
grim indications of trouble ahead. Called upon to assess the situation in his formal report on UNAMIR
406
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, p. 281.
407
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, May 4, 1998.
408
Jouan, “Rwanda, 1990-1994" p. 43.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
124
at the end of its mandate, the secretary-general on March 30 detailed the warnings of the previous
months: the distribution of arms, the training of militia, the assassinations, the violent
demonstrations, and the laying of mines. Boutros-Ghali could have used this opportunity to insist on
strengthening the mandate and sending reinforcements to the peacekeepers, but he did not. To have
done so would have involved confronting the reluctance of the Security Council—and specifically the
U.S.—to devote the resources needed to improve the situation. It would also have required negotiating
with other member states over the numbers of troops to be provided and the duties with which they
would be charged.
The secretary-general was ready, however, to risk confrontation over the length of the mandate. The
major international actors in Rwanda, as well as the department of peacekeeping, had agreed that the
new mandate must be for a brief term of two or three months in order to keep the greatest possible
pressure on the parties to implement the Accords. In a surprise move, Boutros-Ghali recommended an
extension of six months. Such a time span would have restricted leverage over Habyarimana and
opened the way to further delays and continued preparations for violence. After strong reaction from
the council members, the term was finally settled at four months.
In analyzing the deteriorating security in Kigali, the secretary-general had noted that “most incidents
can be attributed to armed banditry.”409 This explanation was astonishingly like that made by leaders
of the MRND on January 12 when Dallaire and Booh-Booh reproached them for violence in the capital.
Only secondarily did Boutros-Ghali remark that “ethnic and politically motivated crimes” also had
increased. Having stressed that common crime was the problem in Kigali, Boutros-Ghali was in a good
position to propose a small increase in the ranks of UNCIVPOL as the solution. At a time when the
UNAMIR commander was requesting 150 experienced troops to deal with the threat of ethnic and
political violence and his second was calling for heavy weaponry to defend the airport, the secretarygeneral asked the Security Council for forty-five policemen. He assured council members that “the cost
implications of this proposed personnel increase will be minimal.”410 It was the cheaper solution—or
so it seemed.
409
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 249.
410
Ibid., p. 250.
125
March 1999
Genocide at the National Level
April 1994: “The Month That Would Not End”
By early April, the increasingly vicious incitements to hatred and violence, the frequent predictions of
imminent catastrophe, the recurring delays in implementing the Accords, the widespread awareness
of training and arming of militia, and the threat that UNAMIR and other foreign actors might end or
reduce their role in Rwanda had all caused great anxiety, particularly among people in the capital.
Both the Hutu Power group and the RPF understood the likelihood of violence and were moving their
forces into position.
Hutu Power advocates were far from done implementing their “self-defense” program, but they did
already have some 2,000 militia in place in Kigali. In addition, there were some 7,000 regular troops in
Kigali and its environs, although not all of them were combat troops.1 Many feared renewed battle, but
those committed to Habyarimana were buoyed by the new solidarity of Hutu Power and felt a renewed
sense of purpose. On April 3, a RTLM commentator declared that the people were ready to serve as a
“fourth column” against the “enemy.” He said:
The people, there is the real shield, it is the true army that is strong...the armed
forces [i.e., the regular Rwandan army] fight, but the people, they say: we protect your
rear, we are your shield. The day when the people rise up and want no more of you,
when they hate you all together and from the bottom of their hearts, when you make
them sick to their stomachs, I...I wonder then where you will escape to. Where will
you go?2
The RPF had strengthened its position by secretly bringing arms and several hundred troops into Kigali
to supplement the 600 soldiers permitted by the Arusha Accords. The movement had also grown
politically, both in Kigali and throughout Rwanda. With a RPF role in government assured by the peace
agreement, supporters previously reluctant to declare their loyalties now acknowledged that they were
RPF members. Political organizers who had gone to the RPF zone for training programs returned home
eager to recruit new members. By early April, the RPF had some 600 cells throughout the country, 147
of them in Kigali. With each group counting between six and twelve members, this made a total of
between 3,600 and 7,200 persons who had openly or privately declared their support for the RPF. The
greatest number, some 700 to 1,400, were in the capital.3
Well-aware of the training and arming of the Interahamwe, the RPF had begun exploring the
organization of a joint militia with the MDR and the PSD to counter possible attacks. The MDR rejected
1
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Montreal, May 22, 1996; by telephone, Antwerp, April 15, 1997; Brussels,
October 20, 1997.
2
RTLM, April 3, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19).
3
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews with a former UNAMIR officer, Plainsboro, New Jersey, June 13, 1996; by telephone,
Nairobi, March 22, 1996; Kigali, February 14,1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
126
the plan but the PSD was still considering it in early April. Few RPF members had firearms. 4 Those who
did had apparently not received them from the movement but had bought them on their own initiative.
During the genocide, Hutu Power supporters talked incessantly about “infiltrators” and their stocks of
arms. Although the RPF soldiers brought into Kigali in contravention of the terms of the peace
agreement could be called “infiltrators,” unarmed and untrained Tutsi citizens—even if they happened
to back the RPF—could not be described by that term. When these Tutsi residents were attacked after
April 6, virtually all resisted with sticks, stones, machetes or spears, not with Kalashnikovs or
grenades.5 The vast majority who survived owed their lives to their own strength, good fortune or the
assistance of Hutu, not to previous military training.
The Attack on Habyarimana’s Plane
The genocide of the Tutsi, the murders of Hutu opposed to Habyarimana, and the renewed war
between the Rwandan goverment and the RPF were all touched off by the killing of President
Habyarimana. This extremely significant attack remains largely uninvestigated and its authors
unidentified.
Habyarimana died on Wednesday evening, April 6, 1994, when the plane bringing him home from Dar
es Salaam was shot down. He had been attending a meeting of heads of state where he had
supposedly finally consented to put in place the broad-based transitional government. The president
of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, who had also attended the meeting, had decided to fly home in
Habyarimana’s plane rather than in his own. He too died in the crash as did General Nsabimana, chief
of staff of the Rwandan army, and several others. As the plane was coming in for a landing, it was hit
by ground to air missiles shot from a location near the Kigali airport. The Rwandan army later stated
that it had recovered two launchers from the missiles. The registration numbers on the launchers
identified them as SA 16s, sophisticated weapons that require a certain level of training to be used
sucessfully.6
The RPF, politicians opposed to Habyarimana, and the circle of his own supporters all might have
wanted the Rwandan president dead and could have found the means to bring down his plane.
The RPF might have launched the missiles either because they believed that Habyarimana would never
permit the Accords to be implemented or, conversely, because they thought he was about to do so
and they preferred a clear military victory to sharing power as part of a coalition. In support of
allegations of RPF responsibility for the crime, former French Minister of Cooperation Bernard Debré,
asserted that records of RPF communications prove that their soldiers were ordered to begin
advancing towards Kigali on the morning of April 6.7 Some Rwandans present in the region north of the
4
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Nairobi, March 22, 1996; Kigali, February 14,1997.
5
Among the cases of Tutsi with firearms are Antoine Sebera in Kigali, two persons at Ndora commune and others with guns and
grenades at Sake commune. Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, Censorship, Propaganda & State-Sponsored Violence in
Rwanda 1990-1994, October 1996, p. 125; African Rights, Rwanda, Death,Despair, pp. 1056-7.
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 44-45; Stephen Smith, “6 avril 1994: deux missiles abattent l’avion du président
Habyarimana,” Libération, April 6-7, 1996.
6
7
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume I, p. 415.
127
March 1999
capital at the time also assert that RPF troops began their march south before they could have known
of Habyarimana’s death.8
Hutu moderates, either alone or with the RPF, could have assassinated the president. The small group
who had supposedly discussed the possibility of a coup with Prime Minister Uwlingiyimana a few days
before might have believed that killing Habyarimana offered the only hope of preempting the violence
that was planned.9
Some in Habyarimana’s own circle might have wanted to eliminate him to avoid the installation of a
new government that would diminish their power. The CDR and even MRND leaders had criticized
Habyarimana for talking with Museveni in early March and some feared that he would return from Dar
es Salaam ready to implement the Accords. Enoch Ruhigira, Habyarimana’s chief of staff, says that the
president had, in fact, made such a decision and had told him to bring an announcement to that effect
to the airport when he came to welcome him home.10 The expectation that the new government was
about to be installed would have increased pressure on Hutu Power advocates to launch the violence
immediately, whether fully prepared or not. Once the new authorities were in place, the RPF would take
over the Ministry of the Interior and Communal Development and the MRND would lose control of the
administrative structure so helpful in mobilizing the population. Some of the Hutu Power group,
including Bagosora himself, would lose their posts and would have no more authority to give orders. 11
There are indications that Bagosora and other soldiers may have expected something to happen at the
time of Habyarimana’s return. According to one witness, Bagosora left Kigali for vacation on March 30
or 31 but then suddenly returned on April 4. Several witnesses assert that soldiers of the Presidential
Guard had put up barricades and were patrolling the neighborhood inhabited by ministers and other
MRND leaders, either before or within minutes after the plane was shot down.12 Sporadic gunfire
began almost immediately after the crash in the vicinity of the Kanombe camp that housed the
Presidential Guard. Soon after, soldiers from the paracommando battalion, one of those most closely
linked to the hard-liners, began killing the people who lived on Masaka hill, the site from which the
missiles had been launched. These soldiers of one of the best trained units in the Rwandan army
apparently continued the sweep against the Masaka civilians for thirty-six hours after the renewal of
combat with the RPF, when they could presumably have been better used against the military foe.
Since the local people clearly had not been the ones to shoot the missiles, the soldiers could not have
been seeking revenge and may have been trying to eliminate witnesses to the crime.13
Habyarimana’s supporters accused the Belgians of involvement in the assassination, but never
presented any proof. Others have suggested that the French—probably a nucleus of powerful
individuals rather than the government as such—assisted in assassinating a leader who was no longer
8
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Atlanta, September 2, 1996.
9
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp.34-35.
10
Ibid., p. 23.
11
Aboganena, “Bagosora S’Explique,” p. 19.
12
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Compte-Rendu de la Commission rogatoire internationale exécutée au Rwanda
du 5 juin au 24 juin 1995, Dossier no. 57/95, pp. 2, 22; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 143.
This and depositions cited hereafter from this source are all from dossiers labeled CRIM/ KK/KGL 95, CRIM/KK-DA/KGL/95 or an
abbreviated form of these designations (confidential source).
13
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois jours, pp. 25, 27.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
128
useful to them. According to some European intelligence sources, the missile launchers bore numbers
that identified them as weapons that France captured from Iraq during the Gulf War. One French
soldier confirmed this information and another reported attempts to buy such missiles from a private
arms dealer and from a French company authorized to export them.14 The French government denies
these allegations. A source in the United States intelligence service thought it unlikely that France had
captured the missiles in Iraq but that it could well have obtained them elsewhere.15 Former minister
Debré claimed that the U.S. was the source of the missiles, having provided them to Uganda which
then gave them to the RPF.16 Uganda did in fact have some of the missiles, as did other governments
in the region like Tanzania and the Sudan. Mercenaries could also easily have purchased the weapons
and put themselves and the missiles at the service of anyone ready to pay their fee.
Other unexplained elements suggest a link to French actors. The plane, a gift of the French
government, was operated by a crew of three French citizens, supposedly employed by a private
company. French officials recognized that the crewmembers had died in the service of their country,
but undertook no public investigation into the downing of the plane. Nor did French authorities draw
attention to the murders of two French policemen, apparently communications experts, and the wife of
one of them, who were found in a house near the airport and killed by the RPF on April 8.17 In another
unexplained case, François de Grossouvre, a confidant and adviser to President Mitterrand on African
affairs, committed suicide on April 7 at the presidency in Paris. De Grossouvre had been linked to
Habyarimana and to Captain Paul Barril, a former French policeman who had been employed to
provide security for Habyarimana. Barril, who was in Rwanda on April 7, continued in the service of
Madame Habyarimana, notably in trying to persuade the press that the RPF was responsible for
downing the plane.18
Responsibility for killing Habyarimana is a serious issue, but it is a different issue from responsibility
for the genocide. We know little about who assassinated Habyarimana. We know more about who
used the assassination as the pretext to begin a slaughter that had been planned for months. Hutu
Power leaders expected that killing Tutsi would draw the RPF back into combat and give them a new
chance for victory or at least for negotiations that might allow them to win back some of the
concessions made at Arusha.
The Presidential Guard began the slaughter of Tutsi and other civilians shortly after Habyarimana’s
death. Sixteen hours later the RPF came out of their headquarters to engage the Rwandan soldiers and
the war had begun again.
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois jours, p. 45; Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, “France-Rwanda: Dangereuses Liaisons,” Le Figaro, March 31,
1998.
14
15
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Washington, September 7, 1996.
16
Assemblée Nationale, Mission d’information commune, Enquête, Tome III, Auditions, Volume I, p. 416.
17
Smith, “6 avril 1994.”
18
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 30-31; Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp. 217-19.
129
March 1999
Taking Control
Bagosora In Command
With the death of Habyarimana, Colonel Bagosora took charge. The minister of defense, Augustin
Bizimana, and two members of the general staff, Col. Aloys Ntiwiragabo and Col. Gratien Kabiligi, were
abroad and the chief of staff had died with Habyarimana. When sixteen high ranking officers got
together to decide on a course of action just after the crash, Bagosora ran the meeting. Although only
a retired officer, he took precedence over senior officers in active service, he says, because he was the
ranking official present from the Ministry of Defense and the meeting was “to discuss questions of a
politico-military nature.”19 Bagosora prevailed in taking the chair, but he lacked strong support in the
group. Some senior officers closest to him, such as the commander of the Presidential Guard, the
commander of the paracommandos, and some of the territorial commanders, were absent.
Bagosora proposed naming Col. Augustin Bizimungu, then commander at Ruhengeri and an officer
whom he could trust, as the new chief of staff. The group rejected Bizimungu, who was junior in rank
and experience to a number of other officers. Col. Léonidas Rusatira, present at the meeting, was the
senior ranking army officer and a northerner, but Bagosora saw him as a rival. Some time before,
Bagosora and his supporters had succeeded in relegating Rusatira to the command of the Ecole
Supérieure Militaire, a school where he had no combat troops under his orders. Rusatira’s name was
proposed, but, perhaps anxious to avoid a conflict during this time of crisis, the officers passed over
him and chose Col. Marcel Gatsinzi as interim chief of staff.20 At that time, Gatsinzi was commanding
the southern sector in Butare. Originally from Kigali, he was not a member of the inner circle of
powerful officers from the northwest and would be unlikely to be able to mobilize a following strong
enough to challenge Bagosora and his group.21
Bagosora pushed hard for the military to take control of the government, but on this matter, too, he
was rebuffed. General Dallaire, who was at the meeting, declared that any military take-over would
result in the immediate withdrawal of UNAMIR. He urged the officers to make contact instead with
Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana to arrange for a legitimate continuation of civilian authority. Bagosora
adamantly refused the suggestion, which Dallaire made several times.22 Bagosora, like other Hutu
Power advocates, distrusted Dallaire, whom he believed favorable to the RPF. Under pressure from the
other officers, Bagosora did agree to consult the special representative of the secretary-general. BoohBooh also insisted that some form of civilian authority was necessary and Bagosora finally accepted
that advice. Like Dallaire, Booh-Booh pressed for contacts with the prime minister and again Bagosora
refused, saying that “the military would not accept her” and that “her own government and the
Rwandan people had rejected her.”23 Bagosora had only contempt for Mme. Uwilingiyimana who had,
he later asserted, “morally and materially demobilized” the Rwandan army when it was fighting for its
19
Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” p. 91; Bagosora, “L’assassinat,” p. 9.
20
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, PV no. 0259, no. 253, no. 143; Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du
Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, No. 41.312, dossier 57/95; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution
des FAR,” p. 91.
21
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 53.
22
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Plainsboro, N.J., June 14, 1996; Commission d’enquête, Rappport, pp. 420-21.
23
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 54.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
130
life against the RPF.24 Acting on Booh-Booh’s recommendation that the MRND provide a candidate to
replace Habyarimana as president, Bagosora contacted the party leaders to ask them to nominate
someone to the post.
At the meeting with the military commanders, Dallaire asked them to keep the militia under control
and to recall to barracks the Presidential Guard, which was already out on the streets. Bagosora
assured Dallaire of “all necessary cooperation required by the situation” and asked in return that
UNAMIR keep close watch over the RPF headquarters at the CND. Dallaire saw the importance of
having the peacekeepers visible throughout the city and he arranged for them to do joint patrols with
the National Police.25
“The Prime Minister Isn’t Working Anymore...”
As discussions went on for an orderly transition, soldiers and National Police were active throughout
the city preparing just the opposite. Since Gatsinzi had not yet come from Butare, Bagosora was the
effective military commander and apparently directed these operations in a series of private telephone
conversations carried on during the meeting. He also had at his disposal a direct and private radio link
with the Presidential Guard.26
Rwandan soldiers blocked Belgian UNAMIR troops at the airport twenty minutes after the plane
crashed. Within an hour, soldiers of the Presidential Guard and the reconnaissance battalion were
blockading the home of the prime minister. Two hours later soldiers from the Presidential Guard began
evacuating MRND politicians and their families from the neighborhood of Kimihurura to a military
camp. They ordered leading politicans from other parties to remain in their homes in the same
neighborhood. The Ministry of Defense had recently transferred responsibility for the security of MRND
leaders from the National Police to a unit of the regular army, an arrangement which facilitated their
evacuation on April 6.
Lt. Col. Innocent Bavugamenshi feared violence as soon as he heard that MRND politicians had been
moved to the military camp and other leaders left behind. As head of the National Police unit
responsible for other political leaders, he sent reinforcements to the home of the prime minister and
tried in vain to get others from UNAMIR and from National Police headquarters. His commander,
General Ndindiliyimana, could not be found, either at home or at headquarters. At about midnight,
Bavugamenshi was informed of the first killing of a government official, the administrative head of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.27
24
Bagosora, “L’assassinat,” p. 9.
25
Reyntjens reprints the minutes of the meeting in Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 125-6.
26
General Roméo Dallaire, “Answers to Questions Submitted to Major-General Dallaire By the Judge-Advocate General of the
Military Court” (confidential source); République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no.0142, 148 ; Reyntjens,
Rwanda, Trois Jours,” p. 57.
27
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 143.
131
March 1999
Between 1 and 2 a.m., Interahamwe were out on the streets patrolling. By 2:30 a.m., the military had
blanketed the middle of the city so thoroughly with barriers that UNAMIR soldiers ordered to the home
of the prime minister needed three hours to cover a distance usually traversed in fifteen minutes. 28
Mme. Uwilingiyimana had been alterted to the danger she faced half an hour after the crash and she
called for more protection from military headquarters. The additional police sent by Bavugamenshi
never reached her home. At 1 a.m., Booh-Booh had informed her that the military rejected her
authority, but she refused to flee. She arranged for UNAMIR soldiers to escort her to the radio station
in the morning so that she could speak to the nation and show that the civilian authority was in
control and committed to the Arusha Accords. This was exactly what those in command intended to
prevent. When one officer called headquarters to ask about gunfire he had heard at about 5 a.m., Lt.
Col. Cyprien Kayumba, the officer on duty, supposedly told him “That’s us. We want to keep the prime
minister from going to the radio.”29 Shortly after that, a UNAMIR officer told Rwandan soldiers at the
radio station that the prime minister would be arriving shortly to make a broadcast. The Rwandans
replied, “The prime minister isn’t working anymore...”30 Other Rwandan soldiers told a different group
of peacekeepers that only orders from the minister of defense, whose authority was then being
exercised by Bagosora, could permit the prime minister to address the nation on the radio. 31
When UNAMIR soldiers arrived in four jeeps at the prime minister’s home on the quiet, tree-lined street
soon after 5:30 a.m., Rwandan soldiers opened fire on them and immediately disabled two of the four
jeeps. The peacekeepers, unable to withdraw, and Mme. Uwilingiyimana waited in vain for
reinforcements. Just before 8:30, she and her husband tried first to scale the wall to get to the
residence of an American diplomat next door. When that proved impossible, they fled in the other
direction to the adjacent home of a U.N. employee.
Rwandan soldiers took the fifteen UNAMIR peacekeepers prisoner and, at about 9 a.m., delivered
them to the Kigali military camp, only a few hundred meters from the prime minister’s residence. There
the five Ghanaian peacekeepers in the group were led away to safety and the ten Belgians were left at
the hands of a furious crowd of soldiers, including a number who had been wounded in the war. The
Rwandan soldiers had been prepared to hate the Belgian troops by months of RTLM broadcasts and
believed the rumor—spread by their officers and later broadcast by RTLM—that the Belgians had
helped the RPF shoot down Habyarimana’s plane. They set upon the Belgian peacekeepers and
battered most of them to death. The surviving Belgians took refuge in a small building near the
entrance to the camp. They killed a Rwandan soldier and got hold of his weapon. Using that, they
fought off the attackers for several more hours.32
At 10 o’clock that morning, about one hundred officers of the Rwandan armed forces assembled under
the leadership of Bagosora to discuss a transitional government. The meeting took place at the Ecole
28
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 0033, no. 0034, no. 143, and no. 0146; [Belgium] Auditorat
militaire près le Conseil de guerre, Declaration Pro Justitia, January 3, 1995 (confidential source); Lt. Col. J. Dewez, Kibat [Kigali
Battalion], “Chronique, 06 avr-19avr 1994,” September 1995, pp.7, 9, 12, 13-14,16, 18.
29
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 0148.
30
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 67; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, de Kigali, PV no. 143.
31
Dewez, “Chronique,” p. 13.
Ibid., pp.11-14; Dallaire, “Answers to Questions;” Alexandre Goffin, 10 Commandos Vont Mourir (Editions Luc Pire, n.p. n.d.),
pp. 63-65, 73-77; Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 67-69.
32
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
132
Supérieure Militaire, just adjacent to the camp where the UNAMIR soldiers were being held. Bagosora
once again proposed that the military take control of the government, but was once again rebuffed by
his fellow officers who argued that soldiers had no place in politics. They did agree, however, to create
a “crisis committee” to assist civilian politicians in forming a government. At about 10:30, the camp
commander came to inform Bagosora and General Ndindiliyimana that Belgian soldiers were under
attack at the camp, but they did nothing, not even shortly after when the sound of gunfire from the
camp interrupted the meeting briefly.33
Just before 11 a.m., Dallaire drove to the meeting, passing by the entrance to the military camp where
he saw that several UNAMIR soldiers lay on the ground. He wanted to enter the camp, but was
prevented from doing so by his Rwandan military escort. At the meeting, he did not raise the question
of the UNAMIR soldiers at the camp until the session ended at about noon. Dallaire then asked
Ndindiliyimana to intervene to rescue them. Ndindiliyimana reportedly told him that Bagosora would
take care of the problem.Throughout the day, Dallaire tried repeatedly to obtain permission to enter
the camp, but Bagosora, who was clearly in charge, refused to allow him to do so. Dallaire believed
that his troops and resources were too limited to fight his way into the camp to rescue the
peacekeepers.34
As the leaders of the Rwandan armed forces debated the future government in the presence of the
commander of the U.N. peacekeepers, soldiers continued their search for the current prime minister in
the neighborhood just across the road from the meeting place. Capt. Gaspard Hategekimana of the
Presidential Guard, apparently in charge of finding the prime minister, kept checking at various
barricades, insisting that Mme. Uwilingiyimana could not have escaped the blockade that had been in
place since the night before. Shortly before noon, soldiers discovered Mme Uwilingiyimana in her
hiding place. Other soldiers in the area heard the applause and shouts of joy and knew that she had
been captured. She came out quickly and without struggle, apparently because she wanted to protect
her children who were hiding in the same area. She tried to persuade the soldiers to take her to the
military camp. A small group, including some from southern Rwanda, were willing to do so. Others
refused and wanted to execute her immediately. Captain Hategekimana reportedly arrived and gave
the order to kill her on the spot. A lieutenant of the National Police, who was in training to become a
judicial officer, shot the prime minister, blowing away the left half of her face. Witnesses who came to
the house soon after found her nearly naked body on the terrace and carried it into the house. Another
witness who passed an hour or so later found that her dressing gown had been thrown up over her
upper body and that a beer bottle had been shoved into her vagina.35 Her husband and two other men
were also slain, but her five children escaped and were eventually brought to safety by Capt. Mbaye
Daigne, a Senegalese officer of the U.N. contingent.36
33
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0370, no. 0146, no. 0034, no. 020l, and no. 0112;
[Belgium] Auditorat militaire près le Conseil de guerre Declaration Pro Justitia, January 3, 1995.
34
Dallaire, “Answers to Questions.”
35
Opponents had often called the prime minister a whore and accused her of sexual relations with other political leaders. The
first woman to hold such high office in Rwanda, she was said to have been raped in an attack by political adversaries two years
before.
36
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0370, no. 0146, no. 0034, no. 020l, and no. 0112;
[Belgium] Auditorat militaire près le Conseil de guerre, Declaration Pro Justitia, January 3, 1995; Guichaoua, Les Crises
Politiques, p. 709.
133
March 1999
Officers leaving their meeting just after noon learned that the prime minister had been killed. At that
time, Bagosora went to the military camp next door. Shortly after, Rwandan soldiers renewed the
attack on the last Belgians, overcame their resistance, and killed them in the early afternoon.37
Early that same morning, soldiers and police had executed the two candidates for the presidency of
the transitional assembly, Félicien Ngango of the PSD, and Landoald Ndasingwa of the PL, one of
whom would have replaced Habyarimana according to the Arusha Accords. They had also murdered
Joseph Kavaruganda, the president of the Constitutional Court, who would have been needed to swear
in new authorities. RTLM had targeted Ndasingwa since December and, in February, the radio station
had remarked of Kavaruganda that “we should rid ourselves of [him], one of the biggest accomplices
of the RPF.”38 Rwandan soldiers and National Police had attacked the other heads of opposition
political parties, either killing them or forcing them to hide or flee. They had worked from lists that
allowed them to locate their victims efficiently.39
By mid-day April 7, the Presidential Guard, with the help of soldiers of other elite battalions and some
National Policemen, had eliminated those leaders who could have legitimately governed. Bagosora,
who was giving the orders to these soldiers, had failed in his effort to get himself installed officially as
head of a new government, but he still had the chance to influence—if not to dictate—the choice of
persons who would form a new government. At the same time, Rwandan soldiers had killed ten
Belgian peacekeepers, the first step in the plan revealed in the January 11 cable for getting rid of an
effective UNAMIR force. The afternoon of April 7, both Bagosora and Ndindiliyimana told Dallaire that
the killings at Camp Kigali showed that it might be best for Belgian troops to leave Rwanda. 40 While
the leadership of the Rwandan armed forces and of UNAMIR sat in the meeting room at the military
school, just outside the decisive blows had been struck against both Rwandan and foreign forces that
could have assured a peaceful transition and that could perhaps have averted a genocide.
Ambiguities and Double Language
In the afternoon of April 7, Bagosora carried on the pretense of restoring order by issuing a press
release in the name of the Rwandan army about efforts “to stabilize the situation in the country
rapidly.” Knowing that it was the Presidential Guard and other elite units that were engaged in
slaughter throughout the city, he “invited” the armed forces to “restore order in the country.” Fully
aware that the prime minister and other leading officials had been slain, he urged creating the
“conditions necessary for authorities to work in good order.” He asked the “government in power” to
do its job knowing that there was no such government. He called for speedy implementation of the
Arusha Accords although preventing this had been his stated objective for months. And he asked the
population to resist all efforts to increase hatred and all kinds of violence even as he was presumably
counting on just such hatred and violence to achieve his objective.41
37
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0370, no. 0146, no. 0034, no. 020l, and no. 0112.
38
Communiqué de Mme. Annunciata Kavaruganda; Declaration of Louise Mushikiwabo, Appendix of Declarations and Statutory
Materials in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Default Judgment, United States District Court, Southern District of New York,
No.94 Civ. 3627 (JSM), Louise Mushikiwabo, et al., against Jean Bosco Barayagwiza.
39
Dewez, “Chronique,” pp. 7, 9,16; Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, October 29, 1994; Human Rights Watch interview, by
telephone, Nairobi, May 5, 1994; Dallaire, “Answers to Questions.”
40
Dallaire, “Answers to Questions.”
41
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 132-33.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
134
Many military officers understood that Bagosora and his supporters were saying one thing and doing
another. One officer observed, “The official orders were to restore order. But it was clear that, in fact,
other orders were also being given.”42 A high-ranking officer declared in a sworn statement that there
were “operations carried out by soldiers, including those of the PG [Presidential Guard] which
implemented a preestablished plan that was known to a hidden network.”43 When a senior officer
ordered Col. Muberuka, who commanded the zone of Kigali, to have the Presidential Guard halt their
attacks, he replied that he had tried to do so but that the immediate commander of the unit asserted
that all his troops were already in camp.44
Not everyone playing a double game was part of the “hidden network.” In the first day or two, other
officers, unsure who would finally dominate and what the program would be, temporized and tried to
please superiors—and foreigners—who had different objectives. Commanding officers made
commitments that their subordinates failed to honor, leaving open the question of whether it was the
superior officer or the subordinate who was obeying instructions from the hidden network. Throughout
the first days, for example, Ndindiliyimana repeatedly professed willingness to collaborate with
UNAMIR, but many of his men delayed or refused participation in joint patrols, sometimes asserting
they had received no orders to do so. In one case, National Policemen even backed a hostile crowd
attacking UNAMIR soldiers. In another, Ndindiliyimana reportedly sent National Police to protect
endangered people at the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO), a technical school in Kigali, but the troops
joined the assailants rather than stopping them. Elsewhere in Kigali, National Police officers at a
barrier confronted each other over the question of whether armed militia should be allowed to pass
without being disarmed. Each was obeying a different set of instructions.45
Not even the new chief of staff was safe from the double game. Bagosora had called Colonel Gatsinzi
in Butare at 2 a.m. to inform him of his nomination and to insist that he come to Kigali before dawn.
Gatsinzi refused to travel at night, given the uncertainty of the situation. When he did arrive in the
capital the next day, his vehicle was fired on as it approached the city and one of his escort was
wounded. The newly named interim president, Dr. Théodore Sindikubwabo, was also traveling with
Gatsinzi. It is unclear whether one or both were targeted and by whom, but the attack may have
represented one more effort to prevent the installation of a civilian government or of a military chief of
staff not chosen by Bagosora himself.46
With Gatsinzi at least nominally in command of the armed forces, he, Rusatira, and Ndindiliyimana
sought to wrest control from Bagosora. When the crisis committee met on the evening of April 7, they
refused to allow him to run the meeting. He insulted the others, particularly Rusatira and boycotted the
42
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, January 26, 1996.
43
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no.0142.
44
Ibid.
45
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 0004; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Plainsboro,
N.J., June 14, 1996; January 26, 1996; Brussels, August 3, 1998; Dewez, “Chronique,” pp. 11-12,19; Goffin, 10 Commandos, p.
100.
46
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 83.
135
March 1999
rest of the meeting. The others made some plans for bringing the Presidential Guard under control and
for setting up a government based on the Arusha Accords.47
To outvote Bagosora was much simpler than it would have been to outfight him. The Presidential
Guard, with the best trained and best armed soldiers in the Rwandan armed forces, stood outside the
normal command structure and had been under the orders of Col. Elie Sagatwa, Habyarimana’s private
secretary who had died in the plane crash. Bagosora reportedly took control of this unit after
Sagatwa’s death and also had the loyalty of the commanders of the reconnaissance and
paracommando battalions, the other two strongest units in the Rwandan army. The Presidential Guard
numbered between 1,300 and 1,500 men, having been strengthened soon after the Arusha Accords by
the transfer of two companies from the paracommandos.48 The majority of these troops were posted in
Kigali. With some 800 men of the paracommando and reconnaissance battalions, this made a total of
some 2,000 elite troops that Bagosora could count on. In contrast, Rusatira, head of a school instead
of a fighting unit, had about 100 soldiers at his command, his personal bodyguard and the staff and
students of his school. Gatsinzi headed a battalion, but it was located in Butare. Ndindiliyimana
commanded thousands of National Police, but, with the resumption of the war, some of the force was
integrated into the regular army command, thus limiting his freedom of action. He had perhaps 1,000
men in Kigali and its vicinity but his troops lacked both the battle experience and the heavy weaponry
of combat soldiers.49 In addition, they had surrendered many of their best weapons, R 4 rifles, to
UNAMIR in mid-March as part of the process of creating a weapons-free zone for Kigali, while the
Presidential Guard had not given over any of theirs. Before dawn on April 7, the reconnaisance
battalion recalled to Kigali the armored personnel carriers that they had sent to Rambura, in the north,
to evade UNAMIR control.50 Bagosora’s clear superiority in arms and troop strength was no doubt one
reason the other officers preferred to challenge him at the committee table rather than on the
battlefield.
Resumption of the war late in the afternoon of April 7 complicated the struggle for dominance within
the Rwandan government forces. RPF leader Tito Rutaremara had warned Ndindiliyimana and
Bagosora that the RPF would attack if the slaughter of civilians did not stop. When the killings
continued, RPF troops came out of their CND headquarters and engaged the Presidential Guard.51 With
the RPF in the field, those opposed to Bagosora had the possibility of cooperating with them to restore
order and they explored this possibility through the good offices of Dallaire. General Kagame was
receptive and even sent Seth Sendashonga with an offer to create a joint force composed of 300
soldiers each from the RPF, the Rwandan army units opposed to Bagosora, and UNAMIR to bring an
end to the massacres.52 During the weekend of April 9 to 10, Radio Muhabura, the voice of the RPF,
encouraged Rwandan government soldiers to dissociate themselves from their fellows who were
47
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV no. 0259, 0142; Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur
du Roi de Bruxelles, No. 41.312, dossier 57/95 (confidential source).
48
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 26, 1997.
49
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Antwerp, April 15, 1997 and Brussels, October 20, 1997; Police Judiciaire
près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, No. 41.312, dossier 57/95.
50
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0034, no.143, no. 0370; Police Judiciaire près le Parquet
du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, No. 41.312, dossier 57/95.
51
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 82-83.
52
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Plainsboro, N.J., June 14, 1996; by telephone, Nairobi, March 7, 1998.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
136
slaughtering civilians. They even publicized the names of officers who, they said, were threatened
because they had refused to participate in such killings.53
The senior officers opposed to Bagosora either could not bring themselves to join forces with the longstanding enemy or did not believe that they could lead a substantial number of soldiers into such an
arrangement. They looked instead to the international community for support. Dallaire would have
liked to help what he saw as a “new army,” but he was blocked by the narrow interpretation of the
mandate as well as by a shortage of troops and equipment. Ndindiliyimana explored the possibility of
foreign support with the Belgian ambassador Johan Swinnen on the evening of April 7 and Rusatira
had contacts with Swinnen, with representatives of the U.S., and with a French general in Paris. But
diplomats in Kigali, as well as their ministries back home, were all focused on evacuating citizens of
their own countries. No one had resources to offer to dissenters who hoped to oust Bagosora and stop
the slaughter of Rwandans.54
The Interim Government
Early on the morning of April 8, Bagosora assembled party leaders to fashion a civilian government, all
of them, not surprisingly, from the Hutu Power end of the political spectrum. The MRND was
represented by its president Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Edouard Karemera, and Joseph Nzirorera, an
intimate of the Akazu; MDR by its Power leaders, Froduald Karamira, the Hutu Power orator of October
1993, and Donat Murego, one of those originally courted by Habyarimana in March 1993; and PL by its
Power advocates, Justin Mugenzi and Agnes Ntamabyaliro. It had been difficult to locate
representatives of the PSD because its entire national committee had been killed or was in hiding, so
two members of the political committee, François Ndungutse and Hyacinthe Nsengiyumva Rafiki were
pressed into service. In attendance for the PDC were Jean-Marie Vianney Sibomana, Célestin Kabanda,
and Gaspard Ruhumuliza, another who had been attracted by Habyarimana a year before.55
On the recommendation of MRND leaders, the group decided to install Dr. Théodore Sindikubwabo, an
aging pediatrician and politician from Butare as president. Described by another public official as
“someone with no personality,” Sindikubwabo was a lonely figure, who was often found reading in his
office. He had barely held on to his seat in the parliament at the time of the last election and played
the figure-head role of president of that body with suitable docility.56 Claiming that the Arusha Accords
had not yet taken effect, the politicians made Sindikubwabo president of Rwanda under the terms of
the 1991 constitution.
For prime minister the politicians settled on Jean Kambanda, a far younger and more vigorous man,
but one with relatively little standing or experience at the national level. An economist and banker, he
had unsuccessfully challenged Agathe Uwilingiyimana for the post of prime minister in August 1993.
On April 7, Kambanda had fled to a nearby military camp where Karamira and Bagosora found him the
53
Radio Muhabura, April 11, 1994, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, AL/1970 A/5, April 13, 1994.
54
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Plainsboro, N.J., June 14, 1996; by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997 and July 22,
1998; Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 84.
55
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 86-87 and note.
56
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Plainsboro, N.J., June 14, 1996; by telephone, Kigali, November 8, 1996; Tribunal de
Première Instance de Bruxelles, Deposition de Témoin, September 18, 1995 Dossier 57/95.
137
March 1999
next day and offered him the post. He reportedly accepted unwillingly and was driven away in a
military vehicle.57
Sindikubwabo and Kambanda supported different parties—the MRND and MDR-Power—but both were
from Butare. In addition, the minister of family and feminine affairs, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who had
held the same post in the previous government, was from Butare, as was a newcomer to politics, Dr.
Straton Nsabumukunzi, who was named minister of agriculture. The minister of interior, a hold-over
from the previous cabinet, happened to be abroad at the time and refused to return to Rwanda.58 Until
a replacement was named at the end of May, the administrative head of the ministry acted in his
place. He was Callixte Kalimanzira, also from Butare. Never before had Butare been so well
represented in the most important positions of power. In inviting so many southerners to join them,
Hutu Power advocates hoped both to increase their legitimacy generally and to augment the
effectiveness of their control in the south. The arrangement corresponded exactly to what Bagosora
had specified in his diary in early 1993 when he had written “War for the Bakiga, Politics for the
Banyanduga.” “Bakiga” meant people of the north and “Banyanduga” meant people of the central and
southern part of the country.59
Bagosora presented the interim government to the crisis committee and other high-ranking military
officers soon after its formation on April 8. As they looked over the proposed new authorities, the
military officers saw quickly that Bagosora “had chosen these men himself and that this was not at all
what the meeting the night before had decided.”60 But the same officers who for two days had resisted
Hutu Power in the military incarnation of a Bagosora now accepted it in the political form of a selfproclaimed government. With the RPF pushing ahead vigorously, they felt pressure to shun politics
and devote themselves completely to the work of being soldiers. Perhaps they also felt that they had
taken their opposition as far as they could given the relative troop strength of the two sides and the
absence of encouragement from foreign powers. Having accepted a proposed government that fell far
short of the balanced group that some had expected, the crisis committee adjourned, never to meet
again.61
The interim government presented itself as a legitimate continuation of the previous one, formed, like
it, under the terms of an agreement between the parties signed on April 16, 1992. The party
representatives summoned by Bagosora to set up the government even drew up a protocol to make
their arrangements look proper.62 But anyone aware of the divisions within the parties and acquainted
with the positions of their representatives could see through the pretense: the interim government
may have adhered to the letter of the 1992 arrangement, but it completely violated the spirit,
representing as it did a single point of view. In announcing its goals, the interim government carried on
57
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 26, 1997; Notes of Chris McGreal, interview with Jean Kambanda, Bukavu,
August, 1994.
58
Faustin Munyazesa had been minister of interior since 1991, during the period of smaller-scale massacres of Tutsi and
preparation for the genocide. He remained in Dar es Salaam after the April 6 meeting that he had attended with Habyarimana.
When he heard of the plane crash, he exclaimed, “Forget Rwanda! It is finished! It is finished! It is finished!” Human Rights
Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Kigali, December 19, 1997.
59
Bagosora, “Agenda, 1993,” entry for February 15.
60
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0142.
61
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Plainsboro, N.J.; June 14, 1996; Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 90-91.
62
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, pp. 134-6.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
138
the deception. The interim president Sindikubwabo declared that the new government would rapidly
re-establish security and would continue negotiations with the RPF in order to install the broad-based
government within six weeks. The actions of the new authorities would reveal what the words did not.
Security would be limited to Hutu who supported their position and serious negotiations would not
take place. The third of the stated goals, to cope with the problem of famine was genuine, a response
to the increasingly serious shortage of food in the country.63
The interim government took office on April 9 and fled from the capital on April 12, just after the first
RPF troops from northern Rwanda arrived in Kigali to reinforce those previously quartered in the city. It
operated for a number of weeks at Murambi, near the capital of the prefecture of Gitarama, before
fleeing further west and then north to Gisenyi and leaving Rwanda in mid-July.
Launching the Campaign
The Initiators
By April 6, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans counted themselves part of Hutu Power, but those
who launched the genocide and slaughter of Hutu adversaries were few in number. The initiators
appear to have included military officers like Bagosora and the commanders of the three elite units,
Major Protais Mpiranya of the Presidential Guard, Major François-Xavier Nzuwonemye of the
reconnaissance battalion, and Major Aloys Ntabakuze of the paracommando battalion, as well as Lt.
Col. Léonard Nkundiye, formerly head of the Presidential Guards, Captain Gaspard Hategekimana, who
oversaw the execution of the prime minister, and Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, who apparently directed
killings in the central residential area of Kigali and celebrated them afterwards in noisy parties at his
home.64 Given the number of attacks that took place almost immediately in the northwestern
prefecture of Gisenyi, Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva, the local commander, seems to have been among
the first implementers of the killing plan.65 Col. Tharcisse Renzaho, a military man who was prefect of
Kigali, quickly marshalled his administrative subordinates to organize the patrols and barriers needed
to capture and kill Tutsi. He also maintained links with the militia who accorded him immediate
obedience when he went around the city.66
Some militia were out in the streets before dawn April 7 and others, identifiable as MRND and CDR
members through their distinctive caps, were digging up buried weapons at daybreak. 67
The president and vice-president of the Interahamwe, Robert Kajuga and George Rutaganda, as well as
the heads of the MRND and the CDR, Mathieu Ngirumpatse and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, may have
called them out. Ngirumpatse and other politicians, such as Froduald Karamira, Joseph Nzirorera,
Edouard Karemera, Justin Mugenzi, and Donat Murego, put together the interim government at the
request of Bagosora and hence were responsible for the composition of this group that put the state at
63
Ijambo Perezida w’Inama y’Igihugu Iharanira Amajyambere Dr. Sindikubwabo Théodore Ageza ku Banyarwanda Kwa 8 Mata
1994, enclosed in Fawusitini Munyazeza, Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini, [actually signed by C.
Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa Prefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
64
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Compte-Rendu de la Commission rogatoire internationale exécutée au Rwanda
du 1er au 13 mai 1995, dossier no. 57/95.
65
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0133.
66
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, New York, May 15, 1996.
67
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Deposition de Témoin, September 18, 1995 Dossier 57/95.
139
March 1999
the service of genocide. They also mobilized their followers, directly and by radio, to join in the
killings.
Some members of the akazu appear to have played significant, but less public, roles. Witnesses
present during the first two days after the plane crash claim that Mme. Habyarimana was involved in
political decisions, including the naming of Gatsinzi to the post of chief of staff of the army, an
assertion which she has denied. The witnesses also declared that she and others followed events
closely and that “...all the family that was there, including the religious sisters, rejoiced when they
announced the death of one or another opponent. It was the Presidential Guards who announced that
and they boasted about these murders.”68 Madame Habyarimana was evacuated from Rwanda on
April 9 by the French government. She may have continued to influence decisions from Paris, but it is
unlikely that she was involved in detailed management of political affairs at that distance.
The activities of others close to the Habyarimana family should be investigated for possible links to
killings. Michel Bagaragaza, the director of the Rwandan tea marketing office OCIR-Thé and linked to
Mme. Habyarimana, was at home on April 6 and 7 near the parish of Rambura, supposedly to prepare
for a family wedding. Rambura was the site of some of the first killings outside Kigali. Three priests at
the parish were slain at dawn, followed soon after by three Belgian volunteers who worked at a school
run by persons linked to the akazu, including Bagosora.69 During the days of large-scale slaughter,
Colonel Rwagafilita, a member of the akazu, was frequently seen at the military camp in Kibungo. Soon
after militia and military had massacred some 1,000 people at the St. Joseph Center at the bishopric, a
witness found Rwagafilita at the camp drinking beer with Cyasa Habimana, the local head of the
Interahamwe who had led the attack, and the camp commander, Col. Anselme Nkuliyekubona.70
The first killers, like the first leaders, represented only a small part of the number who would finally be
drawn into participation. In Kigali, where the violence was most concentrated, they included more than
a thousand Presidential Guards along with several hundred troops from other elite battalions or from
the National Police. The militia provided another 2,000.71 Outside the capital, assailants killed Tutsi at
sites that were widely dispersed, but relatively few in number, perhaps some two dozen in the first day
or two. The killers who responded to the initial call to slaughter probably numbered no more than
6,000 to 7,000 throughout the country.
For the first few days, it was not clear how many more of the hundreds of thousands who had been
influenced by the ideas of Hutu Power were prepared to kill, rape, maim, burn, or pillage in its name.
But by the middle of the following week, the initiators were assured of the support they needed to
attempt the wholesale elimination of the Tutsi.
68
Auditorat Militaire, Bruxelles, PV no. 1013, Dossier no. 02 02545 N94 C8 (confidential source). Two sisters of Habyarimana
were members of a religious congregation.
69
Commission d’enquête, Rapport, pp. 461-62.
70
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kibungo, January 30, 1995; Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des
Massacres au Rwanda, “Rapport Préliminaire d’Identification des Sites du Génocide et des Massacres d’avril-juillet 1994 au
Rwanda,” February 1996, pp. 113-5.
71
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Bruxelles, May 26, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
140
Sharpening the Focus on Tutsi
By Monday, April 11, an estimated 20,000 Rwandans had been slain, the vast majority of them Tutsi. 72
But because some of the first victims had been highly visible Hutu and because assailants continued
to target Hutu adversaries of the MRND and the CDR, many Hutu also feared for their lives. They saw
the killings as broader than a genocide and as constituting also an extreme form of kubohoza with
victims chosen on partisan, regional or economic grounds. Both in Kigali and elsewhere, Hutu
cooperated with Tutsi in fighting off militia attacks or they fled together to places of refuge. Often Hutu
made such decisions not just because of their political beliefs but also because of ties of family or
friendship with Tutsi.73
Bagosora and his supporters set out to reorient the violence on more specifically ethnic grounds, both
to break the bonds between Hutu and Tutsi and to win over Hutu from outside the MRND and the CDR
who feared that the new authorities had seized power for the exclusive benefit of these parties. They
first distanced themselves from the “serious troubles” that had resulted in the murders of Hutu
political leaders, like Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana, and blamed these crimes on unruly troops acting
without orders.74 Then on April 11 and 12, political and governmental leaders began working more
actively to build an anti-Tutsi alliance that cut across party and regional lines.
On Monday, April 11, the new authorities summoned the prefects to Kigali, but only five attended the
meeting. Four posts were vacant—one because the Ruhengeri prefect had just been killed by the RPF—
and two other prefects did not attend. The meeting was brief and seemingly inconclusive. The interim
prime minister had hardly come to terms with his new power, the minister of interior was absent and
represented by a subordinate, and the success of the new authorities was hardly assured. Still the
session permitted national leaders to track the progress of the slaughter and to evaluate the willingess
of the administrators to be drawn into further action. After making their reports, the prefects were sent
home without clear orders or any additional resources to end the violence. In this highly centralized
political system where superiors regulated even minor details of policy implementation, the absence
of a message was itself a message: attacks were to continue.
The next day, both political and governmental leaders began mobilizing popular support for genocide.
By inciting the people against Tutsi, they clarified the indirect message delivered the previous day to
the administrators. Speaking on Radio Rwanda early on the morning of April 12, MDR-Power leader
Frodauld Karamira told his listeners that the war was “everyone’s responsibility,” an idea that would
be repeated frequently in the next few weeks. He called on people to “not fight among themselves”
but rather to “assist the armed forces to finish their work.”75 This was a directive to the MDR-Power
supporters to forget their differences with the MRND and the CDR and to collaborate with them in
tracking Tutsi. Without this collaboration, advocated by Karamira since his “Hutu Power” speech the
previous October, the genocide would have remained limited to strongholds of the MRND and the CDR.
72
Terry Leonard, “New Fighting is Reported in Rwanda as Foreigners Flee,” Associated Press, April 11, 1994.
73
Human Rights Watch interviews, by telephone, Kigali, April 7, 8, 10, 1994; Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, “Rapport sur la
Sécurité dans la Précture Kibuye,” April 10, 1994, p. 3 (Kibuye prefecture).
74
Ijambo Perezida w’Inama y’Igihugu Iharanira Amajyambere Dr. Sindikubwabo Théodore Ageza ku Banyarwanda Kwa Mata
1994 (April 8, 1994).
75
Radio Rwanda, “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal by official of the pro-army faction of the MDR,” April 12, 1994, SWB,
AL/1970 A/2, April 13, 1994.
141
March 1999
An hour later, Radio Rwanda broadcast a press release from the Ministry of Defense. It denied “lies”
about divisions in the armed forces and among Hutu generally and insisted that:
Soldiers, gendarmes [National Police], and all Rwandans have decided to fight their
common enemy in unison and all have identified him. The enemy is still the same. He
is the one who has always been trying to return the monarch who was
overthrown....the Ministry of Defence asks Rwandans, soldiers and gendarmes the
following: citizens are asked to act together, carry out patrols and fight the enemy.76
One witness recalled: “They talked only about uniting together, saying we had to fight the enemy. They
said that parties and kubohoza were no longer important.”77 In the streets of Kigali, people were
singing a little song that told it all:
Umwanzi wacu n’umwe
Our enemy is one
turamuzi
We know him
n’umututsi78
It is the Tutsi.
The RPF sought to counter this effort to redefine the violence on ethnic grounds. On Radio Muhabura,
Kagame denounced the use of ethnic strife as a pretext and declared that it was clear “that these acts
of murder are political.”79 Much as Radio Muhabura had played upon divisions between moderate and
Hutu Power soldiers, so, too, it stressed the partisan and regional nature of attacks on civilians.80
RTLM in turn sought to discredit the image of Hutu-Tutsi cohesion within the RPF by broadcasting a
false report that Kagame, the Tutsi general, and Kanyarengwe, the Hutu president of the RPF, had
killed each other in a power struggle.81
As RTLM and Radio Rwanda increasingly defined the Tutsi as the target, officials moved to prevent
their escape from the country. On April 13, an officer of the army general staff telephoned the official in
charge of immigration at the Butare prefecture and ordered him to grant no more authorisations for
travel to adjacent countries. That night, Tutsi attempting to cross the river to Burundi were slaughtered
at Nyakizu. Authorities in Gisenyi also refused permission to Tutsi to cross into Zaire.82 As Mugesera
had declared in November 1992, and many others had echoed since, authorities had made a serious
mistake in permitting Tutsi to flee after the 1959 revolution. That mistake, they said, must not be
repeated.
76
Radio Rwanda, “Defence Ministry communique urges Rwandans to ignore ‘the lies’ of RPF radio,”April 12, 1994, SWB,
AL/1970 A/5, April 13, 1994.
77
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Mukingi, July 10, 1996.
78
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, February 14, 1997.
79
“RPF Leader Kagame Says His Forces Will Act Against the Presidential Guard,” April 9, 1994, SWB, AL/1968 A/4, April 11,
1994.
80
Radio Muhabura, “RPF radio reports killings by presidential guards and pro-Habyarimana militia,”April 11, 1994, SWB,
AL/1970 A/5, April 13, 1994.
81
Agence France Press, “RPF official tells AFP that reports of death of RPF leader are a ‘rumour,’”April 11, 1994 SWB, AL/1970
A/5, April 13, 1994.
82
Des prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du Diocèse de Nyundo Témoignent,” p. 59 and Soeur Patricia Massart, “A
Butare, Au Jour Le Jour,” p. 78, Dialogue, no.177, August-September, 1994. For Nyakizu, see chapter nine.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
142
Military Opposition: The April 12 Statement
After having permitted Bagosora to install the interim government, the senior officers opposed to him
briefly suspended open political action. Whether motivated by hope, fear, or opportunism—or simply
absorbed in combat with the RPF—they made no public protest as the bodies mounted on the streets
of Kigali. But, on April 12, Rusatira, who had presented himself to foreign diplomats as the liaison of
the new government three days before, decided that he must seek to halt the slaughter.83 That day he
escorted dozens of persons whom he had been sheltering in his own Kigali home to Gitarama. En
route Rusatira saw many cadavers, including those of two National Policemen shot because they were
Tutsi or because they had been trying to defend civilians. At Gitarama he sought out political leaders
and tried in vain to persuade them to halt the killings. When Rusatira returned to Kigali, he enlisted
nine other officers to sign a statement that he drafted. Without the approval of the interim
government, they had the declaration broadcast on the radio, calling for an “end to this tragedy.” They
proposed a truce to facilitate talks with the RPF to “promptly restore order in the country and install
the broad-based transitional government, in order to avoid continuing to spill innocent blood for no
reason at all.”84
This effort came too late. The initiators of genocide had chosen their strategy and were prepared to
stand behind it. Bagosora and his supporters were outraged by the officers’ initiative and regarded it
as proof that the signers were traitors. Rusatira was informed that a squad of the Presidential Guard
was to assassinate him that night and went into hiding. Soon after, Minister of Primary and Secondary
Education André Rwamakuba and MDR-Power leader Shingiro Mbonuyumutwa reportedly denounced
the officers who had signed the statement during a public meeting at Kibilira, in Gisenyi prefecture.
Whether to respond to the senior officers or to external pressure, the interim government named a
delegation to talk with the RPF, but the discussions went nowhere.85
Strategies of Slaughter
Priority Targets
From the start, in Kigali and out on the hills, leaders directed two kinds of killing: that of specific
individuals and that of Tutsi as a group.86 The organizers aimed first to eliminate any authorities who
could stand in the way of their taking power. They kept track of their deaths and, according to one
military witness, “passed on the news of each assassination like a trophy.”87 They were angered at the
escape of a few intended victims, like Prime Minister-designate Faustin Twagiramungu, and pursued
them relentlessly. The organizers also sought to kill other individuals who had criticized the
Habyarimana regime and who could be expected to criticize the interim government: leaders of the
MDR, PL, PSD, and PDC who rejected Hutu Power, members of the judiciary, human rights activists,
clergy, journalists, and other leaders of civil society. Most of the targeted political authorities were
83
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, July 22, 1998.
84
Colonels Rusatira, Gatsinzi, Muberuka, Ntiwiragabo, Kanyamanza, Murasampongo, Hakizimana and Lieutenant Colonels
Rwabalinda, Rwamanywa, and Kanyandekwe, “Communiqué du Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises,” Kigali, April
12, 1994. Ndindiliyimana was said to have supported the statement but did not sign.
85
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997.
86
Jean-Pierre Godding, “Refugié d’un Rwanda à Feu et à Sang,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September 1994, p. 39.
87
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0370.
143
March 1999
Hutu, as were many of the leaders of civil society. In addition, the organizers marked particular Tutsi
as priority targets, either because of their wealth and influence or because of their real or presumed
support for the RPF.
As early as daybreak on April 7, the organizers had already distributed lists of the names of these
specially targeted persons, both Hutu and Tutsi, to squads of killers. At 7:30 that morning, one
Rwandan soldier on the outskirts of the city heard gunfire near his house. When he went out to see
what was happening, he observed a typical scene:
...I saw nine soldiers of the paracommando battalion and of the GP and a civilian who
was apparently guiding them. He held a list of names in his hand. It was a list of
people to be killed. They went to another neighbor and threw grenades and shot
open the door of the house. They killed the people inside. They left on foot. My
household worker, whom I sent to follow them, told me later that they had shot at a
series of houses (four families).88
Radio RTLM involved the general public in hunting down named individuals, directed killers where to
find them and then announced their murders. One person who was targeted recalls that he and others
at risk listened to RTLM because it “indicated the victims and we wanted to know if we were on the list
of people selected to be hunted.”89 On April 8, announcer Valérie Bemerki told listeners that RPF
hiding at the home of Tutsi businessman Antoine Sebera had been attacked and “now they are being
grilled right there...now they are burning.”90 In fact, Sebera’s home had not yet been attacked but the
report set it up as a target and it was besieged and burned soon after. Several days later, Noël
Hitimana announced that the home of Joseph Kahabaye in Kivugiza was a RPF bastion, with many
agents hidden in the ceiling. Militia attacked the area within hours and killed Kabahaye. Charles
Kalinjabo, too, was murdered after having been denounced on RTLM.91 On April 10, Bemerki read a list
of thirteen “responsables du FPR,” important agents of the RPF, their addresses, places of work, and
where they spent their leisure time. The information had supposedly come from a document found in
the possession of a RPF agent. Asserting that these people were preparing to kill Hutu, Bemerki urged
all people who wanted security to “rise up” against these “spies”:
...you have heard their names, with their sectors and their cells, so we find that these
people are really plotting with the Inyenzi-Inkotanyi in order to kill...Rwandans.92
She invited listeners who would like to look for these persons to call her for more information.
Targeted individuals who escaped were tracked by authorities to the other side of Kigali, to other
communes, or even to the island of Idjwi in Zaire.93 Tutsi who fled to the large displaced persons
camps at Kabgayi in central Rwanda were followed by people from their home regions who appeared,
88
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0146.
89
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Deposition de Témoin, September 18, 1995 Dossier 57/95.
Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, p. 125. Sebera had been one of the Tutsi named in the above-mentioned September 1992
military memorandum defining the enemy.
90
91
Ibid., p. 127.
92
RTLM broadcast, April 10, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19).
93
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 439.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
144
list in hand, to search for them among the crowds. In one well-known case, a group of Tutsi assembled
in this way at Kabgayi were stripped naked and forced on a bus that took them to Ngorerero in Gisenyi,
where they were killed.94
Even when assailants were preparing to massacre large numbers of Tutsi at places of refuge, they
often had in mind specific persons whom they wanted to be sure to kill. A survivor of the massacre at
Mugonero hospital in Kibuye reported that he heard such a list read over a loudspeaker before the
attack began.95 Another survivor declared that once the killing was finished,
They sent people in among the bodies to verify who was dead. They said, “Here is the
treasurer and his wife and daughter, but where is the younger child?” Or, “Here is
Josue’s father, his wife and mother, but where is he?” And then, in the days after,
they tried to hunt you down if they thought you were still alive. They would shout out,
“Hey Josue, we see you now” to make you jump and try to run so that they could see
you move and get you more easily.96
Thorough Elimination: “Begin on One Side...”
As squads sought out the most wanted victims on the morning of April 7, Bagosora was reportedly
overheard directing the commanders of the elite military units, “Muhere aruhande,” “Begin on one
side...,” ordering a systematic sweep of Tutsi and opponents of Hutu Power from one side of the city
through to the other.97
A witness in the section known as Remera related the progress of the killers in her neighborhood in
telephone conversations every half hour of the first night of the genocide. She told a Human Rights
Watch researcher in the United States how a group of soldiers were shooting people in houses on the
street below her home. Then she recounted how they were moving up her street, from one house to the
next. With the sound of gunfire in the background, she described how three neighbors from the house
next door were being executed at the corner of the street. When the soldiers banged on her own door,
she hung up the phone. She fled, hid for several days, and was finally evacuated to safety.98
Both RTLM and Radio Rwanda identified areas of Kigali to be attacked, like Gikondo or the buildings of
the law faculty of the university. RTLM announcer Hitimana congratulated those who had searched out
Tutsi:
...the population is very vigilant, except in certain sectors...where people are still
downcast; otherwise, everywhere else, they have sacked all the houses, the rooms,
the kitchens, everywhere! They have even torn out all the doors and windows in all
the uninhabited houses, [and] in general they find inkotanyi hidden inside. They have
94
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, March 7, 1996; Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres au
Rwanda, “Rapport Préliminaire,” p. 67; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p.439.
95
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
96
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
97
Reyntjens, Rwanda, Trois Jours, p. 58.
98
Human Rights Watch/Africa, eight interviews, by telephone, Kigali, April 7, 1994. Many relatives and friends of Rwandans in
Europe and North America received similar calls. The Belgian peacekeepers’ log of these days gives some sense of the horror.
See Dewez, “Chronique.”
145
March 1999
searched everywhere!...If they [the inkotanyi] get hungry, they’ll all come out before
you arrive. That is why you must act very fast! Force them to come out! Find them at
whatever cost.99
Georges Ruggiu, the Belgian announcer who worked for RTLM, enthusiastically joined in inciting
violence. He alerted listeners that:
around the hill Mbunabutuso [sic, Mburabuturo], in the woods...suspect movements
of people have been observed...People of Rugonga [sic, Rugunga], of Kanongo [sic,
Kanogo], by the gas station, pay attention, go to check out that woods, go ensure
security and that the inyenzi have not gotten in there.100
By mid-day April 7, assailants were killing and pillaging Tutsi in the northwest, in the town of Gisenyi,
and at Byangabo, Busogo, Busasamana, Mudende, Muramba, Kivumu, and Rambura; south of Kigali,
at Ruhuha and Sake; northeast of Kigali at Murambi; in Gikongoro at Muko and in the far southwestern
town of Cyangugu. Later that night and the next day, the killers began their “work,” as they called it, in
other regions in the east and west.
Massacres
At first assailants generally operated in small bands and killed their victims where they found them, in
their homes, on the streets, at the barriers. But, as early as the evening of April 7, larger groups seized
the opportunity for more intensive slaughter as frightened Tutsi—and some Hutu—fled to churches,
schools, hospitals, and government offices that had offered refuge in the past. In the northwestern
prefecture of Gisenyi, militia killed some fifty people at the Nyundo seminary, forty-three at the church
of Busogo, and some 150 at the parish of Busasamana. A large crowd including Burundian students
and wounded soldiers took on the task of massacring hundreds of people at the campus of the
Seventh Day Adventist University at Mudende to the east of Gisenyi town.101 In Kigali, soldiers and
militia killed dozens at a church in Nyamirambo on April 8 and others at the mosque at Nyamirambo
several days later. On the morning of April 9, some sixty Interahamwe led by Jean Ntawutagiripfa,
known as “Congolais,” and accompanied by four National Policemen, forced their way into the church
at Gikondo, an industrial section of Kigali. They killed more than a hundred people that day, mostly
with machetes and clubs.102
RTLM encouraged these attacks on April 8 when announcer Hitimana broadcast advice which he
described as especially credible because it came from “a Doctor [whom] I really trust.” The “Doctor”
said that seeing people gathering in churches was “not good at all,” especially when the RPF had put
them there along with grenades and other arms. RTLM followed up this general counsel with specific
99
Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95.
100
Ibid.
101
G. Leonard, “Le Carnage à Busogo,” pp. 31-33; Godding, “Refugié d’un Rwanda à Feu et à Sang,” p. 40; and Des prêtres du
diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés,” pp. 60-61, 64-65, Dialogue, no. 177, August-September 1994; Agence France Presse,
“Massacres de Rwandais dans une mission franciscaine au nord du pays,” Bulletin Quotidien d'Afrique, no. 14189, 11/04/94, p.
39.
102
U.S. Committee for Refugees, “Genocide in Rwanda: Documentation of Two Massacres during April 1994,” pp. 4-9.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
146
warnings about the church and the mosque in Nyamirambo that spurred almost immediate attacks on
these places of worship.103
Even when news of the massacres began to spread, some Tutsi still sought sanctuary in public places
because the choice seemed no worse and perhaps better than staying at home or attempting to flee
much further away. Some did, in fact, survive at the gathering places, either as the fortunate few who
escaped at the time of a massacre or because their place of refuge was not attacked. In the two most
remarkable cases, some 24,300 Tutsi in the camps at Kabgayi, a large church complex in the central
province of Gitarama, were rescued by the arrival of the RPF and another 10,000 at Nyarushishi, in
Cyangugu, were protected by National Police under Colonel Bavugamenshi until the arrival of French
troops under Operation Turquoise. Tutsi at Rukara in eastern Rwanda were saved when the gunfire
from advancing RPF troops frightened away assailants who were besieging the church.104
Beginning in the week of April 11, government officials exploited the Tutsi impulse to seek refuge and
promised them protection if they would assemble in designated sites. Those who declined the offer
were often forced to go there anyway. This effort was so general throughout the country that it must
have reflected orders from above. As Rwandans remarked, “it was like sweeping dry banana leaves
into a pile to burn them more easily.” The prefects of Kibuye and Cyangugu directed Tutsi to assemble
in the local stadiums. In Kivumu commune, Kibuye prefecture, the burgomaster reportedly drove a
white pick-up truck around to gather Tutsi who were straggling along the road. He was anxious to get
them to Nyange church, where they would later be massacred by a bulldozer that flattened both the
church and the people inside. In some cases, authorities did not order the massacre immediately after
people assembled, apparently because they were waiting to gather either the maximum number of
people or the forces necessary to attack them. In the meantime, they restricted supplies of food and
water to the displaced persons, or prohibited them completely, so weakening the population in
readiness for the attack. Often several National Policemen or communal policemen “guarded” the
displaced persons. This “protection” reassured the Tutsi and encouraged them to remain quietly at the
site. If any did try to leave, the “guards” were there to stop them.105
From April 11 to the first of May, killers carried out the most devastating massacres of the genocide, in
some cases slaying hundreds or even thousands of people in one or two days. This kind of slaughter
took place near the ETO school in the city of Kigali; at Ntarama and Nyamata in Kigali prefecture; at
Kiziguro in Byumba; at Musambira, Mugina, and Byimana in Gitarama; at Nyarubuye church, Rukara
church, Rukira commune, and the St. Joseph center in Kibungo; at the church and stadium in Kibuye
town, Mubuga church, Birambo and Mugonero church and hospital in Kibuye prefecture; at Shangi,
Nyamasheke, and Mibirizi churches in Cyangugu; at Kibeho, Cyanika, and Kaduha churches in
Gikongoro; at Cyahinda, Kansi and Nyumba churches, Butare hospital and the university in Butare;
and at Nyundo Cathedral in Gisenyi.
When Hutu who had feared attack because of their political convictions heard that “Tutsi alone were
for killing,” most left their places of refuge to return home. But other Hutu, particularly those who had
Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, Censorship, Propaganda & State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda, 1990-1994 (October
1996), pp. 130-131.
103
104
U.S. Committee for Refugees, “Genocide in Rwanda,” p. 16.
105
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, July 11, 1996; Kivumu, July 9, 1996. In some cases, the guards did in fact
protect people at these sites. See chapter 8.
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taken refuge with Tutsi family members, remained in the churches, schools, and hospitals. Killers
generally tried to restrict slaughter to the Tutsi and directed others to leave before the attack. Often
soldiers, National Policemen, or militia verified identity papers to ensure that only those classed as
Hutu left.106
Hutu with Tutsi relatives faced wrenching decisions about whether or not to desert their loved ones in
order to save their own lives. At Mugonero church in Kibuye, two Hutu sisters, each married to a Tutsi
husband, faced such a choice. One decided to die with her husband. The other chose to leave
because she hoped to save the lives of her eleven children. The children, classed as Tutsi because
their father was Tutsi, would not ordinarily have had the right to live, but assailants had said that they
could be allowed to depart safely if she agreed to go with them. When she stepped out of the door of
the church, she saw eight of the eleven children struck down before her eyes. The youngest, a child of
three years old, begged for his life after seeing his brothers and sisters slain. “Please don’t kill me,” he
said. “I’ll never be Tutsi again.” He was killed.107 If assailants tried as much as possible to kill only
Tutsi, so they tried, too, to kill all Tutsi. Survivors and other witnesses from many parts of Rwanda
speak of the killers approaching the destruction of the crowds at a church, hospital, or hilltop as a
piece of work to be kept at until finished. One compared killers to government workers putting in a day
at the office; another likened them to farmers spending a day at labor. In case after case, killers quit at
day’s end, to go home and feast on food and drink they had pillaged or been given, ready to come
back the next morning, rested and fit for “work.” At Mugonero hospital, after hours of slaughter,
assailants tossed tear gas cannisters in among the bodies. They wanted to make any survivors cough
so they could locate them and finish them off.108 If killers were too tired to complete the “work” on any
given day, they assured the Tutsi that they would come back. And, generally, they did.
Impeding Flight: Barriers and Patrols
Organizers tranformed practices once instituted to promote security into mechanisms for genocide
and the killing of political adversaries. Even before the October 1990 invasion, guards maintained
barriers on roads and paths where they examined the papers and belongings of passersby. More
recently the administration had established patrols to check rising crime and political attacks within
neighborhoods in town or out on the hills. Soldiers or National Police manned important barriers on
main roads, but it was communal police and citizens themselves who were responsible for the others
and who made up the neighborhood patrols. In Butare town, workers at the university and other
persons with salaried employment hired zamu or nightwatchmen to do this work in their stead.
Security committees at the various levels from sector to prefecture oversaw the implementation of
these measures within their areas of jurisdiction.
At the start, authorities instructed Rwandans to stay at home. The curfew allowed authorities and local
political leaders to put in place the barriers and patrols necessary to control the population,
multiplying them in communities where they were already functioning and reestablishing them in
places where they were no longer in operation. Tutsi as well as Hutu cooperated with these measures
106
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, August 29, 30, 1994; Butare, October 2, 1994; Kibungo, January 30, 1995;
Nyarubuye, March 5, 1995; Kigali, July 7, 1995; Kigali, July 11, 1996; U.S. Committee for Refugees, “Genocide in Rwanda,” p.6.
107
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 13, 1995.
108
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
148
at the start, hoping they would ensure their security. The hope was disappointed. RTLM, which had at
first encouraged Tutsi to join Hutu at the barriers and on the patrols, subsequently began advising
listeners to look carefully at coworkers and examine their motives for participation. Incited by such
messages from the radio and from local leaders, Hutu in some communities turned on Tutsi at the
barriers or on patrols and killed them.109
By restricting movement, the barriers made it less likely that people at risk would dare to flee and they
also offered a means of catching those who did try to escape. Their keepers scrutinized papers,
particularly that line under the photograph that gave the ethnic affiliation of the bearer, to ensure that
no changes had been made or false data entered. They examined facial characteristics and
configuration of the body to “expose” Tutsi who were trying to pass as Hutu. In some cases, they
wrongly assumed that Hutu were Tutsi because they looked Tutsi. They checked passersby for other
supposed signs of links with the RPF, marks on their shoulders made by the rubbing of a gunstrap or
traces on their ankles resulting from the chafing of boots, or even scars or other marks that could be
labeled tattoos indicating loyalty to the RPF.110
Barriers were often set up in front of local bars or in nearby commercial centers. Local businessmen or
other well-to-do people sponsored barriers, which meant supplying the guards with food, drink, and
sometimes marijuana as well.111 As in the past, soldiers and National Police manned barriers on the
main roads while communal police, militia, and other civilians guarded others. Even at the barriers
maintained by civilians, at least one of the guards would often carry a firearm and others might have
grenades as well as machetes.
The guards, drunk or sober, had the power of life and death over those who sought to pass and
sometimes over persons captured and brought to them by patrols in the area. In considering the case,
they might evaluate if the person looked Tutsi or was known personally to any of them as being Tutsi
or a RPF supporter. They might also weigh how much the person could pay to save his or her life and, if
a woman, how desirable she would be either as an object for rape or for longer-term sexual service.
Then the guards as a group, or the leader among them, decided whether the person was to be killed
on the spot, raped, kept for service or future execution, or perhaps released. Barriers sometimes
served as temporary places of detention.
Some barriers were manned by opponents of the genocide who participated under threat of death to
themselves or their families if they were to refuse. Survivors remembers these barriers as “good” ones
where Tutsi would not be killed and where the guards might warn of more dangerous barricades
further down the same road.112
Patrols searched for Tutsi in and out of their houses, in the fields, in the bush, in the swamps,
wherever they might be hiding. Often they invaded the homes of Hutu as well under the pretext of
verifying reports about hidden arms or a stranger who was residing there. They checked the space
between ceiling and roof, under the beds, in the cupboards, in the latrines. In the search, they often
109
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, January 26, 1997.
110
Tribunal de Première Instance de Bruxelles, Deposition de Témoin, September 18, 1995 Dossier 57/95; Fergal Keane, Season
of Blood, A Rwandan Journey (London: Viking, 1995), p. 168.
111
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995; Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 266.
112
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare July 12, July 13, 1996.
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helped themselves to whatever goods attracted them. In addition to the patrols that did regularly
scheduled tours of the neighborhood, there were others organized in response to reports from
informers who had noticed suspicious indications, such as unfamiliar clothes hung out to dry in a
backyard or unusual kinds or quantities of food being purchased.113
Rape and Sexual Servitude
During the genocide, tens of thousands of women and girls were raped, including one who was only
two years old.114 The assailants raped as part of their attempt to exterminate Tutsi, some of them
incited by propaganda about Tutsi women disseminated in the period just before the genocide. The
women had been depicted as devious and completely devoted to the interests of their fathers and
brothers. Generally esteemed as beautiful, Tutsi women were also said to scorn Hutu men whom they
found unworthy of their attention. Many assailants insulted women for their supposed arrogance while
they were raping them. If assailants decided to spare the lives of the women, they regarded them as
prizes they had won for themselves or to be distributed to subordinates who had performed well in
killing Tutsi. Some kept these women for weeks or months in sexual servitude. In the commune of
Taba, women and girls were raped at the communal office, with the knowledge of the burgomaster. 115
At the Kabgayi nursing school, soldiers ordered the directress to give them the young women students
as umusanzu, a contribution to the war effort.The directress, a Hutu, Dorothée Mukandanga, refused
and was killed.116
Assailants sometimes mutilated women in the course of a rape or before killing them. They cut off
breasts, punctured the vagina with spears, arrows, or pointed sticks, or cut off or disfigured body parts
that looked particularly “Tutsi,” such as long fingers or thin noses. They also humiliated the women.
One witness from Musambira commune was taken with some 200 other women after a massacre. They
were all forced to bury their husbands and then to walk “naked like a group of cattle” some ten miles
to Kabgayi. When the group passed roadblocks, militia there shouted that the women should be
killed. As they marched, the women were obliged to sing the songs of the militia. When the group
stopped at nightfall, some of the women were raped repeatedly.117
Crimes of Extraordinary Brutality
Some killers tortured victims, both male and female, physically or psychologically, before finally killing
them or leaving them to die. An elderly Tutsi woman in Kibirira commune had her legs cut off and was
left to bleed to death. A Hutu man in Cyangugu, known to oppose the MRND-CDR, was killed by having
parts of his body cut off, beginning with his extremities. A Tutsi baby was thrown alive into a latrine in
Nyamirambo, Kigali, to die of suffocation or hunger. Survivors bear scars of wounds that testify better
than words to the brutality with which they were attacked. Assailants tortured Tutsi by demanding that
they kill their own children and tormented Hutu married to Tutsi partners by insisting that they kill their
spouses. Victims generally regarded being shot as the least painful way to die and, if given the choice
and possessing the means, they willingly paid to die that way.
113
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995; Butare, October 21, 1995.
114
Human Rights Watch/FIDH, Shattered Lives, p.24.
115
Fondation Hirondelle, “L’ancien maire de Taba aurait encouragé au viol de femmes Tutsies,” October 23, 1997.
116
Boniface Musoni, “Holocauste Noir,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September 1994, p. 88.
117
Human Rights Watch/FIDH, Shattered Lives, pp. 54, 62-64.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
150
Assailants often stripped victims naked before killing them, both to acquire their clothes without
stains or tears and to humiliate them. In many places, killers refused to permit the burial of victims
and insisted that their bodies be left to rot where they had fallen. Persons who attempted to give a
decent burial to Tutsi were sometimes accused by others of being “accomplices” of the enemy. 118 The
Hutu widow of a Tutsi man killed at Mugonero in Kibuye expressed her distress at the violation of
Rwandan custom, which is to treat the dead with dignity. Speaking of Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana
of the Adventist church, she stated:
What gives me grief is that after the pastor had all these people killed, he didn’t even
see to burying them, including his fellow pastors. They lay outside for two weeks,
eaten by dogs and crows.119
Strategies of Survival
Resistance
Tutsi fought for their lives at Bisesero, Karongi, and Nyamagumba in Kibuye; at Nyakizu, Nyamure, and
Runyinya in Butare; at Bicumbi and Kanzenze and in the swamps of Bugesera in Kigali; at Gashihe in
Gisenyi; at Gisuma and Cyangugu stadium in Cyangugu; at Kibeho and Kaduha churches in Gikongoro;
at the Muhazi and Rukira communal offices in Kibungo.120 The names of these and other major sites of
resistance are known, but unrecorded are the thousands of places where Tutsi struggled hand to hand
with their aggressors, in their homes, on the paths and in the fields. Each place of struggle has its own
story of heroism, but most share common elements: Tutsi (in the early days, in some places, mixed
groups of Tutsi and Hutu) repelled the initial attack; the aggressors obtained reinforcements in people
and material, usually from soldiers or National Police; the aggressors attacked repeatedly until they
overcame the resistance. Some Tutsi survived, hidden among the bodies or elsewhere, or by fleeing.
At some sites, the besieged people formulated strategies for fighting or for fleeing. At Rubona in
Butare and at Bisesero at Kibuye, resisters used a tactic called “merging,” or kwiunga.121 This involved
lying down and waiting until assailants had moved in among the intended victims, then rising up to
face them in close combat. This tactic decreased the likelihood that assailants would shoot because
they would fear being caught in fire from their own side. The two sites where the tactic was used are
far apart and probably had no communication between them during the genocide. Perhaps the RPF
had taught this way of fighting during training sessions for its adherents or had disseminated it in
some other way. At Bisesero, where the numbers of resisters were large and the struggle long, the
Tutsi put into place a command structure. Leaders directed the combat and even beat those who
refused to advance under attack.122 In Nyakizu, most Tutsi were besieged for only a few days under
attack, but they too worked out a division of tasks in the combat. When they decided to flee, they
118
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 26, 1997.
119
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, September 9, 1995.
120
Human Rights Watch interviews, seven by telephone, Kigali, between April 6 and May 28, 1994; Human Rights Watch/FIDH
interviews, Kigali, September 9, 12, 13, 1995; Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres au Rwanda,
“Rapport Préliminaire,” pp. 92, 136, 142, 148-58, 173-76, 186-8, 241; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax
no. 12, May 9, 1994.
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Rusatira, March 23, 1996; African Rights, Resisting Genocide, April-June 1994, Witness,
No. 8, p. 16.
121
122
African Rights, Resisting Genocide, p. 17.
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arranged the departure of groups at different times and in different directions to increase their
chances for escape.
The best known case of resistance was that of Bisesero, a mountainous ridge in Kibuye where Tutsi
stood off militia and military from April 8 until July 1. In explaining why Tutsi had fled to Bisesero, one
survivor related:
We fled to the hill because it was high and we could see the attackers coming....It
had lots of woods on it and so many hiding places. The attackers would come to kill
during the day and at night they would go off to eat and drink.123
Others recalled that Bisesero had been an important site for defense at the time of the 1959
revolution, a consideration which determined the choice of site for people in other prefectures as well.
According to some witnesses, Radio Muhubura encouraged Tutsi to assemble at Bisesero.
During the genocide people living in the town of Kibuye became used to the sound of the vehicles
rolling by en route to Bisesero with their loads of assailants. Obed Ruzindana, a local businessman
and prefectural head of the CDR, is accused of having led attacks on the hilltop along with a councilor,
Mika Muhimana. One survivor declares that Dr. Gerard Ntakirutimana, son of Pastor Elizaphan
Ntakirutimana, who headed the Adventist church, came to the hill often, “wearing white pants and a
white and red sweater and carrying a R4 rifle.” The witness thought that Dr. Ntakirutimana would help
him because their fathers had exchanged cattle, a sign of a close and enduring bond. He says, “So I
fled to Ntakirutimana for protection, but instead he shot at me.” The burgomaster, Charles Sikubwabo,
a former soldier, helped organize the repeated assaults on the hill. From time to time, Alfred Musema,
head of a nearby tea factory, came to observe.124
The local militia, gathered from three surrounding communes, was not enough to overcome resistance
on the hill, so the organizers called in reinforcements from a considerable distance. A militia leader
well-known in Cyangugu, John Yusufu Munyakazi, brought his men from that prefecture and both
militia and soldiers came from Gisenyi. In late April, the resisters, using spears and machetes, killed a
lieutenant of the Presidential Guard and four National Policemen. There followed a respite of two
weeks. Then on May 13, soldiers, backed by eight busloads of militia, charged the hill. They killed
thousands of Tutsi. According to a survivor whose wife and mother were killed there, the assailants
“speared women through the vagina to their heads, saying ‘May you give birth to a child.’”125
During the weeks on the hilltop, the Tutsi first consumed supplies they had brought with them and
then foraged for food and stole from the fields of farmers. The attackers were divided into two teams,
those who assaulted the hill during the day and those “who went around at night trying to find where
people were hiding by smelling or seeing their cooking fires.”126
123
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
124
125
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, September 9, 1995; July 11,1996.
Ibid.
126
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
152
The prefect, Dr. Clément Kayishema informed his superior on May 5 about the continued existence of
“a little spot of insecurity in the Bisesero zone,”127 and wired them on June 2 to request “military
reinforcements to help the population monitor the [areas of] high altitude.” Perhaps to ensure a
prompt and positive response, Kayishema reminded his superior that this region included a radio
transmitter, an installation of Electrogaz, and the tea factory. He also reported that there were RPF
infiltrators among incoming refugees and that an RPF attack was rumored to be coming from Nyanza to
the east and from Idjwi island in Lake Kivu.128
The prefect got the response he wanted some two weeks later when the council of ministers instructed
the military commander at Gisenyi to send troops to join the National Police at Kibuye “to lead a
search operation, with the help of the population, in sector Bisesero...which has become a sanctuary
of the RPF.” The interim government insisted that the operation be “finished definitively” by June 20 at
the latest, perhaps because they anticipated the arrival of French troops of Operation Turquoise at
about that time.129 The attack took place, killing and maiming many of the ragged and starving
survivors who clung to life on top of the hills. A foreign witness present in Kibuye town heard the
militia and troops coming home shouting their ibyivugo, a formalized boast that dates to the
precolonial period, declaiming the numbers they had slain and the details of how they had killed
them.
A survivor estimated that of the thousands of Tutsi hidden in the woods on top of the Bisesero hills,
fewer than 1,500 survived.130
Flight, Hiding, and Buying Safety
Many of the Tutsi alive today fled in search of safety, some many times over. A young man from
Bisesero first fled south with a group heading for Burundi, but they were caught in the Nyungwe forest
by the Presidential Guard. They escaped and made their way back to Bisesero. He tried again, heading
southeast, planning to circle through the northern part of Gikongoro to reach the RPF zone. Forced to
retreat again to Bisesero, he started out a third time to the northeast, through Birambo but once more
was driven back to the hilltop. As he remarks, “All this was in April, the month that would not end.” 131
Some fled from one place to another, like a group that escaped from the massacre at Kibeho and went
to Muganza and from there to Cyahinda and from there to Agatobwe to Nkomero and finally across the
border to Burundi. Tracked by assailants from their places of origin, harassed by new attackers along
the way, those in flight traveled at night, frequently backtracking and following circuitous routes. One
witness needed six days to traverse a distance that he could normally walk in two hours.
Many hid in every imaginable kind of space: latrines, ceilings, unused wells, in trees, in empty
buildings in the city and in fields of sorghum or sugar cane. Some profited from a momentary
distraction or temporary weakening of will on the part of a captor. One woman at the crowded Kabgayi
127
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no. 0286/04.09.01,
May 5, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
128
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, telegram to Ministre MININTER, no. 003/04.09.01, June 2, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
129
Edouard Karemera, Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal to Monsieur le Lt. Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva,
Commandant du Secteur Opérationnel de Gisenyi, no classification number, June 18, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
130
131
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 9,1995.
Ibid.
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camp who was selected for killing by militia begged the chance to suckle her infant one last time.
While she was doing so, her captor got bored and looked away and she disappeared into the crowd. A
teenaged girl was lined up with others waiting to be killed at the edge of a grave. When the killers
began to dispute the division of the spoils taken from the victims, she sped off into the night. Some
bought their lives once with a watch or a small sum of money; others made payments to soldiers or
militia every day or every week throughout the genocide. Some negotiated a temporary reprieve
through wit and promises, staying alive day by day.
Resisters in places like Bisesero or the Bugesera swamps seem to have been largely self-sufficient, but
others who survived through flight, hiding, or buying their safety usually needed help from Hutu. Some
of those who opened their doors, showed a path, or delivered food acted from principle, responding to
a sense of common humanity with the victim, even if a stranger. Some acted from family feeling,
friendship, or sense of obligation for past services rendered. Others sold their help, but, in doing so,
they, too, saved lives.
Authorities and political leaders defined aiding Tutsi as helping the “enemy.” In many places, they
specifically ordered Hutu not to assist Tutsi and threatened them with death or other punishment if
they did so. Hutu who disobeyed such orders and were caught often had to pay fines. In some cases,
the protectors, like those whom they were trying to protect, were raped, beaten, or killed. These cases
were widely known in local communities and often led other Hutu to refuse or end their assistance to
Tutsi.132 When an elderly Tutsi in Bisesero appealed to an old Hutu friend to hide his grandsons, the
old friend responded, “I would like to, but I can’t. The orders are that I must not.” 133
The Organization
In the past, the Rwandan government had often mobilized the population for campaigns of various
kinds, such as to end illiteracy, to vaccinate children, or to improve the status of women. It had
executed these efforts through the existing administrative and political hierarchies, requiring agents
to go beyond their usual duties for a limited period of time for some national goal of major
importance. The organizers of the genocide similarly exploited the structures that already existed—
administrative, political, and military—and called upon personnel to execute a campaign to kill Tutsi
and Hutu presumed to oppose Hutu Power. Through these three channels, the organizers were able to
reach all Rwandans and to incite or force most Hutu into acquiescing in or participating in the
slaughter.
The organization that ran the campaign was flexible: primacy depended more on commitment to the
killing than on formal position in the hierarchy. Thus within the administrative system, sub-prefects
could eclipse prefects, as they did in Gikongoro and Gitarama, and in the military domain, lieutenants
could ignore colonels, as happened in Butare. This flexibility encouraged initiative and ambition
among those willing to purchase advancement at the cost of human lives. To preserve appearances,
132
Human Rights Watch/FIDH, interviews, Butare, May 29, 1995, Kigali, July 18, 1995; Brussels, December 18, 1995; Human
Rights Watch/FIDH, Shattered Lives, pp. 66-67.
133
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, July 12, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
154
an inferior might obtain the approval of his superior for decisions he made, but those receiving the
orders knew who really had the power.134
Similarly, actors bypassed the usual legal and bureaucratic limits on their activities. Military men,
retired or in active service, took charge in the civilian domain, as did Col. Simba when he took the
chair of prefectural meetings away from the prefect of Gikongoro, and civilians, even those with no
legal authority, obtained military support for their attacks on Tutsi. Administrators gave orders to
militia groups and Interahamwe leaders intervened in the administrative realm, as when their national
committee ruled on the acceptability of the candidate to replace the prefect of Butare. Party leaders
like Karemera of the MRND and Murego of the MDR-Power participated in meetings of the council of
ministers while others like Ngirumpatse of the MRND represented the interim government abroad in its
efforts to legitimate the genocide.135 The prime minister and the Ministry of the Interior directed
prefects to involve local politicians in the efforts to assure “security.” They did and they made sure
their subordinates did the same.136 Like officials of the administration, important party leaders were
protected by military guards and, like them, they toured the hills bringing the message of the
government to the people.
Individuals from other sectors—the akazu, the church, the business community, the university,
schools and hospitals—backed the efforts of the officials.
The Military
Soldiers and National Police, whether on active duty or retired, killed civilians and they gave
permission, set the example, and commanded others to kill. Although fewer in number than civilian
killers, the military played a decisive role by initiating and directing the slaughter. In the first hours in
Kigali, soldiers of the Presidential Guard and the paracommando and reconnaisance battalions, along
with some National Policemen, carried out the carnage in one neighborhood after another. Soldiers,
National Police and the communal police also launched the slaughter and organized all large-scale
massacres elsewhere in the country.
Witnesses in Kigali and other towns have identified as killers certain soldiers and National Policemen
whom they knew before the genocide. But elsewhere, witnesses found it difficult to identify the
persons or even the units responsible for given crimes because soldiers and National Police wore the
same uniforms and only sometimes wore the berets of different colors which indicated the service to
which they belonged. Witnesses often say that soldiers from the Presidential Guard attacked them,
but troops from other army units or from the National Police may actually have committed some of
these crimes.137
134
Details of the cases mentioned in this chapter are found in chapters on Gikongoro and Butare.
135
Karemera was subsequently named minister of the interior and community development and Barayagwiza became secretary
of the assembly created just before the interim government left the country.
136
Ministiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini [actually signed by C. Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa
Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 and Yohani Kambanda, Ministiri w’Intebe, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose) April 27,
1994 (Butare prefecture).
137
In interviews by Human Rights Watch/FIDH, researchers found “Presidential Guard” used as a generic term for military
personnel who killed Tutsi and “Interahamwe” used as a generalized description for civilian bands of killers.
155
March 1999
Regardless of the responsibility of individuals or units, the widespread and systematic participation of
military personnel throughout the entire period of genocide indicates that the most powerful
authorities at the national level ordered or approved their role in the slaughter. Bagosora, as shown
above, has been identified by other officers as the leader who launched the genocide. General
Bizimungu, named chief of staff with Bagosora’s support, and Minister of Defense Augustin Bizimana
at the least collaborated actively with Bagosora, while officers in charge of the elite units, Majors
Protais Mpiranya, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, and Aloys Ntabakuze, as well as others like Colonel
Tharcisse Renzaho, Lieutenant Colonels Léonard Nkundiye and Anatole Nsengiyumva, Captain
Gaspard Hategekimana, and Major Bernard Ntuyahaga carried out the killings of Tutsi and Hutu
civilians.
On April 10, Colonel Gatsinzi, then temporarily chief of staff, and the Ministry of Defense each ordered
subordinates to halt the killings of civilians, using force if necessary. The Ministry of Defense sent a
second, weaker command on April 28 “to cooperate with local authorities to halt pillage and
assassinations.” But neither the general staff nor the Ministry of Defense enforced the orders, leaving
subordinates to conclude that the directives had no importance. In fact, as some officers had
observed from the start, the authorities countermanded the official orders by another message,
passed discreetly to like-minded officers who executed the informal order to kill rather than the official
directive to stop the killings.138
The military also led militia and ordinary civilians in slaughter, giving orders to citizens directly and
through civilian administrators. At the national level, civilian and military authorities directed the
population to obey these orders, insisting that civilians must “work with,” “assist,” or “support” the
army.139 According to a foreign witness, soldiers taught hesitant young people to kill on the streets of
Kigali. When the young people balked at striking Tutsi, soldiers stoned the victims until the novices
were ready to attack.140 In the prefecture of Gitarama, soldiers said to be Presidential Guards drove
around in a black Pajero jeep, killing and inciting others to kill in the communes of Musambira and
Mukingi. Others launched the killing of Tutsi at a market in the commune of Mugina. In Kivu and
Kinyamakara communes in Gikongoro, soldiers or National Police directed crowds gathered at market
and people found along the roads to attack Tutsi. Soldiers led killing in Cyangugu starting on April 7. 141
Soldiers and National Police distributed arms and ammunition to civilians discreetly before April 6 and
openly after that date.142 They also provided reinforcements in men and materiel to civilians who found
it impossible to overcome resistance from Tutsi. A medical assistant who was trying to kill Tutsi in the
commune of Ntyazo at the end of April asked for military support:
Mr. Muhutu A.
Deputy
138
Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” pp. 96-103 and Appendix IV (Annex D);
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, January 26, 1996.
139
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 299.
140
Fergal Keane, Season of Blood, pp. 134-35.
141
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 18 and 19, 1995; Kigali, August 21, 1995; Mukingi, July 10, 1996. See
below for more detail.
142
Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Témoignage à la Commission Spéciale Rwanda, Le Sénat Belge, April 21, 1994, p. 14.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
156
We have a large number of Tutsi at Karama (sector headed by the councilor
Kanamugire). We have tried to fight them, but they have turned out to be stronger
than we expected. So we ask for your help once again; send us a few National Police
and four other [communal?] police to help the population that is fighting with bows.
P.S. We have guns and grenades.
Mathieu
27/4/94143
Military personnel also ensured the spread of the genocide by refusing assistance to authorities,
including the prefect of Gitarama and burgomasters in Gitarama, Gikongoro, and Butare who tried to
stop killing and other acts of destruction.144
In addition, soldiers and National Police used force or the threat of force against Hutu who tried to
resist the slaughter. At the request of administrators, like the burgomaster of Nyakizu, they
intimidated citizens into joining in attacks. Even more extraordinary, they directed or permitted militia
to exert the same kind of pressure on administrators if they dissented from the campaign of genocide.
Soldiers who had been wounded in war formed a particularly brutal category of military killers. Some
joined in beating Belgian UNAMIR peacekeepers to death, others attacked Tutsi at the Adventist
university at Mudende, and still others killed and harassed Tutsi in the town of Butare, at Kabgayi, and
near the hospital at Cyakabili.145
Politicians and Militia
Political leaders at every level championed the genocide, launching themselves into the killing
campaign as a way to increase their own importance and to displace rivals. They were uninhibited by
any of the formal responsibilities that sometimes constrained administrators and led them to disguise
their intentions in indirect language. Invited by authorities to participate fully in official meetings from
the national to the local level, they took the floor to demand ruthless action against Tutsi and those
who helped them.146
Politicians used their personal authority and channels of communication within their parties to direct
attacks on Tutsi. In Taba commune, Gitarama prefecture, the local MRND leader Silas Kubwimana
distributed arms and launched killings.147 In Butare prefecture, National Assembly Deputy Muhutu
arranged military support for civilian killers, Deputy Bernadette Mukarurangwa ordered barriers put up,
143
Mathieu [Ndahimana, Medical Assistant in Ntyazo] to A[dalbert] Muhutu, Deputy, April 27, 1994 (CLADHO).
144
Fidèle Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique sur les Evénements d’Avril 1994 en Préfecture de Gitarama, Rwanda,” August 18, 1994
(confidential source).
145
Des Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du Diocèse,” p. 61.
146
Fawusitini Munyazeza, [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira] Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to
Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994, no identifying number (Butare prefecture).
147
Kubwimana’s role is described by many witnesses in the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, burgomaster of Taba, before the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. See the testimony of the witness identified as DZZ, as reported by Ubutabera, No.
28, November 24, 1997, found at http://persoweb.francenet.fr/-intermed.
157
March 1999
and Deputy Laurent Baravuga reportedly patrolled with his own band of killers.148 In some cases,
politicians organized “security” measures in accord with the local administrators. In other cases,
where administrators showed no commitment to the genocide, political leaders effectively took over
the extermination campaign in their communities.
Politicians claimed to speak for the people in demanding the extermination of the Tutsi when in fact
they often incited them to make that demand.149 In person and on the radio, Shingiro Mbonyumutwa of
MRD-Power, son of the president of the first Rwandan Republic, used his considerable prestige to whip
up fear and hatred of the Tutsi. In a use of the now-familiar “accusation in a mirror,” he told Radio
Rwanda listeners that Tutsi intended to carry out a genocide of the Hutu:
They are going to exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate
[ugutsembatsemba-tsembatsemba]...They are going to exterminate you until they are
the only ones left in this country, so that the power which their fathers kept for four
hundred years, they can keep for a thousand years!150
The Militia
Political organizations provided the civilian striking force of the genocide, the militia. Before April 6,
the militia—in the sense of those who had at least some training and experience fighting as a unit—
numbered some two thousand in Kigali, with a smaller number outside the capital in communes where
the MRND and the CDR were strong. Once the genocide began and militia members began reaping the
rewards of violence, their numbers swelled rapidly to between twenty and thirty thousand for the
country as a whole.151
The Interahamwe was an unincorporated organization supposedly independent of the MRND, but
heavily influenced by it. The militia was directed by a national committee that included Jerry Robert
Kajuga, president (himself the son of a Tutsi father and Hutu mother), Phénéas Ruhumuriza, first vicepresident, George Rutaganda, second vice president, Eugene Mbarushimana, secretary-general,
Dieudonné Niyitegeka, treasurer and, as councilors, Bernard Maniragaba, Joseph Serugendo, Ephrem
Nkezabera, Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka, and Alphonse Kanimba. The Interahamwe had
committees at the prefectural level, but it is unclear how important a role they played in the genocide.
The best trained groups, those in Kigali, operated under the command of local leaders like
“Congolais” in the region of Gikondo and Kigingi and Jean-de-Dieu in Nyamirambo.152 The
Impuzamugambi had no leaders apart from those of the CDR, the best known of whom was
Barayagwiza.
Once the genocide began, there was virtually no distinction between Impuzamugambi and
Interahamwe in the field, although members of each might still wear the distinctive garb or colors
148
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, December 19 and 29, 1995 and January 2, 1996; “Inama y’Abaturage ba
Komini Ndora yo kuwa 7 kamena 1994,” in Célestin Rwankubito, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, no. 132/04.04/2, June 16,
1994; Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe wa S.prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Prefe, no. 083/04.09.01/4, April 15, 1994 and no.
008/04.17.02, June 8, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
149
Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” pp. 132, 155, 190, 192, 195-6.
150
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 300.
151
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 26, 1997.
152
Anonymous, “La Milice Interahamwe”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, September 23, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
158
belonging to their parties. Some men participated in both groups, attacking when and where action
seemed most profitable. As early as February, the Interahamwe were directed to cooperate also with
Inkuba, the MDR-Power militia, but in the first days of the genocide, many MDR members—including
those identified with MDR-Power—fought against the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. After
Karamira’s April 12 message on the radio and similar directives by other party leaders, however, MDR
youth groups began cooperating with the Interahamwe in attacking Tutsi. In Butare, the young
supporters of the PSD also eventually participated in attacks with the Interahamwe, exchanging one
party hat for another and putting into effect the order that it was time to forget party loyalties for the
larger good of the killing campaign.153
From the start of the genocide, political leaders put the militia at the disposition of military. In a
statement prepared for judicial proceedings, General Dallaire declared:
...[W]henever we attempted to establish communications with the Interahamwe
leadership for cease-fire and humanitarian operations, our most sure and effective
conduit to them was Colonel Bagosora. I believe, based on my experiences with the
cross-line refugee exchanges in particular, that the militia and the control thereof
seemed to be responsive to direction received from Col. Bagosora.154
As Interahamwe head Kajuga explained to a reporter,
The goverment authorises us. We go in behind the army. We watch them and
learn....We have to defend our country. The government authorises us to defend
ourselves by taking up clubs, machetes and whatever guns we could find.155
In his radio address on April 12, Karamira used the same phrase, remarking that the militia “go in
behind the army.” At major massacres, such as the attack on Gikondo church on April 9, witnesses
report that militia were clearly following the orders of the soldiers on the spot.156
In an account written later, CDR leader Barayagwiza recounts how the militia became real paramilitary
forces once the “interethnic massacres” began. He admits that they attacked Tutsi civilians:
The targets were no longer the youth of other political parties [as in the days of
kubohoza] but the soldiers of the RPF, especially infiltrators in the ranks of civilians,
as well as the civilian accomplices of the enemy.157
Militia also carried out the commands of civilian administrators. Witnesses report that prefect
Renzaho gave orders to the Interahamwe during their attack in late April at the Centre d’Etudes des
Langues Africaines (CELA) in Kigali and that Odette Nyirabagenzi, a communal councilor in Kigali, sent
militia to seize Tutsi to be killed at the Sainte Famille church and the adjacent St. Paul’s center. In
153
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0053; Radio Rwanda, “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal
by official of the pro-army faction of the MDR,” April 12, 1994, SWB, AL/1970 A/2, April 13, 1994.
154
Dallaire, “Answers to Questions,” p. 39.
155
Lindsey Hilsum, “Hutu Warlord Defends Child Killing,” Observer (London), July 3, 1994.
156
“Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal”; U. S.Committee for Refugees, “Genocide in Rwanda,” pp. 4-9.
157
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Rwanda, Le Sang Hutu Est-il Rouge? (Yaoundé: 1995), p. 246.
159
March 1999
another case, a witness relates that he was attacked by Interahamwe at the direction of Rose
Karushara, also a communal councilor in Kigali, who urged the assailants to kill him.158
In response to needs identified by the authorities or party heads, the militia leaders displaced their
men from one area to another. These temporary transfers of assailants demonstrate the extent to
which the genocide was centrally directed. Leaders dispatched militia from Kigali to Butare town and
others from Nyabisindu were ordered to Gatagara in Butare prefecture. They sent militia from other
locations to participate in massacres at Kaduha church in Gikongoro, at Rutonde commune in
Kibungo, and at Ntongwe commune in Gitarama. They transported militia from Gisenyi to Kibuye,
where they lodged at the Golfe Eden Rock Hotel and assisted the military and the local population in
attacking the large groups of Tutsi at Karongi and Bisesero. They ordered militia from several places to
help attack Mugonero hospital in Kibuye. A survivor of that massacre identified the party affiliation of
the assailants from their distinctive garb, the blue and yellow print boubou of the Interahamwe and
the black, yellow, and red neck kerchiefs and hats of the Impuzamugambi. He could tell, too, that they
came from several regions. As was common in such large-scale attacks, assailants wore leaves from
the plants found in their home regions to distinguish themselves from the victims. The witness saw
assailants wearing leaves from tea plants, probably from Gisovu, others with leaves from coffee
plants, presumably from Gishyita and Mubuga, and those of a third group with leaves from banana
plants, apparently from Cyangugu.159 In mid-June when national authorities began to fear increased
RPF pressure on the capital, Interahamwe leaders broadcast orders over RTLM recalling their men to
Kigali.160
National leaders used militia, as they did the military, to destroy Hutu opposition to the genocide.
They sent groups across communal and prefectural boundaries to intimidate reluctant Hutu into
attacking Tutsi.
Although generally responsive to directives from civilian and military authorities, leaders of the militia
represented a force with its own base of power—particularly as the number of their members grew—
and they dealt with authorities at the highest level. On occasion they met with ministers, prefects, and
the chief of staff of the army.161 Like the leaders of political parties, they often claimed to speak for the
people in demanding the most extreme measures against Tutsi. In early May, militia attacked a convoy
of civilians leaving the Hotel Mille Collines although it had received a safe conduct from General
Bizimungu. In a similar case in mid-May, U.N. officers negotiated for three hours to obtain the
authorization of military and civilian authorities to evacuate a group of orphans. Then some young
militia members in tee shirts and jeans stood up and imposed conditions that made the operation
impossible. The officials said nothing and the effort failed.162 In such cases the greater radicalism of
the militia may have been contrary to the stated position of officials but in conformity with their real,
hidden intentions. If militia acted without military approval and soldiers wished to stop them, they
generally had little difficulty doing so. When General Bizimungu disapproved of an Interahamwe attack
158
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 645, 704; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gitarama, July 12, 1995.
159
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, September 12, 1995; July 11, 1996; Butare, October 12, 1995.
160
Ntaribi Kamanzi, Rwanda, Du Génocide à la Defaite (Kigali, Editions Rebero, n.d.), p. 146.
161
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20:00 hrs, April 24, 1994.
162
“‘Ce sont les miliciens qui commandent’, selon Bernard Kouchner,” BQA, no. 14217, 20/05/94, p. 18.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
160
on the Hotel Mille Collines on June 17, for example, he quickly expelled them although he had only his
personal guard at hand to enforce his order.163
The Administration
The military and the militia brought essential skills and and firearms to the slaughter, but they were
too few to kill Tutsi on a massive scale in a short span of time. Executing an extermination campaign
rapidly required the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, tens of thousands to
actually slaughter and the others to spy, search, guard, burn, and pillage. In some situations, crowds
were needed immediately and for only a few days to participate in a massacre; in others, a reliable
supply of long-term “workers” was required to do patrols, man the barriers and track survivors.
Bagosora, the AMASASU, the CDR, and Kangura had foreseen that turning out large numbers of
civilians was the only way to attack an “enemy” dispersed in the population. As Karamira had said in
his radio speech of April 12, this “war” had to become everyone’s responsibility.
The interim government directed the administration to carry out this mobilization. Some ministers
already known for their determined support of Hutu Power, such as Minister of Family and the
Promotion of Women Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, Minister of Commerce Justin Mugenzi, Minister of
Information Eliézer Niyitegeka, Minister of Youth Callixte Nzabonimana, and Minister of Primary and
Secondary Education Dr. André Rwamakuba were apparently the most insistent about executing the
genocide.164 Judging from the way Interim President Sindikubwabo and interim Prime Minister
Kambanda were assigned their roles in the government, they probably lacked the stature to influence
major decisions, but they nonetheless shared responsiblity for implementing them. 165
Passing the Word
On April 19, Interim President Sindikubwabo identified his government as “a government of saviors”
that would come directly to the people “to tell you what it expects of you.”166 Ministers and other highranking government representatives did indeed go out to the countryside, exhorting and insisting on
the need to support the genocide, promising rewards to supporters and threatening sanctions against
dissenters.167 The practice of going out to the hills had been used to mobilize people for projects of
public good, but it also harked back to the 1960s when ministers used tours of rural areas to set off
the killing of Tutsi.168
163
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, November 8, 1998.
164
Fidèle Uwizeye, “Apercu Analytique”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997;
Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997.
165
Jean Kambanda confessed and pleaded guilty to genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. On September
4, 1998, he was sentenced to life in prison.
166
“Discours du Président Thodore Sindikubwabo prononcé le 19 avril 1996 à la Préfecture de Butare” (Recorded by Radio
Rwanda, transcription and translation, confidential source). The term “saviors,” abatabazi, described heroes of the Rwandan
past who sacrificed their lives to protect the nation from foreign attack.
167
Callixte Kalimanzira, Umuyobozi mu biro bya Ministere y’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya komini, to Bwana Prefe
wa Prefgitura ya Butare, May 24, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to numerous recipients, no. 0282,
April 30, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
168
Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi, p. 223.
161
March 1999
In the continuing absence of the minister of interior and communal development, the administrative
head of the ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira, was responsible for implementing the government policy.
He counted on a bureaucracy that was known for executing orders promptly and fully. When he
directed subordinates to “alert the population to the necessity of continuing to track the enemy
wherever he is to be found and wherever he hid his arms,” most of them did so. To make clear that
directives about “security” came from the highest authorities and must be obeyed, Kalimanzira
ordered that speeches by the president and the prime minister be disseminated widely. This would
serve, he said, to make citizens “more determined to assure their own security and to warn all
troublemakers.”169
When Kalimanzira directed that meetings about security be held, prefects passed the order to
burgomasters, who scheduled meetings and alerted councilors and cell heads. The burgomaster of
Bwakira, for example, wrote to subordinates on April 19, ordering them to inform all residents of a
series of scheduled meetings. He told them to use whistles and drums to summon the population “so
that no one will be absent.”170 Prefects and sub-prefects expected and received reports of these
meetings, many of which were recorded in minutes that were carefully taken and neatly transcribed.171
Administrators were responsible for informing their superiors about all important developments within
their jurisdictions. In correspondence, in telephone conversations, and in meetings they regularly
reported on the “state of security.”
In orders passed down the administrative hierarchy as in the reports passed back up, crucial elements
were sometimes left unstated, or were expressed in vague or ambiguous language.172 Superiors told
their subordinates to seek out the “enemy” in their midst, but did not specify what was to be done
with him when found. Subordinates reported on the capture of “accomplices” but neglected to
mention what measures had been taken against them. No one asked for further clarification because
everyone understood.
As was usual in Rwanda, authorities at the national level dealt even with matters of detail. The
widespread use of banana leaves or other foliage to distinguish attackers from intended victims
throughout the country suggests a decision made in Kigali, as does the frequent reliance on whistles
as a means of communication among assailants.
Mobilizing the Population
Prefects transmitted orders and supervised results, but it was burgomasters and their subordinates
who really mobilized the people. Using their authority to summon citizens for communal projects, as
they were used to doing for umuganda, burgomasters delivered assailants to the massacre sites,
where military personnel or former soldiers then usually took charge of the operation. Just as
169
Fawusitini Munyazeza, [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira] Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to
Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994, two letters, no identifying numbers (Butare prefecture).
170
Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira, to Madame, Bwana Conseiller wa Segiteri (Bose), Bwana Responsable
wa Cellule (Bose), no. 0.293/04.09.01/4, April 19, 1994 (Bwakira commune).
171
For one example, see Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe wa S/prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini
(Bose), no. 088/04.09.01/16, May 14, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
172
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the Matter of the Trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, case no. ICTR-96-4-T, draft
transcripts (hereafter ICTR-96-4-T), Testimony of Jean-Paul Akayesu, March 12, 1998.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
162
burgomasters had organized barriers and patrols before the genocide so now they enforced regular
and routine participation in such activities directed against the Tutsi. They sent councilors and their
subordinates from house to house to sign up all adult males, informing them when they were to work.
Or they drew up lists and posted the schedules at the places where public notices were usually
affixed.
Burgomasters were responsible for ensuring the continuity of the genocidal work over a period of
weeks, a task that many found difficult. “Intellectuals” were needed at barriers to read documents
presented by passersby, but many disliked the duty and tried to evade it. Some councilors tired of
making the rounds to check on the functioning of barriers. Burgomasters threatened sanctions against
laggards and removed councilors who failed in their responsibilities.173 The administrators also had to
resolve squabbles among participants and sometimes resorted to having them draw up written
agreements, such as that produced by workers assigned to the checkpoint near the Trafipro shop in
the commune Bwakira. All the participants agreed to “be more vigilant” and to refuse bribes. They
were reminded to check identity cards and baggage carefully and to interrogate all passersby. They
were cautioned against drunkenness and disagreements. “To avoid such disorders, the meeting
resolved to create teams, with a leader for each team. The leader will be accountable... for whatever
happens at his checkpoint. He will be responsible for the success of the patrol. Every team will have its
own patrol day.” And because “it is not easy to check everyone, since some travellers dodge
checkpoints,” the group asked the whole population to stop and interrogate any unfamiliar person,
wherever encountered.174
Burgomasters, as well as those above and below them in the hierarchy, worked with local councils in
implementing the genocide. In some cases, the elected communal council assisted them, but more
often a committee or council175 devoted specifically to security played this role. Security committees
had existed before April 6 at the level of the prefecture and commune and, in some places, in sectors
and cells as well. At the prefectural and communal levels, they had included government employees,
military or police officers, and other locally important people such as clergy. At the lower levels, they
were comprised mostly of community leaders. After the genocide began, administrators set up security
committees for jurisdictions where they had not previously existed and gave new importance to
committees that had existed before in name only. The officials regularly invited party leaders to
meetings, as was being done at the national level and as they had been directed to do by
Kalimanzira.176
In some communes, the security committee did little but approve decisions made privately by the
burgomaster and his immediate circle, but in others they helped determine the daily details of the
genocide, such as whose house would be searched and where and by whom barriers would be
173
These problems are described in documents from Bwakira commune, Kibuye, and from many communes in Butare
prefecture, including Ngoma, Nyakizu, and Mbazi.
174
Bwakira commune, “Inyandikomvugo y’Inama y’Abashingzwe Gucunga Barriere yo kuri Trafipro, May 17, 1994” (Bwakira
commune).
175
Both terms were used.
176
Fawusitini Munyazeza [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira], Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to
Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994.
163
March 1999
maintained. As the following document from Ntyazo commune shows, the committee sometimes
determined the fate of Tutsi who had been caught.
Monsieur Gatwa Abias
“Barrier chief at Bugina”
Concerning the three girls of Gapfizi, I ask you to find two or three men to take them
very early tomorrow morning to the sector councilor [illegible] where the measures
will be carried out regarding them as was decided at the last meeting of the
communal security committee that was held on May 13, 1994.
Ndahimana Mathieu
Assistant Médical
P.S. [illegible] asks permission to miss the patrol because he is very tired.177
Burgomasters occasionally called in soldiers or National Policemen, particularly if there were many
Tutsi to kill. More usually they relied on local resources: the population, militia, and the communal
police. In the course of the preceding months, many communal police had received new firearms or
additional supplies of ammunition so they were well-equipped to serve as the local force for slaughter.
They often guarded the sites where Tutsi had gathered until groups of assailants were organized for
the attack and they then helped direct the massacre. Others led search parties to capture and kill Tutsi
in their homes or in the bush.178 Although most communal police followed orders to participate in the
extermination, some did refuse. Others were killed themselves, either because they were Tutsi or
because they tried to save the lives of Tutsi.
Burgomasters used the same forces to oblige dissident citizens to join in the genocide. They directed
or permitted communal police, militia, or simply other citizens to burn down houses and to threaten
the lives of those who refused to join in the violence.179
They also offered powerful incentives to draw the hesitant into killing. They or others solicited by them
provided cash payments, food, drink and, in some cases, marijuana to assailants. They encouraged
the looting of Tutsi property, even to the point of having the pillage supervised by communal police. In
many areas, authorities led the people from one stage of crime to the next as they directed them from
pillaging property to burning homes to killing the owners of the homes. In several places, police
reprimanded those people who wanted only to pillage and not to kill. Assailants at Nyundo reminded
each other “Kill first and pillage later.”180
One of the most important resources for the burgomaster in enlisting participants was his authority to
control the distribution of land, a much desired and scarce source of wealth for the largely agricultural
177
Mathieu Ndahimana, Medical Assistant to Abias Gatwa, Barrier chief, Bugina (CLADHO).
178
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Jean-Paul Akayesu, March 12, 1998.
Jacques Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’Avril 1994 à Rusumo,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September, 1994, p. 100; Buchizya
Mseteka, “We Were Trained to Kill Tutsis,” Reuter, May 20, 1994; Tina Susman, “Quiet Parish Paradise Destroyed by
Massacre,” Associated Press, May 31, 1994.
179
180
Les Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du Diocèse,” p. 65.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
164
population. Hutu who had attacked Tutsi in the 1960s had acquired the fields of their victims. A
generation later, people again hoped to get more land by killing or driving Tutsi away. As Pasteur
Kumubuga commented in a meeting in Bwakira commune “Those who killed say that the properties of
the victims belong to them.”181 At a later meeting, another participant commented that people were
cultivating lands taken from victims “to reward themselves for the work they had done.” 182 As usual,
“work” meant “killings.”
Enforcing Regulations
The burgomaster did more than just recruit and organize participants in attacks and patrols. As head
of the local administration, he became the arbiter of life and death through the implementation of
administrative regulations. Because population registration was done at the commune, the
burgomaster was the ultimate authority in cases of contested ethnic classification. In the commune of
Bwakira, the burgomaster responded to an appeal from a woman named Mujawashema who said
people accused her children of being Tutsi and wanted to kill them. The burgomaster carried the
research back three generations to the status of Nsengiyumva, grandfather of the children’s father.
From a file completed on April 16, 1948, the burgomaster learned that the greatgrandfather of the
children was Hutu. He concluded, “Therefore, no one must harm those children.”183
In the commune of Ndora, members of a family accused of being Tutsi wrote to the burgomaster:
After the misfortunes that have struck our family in the course of the recent troubles,
misfortunes caused by the jealousy and the hatred spread by certain residents of the
commune against us and which resulted in the pillage of our goods, in the
destruction of our houses, and even in the massacre of several of our family under
the pretext that they could try to make them [i.e., the wrongdoers] pay for what they
had done, and to this end, they have accused us of belonging to the ethnic group of
the Batutsi, to the point that those [among us] who are safe owe this to their having a
son in the national army; and even so, these residents are still pursuing them in the
place where they have sought refuge.
We are writing to ask your help especially concerning the question of our ethnic
affiliation, which is the pretext put forward by the residents of the commune, that it
be clarified and explained to them because the ethnic group in which we believe and
with which we identify is that of the Bahutu.184
They concluded by giving the names of four past and present officials in Ndora commune and others in
Gishamvu, where the family had originally lived, who could verify their Hutu identity.
181
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 5.5.94” (Bwakira commune). “Inyandiko-mvugo”
(sometimes with variant spellings) means minutes of a meeting. After the first citation, subsequent citations will be
“Inyandiko-mvugo” and the date.
182
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 20.5.94” in Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa
Komini Bwakira to Bwana S/Prefe, no. 0329/04.04/2, May 31, 1994 (Bwakira commune).
183
Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana Conseiller wa Segiteli Shyembe, no. 0.359/04.03/3, June 21,
1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
184
Antoine Gakwaya, Fidele Muzamuzi, and Madame Leonille Usaba to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, May 25, 1994
(Butare prefecture).
165
March 1999
Persons who hoped to pass for Hutu often “lost” their identity cards and then requested temporary
papers from the councilor or a new card from the burgomaster, hoping the administrator would be
persuaded to falsify the document. In testimony at the International Tribunal about his powers during
the genocide, one former burgomaster declared, “In the countryside, the mere fact of giving an
attestation to a person sufficed to save him.”185 Tutsi who succeeded in obtaining such papers in their
home communes sometimes found themselves caught by less obliging officials as they tried to flee
through other communes. In another manoeuvre, Hutu mothers of children fathered by Tutsi
sometimes tried to protect their children by claiming they were illegimate and seeking to have them
registered on their cards—as Hutu—rather than on the cards of the fathers. The burgomaster of Huye
commune, reluctant to deal with these issues, passed such a case to the local judicial official, who
passed it back to him with a bare explanation of the law that gave no real guidance on how to deal
with the problem.186
In several cases, the burgomaster himself or members of his family were accused of hiding a Tutsi
identity behind an officially Hutu exterior. One of them, the burgomaster of Mabanza, appealed to the
Kibuye prefect, Kayishema, to defend him. He wrote:
Regarding my personal problem—[accusations] that my wife is a Tutsi, that I am
supposedly an accomplice of the enemy, that I protect Tutsi and Hutu with Tutsi
wives—these rumors are spread by my political opponents who want to replace me.
My wife is a Hutu of the Bagiga, a large Hutu family who live at Rubengera, commune
Mabanza.
The accusations that my mother-in-law is Tutsi are groundless as well. And if she
were, children take the ethnic identity of their father, not their mother. Those who say
that my mother-in-law is Tutsi are wrong: she is from sector Ruragwe, commune
Gitesi, from the Barenga family, a well-known Hutu family, as the burgomaster of
Gitesi explained in his letter no. D 249/04/05/3 of June 6, 1994, addressed to the
councilor of sector Ruragwe and of which you have a copy.187
Administrative officials recorded changes in the population extremely carefully before the genocide,
noting births, deaths, and movement into and out of the commune on a monthly as well as a quarterly
basis. With this data, officials knew how many Tutsi, whether male or female, adult or child, lived in
each administrative unit, information useful in any attempt to eliminate them. Prefect Kayishema was
so concerned about the accuracy of this data that he took time in early May to review census data
submitted by burgomasters for the last quarter of 1993. He found errors in at least two of the reports,
that of Mabanza, which recorded the increase in female Tutsi as fifty-two instead of fifty-three, and
185
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 83.
186
Jonathan Ruremesha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Huye to Bwana Procureur wa Repubulika, no. 154/04.05/2, May 18, 1994;
Mathias Bushishi, Prokireri wa Republika, to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Huye, no. C/0520/D11/A/Proc., May 24, 1994
(Butare prefecture).
187
Ignace Bagilishema, Bourgmestre de la Commune Mabanza to Monsieur le Préfet, no. 0.365/04.09.01/4, June 21, 1994.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
166
that of Rwamatamu where an error of seven was made in accounting for the male Tutsi population and
an error of six was made in recording that of female Tutsi.188
Even before April 1994, Rwandans were supposed to be registered in the communes of residence if
these differed from their communes of birth. Nyumbakumi, cell heads, and councilors all were
involved in making sure that no strangers lived unnoticed in a commune. With the start of the
genocide and the renewal of combat, tens of thousands of people fled the capital, some heading
directly south, others returning to their communes of origin, wherever they might be. Authorities and
radio announcers warned from the start that the Tutsi among these displaced persons were often
“infiltrators” in disguise and stressed the need to keep close track of them. Officials usually directed
the displaced to a common gathering place and sought to discourage their taking shelter with private
families, where it would be harder to keep track of them. But recognising that some went to stay with
friends or family, burgomasters passed instructions down to councilors, cell heads, and nyumbakumi
that such people must be registered immediately.189 Administrative officials also insisted that clergy or
persons responsible for sheltering the displaced provide as much data as possible about those whom
they were lodging. Administrators generally declared that such data was needed to assure adequate
food supplies, but the information also allowed them to know how many Tutsi were still alive and
where they were staying. Often a gathering place was attacked soon after officials had collected data
on the displaced persons sheltered there.190
Authorities also revived an earlier requirement that persons wishing to travel outside their communes
receive written authorisation to leave (feuilles de route). Burgomasters controlled the distribution of
these documents which could permit Tutsi to try to flee for their lives. During periods of curfew,
burgomasters also decided who must obey the regulations to remain at home. Officials insisted that
Tutsi remain in their houses while granting passes to assailants who could then move freely around
the commune to attack them.
Burgomasters and other officials sought to keep accurate records on the dead and missing. In
Bwakira, for example, the burgomaster ordered subordinates to prepare such lists on April 29. Five
days later councilors submitted lists, by sector, of household heads who had died, the number of
people in the household killed, and the number from the household who had fled.191 In Butare, at
Kabgayi and elsewhere, some Tutsi were sent back to their home communes to be killed, in part to
enable local officials to verify that they were actually dead. Burgomasters kept track not just of overall
numbers of dead, but also of the elimination of those persons named as priority targets for their
communes. They seem to have borne final responsibility for ensuring that such persons had in fact
been slain. Where there was any doubt that a person in question had in fact been killed, authorities
188
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Prefe, to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Rwamatamu, no 0290/04.05/1, May 5, 1994 and to
Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Mabanza, no. 0291/04.05/1, May 11, 1994; Dr.Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Monsieur le
Bourgmestre de la Commune Gitesi, no. 0292/04.05/l. Among documents found by researchers from Human Rights Watch and
FIDH, there was no indication of error in statistics for the Hutu populations (Kibuye prefecture).
189
“Réunion de Conseil de Sécurité Elargi du 11 Avril 1994,” Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, Dirigeant, Janvier Tulikumwe,
Rapporteur (Kibuye prefecture); Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa
Komini Ndora, no. 085/04.09.01/4, April 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
190
Telegram from Minitranso to Préfet (tous), no. 016/94, May 4,1994 (Butare prefecture).
191
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-Mvugo y’Inama ya Komini Bwakira Yateranye Kuwa 29/4/94” in Tharcisse Kabasha,
Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Birambo, No. 0. 316/04.04/2, May 18, 1994 (Bwakira
commune).
167
March 1999
would insist on seeing the body to confirm the death. In some cases, burgomasters tracked down
escapees from their communes into adjacent areas, including those who had just sought temporary
refuge in their jurisdiction before being driven away.
Burgomasters were also charged with disposing of the bodies. Sometimes they left the bodies
unburied for days or weeks, a practice which contributed to the “normality” of violent death, but after
a while public health considerations dictated disposal of the remains. Authorities summoned people
for umuganda which consisted of stuffing bodies down latrines, tossing them in pits, throwing them
into rivers or lakes, or digging mass graves in which to bury them. In Kibuye, workers used a bulldozer
to push bodies into a pit behind the little church on a peninsula jutting into the lake. In Kigali,
Gikongoro, Butare, and elsewhere, authorities also called upon drivers of bulldozers to assist in
disposing of the bodies. In Kigali, prisoners went through the streets every three days to gather up the
bodies, a service that prisoners performed in Butare as well. One witness related his shock in the early
days of killing when he came across a group of prisoners, dressed in their pink prison shirts and
shorts, tossing cadavers into a truck. They were appropriating all valuables from the bodies, stripping
glasses and watches from them, plunging their hands into pockets to be sure they had extracted all
they could from the dead, and then squabbling among themselves over the division of the spoils. 192
Support Services: Ideas and Money
Behind the intertwined triple hierarchy of military, administrative, and political authorities stood
another set of important, but unofficial and less visible actors. A number of them, left over from the
akazu, came together under the leadership of Félicien Kabuga, the wealthy businessman who had
helped organize RTLM and who had ordered the thousands of machetes imported in 1993 and early
1994. In early April, many of the group retired to the luxury of the Hotel Meridien or other comfortable
lodgings in the pleasant, lakeshore town of Gisenyi. From there they gave advice to the interim
government on finance, foreign relations, food supply, and even military strategy.
On April 24 and 25, Kabuga brought together a group of local elite and important persons displaced
from Kigali to discuss how to support the army “and the young people,” i.e., militia. The meeting
established a “Provisional Committee,” including Kabuga, Abijah Kwilingira, and Stanislas Harelimana
to present their ideas to the government. In an April 26 “Message to the Government,” the group urged
the interim government to improve its image abroad, an objective that it had just decided to address
by sending delegations abroad to try to justify the genocide. Several days later, the Rwandan
ambassador in Bruxelles released a statement detailing the “pacification” efforts of the interim
government and supposed massacres by the RPF of 20,000 civilians.193 The memo by Kabuga and his
group also urged immediate action against the Rwandan ambassador in Paris, Jean Marie Vianney
Ndagijimana, who had denounced the interim government on French radio. Four days later, the interim
government removed Ambassador Ndagijimana. The committee asked the interim government to
accuse Uganda and Belgium formally of aiding the RPF. Two weeks later, the Rwandan representative
192
Human Rights Watch/FIDH examination of the grave site, Kibuye church, February 1995; Human Rights Watch/FIDH
interview, Butare, May 25, 1995.
193
François Ngarukinyintwali, Situation Actuelle au Rwanda sur le Plan de la Securité, April 30, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
168
to the U.N. filed a complaint of aggression against Uganda with the U.N. secretary-general and
requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council to examine the charges.194
Kabuga and his group also demanded that all young people receive military training. Repeating the
language used by the military commission writing about self-defense at the end of March, they urged
that “large quantities of traditional weapons” be found for the recruits since there would not be
enough firearms for all of them. Several weeks later, Minister of Interior Edouard Karemera ordered
prefects to have people arm themselves with such weapons and soon after, several communes
established training camps to teach young people how to use them.195
Kabuga and his associates announced a fund to support the “youth” and contributed the first monies
for the account. The committee called on the government to publicize this idea rapidly so that others
could contribute.196 Within ten days, the project had been relayed to Washington and probably other
foreign capitals as well. The Rwandan ambassador in Washington wrote Rwandan citizens resident in
the U.S. and asked them to send contributions to an account he had established at Riggs National
Bank.197 Within the country, prefects directed their subordinates, businessmen, and the heads of
government departments to collect contributions for such a fund from the people under their authority.
The contributions solicited by Kabuga from his immediate circle, 25 million Rwandan francs, about
U.S.$140,000, was divided among the prefectures and the Ministry of the Interior to allow each to
establish its own account. Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, the vice-rector of the National
University of Rwanda, pressed faculty and staff of the university to contribute and within five days had
more than 6 million Rwandan francs, about U.S.$34,000 available for deposit in the local fund. The
money was transferred from the university “Caisse d’Epargne,” the savings plan of university
employees, suggesting that the vice-rector had taken some or all of it from this account. If so, he
would have followed the model of the national government which apparently diverted money from the
pension fund for state employees to pay the expenses of war.198
The previous government had also solicited contributions to help pay the costs of war, but this fund
was different because it was destined “to help civilians fight the enemy,” as wrote the prefect of
Kibuye.199 The Ministry of Interior instructed that the money was to be used to pay the expenses of the
militia, including their “refreshments,” meaning certainly the beer and, in some cases, drugs used to
intoxicate the killers before an attack. The funds were meant also to buy traditional weapons and
communications equipment and to pay the costs of transporting the militia (gasoline and the
194
Félicien Kabuga, Prezida, Abijah Kwilingira, Visi Prezida, Stanislas Harelimana, Umunyamabanga, Komite y’agateganyo,
Ubutumwa Bugenewe Guverinoma, April 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
195
Edouard Karemera, Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous) May 25, 1994;
[Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe]to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini (Bose), no. 009/04.09.01, June 16, 1994 (Butare
prefecture).
196
Félicien Kabuga, Prezida, Abijah Kwilingira Visi Prezida, Stanislas Harelimana, Umunyamabanga, Komite y’agateganyo,
Ubutumwa Bugenewe Guverinoma, April 25, 1994; Félicien Kabuga, Perezida, Komite y’Agateganyo y’Ikigega Ndengera-Gihugu
(F.D.N.) to Nyakubahwa Bwana Ministiri w’Intebe, May 20, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
197
Human Rights Watch/Africa, press release, May 11, 1994. After being notified by Human Rights Watch of the existence of this
account, the U.S. government insisted that it be closed.
198
Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Le Vice-Recteur de l’U.N.R. [Université Nationale du Rwanda] to Monsieur le Préfet de la
Préfecture de Butare, P2-18/226/94, May 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
199
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Bwana Burugumesitiri (bose), no. 0.330/04.01.01, June 9, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
169
March 1999
maintenance of vehicles) to the sites of their “operations.”200 The need for “refreshments” was so
important that the prefect of Kibuye requested a police escort for a boat bringing beer from the
BRALIRWA brewery in Gisenyi to remedy “the scarcity of drinks” in his prefecture.201 Before money
became available through the fund, administrators were forced to find resources themselves to pay
the costs of keeping militia active. The prefect of Kibuye emptied the MRND youth fund to pay
transportation costs and the burgomaster of Taba used funds of the commune to buy food and beer
for militia.202
In addition to responding rapidly to the solicitation of money for the civil defense fund, university staff
in Butare shared ideas with both Kabuga’s group and the interim government. In an April 18 press
release, the “intellectuals of Butare” laid out a justification for the genocide that would be exploited
by delegations sent abroad the following week. They blamed the RPF for having refused a cease-fire
and for having thus obliged Rwandan troops to remain at the front instead of going to save Tutsi. At a
meeting arranged by Vice-rector Nshimyumuremyi in mid-May, interim Prime Minister Kambanda
thanked the intellectuals of the university for the ideas and other support they had provided in the
past. In the discussion that followed, speakers repeated some of the ideas enunciated by Kabuga on
April 26: the importance of a rapid media response to RPF charges against the government, the
usefulness of accusing Uganda and Belgium of supporting the RPF, and the need for civilians to help
the army fight the war. These same ideas had appeared in a press release on May 10 by the Groupe de
Rwandais Défenseurs des intêrets de la Nation and would be discussed at a later meeting of this
group and another at the university, Le Cercle des Republicains Universitaires de Butare.203
The Clergy
Within the first twenty-four hours after the plane crash, it was clear that Tutsi clergy would be killed
like any other Tutsi and, a day after that, it was evident that the churches would be desecrated by
slaughter carried out at the very altar. Still, four days later, the Catholic bishops promised their
“support to the new government.” They asked all Rwandans to “respond favorably to calls” from the
new authorities and to help them realize the goals they had set, including the return of peace and
security. The bishops balanced the statement with a denunciation of troublemakers and a request to
the armed forces to protect everyone, regardless of ethnic group, party or region.204 The statement was
issued from the Vatican, where the first synod of African bishops was beginning. The Rwandan
bishops had been scheduled to attend, but did not leave Rwanda because of the onset of violence.
200
Undated document, Instruction Ministerielle Aux Préfets de Préfecture Relative à l’Utilisation du Fonds Destiné au Ministère
de l’Interieur et du développement Communal dans le Cadre de l’Auto-défense Civile (Kibuye prefecture).
201
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Monsieur le Commandant de Place, Gendarmerie, no. 0283/04/.09.01/6, May 4, 1994
(Kibuye prefecture).
202
[Dr. Clément Kayishema] “Rapport de Conseil de Sécurité Elargi du 11 avril 1994” (Kibuye prefecture); ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony
of Witness K, January 10, 1997, pp. 74-75.
203
Anonymous, Handwritten Notebook recording prefectural security council meetings, entry for 5/14/94. (Butare prefecture.)
Hereafter cited as Notebook 1; Le Groupe de Rwandais Défenseurs des Intérêts de la Nation, “Document no. 5: Complicité des
Eléments Belges de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda (MINUAR) avec Le Front Patriotique Rwandais,”
May 10, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 303.
204
Agence France Press, “Les évêques du Rwanda promettent leur soutien au nouveau gouvernement,” BQA, No. 14190,
12/04/94, p.29.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
170
As the slaughter continued, the bishops reportedly felt the need to temper their early support of the
government with criticism but were not allowed to broadcast such a firm statement.205 On April 17, the
bishops spoke again, but only to call for an end to bloodshed for which they held both the RPF and the
government responsible. It was only a month later that four Catholic bishops, the Anglican archbishop
and other Protestant clergy took a stronger position, urging an end to the war, massacres and
assassinations. They “condemned all scandalous acts” and, without explicitly denouncing the
genocide, asked all Christians to refuse to kill.206 With the hierarchy slow to take a clear stand against
the genocide, many local clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, gave tacit approval to the slaughter by
participating in security committee meetings.
By not issuing a prompt, firm condemnation of the killing campaign, church authorities left the way
clear for officials, politicians, and propagandists to assert that the slaughter actually met with God’s
favor. Sindikubwabo finished a speech by assuring his listeners that God would help them in
confronting the “enemy.”207 RTLM announcer Bemeriki maintained that the Virgin Mary, said to appear
from time to time at Kibeho church, had declared that “we will have the victory.” In the same vein, the
announcer Habimana said of the Tutsi, “Even God himself has dropped them.”208
Far from condemning the attempt to exterminate the Tutsi, Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo and
Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza of the Anglican Church acted as spokemen for the genocidal government
at a press conference in Nairobi. Like many who tried to explain away the slaughter, they placed the
blame for the genocide on the RPF because it had attacked Rwanda. Foreign journalists were so
disgusted at this presentation that they left the conference.209
Some clergy who might have been able to save lives refused to even try to do so. On April 15 Abbé
Pierre Ngoga, who had fled the Kibeho church after soldiers and local people had begun massacring
thousands of Tutsi there, called the Bishop of Gikongoro. Abbé Ngoga asked him to rescue the Tutsi
who had survived and faced renewed attack. The bishop reportedly refused to help, saying that he had
no soldiers to accompany him to Kibeho and that the Tutsi had been attacked because they had arms
with them.210
Some clergy, Rwandan and foreign, turned away Tutsi who sought their protection, whether from fear,
from misjudgment of the consequences of their action, or from desire to see them killed. 211 In other
cases, the clergy protected most who sought refuge with them, but nonetheless sacrificed others. At
the large Catholic church center at Kabgayi, some 30,000 refugees gathered under the protection of
the Archbishop of Kigali, two bishops, and many clergy. Of that number, about 25,000 were Tutsi,
1,500 of whom would be extracted in small groups from the camps and killed during the course of the
205
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997.
206
Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 10, April 25, 1994 and no.15 and annex, May 26, 1994.
207
“Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika yongeye kugeza ku Baturarwanda kuwa 14 Mata 1994,” in Fawusitini Muyazeza, Minisitiri
w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihutu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
208
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 329, 326.
209
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 900-902.
210
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0117.
211
Soeur Gertrude Consolata Mukangango to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Huye, May 5, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Gabriel
Maindron, “Rwanda, L’Horreur,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September, 1994, p. 49; African Rights, Rwanda, Death,Despair, p.
923.
171
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genocide. In some cases, burgomasters or militia leaders arrived to collect individuals from their
communes to take them home to be killed. In other cases, militia, soldiers, and National Police
passed through the crowds and chose persons to execute because they looked like members of the
elite. They also took women to rape and sometimes to kill afterwards. Shortly before the arrival of the
RPF, four soldiers and five militia members presented the archbishop with a list of names of clergy and
lay people whom they were seeking because they had links with the “enemy.” The archbishop stood
aside and allowed the squad to search the rooms. The killers departed several hours later with sixteen
persons, seven religious brothers, four priests, one religious sister, and four lay persons. The nun,
Sister Benigna, an older Hutu who was known throughout the region for her work with single mothers
and orphans, was apparently battered to death with a hammer. Her body was found in the woods next
to the church center.212
A small number of clergy and other religious persons have been accused of having incited genocide,
delivered victims to the killers or even of having killed themselves. Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana
has been indicted before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in connection with the
massacre at Mugonero and Abbé Wenceslas Munyeshyaka of the Sainte Famille Church in Kigali has
been charged in France with torture. Two Rwandan priests have been found guilty of genocide and
condemned to death by a Rwandan court.
Despite the silence of many clergy, some did defend Tutsi, even at the risk of their own lives. Bishop
Frédéric Rubwejanga went to the local military camp to ask protection for Tutsi attacked at the St.
Joseph center in Kibungo, as described below. Mgr. Thaddée Ntihinyurwa of Cyangugu preached
against the killing of civilians on April 10 and went to Nyamasheke when he learned that Tutsi in the
church were under attack. When he returned to the town of Cyangugu the next day, he tried to
evacuate Tutsi religious brothers but was unable to protect them from militia who stopped the cars on
the road. The three brothers were killed before his eyes.213
One of the most courageous examples of opposition to the genocide was that of Felicitas Niyitegeka of
the religious congregation of the Auxiliaires de l’Apostolat. A Hutu, she had given shelter to many Tutsi
in Gisenyi since the start of the genocide and had helped them across the border to Zaire. Her brother,
Col. Alphonse Nzungize, who commanded the nearby Bigogwe military camp, heard that she was
threatened with death for her work and asked her to give it up. She refused. On April 21 she was taken
to a cemetery for execution with forty-three persons, including other religious sisters and Tutsi who
had sought refuge with them. Once there, militia members who feared retaliation from her brother
offered her the chance to leave. She refused to abandon the others. They repeated the offer after they
had slain thirty people. She still refused and was shot and thrown naked with the others into the
common grave. When her brother heard the news, he went to find her body and had it dressed and
properly buried.214
212
Human Rights Watch/Africa interview, Kabgayi, August 29, 1994; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax
no. 16, June 2, 1994.
213
Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 10, April 25, 1994.
214
Nzungize himself had saved several hundred Tutsi in the first days of slaughter in a case described in chapter seven.
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0117; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef
Vleugels, fax no. 17, June 9, 1994.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
172
The Radio: Voice of the Campaign
Throughout the genocide, Radio Rwanda and RTLM continued to broadcast both incitations to
slaughter and the directions on how to carry it out. Authorities knew that they could reach a far wider
audience through the radio than through popular meetings and so told people that they should listen
to the radio to know what was expected of them. The burgomaster of Bwakira commune, for example,
reminded people that they “have to follow all orders transmitted in meetings or on the radio.” 215 Radio
Rwanda also alerted listeners that heads of political parties would use the airwaves to “send
messages to their members concerning how they should behave during these times when all of us
should be alert and protect the sovereignty of our country.”216 Repeatedly authorities used the radio to
caution against “infiltrators” who were said to be coming to kill Hutu and to ask the population to be
vigilant in watching out for them.217
On April 12, the same day when Karamira and the Ministry of Defense used the radio to make clear that
Tutsi were the target of killing, Prefect Renzaho used Radio Rwanda to give detailed instructions about
where to look for them:
...we ask that people do patrols [amarondo], as they are used to doing, in their
neighborhoods. They must close ranks, remember how to use their usual tools [i.e.,
weapons] and defend themselves...I would also ask that each neighborhood try to
organize itself to do communal work [umuganda] to clear the brush, to search
houses, beginning with those that are abandoned, to search the marshes of the area
to be sure that no inyenzi have slipped in to hide themselves there...so they should
cut this brush, search the drains and ditches...put up barriers and guard them,
chosing reliable people to do this, who have what they need...so that nothing can
escape them.218
Authorities used the radio to recall retired soldiers to active duty and to summon the personnel
needed for special tasks, such as the drivers of bulldozers who were urgently called to Kigali
prefecture, presumably to help in digging trenches to dispose of bodies.219
Throughout the genocide, RTLM continued its informal, spontaneous style, with announcers
recounting what they had seen on their walks around Kigali. The radio made the war immediate for
people distant from the front: listeners could hear the explosions of mortars being shot at RTLM. So
lively was the wit of the announcers that even wounded RPF soldiers listened to RTLM from their
hospital beds. The station carried not just the rhetoric of politicians but also the voice of the ordinary
people who took time off from their work on the barriers to say hello to their families back home. The
consistency of the message, delivered by the man in the street as well as by ministers and political
215
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 24.5.94” in Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa
Komini Bwakira to Bwana Suprefe wa Suprefegitura, Birambo, no. 0.340/04.04/2, June 6, 1994 (Bwakira commune); Article 19,
Broadcasting Genocide, p. 139.
216
Radio Rwanda, “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal by official of the pro-army faction of the MDR,” April 12, 1994, SWB,
AL/1970 A/2, April 13, 1994.
217
Valerie Bemeriki, RTLM, April 8 and 13, 1994 recorded by Faustin Kagame (Provided by Article 19).
218
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les média, p. 298.
219
Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95; Missionnaires d’Afrique,
Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 5, April 8, 1994.
173
March 1999
leaders, increased its impact on listeners. They were convinced by hearing one of the “abaturage,” the
masses, declare that a person who could not present the right identity card at a barrier should “maybe
lose his head there.”220
The announcers replayed all the now familiar messages of hate: the inherent differences between Hutu
and Tutsi, the numerical superiority of the Hutu—the rubanda nyamwinshi, the majority people—the
cleverness of the Tutsi in infiltration, their cruelty, their cohesiveness, their intention to restore past
repression, the risk they posed to the gains of the 1959 revolution, and, above all, their plan to
exterminate the Hutu. Such messages concluded with calls to action, like the following by Kantano
Habimana: “Fight them with the weapons that you have at hand, you have arrows, you have
spears...go after those inkotanyi, blood flows in their veins as it does in yours....” One RTLM
announcer promised that a “shining day” would dawn when there would be not a single Inyenzi left in
the country and the word could be forgotten.221
The radio castigated those who failed to participate enthusiastically in the hunt. One listener
remembers RTLM saying:
All who try to protect themselves by sympathizing with both sides, they are traitors. It
is they who tell a lot to the Inyenzi-Inkotanyi. It is they whom we call accomplices
[ibyitso]. They will pay for what they have done.222
Disseminating the message that “there is no place for moderates,” RTLM heaped scorn on those who
refused to participate:
The inhabitants of certain sectors don’t dare search! They say that the houses are
occupied and that their owners are shut up inside them; they don’t dare search even
in the banana groves!223
They warned that those who refused to search could expect sanctions and they cautioned that those
who deserted the barriers could expect severe punishment, just as did soldiers who deserted the
battlefront.224
RTLM occasionally went beyond government policy. While officials and political leaders were directing
militia to follow the lead of the army and not get ahead of the professionals, RTLM exhorted the people
of Rubungo commune to attack on their own. It urged them:
Courage! Don’t wait for the armed forces to intervene. Act fast and don’t allow these
enemies to continue their advance! If you wait for the authorities, that’s your
problem. They are not the ones who are going to look out for your houses during the
night! You must defend yourselves.225
220
Sezibera Saverini, RTLM broadcast, May 15-May 30, 1994 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
221
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 193, 304.
222
Tatien Musabyimana, “R.T.L.M.,” Traits d’Union RWANDA, July 15, 1994, p. 5.
223
Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95.
224
Ibid; RTLM, 15-30 May 1994 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
225
Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
174
RTLM announcer Kantano Habimana even dared criticize the interim government for its decision to
withdraw to Gitarama. He asked when these authorities would return to Kigali to support the
population and the soldiers and he hoped, “that they aren’t spending their time, sitting inside,
receiving their friends....” Instead they should “go out on the hills...to support the people, to teach
them how to dodge the inkotanyi, how to cut them off, how to kill them with spears....”226
Deception, Pretext, and Pretense
Authorities, military, administrative, and political, engaged in deception with three objectives in mind:
they wanted to confuse foreigners in order to avoid criticism and perhaps even to win support; they
wanted to mislead Tutsi to make it easier to kill them; and they wanted to manipulate Hutu into
participating energetically in the genocidal program. Sometimes a given strategem served more than
one purpose and misled two or even all three target audiences at once. The whole effort of deception
was remarkably coherent, with diplomats abroad proclaiming the same lies as those told at home and
with officials and politicians using the same pretenses in widely separated communities at the same
time.
Just as the organizers used genocide to wage war, so they used the war to cover the genocide. Whether
speaking in foreign capitals or at sector meetings out on the Rwandan hills, representatives of the
interim government always began with a reminder that the RPF had invaded Rwanda in 1990 and from
that deduced that the RPF was responsible for all subsequent developments, including the massive
killing of Tutsi by Hutu. Without hesitation, they blamed the assassination of Habyarimana on the RPF,
making it an illustration of the larger theme of Tutsi aggression and ruthlessness.
In early April, Sindikubwabo described the violence as a spontaneous outburst of rage sparked by
“sorrow and aggressive feelings of frustration” after the assassination.227 Kambanda explained that
Habyarimana was “not an ordinary man, not a man like any other,” and asserted that his killing
created “a certain frustration among people, a certain vague anger that made it impossible for people
to keep control after the death of the head of state.”228 The excuse of “spontaneous anger” echoed the
attempts at justification during the Habyarimana period when authorities attributed killings of Tutsi to
uncontrollable popular wrath.
The pretext of popular anger was meant not just to confuse foreigners about the organized and
systematic nature of the violence, but also to encourage Rwandans to feel justified in participating in
it. According to witnesses, many assailants declared during attacks that Tutsi deserved to die because
the Inyenzi had killed the president. After the militia leader, Cyasa Habimana, led the slaughter of
some 1,000 persons at the Saint Joseph center in Kibungo, the bishop confronted him to ask why he
had killed. The militia leader pointed to the portrait pin of Habyarimana that he wore on his chest and
said, “They killed him.”229 In the days just after the plane crash, many Rwandans in the MDR
stronghold of Gitarama prefecture began wearing such portrait pins, which had not been seen in the
226
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 305.
227
Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994.
228
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 301.
229
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kibungo, January 30, 1995.
175
March 1999
region since the end of the MRND monopoly of power in 1991. The widespread appearance of the pins
demonstrated the success of the campaign to make a martyr of the president.230
In another reprise from the Habyarimana years, authorities occasionally tried to shift the blame for
violence from the guilty to someone else, even to the victims themselves. In the first days of the
genocide, military authorities claimed that it was not soldiers of the Rwandan army but others wearing
their uniforms who were slaughtering political leaders. When they could not sustain this pretense, they
assigned guilt to a few unruly elements who were said to have disobeyed orders. Later, RTLM
announcer Bemeriki asserted that Interahamwe attacks on the Hotel des Mille Collines and the Sainte
Famille church were carried out by “people disguised as Interahamwe.” Soon after she claimed that
Tutsi were responsible for burning their own houses as a way to trap and kill Hutu.231
Also familiar from the Habyarimana years was the claim that authorities were doing everything
posssible to restore order. In speeches on April 13 and 14, Sindikubwabo even went so far as to assert
that the “troubles and killings” had ended with the installation of his government. He later retreated to
a position of claiming only that the government was there “to prevent the worst” and would work to
see “that these troubles, murders, and thefts are ended in Rwanda once and for all.” When Kambanda
took office on April 9, he promised that the government “will do everything possible to restore peace
as soon as possible, let us say within about two weeks.” Whether coincidence or indication of prior
planning, it was fifteen days later that authorities began real efforts to make killing more
circumspect.232
The “spontaneous anger” excuse became less plausible as the days passed and the killings
continued, so authorities replaced it with the pretext of slaughter as “self-defense.” On April 15, the
foreign ministry directed Rwandan diplomats to inform the world that “the civilian population which
rose as a single man...has greatly contributed to the security of persons and property as well as to
exposing the FPR combatants who had infiltrated different parts of the city.”233 On his tour abroad to
explain the genocide, Mathieu Ngirumpatse would proclaim, “The population is trying to defend
itself.”234
Authorities and propagandists insisted that the war was present throughout the country, even if it
were not apparent, and the enemy was everywhere, even if he were not obvious.235 Beginning on April
8, Bemeriki had cautioned that “Inkotanyi are now dispersing...spreading out amongst the
inhabitants.”236 Hitimana warned that “they are taking off for the hills...They know how to hide and
230
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 17, 1997.
231
“‘Armed forces’ acting COS says RPF attacks ‘contained,’ appeals for peace talks,” Radio Rwanda, April 10, 1994, SWB,
AL/1969 A/1, April 12, 1994; Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 337.
232
Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994; Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika yagejeje ku Baturarwanda kuwa 13
Mata 1994, in Fawusitini Muyazeza, Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe wa
Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture). “New prime minister addresses parliament, says talks with RPF will
continue,” Radio Rwanda, April 9, 1994, SWB, AL/1968 A/2.
233
Guichaoua, Les crises politiques, p.680.
234
Thadee Nsengiyaremye, “Bombardments Blast Apart Rwandan Rebel Ceasefire,” United Press International, April 27, 1994.
235
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda broadcast, 10:00 hrs, April 26, 1994.
236
Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, p.121.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
176
reappear!”237 In another broadcast, RTLM declared that Inkotanyi were arriving “dressed as civilians
and unarmed,” leading listeners to believe that all who looked like the “enemy,” i.e., Tutsi, should be
considered RPF soldiers.238 As Bemerki exhorted on April 13,
People have to look at who is next to them, look to see if they are not plotting against
them. Because those plotters are the worst. The people must rise up, so that the
plotters will be exposed, it is not hard to see if someone is plotting against you... 239
On April 17, MDR leader Karamira informed Radio Rwanda listeners that the RPF soldier “is not a
soldier in any obvious way...” He added that many “are not in uniform and are hidden among the
people...”240 In mid-April, the radio intensified this campaign by reporting that not only individual Tutsi
but also organized RPF brigades were operating throughout the country and were responsible for
alleged attacks, such as on the burgomaster of Runda.241
The “enemy” who was everywhere was extraordinarily cruel, according to the propagandists.
Announcers on RTLM frequently reminded listeners of the dozens killed at Kirambo the previous
November and insisted that the RPF had committed that massacre. Bemeriki charged the RPF with
cannibalism, saying they killed people by dissecting them and cutting out their hearts, livers, and
stomachs.242 On the air and in public meetings, officials and political leaders also contributed to this
sense of a people besieged by a heartless enemy. In an April 15 broadcast, the minister of defense
charged the RPF with “extreme cruelty,” saying that it had massacred 20,000 people and had burned
people with gasoline at Nyamirambo in Kigali.243
To make the need for “self-defense” seem more pressing, RTLM and Radio Rwanda announcers
broadcast false news reports of Belgian or other European assistance to the RPF or of invasions being
planned or actually under way by troops from Uganda or Burundi.244
Like the “spontaneous anger” justification, this effort at legitimating violence through “self-defense”
was meant both to quiet foreign critics and to incite Hutu to kill more. When the propagandist who
disseminated his summary of the work of Mucchielli wrote about “accusations in a mirror,” he
recommended that adversaries be accused of terrorism because “honest people” will take action if
they believe they are legitimately defending themselves.245 Officials and propagandists alike
237
Ibid., p. 121.
238
Ibid., p.115.
239
Valérie Bemerki, RTLM, April 13, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (Article 19).
240
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 302.
241
Solidarité Internationale pour les Refugiés Rwandais, “Le Non-dit sur les Massacres,” p.12. The first reference to Cyahinda
rather than Runda on this page is apparently an error.
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 162. The interim foreign minister made the same charge before the U.N. Security
Council. [See below.]
242
243
Chrétien et al, Rwanda,Les médias, p. 299.
244
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20 hrs, 22. [04.94]; 13:00 hrs, 24.[04.94]; 10:00 hrs, 26[04.94]20:00 hrs, 05 [05.94];19:00
hrs, 11.05.1995 [sic, 1994] (confidential source); RTLM, 12:00 hrs, 13 [.04.94]; 17 hrs, 22 [.04.94] 15 hrs, 26 [.04.94].
245
See chapter two.
177
March 1999
encouraged Hutu to feel righteous anger at the Tutsi and to give “them the punishment they
deserve.”246
Local authorities invoked several kinds of “proof” to convince Hutu that Tutsi were planning to attack
them and hence should be killed first. Both the practice of presenting such “evidence” and the kinds
of “evidence” presented were remarkably uniform throughout the country, indicating the central
direction to the deception. They also echoed the strategems of the Habyarimana years. In some cases,
the “proof” was a local replay of the nationally-broadcast scenario of Hutu being attacked. In Huye
commune near Butare, Tutsi were said to have attacked a soldier. In the town of Butare itself, Tutsi
were said to be preparing to kill Hutu. In Kibuye, the rumor circulated that the RPF would launch a
helicopter strike to free Tutsi in the stadium.247
A still more widely used “proof” of Tutsi guilt was the supposed possession of arms. At the western
most reaches of Rwanda, the first Tutsi killed in Kibuye town was accused of having grenades stored in
his toilet and Pastor Ezekiel Semugeshi was accused of having arms and Inkotanyi at his home in
Mugonero. In Kibungo, all the way to the east, soldiers showed the bishop four guns supposedly found
in a hedge next to the church to justify their slaughter of the Tutsi who had sought shelter there. In the
north, at the parish church of Gisenyi, Abbé Ntagara was accused by RTLM of having “replaced the
communion hosts with ammunition.” And in the south, Tutsi were accused of having arms at Kibeho
church.248
Authorities also discredited Tutsi by reporting that they possessed suspicious documents, ordinarily
lists of Hutu to be killed, but alternatively records of RPF meetings or of dues collected for the RPF,
maps with houses marked for attack, letters supposedly from RPF members, or diagrams showing how
land was to be redistributed in the community once all the Hutu were eliminated. Just as some
authorities displayed arms supposedly found in searches, so others produced actual pieces of paper
to add credibility to the charges. The prefect of Kibuye kept examples of such suspicious papers to
show to foreign visitors in an effort to legitimate the killing that had taken place in his prefecture.249
Militia at a barrier in Kigali asserted that a newspaper containing a letter from RPF president Alexis
Kanyarengwe was proof that the person in whose house it had been found was in communication with
the RPF.250 Echoing the speech by Léon Mugesera in November 1992, as well as many subsequent
similar statements, some local authorities charged families with having sent their children to join the
RPF. They also leveled other accusations that had been heard in prior years: that the Tutsi were
holding secret meetings, that they had radio equipment for contacting the RPF, and that they had
traveled abroad recently. Some said the very flight of Tutsi to churches and other places of refuge
246
Kantano Habimana, RTLM, April 13, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19).
247
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0053 and P.V. no. 0117; Fondation Hirondelle, “Des
Rumeurs à l’Origine des Massacres de Kibuye, Selon un Témoin,” June 23, 1998. Bagosora supposedly alleged that Rwandan
soldiers who killed the ten Belgian peacekeepers had only been protecting themselves after the Belgians had attacked their
military camp, Reyntjens, Rwanda,Trois Jours, p. 77.
248
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kibungo, January 30, 1995; Kigali, June 30 and September 12, 1995, July 11, 1996;
Butare, October 26, 1995; Neuchatel (Switzerland), December 16, 1995; by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997; Chrétien et al.,
Rwanda, Les médias, p. 328.
249
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Buffalo, N.Y., September 21, 1997.
250
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
178
showed that they planned some terrible crime and wished to be clear of the scene before the plot was
put into operation.
In some instances, Tutsi did have arms or were assisting the RPF, and authorities did have real
evidence of their actions. But the cases were few and instead of dealing with them responsibly,
officials exaggerated their importance and used them to cast suspicion upon all Tutsi.
Officials and political leaders used some of the same “proofs” as pretexts for attacking Hutu opposed
to them, but more often they charged them with hiding Tutsi. They also accused them of having
changed their identity from Tutsi to Hutu.
The “intellectuals” of Butare discussed the need for “uniformity and harmony” of language at two
meetings that they held during the genocide.251 In official statements made at meetings, in
correspondence among administrators and politicians, and in radio broadcasts, this “uniformity and
harmony” prevailed and in the vocabulary used even long after the fact by participants, it still prevails.
Some ordinary words carry a special meaning, like “to work,” which appears frequently and almost
casually, meaning to kill Tutsi and their Hutu supporters. The word refers back to the 1959 revolution
and its violence against Tutsi, a link indicated in phrases that advocate “finishing the work of the
revolution.” “Work” requires “tools,” that is, firearms, machetes, clubs, spears. In a report on security
meetings that he conducted, one sub-prefect declares that he made people understand what they
needed to do for their own welfare. In parentheses he adds, “to work.”252
Always using the war to cover the genocide, authorities refer to massacres as “battles” and to the
genocide as “interethnic fighting.” The enemy was the Tutsi. Such was the message of the street song,
but it was rarely stated openly. Instead Tutsi were described as “accomplices,” “infiltrators,”
“Inyenzi,” “Inkotanyi” and “the minority.” The Hutu were called “the great mass” (the rubanda
nyamwinshi) or “the majority people” and “the innocent,” meaning the innocent victims of the Tutsi
aggressors. Officials also spoke of “the Rwandans,” when they clearly meant only Hutu, thus
reinforcing the belief that Tutsi were alien. The interim government repeatedly announced that it
intended to ensure security, peace, and the protection of property, but they meant those benefits only
for the Hutu, not for all Rwandans.
Authorities issued statements carrying a double message, knowing that Rwandans would be able to
decipher their real meaning. In an April 14 speech that is a model of ambiguity, Sindikubwabo began
by preaching the need for “peace in the hearts of our citizens so that they will be tolerant of each other
and pardon each other.” He directed them to “keep calm, to forget all feelings of anger, hatred or
vengeance.” But then he insisted that people must collaborate with the government in “denouncing
any person who still has the evil intention of making us return to the situations of the past,” a phrase
that could refer only to Tutsi. He returned to the more benign mode to counsel good behavior so that
no one would be unjustly injured. Then, immediately after, he switched to the attack again: “On the
other hand, point out [enemies] and alert the army and security authorities, do patrols....” 253 In a
similarly ambiguous statement on April 15, the minister of defense urged listeners to work with the
251
Dr. Eugène Rwamucyo for Le Cercle des Républicains Universitaires de Butare and Groupe des Défenseurs des Intérêts de la
Nation, “Table Ronde Politique à Butare,” June 22, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
252
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 304-5.
253
“Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994.”
179
March 1999
army to put the enemy “to flight and exterminate [kumulimbura] him wherever he is” but also stated
that “we cannot permit the people to begin killing each other.”254 A week later, Kalimanzira of the
Ministry of Interior ordered prefects to “Make people aware of the need to continue to hunt the enemy
wherever he is...[but] without doing harm to the innocent.”255
The deceptions in language were echoed and intensified by the deceptions in action, such as the
pretense of providing police protection to sites where Tutsi had taken refuge. On a number of
occasions, authorities or political leaders used promises to lure Tutsi into situations where they could
be attacked: in Musebeya, it was the assurance of transport home; in Muko, it was the guarantee of a
ride to the Kaduha church; and at Mugonero, it was the promise of protection by U.S. forces who were
said to have arrived in the area. A councilor in the Kicukiro commune, Kigali, offered to hide Tutsi, then
reportedly put them in a truck and delivered them to militia. Busloads of displaced persons were
transported by order of the prefect of Cyangugu from the stadium to a camp at Nyarushishi. En route,
one bus took another route and all the persons on it were killed.256
In other cases, those who had escaped death by flight and hiding were summoned to return home, by
drum, voice or loudspeaker. The authorities assured them that the killing was finished. When they
came out, they were set upon and slain. In a variant of that deception, survivors were told that the
killing was over at the end of an attack, only to see the killers reappear later to finish off those who
were still alive.257 After the previously mentioned massacre at the Kibungo bishopric, the leaders of the
attack assured the bishop that the survivors would be permitted to live. The militia had even delivered
survivors of other attacks to the Saint Joseph center to receive medical care. At the Kibungo military
camp three days later, the bishop raised the issue and was again told by Colonel Nkuliyekubona, the
camp commander, Colonel Rwagafilita of the akazu, and the local militia leader Cyasa Habimana that
the survivors would not be harmed. He returned directly to the bishopric several kilometers away and
found that, in his brief absence, the survivors had been loaded into a truck and taken to a large mass
grave near the hospital. There the survivors—more than half of them children—were slain and buried or
buried alive. The bishop returned to the camp to confront the three leaders. The two colonels seemed
to indicate that it was the militia leader who was responsible, but they made no move to arrest him or
otherwise hold him accountable for the massacre.258
Deception was central to the genocide. Without being persuaded that the war was in every community,
no matter how far from the line of battle, and without believing that all Tutsi—whether strangers on the
road or neighbors known for a lifetime—were enemies, some people would have found it harder to
transform their Hutu Power beliefs into deadly action.
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 299; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des
FAR,” p. 96.
254
255
Ministiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini [actually signed by C, Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa
Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994.
256
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, August 29, 1994, September 12, 1995; Anonymous, “Les Massacres au Stade
de Cyangugu,” Dialogue, no. 177, Août-Septembre, 1994, p. 95. See chapter on Gikongoro.
257
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, October 24, November 9, November 30 1995, March 26, 1996; Kigali,
September 9, 1995; Des Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du diocèse,” p. 63; African Rights, Rwanda, Death,
Despair, pp. 433, 436, 439, 458, 494, 516, 541, 615, 624.
258
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kibungo, January 30, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
180
Popular Participation
When the national authorities ordered the extermination of Tutsi, tens of thousands of Hutu
responded quickly, ruthlessly and persistently. They killed without scruple and sometimes with
pleasure. They jogged through the streets of Kigali chanting, “Let’s exterminate them all.” They
marched through the streets of Butare town shouting “Power, Power.” They returned from raids in
Kibuye singing that the only enemy was the Tutsi. They boasted about their murders to each other and
to the people whom they intended to kill next.
Many of these zealous killers were poor, drawn from a population 86 percent of whom lived in poverty,
the highest percentage in the world.259 They included many young men who had hung out on the
streets of Kigali or smaller commercial centers, with little prospect of obtaining either the land or the
jobs needed to marry and raise families. They included too thousands of the displaced who focused
their fear and anger on the RPF and defined that group to include all Tutsi. As Bagosora and Nahimana
had anticipated, young men from the camps were easily enlisted in the “self-defense” effort.
Convinced partisans of the MRND or the CDR, particularly those from the northwest who had grown up
hearing accounts of Tutsi oppression and who had little contact with Tutsi in their daily lives,
constituted another important pool of assailants.
Many refugees from Burundi, who transferred their anger from their Tutsi-dominated government at
home to the Tutsi of Rwanda, also rushed to join the killing campaign. They had been trained at some
camps by Rwandan soldiers and militia since late 1993 and were prepared to strike. Refugees from
Gisali camp in Ntongwe commune launched attacks on Tutsi in the vicinity, while others killed at
Gashora commune in Kigali, at Mugina in Gitarama, at Nshili in Gikongoro, and at Nyakizu, Muyaga,
Mugusa, and Butare town in Butare.260
Some Rwandans, previously scorned in their communities, seized on the genocide as an opportunity
to gain stature as well as wealth. Using their physical strength, their fighting skills, or their knowledge
of weapons, men generally regarded as thugs organized bands to serve as ready-made militia to
exterminate Tutsi. Women and children sometimes joined in pillaging or destroying property. Less
often they too injured or killed Tutsi. As one UNAMIR officer remarked, “I had seen war before, but I
had never seen a woman carrying a baby on her back kill another woman with a baby on her back.”261
Not all killers were poor and living in misery. The authorities who directed the genocide constituted a
substantial part of the Rwandan elite, vastly richer and better established than the masses—whether
participants or victims.
Nor were all the poor killers. Some refused to attack Tutsi, even when offered the prospect of pillage or
the chance to acquire land that might provide security for their families. The people of Butare, arguably
the poorest and most over-populated prefecture, were the last to join the killing campaign. Those who
initially rejected violence wanted only to get on with their own lives. They hoped mostly for an end to
war and the seemingly interminable political squabbles of the elite.
Uvin, Aiding Violence, p. 117. These data refer to the total population, including Tutsi, but figures pertaining exclusively to
Hutu would presumably be nearly the same.
259
260
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 26, 1997; Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des
Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” pp. 8, 28, 178.
261
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Plainsboro, NJ, June 13, 1996.
181
March 1999
Some who refused at the start became convinced to act when all authorities seemed to speak with one
voice, when the leaders of their parties joined with administrators to demand their participation and
when the military stood behind, ready to intimidate those who hesitated. At this point, the hesitant
accepted the deceptions of the supposedly legitimate officials and hid behind them to commit crimes
unthinkable in ordinary circumstances.
Unlike the zealous assailants, the reluctant set limits to their participation: they might massacre
strangers in churches or at barriers, knowing only that they were Tutsi, and refuse to attack neighbors,
knowing that they were Tutsi but knowing also that they were not enemies. They might agree to pillage
a Tutsi envied for his wealth and refuse to burn the house of a poor widow; they might join in killing a
young man who loudly proclaimed his loyalty to the RPF but refuse to slay an infant. Some became
more hardened with experience and learned how to slaughter even those whom they had once refused
to harm; others went the other way, apparently swept up by fear or greed in the first days of slaughter,
they were later repelled by the efforts to exterminate even the vulnerable.
Tens of thousands of Hutu refused to join the killing campaign and saved Tutsi lives. Hundreds of
thousands more disapproved of the genocide but did nothing to oppose it or to help its victims. They
did not answer the call of the local cell leader but neither did they respond to the cries of Tutsi in
distress. As one witness reported, “We closed the door and tried not to hear.”262
Extending the Genocide
In the first days of the genocide, its leaders rapidly rallied support among military, militia, and
administrators who supported the MRND and the CDR. The next week, with the announcement on April
12 that Tutsi were the only enemy, they attracted increasing numbers of officials from MDR-Power and
other parties to the killing campaign. But by mid-April, they still had not won the support of some
influential military officers and administrators. The prefects of Butare and Gitarama and many of the
burgomasters under their direction as well as isolated administrators elsewhere, like the
burgomasters of Giti in Byumba and of Musebeya in Gikongoro, continued traveling through their
regions to deter attacks, facing down crowds of assailants, and arresting the aggressors. In those
areas, there were relatively few Tutsi killed before the interim government decided to extend the
genocide.263
The leaders of the killing campaign had to invest considerable political and military resources to end
opposition to the genocide and they did so, belying their assertion that they were trying to halt the
slaughter. They killed or removed some of the dissenting soldiers and officials and intimidated others
into compliance. They left other opponents of the slaughter in place, but destroyed their
effectiveness—by bypassing them, by sapping their political control, or by withholding or withdrawing
the military or police support they needed.
As they extended the slaughter, national leaders also sought to tighten control over it by formalizing
the system of “civilian self-defense.” They hoped to improve their image abroad by making the killing
262
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
263
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 11, 1996; Commission pour le Mémorial, “Rapport Préliminaire, pp. 136,
195, 239; Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’avril 1994 à Rusumo,” p. 99. See chapters below for cases from Gikongoro and Butare.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
182
more discreet as well as to curb dissension among Hutu as they finished the “work” of eliminating
Tutsi. As the number of Tutsi diminished, Hutu attacked each other over questions of property and
power, often using the same accusations and deceptions against each other that they had been using
against Tutsi. In the end, the leaders of the genocide failed in their goal of creating Hutu solidarity,
which they had been ready to purchase at the cost of so many Tutsi lives.
The rapid advance of the RPF spurred some authorities to more frenetic killing but also showed others,
officials and ordinarily people alike, the futility of trying to fight the war through the genocide. With the
final victory of the RPF, the interim government fled to Zaire, leaving behind a people divided by fear
and hatred as never before in their history.
Removing Dissenters
Ten days after the start of the genocide, leaders of the killing campaign had to contend with
continuing opposition within Rwanda but faced no challenge from abroad to their policy. The
evacuation of foreigners, begun a week before, had been concluded and the troops sent for that
purpose had also left Rwanda without intervening in the slaughter. The Belgians had withdrawn their
soldiers from the peacekeeping force and, at the end of its April 15 meeting, the Security Council was
leaning towards a total recall of UNAMIR, although no decision had been made. The Rwandan
ambassador to the U.N., a member of the Security Council at the time, no doubt promptly
communicated the tenor of the debate to the interim government.264
The next morning, on April 16, the ministers—presumably assisted, as usual, by political leaders—felt
sufficiently confident to move against opponents of the genocide. In the military domain, they
removed Gatsinzi as chief of staff of the armed forces and named instead Col. Augustin Bizimungu,
whom Bagosora had first proposed on April 6. They promoted Bizimungu to general and did the same
with Gatsinzi and Rusatira, perhaps hoping in this way to win their support.265
The Ministry of Defense also recalled to active duty certain officers who had been obliged to retire
sometime before, including Bagosora himself and Colonels Rwagafilita, Serubuga, and Gasake, all
supporters of Bagosora. Gatsinzi signed the recall shortly before his removal and then tried to cancel it
after learning that he could invalidate the order on a technicality. His radio announcement voiding the
recall was apparently ignored.266
In the civilian sphere, the government on April 17 removed Prefect Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana of
Butare who had been successfully opposing the killings. The radio had prepared public opinion for
Habyalimana’s removal by announcing earlier in the week that he had not attended the April 11
meeting of prefects, an unusual item to broadcast as part of the news and one which implied
negligence on his part. Unlike Gatsinzi who lost his post but escaped with his life, the prefect of Butare
was arrested and later summarily executed by soldiers or National Police. His family was slaughtered
after his execution. Prefect Godefroid Ruzindana was also fired. He had tried to prevent slaughter in
his prefecture of Kibungo, but had done so less successfully than Habyalimana, perhaps because
264
See chapter fifteen for these decisions.
265
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20:00, April 16, 1994; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, April
27, 1997 and July 22, 1998.
266
République Rwandaise, Ministère de la Justice, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 0142.
183
March 1999
important leaders like Colonel Rwagafilita had struck swiftly and ruthlessly after April 6. Ruzindana
and his family were massacred while trying to flee.267
In naming candidates to replace these prefects and to fill vacant posts in the three northern
prefectures, the government chose men whom they expected would support the genocidal program.
François Karera, previously a sub-prefect, who was named to head the prefecture of Kigali, had no
hesitation later in justifying the massacres to a New York Times reporter by saying that Tutsi were
“originally bad.” Another new prefect was Elie Nyirimbibi, the first member of the CDR ever to be given
such a post.268
The interim government anounced Gatsinzi’s removal on April 16 and the administrative changes on
Sunday evening, the 17th. The dismissal of Habyalimana, the outstanding opponent of slaughter, was
announced just after a presidential address to the nation about “pacification.”
After having replaced Prefect Habyalimana, the interim government in May and June dismissed several
dozen other administrators—prefects, sub-prefects, and burgomasters—and they permitted or
encouraged local authorities to replace councilors and cell heads during these same months. By
substituting apparently committed supporters of the genocide for those who did not back the
program, they also warned others about the loss of post—and possibly life—that might result from
continued opposition to the new power-holders.
At the same time the authorities showed their willingness to pay for collaboration, scarce though
public funds were. At the end of April the interim government agreed to begin paying salaries to cell
heads, local officials who had not previously been remunerated by the state and whose cooperation
was important to the success of the killing campaign. In July, as the interim government was preparing
to decamp to Zaire, the prefect of Kibuye sought to arrange for payments to communal youth
organizers, who had apparently been actively supporting the genocidal program in the preceding
months.269
Continued Conflicts Among the Military
With the beginning of the genocide, even Tutsi in the armed forces were accused of being
ibyitso.Virtually no Tutsi had risen to command positions in the army, but a small number had become
officers in the National Police. They, as well as Tutsi in the ranks, were targeted by fellow military and
by militia. At barriers on the outskirts of Kigali, National Police were disarmed and killed by soldiers
and militia because they were Tutsi—or thought to be Tutsi.270 Maj. François Kambanda, initially saved
by Ndindiliyimana, was later killed by militia at Nyanza. Lieutenant Mpakaniye was shot on the parade
ground in the military camp at Cyangugu, reportedly by Lt. Samuel Imanishimwe.. Adjutant Karwanira
was killed by a corporal from Gisenyi in the cafeteria of the National Police camp. The murderer then
267
Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, by telephone, April 29, 1994; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Buffalo, January
12, 1997. For Habyalimana, see chapters 11 and 12. Note that the prefect spelled his name with the letter “l,” while the
president used “r.” In kinyarwanda, the sounds are nearly interchangable.
Jane Perlez, “Under the Bougainvillea, A Litany of Past Wrongs,” New York Times, August 15, 1994; UNAMIR, Notes, Radio
Rwanda, 20:00 April 17, 1994.
268
269
Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for 14/05/94; Felix Bahati, Encadreur Préfectoral de la Jeunesse et des Associations to
Monsieur le Préfet de Préfecture, no. 33/21.01/06, July 11, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
270
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997, and by telephone, April 27, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
184
fled to the camp of the Presidential Guard, where soldiers at first protected him but eventually allowed
the National Police to arrest him.271
Some military men, especially those from the south, had wives or other relatives who were Tutsi and
they feared for the lives of these family members. Military men were supposedly not allowed to marry
Tutsi women, but in fact some did so. Once the genocide began, National Policemen at Kacyiru camp
in Kigali and soldiers at the Bigogwe camp in Gisenyi had to protect their Tutsi wives from local
assailants. Soldiers and National Policemen moved Tutsi relatives and friends to military camps or
National Police brigades in hopes they would be safe there.272 As the slaughter continued, many
learned that relatives and friends had in fact been killed—not just those who were Tutsi, but also
others who were mistaken for Tutsi or had tried to help Tutsi. Lieutenant Colonel Nzungize,
commander of the Bigogwe camp, had a grandson—Hutu like himself—slain in Gikongoro because he
looked Tutsi. He also lost a sister, Felicitas Niyitegeka, who was killed, as described above, because
she was rescuing Tutsi.273
Some soldiers and National Policemen showed their opposition to the genocide by trying to save lives.
On April 7, Lieutenant Colonel Nzungize cooperated with Belgian soldiers, still present as part of a
military assistance program, to bring to safety some 350 to 400 people. Other officers whose names
are not known saved lives in the early days, including National Police lieutenants at Busogo and
Nyamirambo, an army lieutenant at Nyundo, and an army major who protected people at the Institut
Africain et Mauricien des Statistiques et d’Economie Appliquée outside Kigali. National Police Majors
Jean-Baptiste Jabo at Kibuye and Cyriaque Habyarabatuma at Butare sought to prevent slaughter in
areas under their jurisdiction. Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi later protected thousands of Tutsi at
a displaced persons camp in Cyangugu, as mentioned above. Major Jean-Baptiste Nsanzimfura was
one of the gendarmes who protected Tutsi at churches and the Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali; he also
rescued Tutsi who had hidden for weeks at the churches of Ruli and Rwankuba.274
Bagosora and his supporters tried to suppress dissent against himself and the program of slaughter.
Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi was attacked with a grenade and Major Augustin Cyiza was
arrested and returned to Kigali in handcuffs when he tried to escort his family to safety elsewhere. Like
Rusatira, they went into hiding for a week or more in the early days of the genocide. Major
Habyarabatuma of the National Police in Butare was warned that Capt. Ildephonse Nizeyimana of the
local military camp, was planning to kill him. As Bagosora’s power increased, his supporters
occasionally openly disobeyed and even insulted their superiors who were known to be opposed to
271
Anonymous, “La Milice Interahamwe, La Main à Tuer des Genocidaires”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May
16, 1997.
272
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 16, 1997; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil,
“Contribution des FAR,” p. 98.
273
République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0117.
274
Human Rights Watch interviews, by telephone, Kigali, April 29 and May 3, 1994; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews,
Kigali, July 11, 1996; Arusha, February 17, 1997; Brussels, November 8, 1998; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République
de Kigali, PV. no. 0034; Leonard, “Le Carnage à Busogo,” pp. 33, 35; Des Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du
diocèse,” p. 61; Commission d’Enquête CLADHO-KANYARWANDA, Rapport de l’Enquête sur les Violations Massives des Droits
de l’Homme Commises au Rwanda à partir du 06 avril 1994, pp. 331, 333.
185
March 1999
the new authorities.275 When Rusatira summoned Major Mpiranya, head of the Presidential Guard, in
early April, he refused to come. Ndindiliyimana had an armored personnel carrier under his authority
appropriated by a junior officer of the reconnaissance battalion. He protested to the chief of staff, but
was unable to get the vehicle restored to his command.276
Throughout this period, the interim government frequently transferred troops, both units and
individual officers, supposedly in response to the demands of the war. In some cases, these changes
served to prevent the development of resistance to the new authorities and to advance the genocide.
With thousands of combat troops at its disposal, the general staff transferred National Police under
Majors Jean-Baptiste Jabo and Habyarabatuma to the battlefront, removing them from posts where
they could have protected Tutsi from attack. In Gikongoro, the National Police commander, Maj.
Christophe Bizimungu, who tried to restrain a subordinate who favored attacks against Tutsi, was
replaced by an officer who made no effort to stop the killings.277
Although their position was clearly out of favor, some high-ranking officers persisted in trying to get an
end to attacks on civilians. On April 16, Rusatira sought out interim Prime Minister Kambanda and
Minister of Defense Bizimana at Murambi, in Gitarama prefecture, to tell them that the departure of the
government from Kigali had spurred further violence, both in the capital and in Gitarama. He urged
them to stop the killings.278 Six days later, on April 22, Rusatira came back again, this time
accompanied by Ndindiliyimana, to try to convince officials of the interim government and political
party leaders that the genocide was destroying the morale of the troops and could discredit Rwanda
with foreign governments whose support was essential. In a meeting that reportedly included
Kambanda and political leaders like Murego, Mugenzi, Karemera, and Shingiro, the officers argued
that the slaughter was “a prelude to defeat.” The politicians refused to heed their warnings. They
insisted that the killings were “self-defense” and must continue. They reportedly declared that if
soldiers refused to collaborate in the killing campaign, they had another way to carry it out. 279
In mid-April, General Ndindiliyimana and Colonels Gatsinzi and Rusatira summoned Gaspard Gahigi of
RTLM and Jean-François Nsengiyumva of Radio Rwanda to the military school in Kigali. The officers
supposedly told them that the radios must stop calling for violence against Tutsi and discrediting
military officers opposed to the genocide. Announcer George Ruggiu had questioned Rusatira’s
intentions in making frequent contacts with General Dallaire and another RTLM announcer incited
militia to attack Ndindiliyimana by reporting that he was transporting RPF soldiers in his vehicle—for
275
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, January 26, 1996, Brussels, by telephone, April 27, 1997; République Rwandaise,
Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 0143; Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, p. 124. Ndindiliyimana found an excuse to leave
Rwanda in early June, supposedly to try to arrange the purchase of arms, and he never returned.
276
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, June 21, 1997; by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997, September 3, 1997,
and July 22, 1998.
277
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, New York, Plainsboro, N.J., June 13, 1996 and Brussels, June 21, 1997; by telephone,
Brussels, April 27, 1997.
278
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997 and July 22, 1998.
279
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by
telephone, January 26, 1997; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997, June 22, 1998.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
186
which the license plate number was given—when he was trying to help Tutsi escape. Major
Habyarabatuma was also threatened on RTLM.280
Either the message was not clearly enough delivered or the propagandists of hate knew they were
supported by other more powerful soldiers. Instead of tempering their calls for violence against Tutsi,
the radios at about this time began broadcasting spurious reports that RPF brigades were threatening
civilians in different parts of the country.281 Nor did they soften their stance on dissident military.
Throughout the rest of the war RTLM continued to issue general warnings about military opposed to
the interim government who were responsible, they said, for each loss by the government forces to the
RPF.282
On April 29, the general staff of the army wrote to the minister of defense complaining that the
National Police, which had been used in combat in Mutara and Kibungo, had been responsible for the
defeats by the RPF in those regions. Officers of the National Police learned of the letter and suspected
that some army officers intended to simply dissolve their force. Although no such step was taken, the
incident contributed to hostile feelings between officers of the two services. RTLM exacerbated the illfeeling by making derogatory comments about the National Police, who were thought too tolerant of
Tutsi and southerners.283
Destroying Opposition in Gitarama
Among the opponents of genocide left in place after April 16 were the prefect, Fidele Uwizeye, and
most of the burgomasters of Gitarama prefecture. The government may have retained these men
because they feared alienating their party, the MDR, which was the predominant political organization
in Gitarama, or because they expected to be able to oblige them to change their position. Over a
period of several weeks officials, political leaders, the military, the militia, and the media worked
together to force such a change.
As elsewhere in Rwanda, the MDR in Gitarama was divided between moderates and advocates of Hutu
Power. In the first days of the genocide, not just the moderates, but even some of the MDR Power
politicians refused to join the killing, believing that the MRND and the CDR had launched the violence
simply to capture power for themselves.
When the people of Gitarama refused to attack Tutsi, MRND and CDR militia raided across the
prefectural boundary, striking first and most vigorously from the city of Kigali and its periphery. Setiba,
the Interahamwe leader whom UNAMIR police had been afraid to arrest and disarm the previous
December, now put his weapons to good use. Supported by a few soldiers, he led his militia in attacks
against the communes of Runda and Taba. The prefect complained about the raids to officials,
including presumably Kalimanzira, who was acting for the minister of the interior, and to MRND
leaders, but without result. Militia from communes of Kibuye, Gisenyi, and Ruhengeri prefectures also
280
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, January 26, 1996; Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997; Brussels, by telephone, April 27,
1997.
281
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997 and by telephone, July 22, 1998; Commandement
des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” p.98.
282
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 266-67
283
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, May 26, October 19 and 20, 1997; Anonymous, “La Milice Interahamwe.”
187
March 1999
began crossing boundaries to raid and burn in Gitarama. These incursions were intended both to kill
Tutsi and to force hitherto inactive Hutu to join in the attacks.284
Uwizeye organized his burgomasters to defend the prefecture. Under the direction of local officials,
Hutu and Tutsi fought together to drive off the assailants and killed a number of them. In communes
further from prefectural boundaries, like Nyamabuye, where attacks from outside the prefecture were
less of a problem, burgomasters successfully opposed the efforts of local troublemakers to begin the
killing campaign. Uwizeye and several of his burgomasters also prohibited establishing barriers,
although RTLM was encouraging people to do so. Some burgomasters, like the one of Nyamabuye,
discouraged people from even listening to RTLM.285
When the interim government moved its headquarters to a training school in Murambi on April 12, it
brought the political, military, and administrative leaders of the genocide into the heart of Gitarama
prefecture, just a few miles from the prefectural offices. In later testimony before the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the man who had been burgomaster of Nyamabuye was asked if it
would have been possible to prevent killings in his commune if the national government had not
relocated to Gitarama. He responded:
Yes, it is possible if other people—if other forces did not come from outside to come
back—to fight against what the burgomaster was doing in his commune. I believe
that if the government had not come into Gitarama prefecture with many soldiers and
Interahamwe, it would have been possible.286
Elsewhere in his testimony, the former burgomaster remarked:
The Presidential Guard and the Interahamwe who were present in Gitarama were
moving within the country, talking to the population, teaching the ideology of killing,
of massacres. They incited the population to hate the local authority by saying that
those who did not kill the Tutsi were accomplices of the Inkotanyi.287
The same day that the government moved to Gitarama, MDR-Power leader Karamira had exhorted MDR
supporters to collaborate with the MRND and the CDR in fighting the common enemy. The MRND
minister of youth and cooperatives, Callixte Nzabonimana, himself from Gitarama, brought the
message home even more dramatically. He freed men arrested by the burgomaster of Rutobwe for
having slaughtered Tutsi cattle and publicly slapped the burgomaster for refusing to join the killing
campaign. Nzabonimana also addressed a large public meeting near the church of Kivumu, where “he
asked the local population why they had not done their ‘work’” and suggested that the Tutsi cattle
were just waiting to be eaten.288
284
Fidèle Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique.”
285
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, pp. 37, 40, and January 30, 1997, p. 34; Witness K, January 14, 1997,
p. 9; Jean-Paul Akayesu, March 12 and 13, 1998, unpaginated.
286
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 29, 1997, p. 18.
287
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 45.
288
Kamanzi, Rwanda, Du Génocide à la Defaite, p. 110; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 361.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
188
Hundreds of militia—perhaps somewhat more than a thousand—followed the interim government from
Kigali to Gitarama, where they took up residence in schools in Runda and Taba. Now inside the
prefecture, they were better placed to reinforce directives from the national leaders. They forced the
burgomasters of Kayenzi, Mugina, Musambira, and Taba to flee their communes briefly. One of the
Interahamwe shot at the burgomaster of Taba and killed the communal policeman who was
accompanying him. Later, another man stabbed a communal policeman in Taba and then joined the
Interahamwe for protection. The burgomaster of Nyamabuye also recalled having been threatened by
the Interahamwe.289 At a session of the International Tribunal he declared:
I received messages saying that if I continued to protect people I would be killed.
They also asked soldiers to shoot at me. They did in fact shoot at me but I was not
struck by a bullet. They prevented me from driving about in the commune, and if I
did, they would stop me at the roadblock....290
Prefect Uwizeye pleaded for reinforcements from the National Police, but was told that all were
occupied at the front. The burgomaster of Nyamabuye later remarked that even had National Police
been available, most of those stationed in Gitarama supported the slaughter and would not have tried
to restore order. Uwizeye found few persons of stature ready to support his struggle to halt the
genocide. One was Abbé André Sibomana, the highly respected editor of the widely-read journal
Kinyamateka who managed to flee to Gitarama from Kigali, where militia had been looking for him.
Sibomana met with the prefect and encouraged his opposition to the killing. 291
Early on Monday, April 18, the morning after Butare Prefect Habyalimana’s replacement had been
announced, Prefect Uwizeye called together the burgomasters and local party leaders and clergy to
discuss the growing political and military pressure for genocide. When the interim prime minister
heard of the planned meeting, he ordered the session moved from the prefectural center to Murambi.
Uwizeye and his subordinates arrived there to find a group that reportedly included interim Prime
Minister Kambanda, interim ministers Callixte Nzabonimana, André Rwamakuba, Dr. Straton
Nsabumukunzi, Eliézer Niyitegeka, Jean de Dieu Habineza, and Justin Mugenzi as well as MDR-Power
leaders Murego and Shingiro and MRND leader Edouard Karemera.292
The Gitarama prefect and his burgomasters asked the national authorities to begin restoring order by
stopping the distribution of arms and by terminating incitements to slaughter by RTLM. They also
asked members of the Presidential Guard to help end the violence. The interim prime minister failed to
address the problem directly and replied instead with a cliché-ridden speech about national unity and
the need to support the new government. When the prefect asked once more for concrete measures to
help himself and his subordinates, the interim prime minister stepped aside to allow Hutu Power
political leaders to deliver a more explicit response. They railed at the Gitarama officials for failing to
support the militia who were protecting Rwanda against the enemy. According to the burgomaster of
Nyamabuye, one of the MRND ministers denounced their opposition to genocide by saying:
289
Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique;” ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Akayesu, March 12 and 13, 1998.
290
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 64.
291
Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique;” ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 29, 1997, p. 42; Human Rights Watch/FIDH
interview, Brussels, by telephone, April 27, 1997.
189
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that he knew very well that some of the commune leaders in Gitarama were Inkotanyi
accomplices, and furthermore if these people continued to work in this manner, that
there will be very serious consequences for them.293
Two of the burgomasters who attended the meeting subsequently told the International Tribunal that
official authorities never directed them specifically to kill Tutsi. Rather they offered no assistance in
putting down violence by militia and soldiers and they indicated that continuing to resist violence
would have many costs and no rewards. Pressed on the question of whether they were given any
directions about exterminating Tutsi, the burgomaster of Nyamabuye replied, “When you are
threatened and somebody tells you that you are an Inkotanyi accomplice, it is the same as saying go
on and do that.”294 He related that the meeting ended inconclusively and that the participants, all
frightened, returned home without discussing the session. Asked by one of the judges if such behavior
after a meeting were normal, the burgomaster replied, “We were in an abnormal situation.” 295
The Gitarama officials understood the message and some responded to it promptly. According to the
prosecutor and many witnesses at the International Tribunal, Jean-Paul Akayesu, the burgomaster of
Taba, was one of those who changed from a protector to a killer of Tutsi immediately after the meeting
of April 18.296 At about the same time that the interim government and national political leaders were
applying pressure from above, Akayesu also had to contend with a challenge from newly-strengthened
Interahamwe inside the commune. Silas Kubwimana, an honorary vice-president of the Interahamwe
at the national level and a political rival of Akayesu, had left the commune some months before when
Akayesu was powerful. Now he returned with the backing of the national Interahamwe leadership and
with guns, grenades, and military uniforms to distribute to his followers. A former communal
policeman testified at the International Tribunal that there were nine communal policemen armed with
seven firearms in Taba at this time to face the far more numerous and well-armed militia.297 Akayesu
maintains that Kubwimana effectively took over running the commune, directing killings, harassing
opponents, and even appropriating a vehicle from the burgomaster. While not disputing that the
Interahamwe leader played a role, the prosecutor and many witnesses conclude that Akayesu was not
the frightened tool of Kubwimana, but his active partner.
According to Akayesu, he was also threatened by charges, made by RTLM and others, that he himself
was Tutsi. The radio talked about his height and light, brown skin and warned listeners that he
intended to “exterminate the Interahamwe.” In addition, the burgomaster had to deal with large
numbers of displaced persons, including many originally from Byumba, who were pushed south by the
fighting in and around Kigali. Embittered by their long months of misery, they swelled the numbers of
persons ready to kill Tutsi. Akayesu told the International Tribunal of one case where he had
292
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, pp. 67-69; Testimony of Akayezu, March 12 and 13, 1998; Uwizeye,
“Aperçu Analytique.”
293
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 76.
294
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 30, 1997, p. 20.
295
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 95.
296
See the testimony of witnesses K, C, H and JJ, among many others.
297
As mentioned above, one of the police was killed and another wounded by Interahamwe. “Les miliciens n’auraient pas
menacé Akayesu, selon un ex-policier,” Fondation Hirondelle, News du 19 novembre 1997. Accounts of the proceedings of the
tribunal are posted on the internet by Fondation Hirondelle and Ubutabera.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
190
supposedly attempted to save a Tutsi woman from a crowd of displaced persons. The sub-prefect of
Byumba who was with the crowd told him it was no use even to try to defend her. As if to prove his
colleague’s good intentions, Akayesu reported that the sub-prefect had bought her a soda even if he
did not save her from the assailants who presumably finally killed her.298
In other communes as well, RTLM hammered home the risks of continued dissent while militia
multiplied their attacks. RTLM encouraged militia to strike in the commune of Mukingi, broadcasting:
“All the enemies have gone to hide at Mukingi.”299 The burgomaster who had at first saved Tutsi by
transporting them to the church center at Kabgayi lost heart under such attacks, particularly after he
tried to get help from the National Police and was refused. In addition, a person of national
importance mobilized killers inside the commune, playing a role much like that of Kubwimana in Taba.
Lt. Col. Aloys Simba, a well known military and political figure, organized young men from the Byimana
commercial center to attack the Tutsi who had taken shelter in the schools and communal office of
Mukingi. He distributed large quantities of beer as a reward. Under these pressures, the burgomaster
reportedly gave up trying to quell the attacks.300
Before April 18, Justin Nyandwi, burgomaster of Musambira, also opposed Hutu Power and the
violence it espoused. On a trip into the city of Kigali, he encountered Rose Karushara, councilor of
Kimisigara and a supporter of the killing campaign. She reportedly directed her Interahamwe to attack
him and the three communal police who accompanied him, but they were saved by the intervention of
Major Nyamuhimba of the National Police. On April 14, RTLM increased the pressure on Nyandwi by
naming him as an opponent of the massacres. On April 20, a group of Interahamwe came in a pickup
truck to attack him at home, but he escaped death and temporarily fled the commune. A survivor from
his commune described him as a good man who was finally overwhelmed by the forces against him.
Although he gave up his opposition to the genocide, he still failed to satisfy the interim government,
which replaced him with MRND leader Abdelrahman Iyakaremye, who was committed to carrying out
the genocide promptly and thoroughly.301
The burgomaster of Nyamabuye, although subjected to the same pressures as the others, says that he
continued to protect Tutsi, by taking them to safety at Kabgayi, by dissuading local people from
attacking the camps where they had sought refuge, and by providing them with needed documents.
Instead of carrying out these activities openly as he had before April 18, however, he worked at night
to avoid being seen by Presidential Guards. He continued going around the commune out in the
countryside, but he avoided the town where soldiers were more likely to be found and, he said, “I tried
to not go where the Interahamwe were.”302 He was supported by some—although not all—of the
communal police and with their backing he could rescue people from barriers provided the guards
were not soldiers and were not armed. But if he encountered soldiers or armed militia, neither his
authority nor the guns of the local police were enough to obtain the release of the persons being held.
Instead, he told the court,
298
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Akayesu, March 12 and 13, 1998.
299
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Mukingi, July 10, 1996.
300
Ibid.; Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique.”
301
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Gitarama, July 12, 1995; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 624.
302
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 84.
191
March 1999
...we had recourse to all the means. Sometimes we would give them money to buy
beer, or we would tell them that we are going to take these people to the highest
authority. We used all other means like that.303
The burgomaster of Mugina commune, Callixte Ndagijimana persisted in trying to protect Tutsi even at
the cost of his own life. After the April 18 meeting, the six National Police who had been assigned to
help him in the commune were recalled. For two days more he kept on opposing the killings and
organizing transport for Tutsi to Kabgayi. On April 20, the same day that the burgomaster of
neighboring Musambira was attacked, Interahamwe from Kigali invaded Mugina and murdered
Ndagijimana. With the chief resister against the genocide removed, a local judge came to the market
the next day to get the killing started. The soldiers accompanying him fired their guns in the air and
then told the crowd, “We want you to destroy Tutsi houses and kill Tutsi.”304 In the next days, local
people, who had earlier refused to kill, began to join the slaughter. Led by Burundian refugees from a
nearby camp, they massacred an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people in their homes and in the parish
church. The prefect managed to save 176 wounded survivors whom he had brought to the church
center at Kabgayi.305
The prefect meanwhile sought to limit the violence by such measures as suspending the prefectural
security committee, a step he took because he believed some members would use the committee to
increase the slaughter. But he could not count on support from the National Police, not trusting them
even to provide the guard for his own family. Instead he called on communal police from Nyamabuye
for that duty. Nor did his own subordinates back his efforts to prevent the slaughter. In his estimation,
five of six sub-prefects actively encouraged the killing. When confronted by determined killers like one
lieutenant who reportedly slaughtered thirty-one people in the commune of Nyakabanda, the prefect
could do little but complain to higher authorities. Finally convinced of the futility of continued
opposition, Uwizeye fled west to Kibuye at the end of May. The interim government removed him from
office and named Major Jean-Damascene Ukurukiyezu prefect of Gitarama.306
The combined pressure by political and military authorities, militia, and the radio succeeded in
destroying open opposition to the interim government and its genocidal program in Gitarama. But the
killing campaign failed to exterminate all the Tutsi of the region, in part because Hutu officials and
ordinary people continued to aid Tutsi, even if only furtively, and in part because the rapid assemblage
of thousands of Tutsi at Kabgayi created an agglomeration protected by its sheer size. From the start
many Tutsi had fled spontaneously to the extensive grounds of the Catholic diocese at Kabgayi.
Governmental authorities also encouraged and helped Tutsi to assemble there, some of them
believing that people at risk were safer at Kabgayi than in their home communes, others because they
understood that gathering Tutsi together was part of the genocidal plan. Military and militia never
303
Ibid., pp. 85-86. See also p. 87.
304
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 15, 1995.
305
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 15, 1995; Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique;” Commission pour le Mémorial du
Génocide et des Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” p. 86.
306
Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique;” ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 29, 1997, p. 42.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
192
launched an open assault on the extensive camps, but were preparing to do so when the RPF took
Kabgayi in early June.307
The extension of the genocide in Gitarama was part of a larger campaign to spread the slaughter
throughout the country. After having delivered the message to Prefect Uwizeye and his burgomasters,
the interim authorities moved south to ensure that the killing campaign would be implemented in
Butare and Gikongoro. Everywhere they went, their “pacification” visits sparked or increased the
slaughter.
“The Population Is Trying to Defend Itself”
As political leaders extended the genocide by force into the center and south of the country, they also
moved to tighten control over the whole killing campaign by establishing a formal structure for the
“civilian self-defense” force. Proposed by AMASASU, sketched in Bagosora’s appointment book,
discussed by a committee of the Rwandan army on October 30, 1993 and again on March 30, 1994, the
force had not been completely organized by early April. The basic plan of mobilizing civilians by
administrative division and putting them under the command of retired soldiers or other military men
had nonetheless been put quickly into effect, particularly during the early weeks of large-scale
massacres. It was no doubt this force—which RTLM called “the real shield, the true army”308—that
politicians had been referring to when they told dissident military leaders that they had another way to
execute the genocide if the regular soldiers refused to participate.309
The force was vigorous but needed greater discipline and organization. Having delivered a license to
kill the “enemy,” authorities found that some civilian executioners were deciding for themselves—on
partisan or personal grounds—who was the “enemy.” In some cases, the killers ignored the message
that “there is one enemy and he is the Tutsi” and slaughtered other Hutu. On April 21, Kalimanzira of
the Ministry of Interior directed prefects to ensure that people not kill others for reasons of “jealousy,
hostility, or spirit of vengeance.”310 National leaders worried not just that some Hutu were being killed,
but also that some Tutsi were escaping death as local authorities and ordinary executioners yielded to
entreaty or bribe. On RTLM Kantano Habimana railed against those who would allow Tutsi to buy back
their lives, saying “If you are an inyenzi, well, then, you are an inyenzi; let them kill you, there is no
way that you can buy yourself out of it.”311
In communes where militia were already operating, the “civilian self-defense” program offered a way
to expand them, to make them more legitimate, and, at the same time, to subject them to tighter
control. As militia leaders told the press, their groups provided the elite striking force (fer de lance) of
“civilian self-defense.” They had been carrying out the same duties that were now assigned to the
“civilian self-defense” groups: to assist regular troops in protecting the population and public
307
Human Rights Watch interview, Kabgayi, August 29, 1994.
308
RTLM, April 3, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19).
309
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, April 27 and May 4, 1997; Human Rights Watch/FIDH
interview, by telephone, Arusha, January 26, 1997; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des
FAR,” p. 98.
310
Fawusitini Munyazeza, Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini [actually signed by Callixte
Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (bose), April 21, 1994.
311
Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 193.
193
March 1999
property, to “obtain information on the enemy presence” in their communities, and to “denounce
infiltrators and accomplices of the enemy.”312 The training of the militia became the model for the
“self-defense” groups, a brief program carried out by retired soldiers or others with military training.
Once trained, “self-defense” recruits joined the militia at the barriers and on patrol. They sometimes
went into actual combat together, as they did at Nyanza under Lieutenant Colonel Simba. Officials and
administrators, Bagosora among them, recognized that militia and self-defense groups were
essentially the same when they used one term for the other.313 In the order concerning the “selfdefense fund” mentioned above, the minister of the interior specified “refreshments for the militia”
and expenses for their transport to operations as legitimate uses for the money.314
Within a week of the plane crash and nearly two weeks before the formal announcement of “civilian
self-defense,” soldiers were teaching military skills to young men on the streets of Kigali.315 Soon after,
authorities began recruiting new forces throughout the rest of the country. On April 21, for example,
the army commander for Butare-Gikongoro asked local burgomasters to furnish recruits for the
program.316
The authorities announced the new program on Radio Rwanda on April 26, explaining that it was
necessary because “the war was being fought all over the country,” but it was another month before
the interim prime minister revealed the formal organizational plan. The structure was almost a parody
of the Rwandan penchant for administrative complexity. It included supervisory committees at the
national, prefectural, and communal and sectoral levels to facilitate collaboration between
administrative, military, and political party authorities. In urban communes, the organization was
carried down to the level of the cell. The duties of the committee members at each level echoed the
division of tasks at the army general staff: a member in charge of personnel (G1 of the army), another
in charge of intelligence and communication (G2), another responsible for operations (G3), and a
fourth in charge of logistics and finance (G4). At the national level, the committee included eight
designated members, chaired by the minister of the interior and including also the minister of defense
and the army commander in chief. The officer in charge of operations was supposed to be a major and
the one in charge of logistics and finance was required to have at least a bachelor’s degree in
economics or accounting. An “experienced” person was to be responsible for intelligence. At the
prefectoral, communal, and sectoral level, elected councils were to oversee the corresponding
supervisory committee. At the prefectoral level, retired soldiers, political party leaders, and the local
military commander were also to monitor the work. Communal policemen and former soldiers were to
train both the young recruits and the population in general about how to dig trenches, how to gather
312
Prime Minister Jean Kambanda to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous), “Directive du Premier Ministre aux Prefets pour l’Organisation
de l’Auto-Défense Civile,” no. 024/02.3, May 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
313
Bagosora, “Agenda, 1993,” entry for February 1.
314
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, by telephone, July 22, 1998; “Les miliciens hutus affirment assurer la
‘défense civile,’” BQA, no. 14213, 16/05/94, p. 30.
315
“Les résistants hutus chassent le rebelle ‘infiltré’ à Kigali,” BQA, no. 14192, 14/04/94, p. 29.
316
Lt.-Col. Tharcisse Muvunyi, Comd. Place BUT-GIK to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, no. 0085/MSC.1.1, April 21, 1994 (Butare
prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
194
intelligence, and how to obtain necessary supplies. Although the program had been publically
announced, participants were to keep the details of its operation as secret as possible.317
In creating this system, the interim government added a fourth chain of command to the military,
political, and administrative hierarchies that had henceforth executed the genocide. The new channel
was to allow for more direct, efficient control over civilian assailants. The officers named to staff the
program were a remarkably homogenous group, very like each other and very like Bagosora in age,
background and, apparently, in political ideas. More likely to follow Bagosora’s lead than the broader
group of officers who had refused to allow him to take power on April 7 and 8, they were the ideal
candidates to direct a paramilitary force that would implement his orders without question. The
direction of the “civilian self defense” program was lodged in Bagosora’s office at the Ministry of
Defense.318
The commander at the national level was Colonel Gasake, who had temporarily replaced Nsabimana
as chief of staff the year before. In 1993, Bagosora had already noted the possibility of using Gasake
to head a propaganda campaign. The two men were apparently personal friends as well as colleagues.
Among the regional commanders were Lieutenant Colonel Simba for Butare and Gikongoro, Colonel
Rwagafilita for Kibungo, Maj. Protais Bivambagara for Kigali, Maj. Jean-Damascene Ukurukiyezu for
Gitarama, and Lt.-Col. Bonaventure Ntibitura for Ruhengeri. Col. Laurent Serubuga was reportedly
named to the post for Gisenyi but refused it. Several of the group, like Simba and Rwagafilita, had
already been involved in genocidal killings before their appointment. They were all retired officers and
they were ordered to designate other soldiers no longer in active service as their seconds in
command.319
Three of these officers, Ukuruliyezu, Ntibitura, and Simba, had been deputies in parliament, all of
them representing the MRND. A fourth, Rwagafilita, was due to take his seat as deputy for the MRND as
soon as the transitional government was installed. Both Serubuga and Rwagafilita were part of the
akazu.320
Of these officers, at least one shared Bagosora’s contempt for soldiers opposed to the genocide. In
May, Simba sought to discredit Rusatira, who had been posted to Gikongoro, and incited militia to
attack the general and his staff, whom he labeled Inkotanyi. Although none of Simba’s supporters
dared openly assault the officers, Rusatira was unable to stop the accusations.321
In a lengthy order on May 25, the minister of interior directed administrators to assist the “civilian selfdefense” effort by recruiting staff, such as retired soldiers, preparing inventories of firearms available,
helping people to obtain traditional weapons, locating appropriate means of communication within
and between groups, monitoring the work of barriers and patrols, and—as usual—keeping the
317
Kambanda, “Directive du Premier Ministre aux Prefets pour l’Organisation de l’Auto-Défense Civile;” Edouard Karemera, Le
Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous), May 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
318
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, May 4, 1997; Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997.
319
Ibid; Augustin Bizimana, Ministre de la Défense to Lt. Col. e.r. Aloys Simba, no. 51/06.1.9/01, May 15, 1994 (Butare
prefecture); Bagosora, “Agenda, 1993,” entry under February 20.
320
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels , May 4, 1997.
321
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, December 18, 1995; by telephone, Brussels, May 4, 1997.
195
March 1999
population ready to “defend” itself whenever necessary. One task not listed but already current
practice was supervising the distribution of the firearms being made available under the program. 322
The new program offered an opportunity to force changes in the attitudes of administrators who
opposed the genocide or to remove them altogether. The minister of interior ordered the prefects to
identify local authorities “who could potentially hinder the execution of the strategy of self defense”
and he warned against the danger of “infiltration by elements working for the enemy cause.”323 When
the interim authorities removed the prefect of Gitarama in late May, they replaced him with the local
“civilian self-defense” councilor, Major Ukurukiyezu, a further indication of how the new structure
could be used to shape the administrative system already in place.
Because the organizers of the “civilian self defense” program made no distinction between the civilian
Tutsi population and RPF soldiers, they expected recruits to go to battle against the advancing RPF
troops as well as to assist in the genocide of the Tutsi. The young men were badly trained and most of
them were armed only with bows and arrows, spears and machetes. The authorities exhorted them to
take the Vietnamese as an example of what a courageous people could do, even without modern
weapons. In combat against the RPF in Nyanza, Mugusa, and Muyaga in early June, the “civilian selfdefense” forces suffered heavy casualties.324
Tightening Control
The change in structure represented by “civilian self defense” was paralleled by a change in tactics, a
shift from the open and often large-scale killing that had characterized the first weeks of the genocide
to a less public, smaller-scale approach to eliminating Tutsi. Instead of attacking sizable
concentrations of Tutsi, such as those at churches in Kigali, assailants came in squads, night after
night, to take away small numbers to be executed elsewhere. In May and June, authorities transported
some groups of Tutsi to less accessible sites. They sent people from the Cyangugu stadium, for
example, to the remote Nyarushishi camp and moved other groups back to their home communes,
presumably with the intention of slaughtering them with less attention. The cut off in massive
slaughter was neither immediate nor total: massacres, begun later in Butare, were continuing even as
the new policy was being broadcast and horrible, if less frequent, attacks were launched elsewhere in
May and June. But, in general, the worst massacres had finished by the end of April.
The new policy of more disciplined killing was called “pacification,” borrowing the term the interim
government was already using to disguise its efforts to increase killing in the south and center of the
country. “Pacification” meaning “more killing” merged into “pacification” meaning “more discreet
killing.” It enlarged to a national scale the small deceptions that were already taking place in
communities where killers had announced an end to the slaughter in order to lure victims from hiding
or in order to give them a false sense of reassurance before launching a new attack.
The authorities began “pacification” after they had exterminated a substantial part—perhaps half—of
the Tutsi population of Rwanda and after they had begun to hear faint sounds of indignation from the
international community.
322
Karemera to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous), May 25, 1994.
323
Ibid.
324
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 26, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
196
Restoring to Rwanda “Its Good Name”
From the early days of the genocide, the interim government demonstrated its concern with
international opinion. Interim President Sindikubwabo talked about the need for Rwanda to restore
“its good name, so that friendly countries will trust us once again.”325 Near bankruptcy, the interim
government depended on foreign funds to function; at war with the RPF and engaged in a genocide in
which firearms were used, it needed foreign deliveries of arms and ammunition; burdened with
hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, it required international humanitarian assistance to
keep people alive. Not just national authorities and the urban-dwelling intellectuals but even most
ordinary people knew the importance of foreign assistance which had brought the benefits of
development projects to their own or adjacent communes.
The interim government was increasingly discredited as human rights and humanitarian organizations
stressed the genocidal nature of the killings. On April 19, Human Rights Watch called the slaughter
genocide and demanded that the U.N. and its member states meet their legal obligation to intervene.
Respected and articulate human rights activists who had fled Rwanda, like Monique Mujyawamariya
and Alphonse-Marie Nkubito, arrived in Europe and North America where their accounts were
attracting the attention of officials and journalists. On April 22 Anthony Lake, National Security Adviser
to U.S. President Bill Clinton, received Mujyawamariya and a representative of Human Rights Watch,
who described the extent of the genocide and the importance of the military in its execution. Later that
day Lake issued a statement from the White House, calling on Bagosora, Bizimungu, and other military
officers by name to halt the killings.The statement was the first by a major international actor to
publicly assign responsibility for the ongoing killing to specific individuals, but it stopped short of
calling the slaughter genocide.
That same day—although too early to have been in reaction to the Lake statement—the chief of staff,
General Bizimungu, called for “the people to stop fighting each other and forget about ethnic
differences. They have to stand side by side and help the government forces fight the enemy, the RPF.”
Radio RTLM broadcast Bizimungu’s statement as well as another in a similar vein by
Ndindiliyimana.326
Also on April 22, the interim government announced the departure abroad of delegations “to explain
the government position on the Rwandan crisis.”327 Minister of Commerce Justin Mugenzi and MRND
president Mathieu Ngirumpatse went to Kenya and other African states. Foreign Minister Jérôme
Bicamumpaka and CDR head Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza traveled to Europe and the U.N. where they
sought to convince officials and the press that the Hutu had risen up in justifiable rage after the death
of their president. “Inter-ethnic fighting” had followed in which, according to Bicamumpaka, “the Tutsi
and Hutus have massacred each other to an equal extent.”328 The Rwandan spokesmen did their best
to minimize the number of fatalities. Bicamumpaka described the estimates recently given by the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of 100,000 dead as “grossly exaggerated” and
suggested that 10,000 might be more accurate. He concluded that no one could know because “There
325
“Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994.”
326
UNAMIR, Notes, RTLM, 17:00 hrs, April 22, 1994; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des
FAR,” p. 104.
327
UNAMIR, Notes, RTLM, 17:00 hrs, April 22, 1994.
328
BBC, SWB, AL/l989, May 5, 1994.
197
March 1999
are no witnesses to give evidence.” He asserted that, in any case, “There is no more killing.”329 The
Rwandan ambassador in Brussels did his part by sending around an open letter explaining how
Kambanda and other national authorities had undertaken “pacification actions” throughout
Rwanda.330
Meanwhile, in a Nairobi press conference, Mugenzi and Ngirumpatse told the press that the
government was simply overwhelmed because all of its soldiers were occupied at the front. When
journalists protested that they had seen soldiers killing civilians in Kigali, Ngirumpatse said that some
soldiers were on leave and that all armies had some ill-disciplined elements. Taking up the argument
presented by the “intellectuals of Butare” on April 18, he asserted that a cease-fire would end the
killing of Tutsi civilians. He commented, “The best way of stopping those mass killings is to stop the
shooting from the RPF and tell people: ‘You are secure and have no reason to hunt down people from
the RPF.’”331
On April 27, Bicamumpaka and Barayagwiza met with French President Mitterrand, Minister of Foreign
Affairs Alain Juppé, and other highly placed officials. They apparently heard from these usually
understanding supporters that the killings were undermining Rwandan standing in the international
community.332
On April 30, the U.N. Security Council issued a sterner warning by reminding Rwandan leaders that
they would bear personal responsibility for violations of international law. Without using the word
genocide, the statement spoke in the language of the genocide convention about the attempt to
destroy an ethnic group. In addition the council called on all nations to provide no further arms or
military aid to the parties to the conflict and declared itself in principle ready to impose an embargo on
arms deliveries to Rwanda. The interim government attributed this initiative to the Belgians and Radio
Rwanda reported it as their work. The U.S. also took a strong stand in favor of an embargo, as the
interim government knew.333
The next day, the U.S. reinforced the Security Council message through a telephone call by Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Prudence Bushnell, to the chief of staff. She had asked
to speak to Bagosora, but, as always happened, he declined to come to the phone so Bushnell
delivered the message to Bizimungu instead. She reiterated Lake’s message that the United States
authorities at the highest levels would hold these officers responsible if they failed to stop the
massacres. Bizimungu replied in a flip manner, “How nice of them to think of me,” but he was
concerned enough to write to the Ministry of Defense the next day saying that it was “urgent...to stop
the massacres everywhere in the country.”334
329
BBC, SWB, AL/1989, May 5, 1994.
330
François Ngarukiyintwali, Ambassadeur, to Cher Compatriot, Brussels, May 5, 1994.
331
Thadee Nsengiyaremye, “Bombardments Blast Apart Rwandan Rebel Ceasefire,” UPI, April 27, 1994.
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p. 277; Alain Girma, French Embassy, Washington, D.C. to Holly Burkhalter, Human Rights Watch,
April 28, 1994.
332
333
United Nations, Statement by the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/1994/21, 30 April 1994.
334
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Nairobi, September 16, 1996; Commandement des Forces Armées
Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” pp. 69, 98, 104.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
198
On May 3, the pope issued a strong condemnation of the genocidal slaughter and the next day
Secretary-General Boutros Ghali stated that there was “a real genocide” in Rwanda.335
Rwandan authorities judged the international outcry in the light of the Security Council decision to
withdraw most of the peacekeepers made just days before. With this in mind, they found the protests
important enough to stop the major massacres, but not important enough to stop all killing and
prevent its recurrence.
“Violence...Should Stop”
On April 24, administrative, military and militia leaders met to discuss measures to make the
slaughter more circumspect. Prefect Renzaho, General Bizimungu for the army, and Col. Laurent
Rutayisire for the National Police and the heads of the militia agreed that the bands of killers would
end slaughter at the barriers and on the roads; they would instead take “suspects” to the appropriate
authorities to have their cases investigated and decided. The militia would continue to search out
“infiltrated RPF elements,” but would do so in a more orderly fashion than previously through “crisis
committees,” a name echoing that of the military committee established at Bagosora’s direction on
April 7. The authorities asked all who were armed “to rationalize the use of these weapons.” They also
directed militia to allow staff and vehicles of the ICRC to pass without hindrance. There had been
several incidents in which militia had taken wounded persons from their ambulances and executed
them. The international protest that greeted such incidents illustrated just the kind of censure that
Rwandan authorities wanted to avoid.336
The president of the Interahamwe, Robert Kajuga, went on the radio twice to instruct his men in the
new approach. Two days later, Kajuga and his vice president, George Rutaganda, delivered a signed
statement to the ICRC, expressing the laudable but vague desire to “see the massacres end as soon as
possible,” and, in any case, committing the militia to observing the new policy. 337 Prefect Renzaho
reinforced the orders to militia and others by a long radio message on April 27, condemning the
murder of innocent people and pillaging.338
On April 27 also, the interim prime minister declared that “violence, pillage, and other acts of cruelty
should stop.” He directed that barriers should be established by local authorities in conjunction with
military officers and that guards and members of patrols “should avoid committing acts of violence
against the innocent.” He clarified the new approach by stating that the population should continue
seeking out the enemy but should deliver him to the authorities, rather than dealing with him on the
spot. If necessary, the people could call the armed forces for help in doing so. To show that this was
not really a message to leave Tutsi in peace, he repeated the usual directive that the authorities,
civilian and military, should be ready to help the population “defend itself when it is attacked.” He
reminded prefects of the means at their disposal to implement the more discreet elimination of the
335
United Nations, The United Nations and Rwanda, p. 51.
336
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20:00 hrs, April 24, 1994; International Committee of the Red Cross, Communication to the
press No 94/16, 14 April 1994.
337
Human Rights Watch interviews, by telphone, Kigali, April 29, 1994; UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20:00 hrs, April 24,
1994; C. Ls., “Kigali s’est vidée des trois quarts de sa population,” Le Monde, April 28, 1994; Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’Avril
1994,” p. 102.
338
Otto Mayer, “Trois Mois d’Enfer au Jour le Jour,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September 1994, p. 25.
199
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Tutsi: they and their subordinates were to enforce rigorously the requirement that people traveling
between communes and between prefectures must have written authorisations from the appropriate
authorities.339
To show the population that the period of large-scale murder and pillage had ended, the interim prime
minister ordered the prefects to restore “normality” to daily life “as soon as security is restored in your
prefecture[s].” They were to make sure that offices were functioning, that markets were held, and that
factories were back on schedule. Farmers should return to their fields.340
As part of the “pacification,” the interim prime minister announced that the enemy was the RPF and
advised people to avoid ethnic, regional, or partisan divisions which would weaken resistance against
them.341 Even RTLM announcer Gaspard Gahigi adopted this position for a brief time, explaining in a
broadcast that “nobody should be killed because of his ethnic group” and that Tutsi, “even those with
an aquiline nose,” who love their country should not be attacked.342 This effort to depict the slaughter
as politically rather than ethnically motivated coincided with the change from large-scale massacres—
where a whole group was slaughtered on what could only be ethnic grounds—to more selective
executions of smaller groups and individuals, for whom there could be a pretense of establishing that
they were actually linked with the RPF.
“No More Cadavers...On the Road”
Prefects received the “pacification” message from the interim prime minister and passed it on to their
subordinates who called the population to meetings to hear about the new policy. At the same time
that administrators explained “pacification,” they announced the official establishment of barriers
and patrols as part of the “civilian self-defense” effort. Many of the barriers and patrols already
functioning had been set up by militia or local political leaders on their own initiative. Now
burgomasters ordered all men to participate in these “self-defense” measures, making government
authority rather than informal community pressure the force that assured participation. The radio
repeated the same message, ensuring that even those who had not come to the meetings would know
what they were expected to do. Measures which had been used to catch and kill Tutsi became part of
the program of “self-defense” and known killers were named to direct the “pacification” effort. In Taba
and adjacent communes, Silas Kubwimana, the honorary vice-president of the Interahamwe and
leader of the genocide in Taba, for example, was assigned responsibility for “pacification.”343
Given the double message of “pacification,” some militia felt free to continue killing. Georges
Rutaganda, vice-president of the Interahamwe, himself led an attack on the Cyahafi neighborhood of
Kigali just four days after the militia leaders called for an end to open violence.344 Militia continued to
kill at some barriers outside Kigali and they attacked the cathedral at Nyundo on May 1, where they
slaughtered 218 survivors of previous assaults. The same day they killed more than thirty orphans and
339
Yohani Kambanda, Ministiri w’Intebe, to Bwana Perefe, no. 007/02.3.9/94, April 27, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
340
Ibid.
341
Ibid.
342
Gaspard Gahigi on RTLM, Selections from RTLM, May 15-May 30, 1994 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda).
343
ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Akayesu, March 13, 1998.
344
ICTR, Testimony of witness AA, as reported in Ubutabera, no. 22 (1e partie), October 13, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
200
Rwandan Red Cross workers in Butare and several days later they attacked Marie Merci School at
Kibeho where they massacred some ninety students.345
RTLM announcers showed their understanding of “pacification” by declaring a general “clean-up” of
Tutsi left in Kigali. They asked listeners to finish killing all the Tutsi in the capital by May 5, the date
when Habyarimana’s funeral was supposed to take place.346
On May 3, soldiers of the paracommando battalion ignored a safe-conduct signed by Chief of Staff
Bizimungu and halted a convoy of Tutsi and others en route from the Hotel Mille Collines to the airport
for evacuation. UNAMIR peacekeepers escorting the convoy stood aside and permitted the
paracommandos to force the persons under their protection out of two of the four trucks. The soldiers
had begun beating the civilians when militia, apparently alerted by RTLM, arrived and joined in the
attack. One of the militia fired, attempting to kill Kigali prosecutor François-Xavier Nsanzuwera who
was among the evacuees, but instead he wounded a soldier. In the ensuing confusion, a lieutenant of
the paracommandos ordered people back into the trucks. Prefect Renzaho and Rutaganda then
intervened and directed the convoy to return to the Hotel Mille Collines.347
On May 9, the Interahamwe leaders reaffirmed the earlier directives to their members and declared
support for the “pacification” visits of authorities throughout the country. They repeated that the
neutrality of the Red Cross must be respected and added that the same kind of treatment should be
accorded to UNAMIR and other U.N. personnel. This may have been both a response to the May 3
attack on the convoy and also a warning concerning the expected visit of U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights José Ayala Lasso, which was scheduled for the next week.348
Rwandans directly in touch with international opinion may have felt more pressure to end the
slaughter—or at least to appear to have ended it—than others in the interim government. Bizimungu
and others responsible for fighting the RPF, for example, took seriously the threat of an arms embargo
and understood that continued killing of Tutsi might well result in such a measure. In addition to the
radio message of April 22 and his May 1 letter about stopping the massacres, Bizimungu reacted to
the killing of the orphans in Butare—and the international censure of the incident—by directing his
subordinates in that town “to do everything [necessary] to stop these barbarities.”349 After having
approved the evacuation of Tutsi and others from the Hotel Mille Collines, he reportedly intervened
twice more to protect the highly visible hostages whose safety was closely monitored by foreigners.
It was not just the fear of international censure but also the hope of concrete support that pushed
Rwandan authorities to change their way of killing. Ten days after the Rwandan apologists of genocide
were well received by French officials, the interim government sent Lt.-Col. Ephrem Rwabalinda to
French military cooperation headquarters in Paris with a list of the arms, ammunition, and equipment
345
Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’Avril 1994,” p. 102. For details on the Butare incident, see chapter 12.
346
Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, by telephone, April 29, 1994.
347
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, January 25 and May 4, 1997; Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’Avril
1994,” p. 102. Guichaoua, Les crises politiques, p. 708; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution
des FAR,” p. 98.
348
UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 19:00 hrs, May 9, 1994 and RTLM, 17h 30, May 9, 1994; Human Rights Watch/Africa, Press
Release, May 11, 1994.
349
Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” p. 98.
201
March 1999
most needed by the Rwandan army. Rwabalinda was told that French assistance would depend on
improving the Rwandan image abroad.350
The day Rwabalinda finished his four day mission, Kantano Habimana of RTLM began a series of
announcements calling for violence to end. On May 13, he berated those who kept on killing, saying
“the president of the Interahamwe, the prime minister, the president of the republic, everyone, each of
them says, ‘Please, the killings are finished, those who are dead are dead.’”351 Two days later, he
explained the need for controlling the killings. “Since we have begun to restrain ourselves, the
international community will certainly not fail to notice and will say, ‘Those Hutu are really disciplined,
we should understand them and help them, hum!’” Three days later, he was more explicit still,
announcing cheerfully that France had promised to begin aiding Rwanda again, “with considerable
aid, with promises to increase it. Only, for this good news to continue coming, they ask that there be
no more cadavers visible on the roads and also that no one kill another person while others stand
around and laugh, instead of delivering the person to the authorities.”352
“Pacification” as Deception
A remarkable series of minutes from meetings of the security committee in the commune of Bwakira,
in the hills of western Rwanda, show how quickly and efficiently the administration transmitted orders
from the center to the communes, how the concerns of the military influenced policy—or at least were
used to justify that policy—and how well the double meaning of “pacification” was disseminated at
local level.
On April 29, the burgomaster described the major issue of the day for the committee: all the
ammunition used against the RPF is imported; the governments that provided that ammunition “are
reluctant to arm us while we are killing one another”; and the interim government has expressed its
“wish for the war [ i.e., killing Tutsi] to end so that we can straighten out our relations with the
international community.” So, the burgomaster concluded, “People should obey government orders
and stop carrying their weapons around with them. This is serious business, not a joke.”353 The next
week, the burgomaster explained that the Belgian government wanted to impose an embargo on
Rwanda. To avoid this happening, he recommended that people go back to work, as the government
asked, and stop thinking that every Tutsi was Inkotanyi. At the meeting of May 20, the burgomaster
relayed the demands of the U.S., apparently those specified in Bizimungu’s May 1 conversation with
Bushnell. They were:
The Rwandan Government must end all killings before it will be recognized by the
international community. It must arrest and bring to trial all soldiers and youth [i.e.,
militia] who committed crimes. It must release all detainees [i.e., Tutsi still held
350
Lt. Col. BEM Ephrem Rwabalinda, “Rapport de Visite Fait Auprès de la Maison Militaire de Cooperation à Paris,” enclosed in
Lt. Col. BEM Ephrem Rwabalinda to Ministère de la Défense and Chef EM AR, undated. See chapter 16 for details.
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 201. It is unclear whether his mentioning the president of the Interahamwe before the
two leaders of the government reflected his own unconscious ranking or a deliberate choice meant to impress his listeners.
351
352
Ibid., pp. 316-17.
353
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 29/4/94.”
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
202
hostage in the Hotel Mille Collines and elsewhere] and let them seek refuge in
countries of their choice.354
At a meeting four days later, the burgomaster repeated the message and added,
You must enforce security. Some people imagine that what happens on their hills is
not known because they do not know that there are satellites in the sky which take
pictures. Killings must stop for good. The councilors must transmit these orders in
meetings with the population.355
Local authorities elsewhere delivered the same “pacification” messages, complete with cautions
about the likelihood of satellite surveillance, to the people in their jurisdictions.
The burgomaster of Bwakira followed up his announcements of “pacification” by drafting a model of a
reprimand for councilors to use in writing to persons who continued to assault others.
But, in Bwakira, as elsewhere in Rwanda, “pacification” was not what it seemed. On May 5,
immediately after telling people to stop killing, the burgomaster related that an RPF soldier had been
caught in sector Nyabiranga of the neighboring commune of Gitesi. He was searched and found to be
carrying an unidentified white power. When he was forced to eat it, he died immediately. This
supposed incident replicated the features of the scare tactics used since October 1990: a soldier is
purportedly found in the vicinity—near enough to be threatening but not so near as to permit easy
verification of the story—in possession of the means to kill people and apparently on a mission to do
so. The burgomaster in the next breath said that people must do patrols conscientiously at night to
catch such infiltrators.356
At the council meeting of May 24, one member dared to raise the difference between rhetoric and
reality. Remarking that most of the Tutsi had already been killed or driven from the commune, he
declared:
It is a shame that only people of the same ethnic group are left. Authorities do not
deal with problems consistently. Some say one thing, but act differently. It is not the
ordinary people who kill, but the authorities who fail to carry out the laws that they
know well.357
Others pointed out that violence continued because the authorities did nothing to enforce orders
against the killing. One citizen commented that at Shyembe, “people kill any Tutsi they see, despite
the fact that in the last meeting held there, people were elected to a security committee.” Another
person responded that the security committee must enforce the law. He remarked that the violence
against Tutsi in 1959 ended only after some people had been arrested and put in jail.358
354
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 20/5/94.”
355
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 24.5.94.”
356
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 5.5.94.”
357
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 24.5.94.”
358
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 24.5.94.”
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As directed by their superiors, administrators disseminated the message of “pacification” and called
on Tutsi to come out of hiding. In some communities, they used a sound-truck to deliver the news up
and down the streets of the town. Out on the hills, they beat a drum to attract attention to the message
that killings had ended. Those Hutu who were hiding Tutsi carried the word to them.
Some Tutsi understood the deception. Pastor Kumubuga who was in touch with the Tutsi hidden
around Bwakira told others at the committee meeting, “The people say that the advice to leave the
bushes will lead to their death....they say that it is a political game.”359 Tens of thousands understood
that and stayed hidden. But others, perhaps thousands of others, still had faith in the integrity of their
authorities. They came out and were slain. The policy of “pacification,” meant to tighten control over
the killing and to impress the foreigners, also in the end served the additional purpose of enticing
more Tutsi to their deaths.
“Justice” During the Genocide
The interim prime minister’s message of April 27 spoke about reopening courts that had been closed
and using the judicial system to punish killings and deter further violence. But by that time, “justice,”
like “security,” was meant only for the Hutu.
That had not been the case in the first days of the genocide when officials opposed to the slaughter
had actually tried to use the judicial system to protect Tutsi. They arrested assailants and pillagers and
began preparing cases against them. But as soon as the national leaders of genocide exerted their
influence in the communes, the burgomasters released the detainees. The liberation of persons who
had been seen burning and pillaging property and killing Tutsi signaled the community that the local
authority had decided to tolerate, if not to support, violence against Tutsi.
Few prosecutors heeded the interim prime minister’s call to resume work at the end of April. Where
they did and began investigating cases, the nature of the charges varied from murder to the theft of
mud-guards from a bicycle. The cases had a common element: the victim was Hutu.
No longer the beneficiary of official judicial protection, Tutsi became the accused in an unofficial
parody of justice. In communal offices, at barriers, or in bars, they were “tried” on charges of being the
“enemy.” Since the start of the genocide, some Tutsi had been brought to the burgomaster in a
continuation of the earlier practice of handing over any suspected criminal to the local authorities.
With the “pacification” campaign, the number delivered apparently increased, with Tutsi being
brought to the burgomaster, the councilor, a security committee, or to the head of a barrier or a patrol.
There they would be interrogated about the pretexts that supposedly proved their guilt, such as
possessing arms or lists of people to kill. If the accused were women, they might be distributed to
male militia members for sexual service instead of being killed.360
Spurious as the process was, it formed a logical sequel to the denunciations against individuals. By
carrying it through, the authorities added credibility to the whole deception and may have convinced
some doubters that the person charged had actually worked for the RPF. Most of those captured were
slain after perfunctory questioning. In some cases, the Tutsi were released, but just as condemnations
359
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 20/5/94.”
360
Human Rights Watch/FIDH, Shattered Lives, p. 59.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
204
usually had nothing to do with guilt having been established, so the reprieves rarely had to do with
innocence having been proved. They resulted rather from bribes, personal connections, or some
inexplicable stroke of good fortune.
Many killers treated the directive to take Tutsi to the authorities as just one more pretense. In mock
compliance, the killers in Gisenyi labeled the cemetery, a usual place of execution, “the commune.”
Elsewhere assailants announced that they were taking the Tutsi “to the burgomaster” when they led
them into a banana grove or off into the bush to be killed.361
Mid-May Slaughter: Women and Children as Victims
Through the last days of April, the RPF made dramatic advances. They took Byumba in the northeast
on April 21, Rwamagana in the east on April 27, and Rusumo in the southeast on April 29-30. In a
major blow to the Rwandan army, they swung west and in mid-May cut the main road linking Kigali to
Gitarama. At this time, authorities ordered a new wave of killings. Militia and military launched new
large-scale attacks on Tutsi at Bisesero and a raid was planned on the Hotel Mille Collines, although it
was never carried out. RTLM, too, returned to frankly genocidal calls for slaughter. Kantano Habimana
insisted:
Let 100,000 young men be rapidly recruited, so that they all rise up and then we will
kill the Inkotanyi, we will exterminate them all the more easily since...the proof that
we will exterminate them is that they are a single ethnic group. So look at a person
and see his height and how he looks, just look at his pretty little nose and then break
it.362
In many communities, women and children who had survived the first weeks of the genocide were
slain in mid-May.363 In the past Rwandans had not usually killed women in conflicts and at the
beginning of the genocide assailants often spared them. When militia had wanted to kill women
during an attack in Kigali in late April, for example, Renzaho had intervened to stop it.364 Killers in
Gikongoro told a woman that she was safe because “Sex has no ethnic group.”365 The number of
attacks against women, all at about the same time, indicates that a decision to kill women had been
made at the national level and was being implemented in local communities. Women who had been
living on their own as well as those who had been kept alive to serve the sexual demands of their
captors were slaughtered. In the note quoted above, the head of the barrier is directed to deliver “the
three girls of Gapfizi” early the next morning so that the measures which the security council has
decided can be carried out. This document, almost certainly the death warrant for the three young
women, dates to mid-May.366
361
Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” p. 63; Des prêtres du Diocèse de
Nyundo, “Des rescapés du diocèse,” p. 64.
362
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 193.
363
Human Rights Watch/FIDH, Shattered Lives, p. 41.
364
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p.645.
365
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
366
See chapter six.
205
March 1999
Some killers urged eliminating Tutsi women because, they said, they would produce only Tutsi
children, regardless of the ethnic group of their husbands. This argument, which reversed the usual
custom of assigning children to the group of their fathers, paved the way to demanding death also for
Tutsi wives of Hutu husbands. Many were killed at this time, some by their own husbands. In some
communities, however, local authorities worked to keep these women alive, particularly if their
husbands were men of some importance. Depriving a man of the productive and reproductive
capacities of his wife harmed his interests and a man injured in this way might demand punishment
for the murderers or some other form of satisfaction. Because these cases involved the interests of a
Hutu as much as the life of a Tutsi, a husband thus injured could expect support at least from his
immediate kin and friends. Burgomasters and communal security committees spent a substantial
amount of time trying to balance the interests of the husbands, generally acknowledged as valid,
against the demands for action by hard-liners within the community. Often the support of authorities
was not enough and husbands had to pay assailants to leave their wives unharmed; others fought,
sometimes successfully, to save their wives.
Infants and young children who had survived or been saved in the first weeks were also slain in midMay. Killers sought to justify their slaughter by repeating a phrase about Kagame or Rwigema, the RPF
commander who had led the 1990 invasion, having once been a baby too. This explanation, voiced
uniformly throughout the country, carried the idea of “self-defense” to its logically absurd and
genocidal end. Hutu who tried to buy the lives of children or save them in other ways had little success
and sometimes had to pay fines for having protected them.
“Opening a Breach to the Enemy”: Conflicts Among Hutu
In the later part of May and in June, administrators found ordinary people were deserting the barriers
and refusing to do the patrols. With the great majority of Tutsi dead, gone, or in hiding, people wanted
to return to that “normality” preached by the authorities themselves. In permitting or directing the
slaughter of the weak, the elderly, women, and infants, who posed no threat to anyone, authorities
discredited the justification that killing was an act of self-defense. Prefects pressed burgomasters who
pressed councilors who pressed the citizens to carry out their assigned duties, but with shrinking
success.
As the more stable and established citizens withdrew, the militia and young men from the “civilian
self-defense” program increasingly dominated the barriers and the patrols. They sometimes were
armed with guns or grenades and had received enough training in military skills to intimidate others.
With far fewer Tutsi to be caught, they spent more time harassing, robbing, and killing Hutu passersby.
The minister of interior asked that those at the barriers and on patrols “use better judgment and not
confuse the guilty with the innocent.”367 Several days later, the prefect of Kibuye reported to him that
young people at a barrier tried to help themselves to the beer and tobacco from passing trucks that
belonged to an important government official. The prefect had intervened to protect the goods, but, he
commented, the incident showed “that there are people who still do not understand the role of the
barriers.”368 Burgomasters and members of the councils of several communes expressed their anger at
367
Edouard Karemera, “Ijambo rya Ministri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini,” May 31, 1994 (Butare
prefecture).
368
Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Ministre MININTER KIGALI, no. 003/04.09.01, June 2,1994 (Kibuye prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
206
the abusive young men who controlled the roads and paths of their communities. One critic remarked
later, “It is a good thing that the RPF arrived when it did. The thugs were beginning to take over.”369
Political Struggles
With the genocide, the accepted criteria for success in the political and administrative domains had
been supplanted by new measures of worth: hostility to Tutsi and efficiency in getting them killed. This
led to struggles for power as people in each community nurtured new enmities and built new alliances
to deal with the changes in standards and leaders. People from one sector attacked those in the
adjacent sector and residents of one commune raided those of another.
The disputes sometimes involved cattle or land or revenge for previous killings, but questions of
political party loyalty often underlay the other considerations. Burgomasters, party leaders, and other
locally important persons generally had the services of armed guards, sometimes communal
policemen or, if they could be obtained, National Police or soldiers. They sent these guards to
intimidate or assault other officials or party leaders. A number of these cases resulted in deaths, such
as a conflict between authorities of Gishyita and Gisovu that ended with seven persons dead, two of
them National Policemen. In early June, the burgomaster of Rutsiro feared an attack by people from the
adjacent commune of Murunda because of “unexplained mortality among certain people of the MDR in
the region of Murunda.”370
National authorities intended “pacification” to limit conflict among Hutu, but some local authorities
used the policy as a pretext for harassing their political adversaries. Just as some burgomasters had
once charged opponents with refusing to participate in killings of Tutsi, so some now accused
adversaries of continuing such attacks.
Disputes Over Property
Many Hutu fought over the property left by Tutsi. At the start of the genocide, authorities froze Tutsi
bank accounts, presumably intending to appropriate these funds for the national government. In at
least one commune, that of Gisovu, the burgomaster supposedly got there first and embezzled
726,000 Rwandan francs (some U.S.$4,800) from “missing clients.” Minister of Information Eliézer
Niyitegeka, who was from the region, used this allegation and other charges to demand that the
burgomaster be replaced by a candidate he favored. To cap a number of allegations of corruption and
mismanagement, Niyitegeka added what he apparently supposed would be the ultimate charge, that
the burgomaster lacked enthusiasm for “civilian self-defense.”371 In Bwakira commune, thieves who
were caught trying to rob a bank protested that they were just separating money belonging to Tutsi
from money belonging to Hutu. 372
Most people fought not over money but over land, cattle, or crops. Some disputed the boundaries of
fields they had been allocated and others tried to harvest crops that had been assigned to someone
else. In Gisovu, the burgomaster and the councilor fought so bitterly over pillaged cattle that “the
369
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
370
Kayishema to Ministre MININTER, June 2, 1994.
371
Eliézer Niyitegeka to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no classification number, no date
[received July 8, 1994] (Kibuye prefecture).
372
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 5.5.94.”
207
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matter created an open hatred” between them.373 Communal councilors in Bwakira had to deal with
assailants who wanted the cattle of Tutsi eaten immediately—to the enjoyment of many—rather than
kept alive—for the profit of a few.374 Looters fought over the distribution of the goods taken from
development projects, schools, and hospitals as well as over Tutsi belongings.
Authorities directed burgomasters to deal with the disposition of Tutsi goods and land promptly to
avoid trouble. As early as mid-April in some places, burgomasters ordered their subordinates to
prepare inventories of the property of Tutsi who had been killed or driven away. One reason for the
lists of people killed, initiated also at this time, was to identify which households were completely
eliminated, meaning that their property was available for redistribution, and which had some
survivors, meaning the land would be available only after further killing. Rural burgomasters were most
preoccupied with distributing fields for cultivation; authorities in the towns like Butare also allocated
houses and even market stalls during the months of May and June.
Communal councils spent more time discussing property than any other issue except “security”
measures themselves. Most communities divided the property into three categories, so similar from
one commune to the next as to indicate they were determined at the national level. Pillaged goods
belonged to the one who took them, except for particularly valuable items that were supposed to go to
the authorities to be sold; land reverted to the commune, as was customary, for short-term rental or
permanent allocation; and crops already standing were to be protected and harvested by individuals
for their own benefit or by the authorities for the public good. In some cases, authorities directed that
grain of the dead Tutsi be brewed into beer to reward the militia or to be sold to help pay the costs of
war.375
In documents where recipients of vacated lands are identified, it appears that one or a small number
of persons sometimes benefited more than others in the community. In some cases, the rewards may
have corresponded to the extent of participation in the genocide. The prompt parceling out of the
victims’ land demonstrated the solid advantage to be gained by joining in attacks and no doubt
tempted some to kill who would not otherwise have been done so.
“Where Will It End?”
Soldiers and National Police, both those posted in a region and those who had returned home after
deserting the battlefront, exacerbated conflicts by pillaging and commiting exactions against the local
population. Administrators or politicians, emboldened by having soldiers or police as armed guards,
also committed abuses against people in their jursidictions.
The number of firearms and grenades available meant that conflicts often had serious consequences.
From the first days of the genocide, officials opposed to the killings had tried without success to
locate and, if possible, confiscate the weapons that had already been distributed in preparation for
the killing. Beginning in late April, those who approved the genocide also saw the need to control the
use of firearms. The minister of interior insisted that the “tools” which have been “put at the
373
Kayishema to Ministre MININTER, June 2, 1994.
374
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 20/5/94.”
375
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 5/5/94.”
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
208
disposition of people” were to be “used only for the purpose for which they have received them and
not for anything else.”376
In various communes, council members deplored the vandalism and banditry of armed young men. In
Bwakira, council member Dr. Kamanzi raised the issue of “young men who possess grenades and
guns while we do not have any. We do not even know where those guns came from. I wish they could
be taken away from them.”377 The burgomaster was ready to disarm some, but not all who had such
weapons. He declared:
Each person’s particular conduct must be taken into consideration, however, since
some of those people have good behavior and own grenades only to protect
themselves in case they are assaulted.378
In late May, the minister of the interior ordered burgomasters to prepare inventories of all the firearms
in their communes, suggesting that they might be confiscated and redistributed. The order occasioned
a flood of letters from persons who had firearms and wanted to obtain official authorisation for them,
as the law required. When authorities distributed thousands of firearms beginning in mid-May, many
competed to obtain a weapon.
As the scramble to obtain firearms demonstrated, many Hutu felt more rather than less afraid after the
majority of Tutsi—the supposed enemy—had been eliminated. The RPF was, of course, increasingly a
threat, but, in addition, Hutu feared other Hutu.
After some weeks of slaughter, people were beginning to understand that a system dedicated to the
destruction of Tutsi provided no security for Hutu either. One witness described the astonishment and
indignation of his Hutu neighbors when one of their number was seized by a soldier. “We defended
him, saying he is Hutu. You are supposed to be killing Tutsi, so why take him? If you start taking Hutu,
where will it end?”379
RPF Victory
In late May, the RPF took both the airport and the major military camp at Kanombe in Kigali and, on
May 27, the militia leaders and many of their followers fled although Rwandan army troops continued
to hold on to part of the capital. On May 29, they took Nyabisindu and on June 2, Kabgayi, only a few
miles from Gitarama. The Rwandan army counterattacked, backed by militia and “civilian selfdefense” forces, but the RPF routed them and rolled on to take Gitarama on June 13. Leaders of the
interim government fled west to Kibuye and then north to Gisenyi. There they created a new national
assembly in a last vain effort to establish legitimacy.
As the RPF advanced into each region, authorities managed to galvanize killers to hunt for the last
remaining Tutsi. They launched these final attacks in June and early July, on dates that varied
according to the moment of the RPF arrival nearby. In early June, assailants had surrounded at least
one of the three large camps of Tutsi at Kabgayi, but were overwhelmed by a rapid RPF advance before
376
Karemera, “Ijambo rya Ministri.”
377
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 20/5/94.”
378
Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo...kuwa 29/4/94.”
379
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 26, 1995.
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March 1999
they could carry out the planned attack. In late June, militia and military tried to complete the
annihilation at Bisesero, as is described above. Others poised to launch a major attack on the some
ten thousand Tutsi at Nyarushishi camp in Cyangugu failed to move because of the presence of
National Police under Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi.
In June Bemerki pushed killers to complete the elimination of Tutsi, “their total extermination, putting
them all to death, their total extinction.”380 On July 2 Kantano Habimana exultantly invited his listeners
to join him in a song of celebration.
Let’s rejoice, friends! The Inkotanyi have been exterminated! Let’s rejoice, friend. God
can never be unjust!...these criminals...these suicide commandos...without doubt
they will have been exterminated...Let us go on. Let us tighten our belts and
exterminate them...so that our children and our grandchildren and the children of our
grandchildren never again hear of what is called Inkotanyi.381
Two days later the RPF took Kigali and two weeks after that the authorities responsible for the
genocide fled Rwanda.
380
Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 338.
381
Ibid., pp. 205-06.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
210
Genocide at the Local Level: Gikongoro and Butare
Gikongoro
Some of the earliest attacks as well as some of the worst massacres of the genocide took place in
Gikongoro. MRND supporters launched the violence at three points and from there spread it into
adjacent areas, much as they expanded disorder outward from Kigali and its vicinity into the
prefecture of Gitarama. In some communes, like Musebeya, Kivu and Kinyamakara, administrators
opposed the genocide and initially drew strength from the people in their communes who refused to
kill. But as prefectural authorities failed to act against the violence and national authorities pressured
for more and faster slaughter, they lost power to local rivals who saw the killing campaign as an
opportunity to establish or reestablish their power. The dissenters judged continuing opposition futile
and dangerous and either withdrew into passivity or themselves took up the role of killers.
Background
The government created the prefecture of Gikongoro shortly after independence, largely to weaken the
Tutsi influence that continued strong around the former royal capital of Nyanza. It attached the
southern and western outskirts of the Nyanza region to a highlands area further west inhabited largely
by Hutu. Like Hutu of northern Rwanda, these “hill people” were sometimes called Bakiga and like
them, they resented Tutsi control that had been imposed during the colonial period.1 Thus cobbled
together, Gikongoro lacked the cohesiveness enjoyed by other prefectures as a result of geography or
history. It was also one of the least favored prefectures. Its only real town, also called Gikongoro, had a
population of fewer than 10,000 in 1994. It was not much more than a motley collection of shops,
offices, and a bank stretched out on either side of the one paved road that passed through the region.
Perched high on one hill overlooking the road was the recently built prefectural office. On another
more distant hill sat the newly established Catholic bishopric of Gikongoro. The town had no more
history or coherence than the prefecture it served.
Secondary schools were few and local people lacked the opportunity for higher studies needed to
obtain important government posts. With few people in power, Gikongoro had little chance to win the
foreign-supported projects that could have improved opportunities for its residents. The most
promising of the political leaders from Gikongoro, Emmanuel Gapyisi, had been assassinated in 1993
and a second, the minister and PSD head Frederic Nzamurambaho, was killed at the start of the
genocide.
As elsewhere in Rwanda, most people in Gikongoro eked out a living from the soil. The one bright spot
in the beautiful but bleak landscape of wind-swept hills were tea plantations where some farmers were
able to earn small amounts from this cash crop. But control of the local tea factories at Kitabi and at
Mata as well as of OCIR-Thé, the national tea marketing office that ran them, remained in the hands of
people from the favored regions of northwestern Rwanda, linked by loyalty and kinship to the
1
René Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi (New York: Praeger, 1970), p. 224.
211
March 1999
Habyarimana family.2 The stagnation brought on by the war aggravated the poverty of the region. In
addition, as multiple parties began to flourish, some people began refusing to pay their taxes as part
of the rejection of the MRND and authorities seen to be related to it. The income of the communes fell
off by some 20 percent in 1993 and communal authorities were obliged to lay off employees.3 Fighting
to counter the decline, the prefect encouraged communes to exploit to the fullest the few foreign-aided
projects in their areas, but even some of them were beginning to suffer cutbacks from foreign funders.
Several years of poor growing conditions cut food production. At the end of 1993, the prefect
estimated that 64 percent of the population faced food shortages and that 48 percent were in real
danger of famine during 1994.4
During the 1960s and again in 1973, Gikongoro was the scene of serious violence against Tutsi, but
there had been no major attacks on them right after the October 1990 attack by the RPF. Janvier Afrika,
who confessed to helping organize slaughter of Tutsi in northwestern Rwanda in 1991 and in Bugesera
in 1992, told the International Commisson investigating human rights abuse that Gikongoro was
supposed to be the next place for him to cause trouble. But after a falling out with others of the akazu,
he was imprisoned and never put the plans into effect.5 Following the death of Burundian President
Ndadaye and the arrival of thousands of refugees from Burundi in late 1993, Hutu in several parts of
Gikongoro attacked Tutsi. In the commune of Nshili, assailants burned the homes of Tutsi and drove
them across the prefectural border into Butare.6
From the start of the war, some local authorities depicted Gikongoro as virtually besieged by the RPF.
There was no real basis for such concern, but authorities feared that a dense stretch of rain forest that
covered the western 20 percent of the prefecture could serve as a natural route for RPF infiltration from
Burundi into the heart of Rwanda. Local people, however, seemed little touched by the war before
1994, except for those who became soldiers to escape the lack of opportunities in the region.7
Once multiple political parties were permitted, prefectural authorities—then all representatives of the
MRND—fought hard to hinder the growth of the new parties.8 They had little success, however, and
during 1992 and 1993, the MRND was losing support steadily, primarily to the MDR, but also to the
PSD and the PL.
Throughout 1993, prefectural and local authorities participated in the measures described above that
later facilitated the genocide: the efforts to locate former soldiers, to identify families of young people
2
Michel Bagaragaza, head of OCIR-Thé, was from Habyarimana’s home region. In March of 1992 the tea marketing office
delivered one million dollars worth of tea and mortgaged future crops as part of a six million dollar arms deal with the Egyptian
government. Human Rights Watch Arms Project, “Arming Rwanda,” pp. 18-19.
3
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, telegram to Monsieur le Sous-Préfet (tous), February 1, l993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
4
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Mininter, fax no. 244/04.09.01/4, December 13, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
5
Field notes, the International Commission on Human Rights Abuse in Rwanda, January 19, 1993.
6
Joachim Hategekimana, Sous-Préfet, to Préfet, Gikongoro, no. 114/04.17.02, February 8, 1993; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to
Commandant de Groupement Gendarmerie, Butare, no. 161//04.17.02, February 12, l993; Augustin Gashugi, Bourgmestre, to
Préfet, Gikongoro, no. 573/04.17.02, November 29, 1993; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Responsable du CLADHO,
no. 116/04.09.01, December 30, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
7
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 18, 1995; Kigali, July 16, 1995.
8
See the case of Nshili commune described in chapter one.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
212
said to have left the country, and to increase the arsenal of communal police.9 During the months
preceding the genocide, the commanders of the National Police in Gikongoro and in Butare posted
small detachments in several locations around the prefecture. One group had been sent to Musebeya
after some protests over non-payment of salary at a local development project in August 1993; they
had been kept there, although the dispute was long since settled. Another group had been dispatched
to Nshili following conflicts between MDR and MRND supporters, but once more that problem had
been resolved and yet the police were still there in April 1994. Another detachment was located at the
tea factory at Mata in commune Rwamiko and another under the orders of the sub-prefect at Munini.
According to one account, National Police were posted to the sub-prefecture of Kaduha for no
apparent reason several days before the plane was shot down.10
Despite the presence of National Police, attacks on persons and property increased in 1993, whether
from political or simply criminal motives, with such incidents as the burning of communal
reforestation projects, attacks by grenades, and the attempted assassination of a former burgomaster
and his wife.11 The number of firearms also increased in the region. In late 1993, the burgomaster of
Nshili reported that some persons in his commune had a stock of seventy grenades, one of which he
was able to buy for the equivalent of three dollars U.S.12 The burgomaster of Musebeya, who belonged
to the PSD, was attacked in his home as was the burgomaster of Kivu, who was a member of the MDR.
Aware that their enemies from the MRND and the CDR had access to firearms, they asked the prefect
for guns of their own. 13
Bypassing the Prefect
Hutu attacked Tutsi in several parts of Gikongoro beginning on April 7. The prefect, a MRND loyalist,
was one of the first officials to come out in support of the interim government on national radio but he
seems to have been less important in the early onset of violence and in its later expansion than some
of his subordinates, such as Damien Biniga, and some party leaders who were not part of the
administration at all, such as retired Lt. Col. Aloys Simba.
The prefect, Laurent Bucyibaruta, was originally from Gikongoro and had devoted himself to the
service of party and state through the decades when the two were identical. An administrator,
subsequently a deputy in the parliament, and then again an administrator, he came home to
Gikongoro in 1992 after several years as prefect of Kibungo in eastern Rwanda. A man who took his
responsibilities seriously, he had been openly loyal to the MRND until the new regulations of the
multiparty era required that administrative authorities treat all parties equally. He then dutifully
professed objectivity and rarely showed his preference publicly. His MDR opponents taxed him with
9
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to S/Préfet Munini, Bourgmestre Nyamagabe, telegram no. 94/004/04.06, January 20, 1994
(Gikongoro prefecture).
10
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, Musebeya, no. 28/04/17/02, April 1, 1994; Prosecutor Celse
Semigabo to Commander of Brigade, Groupement Gikongoro, No. D/776/D.11/A/PRORE, September 2, 1993 (Gikongoro
prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 317.
11
Celse Semigabo, Procureur de la République, to Monsieur le Commandant de la Brigade, Gikongoro no. D/776/D.11/A PRORE,
September 2, 1993; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le S/Préfet (tous), Monsieur le Procureur, Monsieur le
Bourgmestre de la Commune (tous), no. 227/04.17.02, November 18, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
12
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Bourgmestre, Nshili, No. 200/04.17.02, October 14, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
13
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Muhitira Juvénal, Bourgmestre, Kivu, no. 243/04.06, December 7, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
213
March 1999
favoritism from time to time. Occasionally a partisan phrase escaped him, such as when he indicated
that demonstrators of other parties should be prepared to take the consequences if MRND members
reacted negatively to their demonstrations.14 But to judge from his correspondence generally as well as
from evaluations by observers from other parties, he appears to have executed his duties responsibly,
frequently cautioning subordinates against being influenced by party loyalties. In a hotly contested
election in Musebeya commune in June 1993, for example, he gave the victory to the PSD candidate
over that of the MRND and defended his decision when challenged by superiors. That same month, he
directed the burgomaster of Rwamiko to look into the case of a man whose identity card had been
changed from “Umuhutu” to “Umututsi” over his protests. Bucyibaruta refused the above-mentioned
requests of the PSD and MDR burgomasters for their own guns and he also ordered all his
subordinates to divest themselves of any weapons that they might have appropriated from the
communal police. If they needed protection, he told them, they were to rely on the communal police as
guards; they must not keep police weapons in their own possession. When notified that the
burgomaster of Nshili had bought a grenade, he directed him to hand it over promptly to the National
Police because the communes had no right to have this kind of arms.15
Sub-Prefect Damien Biniga
One of Bucyibaruta’s immediate subordinates was the sub-prefect Damien Biniga, who was in charge
of communes in the southern part of Gikongoro, adjacent to the border with Burundi. Described by
others in the administration as “brutal” and “hard-core MRND,” Biniga had served as deputy in the
parliament and as a member of the prefectural committee of the MRND. Once a sub-prefect in
Ruhengeri, he maintained ties with military from that region. According to a witness who was himself
an official in Gikongoro at the time, Biniga came to the prefecture to organize the Interahamwe.
Supporters of the MDR clashed with Biniga and in September 1992 organized a demonstration against
him, hoping to get him removed. At one point, the people of Kivu commune—presumably adherents of
the MDR—were so angry at his favoring the MRND that they barred the road to prevent him from
passing through their commune.16
Biniga was active also at the national level of the MRND. Trading upon his status as party loyalist, he
bypassed the prefect to communicate with President Habyarimana himself or with other high-ranking
officials in Kigali.17 Bucyibaruta disapproved of his subordinate’s open favoritism of the MRND and
tried unsuccessfully to interrupt his direct links with Kigali.18
14
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, no. CN 132/04.17.02,
December 14, 1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
15
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Prefe, to Bwana Ministri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini, no. 647/04/09.01, July 8,
1993; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, Musebeya, no. 0961/04.09.01/9, October 21, 1993; Laurent
Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre, Rwamiko, no. 528/04.07, June 9, 1993; Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to
Bourgmestre, Nshili, No. 200/04.17.02, October 14, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
16
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 20, October 12, October 19, 1995; Sous-Préfet, Munini, to Préfet,
Gikongoro, telegram 130950 B, October 13, 1992; Sous-Préfet, Munini to Préfet, Gikongoro, telegram 130830 B, November 13,
1992; Sous-Préfet, Munini, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, telegram 201330B,
November 21, 1992 (Gikongoro prefecture).
17
Sous-Préfet Munini to Présidence de la République, telegram, 200900B, November 21, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
18
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Sous/Préfet, Munini, no. 452/04/01/01, May 10, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
214
Once the genocide began, Bucyibaruta supposedly encouraged Tutsi to assemble at the Murambi
technical school, site of one of the worst massacres in the prefecture, and he visited students at the
Kibeho school just before they were attacked and slaughtered.19 But Biniga seems to have been the
more dynamic figure, seen inciting to killings in many parts of the prefecture as well as in Butare.
Given Biniga's close links with Habyarimana's circle, they may have chosen to deal with him directly
rather than with the prefect.
Lieutenant Colonel Simba
One administrative official commented that throughout this period, “military figures were deciding
government strategies and actions” increasingly and that civilian administrators were losing power
proportionately.20 One of the soldiers who exercised this power in Gikongoro was retired Lieutenant
Colonel Simba. A native of Gifurwe sector of Musebeya commune, Gikongoro, Simba had followed the
military path to success. He was of the same generation as Habyarimana and had been one of the
small circle of officers who had helped install him as president in 1973. Retired from active duty,
Simba had made a second career in the MRND, serving as deputy in the parliament. Although based in
Kigali, he became president of the MRND for the prefecture of Gikongoro and occasionally returned
home to steer local activities. In January 1993, for example, he directed a rally against the Arusha
Accords in the town of Gikongoro just when MRND and CDR leaders were launching violence elsewhere
in the country to stall the peace process.21
Simba drew his power from his old military contacts and links with the president rather than from a
local base. He had apparently been away too long and had done too little for his home commune to be
considered a favorite son. So alienated was he from Musebeya that its burgomaster initially refused to
support his candidacy for parliament in 1988 and then did so only because of pressure from Kigali.
Because the burgomaster had opposed him, Simba had joined forces with some locally dissatisfied
MRND members, including teacher Jean-Chrysostome Ndizihiwe, to use kubohoza tactics to oust him.
After the burgomaster was forced to resign, a limited form of communal election was held to replace
him in June 1993. Simba arrived to use his influence—some say his money as well—to ensure that his
protégé Ndizihiwe was chosen. He was accompanied by Daniel Mbangura, minister of higher
education, also a member of MRND and at the time the only minister from Gikongoro. 22 Ndizihiwe was
narrowly defeated—one more sign of the general ebbing of MRND influence throughout the country—
and Simba was humiliated. When the results were announced, the youth wings of the parties that had
opposed Ndizihiwe, the Abakombozi of the PSD and the Inkuba of the MDR, joined together in singing
“Simba has failed.”23 As mentioned above, Prefect Bucyibaruta played a correct role in this contest,
apparently putting the requirements of administrative neutrality above any preference for the MRND.
Soon after Habyarimana’s death, Simba came home to Musebeya, in a Mercedes-Benz belonging to
the MRND, to spread the message that the enemy was the Tutsi. According to one resident of
19
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p.300.
20
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 20, 1995.
21
Préfet Gikongoro to Mininter, fax no. 006/04.09.01, January 20, 1993 (Gikongoro prefecture).
22
Apparently comfortable in such company, Mbangura would continue as minister of higher education in the interim
government until he was named counsellor to the interim president, Sindikubwabo.
23
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Mininter, fax no. 006/04.09.01, January 20, 1993; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali,
July 16, 1995.
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Musebeya, Simba went around “...dressed as a colonel, with his stars, his uniform, his escort, saying
‘The situation is dangerous. Even I have been recalled to military service to help hunt Tutsi.’”24 Simba
at first stayed with his sister in the sector Gifurwe, but the location was distant from the center of the
commune and had no easy means of communication. After a few days, he moved to a house belonging
to the Crête-Zaire-Nil (CZN) project, a foreign-funded development project that was closely linked to
the MRND and the akazu. There, at a place called Gatare, Simba found adequate quarters for his
guard, which grew from a modest six soldiers to an impressive eighteen. During his time in Musebeya,
he had access to a supply of fuel, which he sold to favored traders who needed the gasoline to carry
on commerce. His control over this scarce commodity gave him one more lever of power in the
community.25
While Biniga apparently became one of the most active civilian leaders of genocide in Gikongoro, he
remained in principle subordinate to the prefect. Simba, as a high-ranking military officer, had no such
restrictions. Not long after his arrival, he was “co-chairing” prefectural security council meetings with
Bucyibaruta.26 His control was later formalized by his appointment as “counsellor for civil defense.” 27
According to a number of well-placed witnesses, another military figure important in directing the
genocide was Captain Sebuhura, a National Police officer from northern Rwanda. He was nominally
subordinate to Major Christophe Bizimungu, commander of the Gikongoro post of the National Police,
who was from the southwestern province of Cyangugu. But Sebuhura seems to have eclipsed his
superior much as Biniga did Bucyibaruta. Because there was no army post in Gikongoro, the National
Police were the only important force in the prefecture, essential to either spread or suppress the
genocide. One witness then part of the civilian administration reported that at first “Major Bizimungu
was not officially replaced, but he had no voice....[I]t was his assistant Sebuhura who had the real
power. It was he who organized things, sending teams of National Police right and left.” 28 As
Bizimungu attempted to control his subordinate, the hostility between the two officers extended into
the ranks and the National Policemen in the Gikongoro camp lined up behind one of the two, ready to
fight each other in late April or early May. The general staff sent an officer to calm the situation and
finally resolved the conflict definitively by removing Bizimungu. His replacement, Captain Gerace
Harelimana, shared Sebuhura’s views and worked well with him.29
First Attacks
The attacks in Gikongoro began at three different centers on April 7 and April 8. Two operations were
launched in the south, one in Rwamiko commune, an area under Biniga’s direct supervision, the other
in neighboring Mudasomwa commune. In both communes, tea factories dominated local economic
and political life. The directors of the factories were from the north, a man named Denis Kamodoka at
the Kitabi factory in Mudasomwa and another named Ndabarinzi at Mata in Rwamiko. Their
24
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, July 16, l995 and Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
25
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
26
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996 and Butare, July 19, 1996.
27
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre (tous), no. 183/04.09.01/1, May 18, 1994 (Gikongoro prefecture).
28
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996.
29
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, June 21, 1997; by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
216
employees, many of them supporters of the MRND or the CDR, led the first attacks with the help of
local administrators.30
Just as assailants were burning the first houses in Mudasomwa and Rwamiko on April 7, other
attackers were preparing to kill Tutsi in Muko, a commune tucked away in the mountainous
northwestern corner of Gikongoro. Muko was remote from the prefectural center, but in the early days
of the genocide, the telephone still functioned and connected communal authorities with others
elsewhere in the region and even in Kigali. Muko was also far from Biniga’s area of administrative
responsibility, but it was his commune of origin and, according to several witnesses, Biniga
maintained close ties with the Muko burgomaster, Albert Kayihura, who had been in power there for
years. As one witness from the area stated, “Biniga came often to monitor developments in Muko.”31
At about 4 p.m. on April 7, Abbé Kumunyange, priest at the parish of Mushubi went the short distance
from his church to the commercial center of Muko to check on the atmosphere there. In passing by the
communal office, he found Burgomaster Kayihura meeting with the brigadier, head of the communal
police, and with the chauffeur for the commune. At the center, all was quiet.
When he returned to the parish, he found a small group of Tutsi had arrived to seek shelter: Michel
Gacenderi, the accountant for the commune, his wife and five children; Jean-Baptiste Kaberuka, the
head of the health center, and his family; and Emmanuel Bayingana, the clerk of the local court, and
his family. Because these men had had problems before with the burgomaster, they feared attack. Two
hours later, Burgomaster Kayihura arrived and tried to persuade them to return to their homes. But
when the abbé insisted that they be allowed to stay, Kayihura agreed and sent two communal police
to guard the parish, as the priest requested.
At about 10 p.m. a crowd of some one hundred people attacked and pillaged the home of the assistant
burgomaster, a Hutu, on the pretext that his wife was Tutsi. They continued up the hill to the parish,
yelling and screaming. The brigadier of the communal police, armed with a rifle, led the way along with
the communal chauffeur, Mucakari, and his brother. The cook of the parish, Manasé, joined them as
well. Among the assailants were several boys, aged between twelve and fifteen. The attackers forced
their way into the parish house, a single-story building constructed around a garden. They broke down
the door to the priest’s room with a large stone. They beat him, looted his room, and then went on to
the others. A witness recalls, “Then they broke the door to the other rooms. I heard blows. There were
no cries.”32 The assailants killed Gacenderi, Bayingana, and Kaberuka and the wives of the first two.
The wife of Kaberuka bought her life for about U.S.$800, but was later killed at the home of her
husband’s family. Assailants struck Leo, one of the small children, with a machete. He died from the
wound the next morning. The other children were not harmed. The attackers also pillaged the large
stock of food stored at the parish for distribution to the poor. They used the vehicle of the commune to
carry off the goods and they finally left the parish at 4:30 a.m.33
30
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, June 4, 1996.
31
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, June 4, 1996.
32
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, May 23, 1995.
33
Ibid.
217
March 1999
The next morning, when the abbé called the prefect for help, Bucyibaruta ordered the burgomaster not
to harm the priest. The burgomaster locked the priest into an annex to his house and then sent him to
the town of Gikongoro the day after.
Moving the Violence Outward
Within a day or two, local leaders elsewhere in Gikongoro launched attacks on their own, following the
nearby model, and assailants from the original centers carried the attacks over into areas which had
previously been quiet. In Musebeya, for example, the first attacks came from Muko, the commune to
the north, and a few days later, also from Mudasomwa to the south. Assailants from Rwamiko raided
into neighboring Mubuga and Kivu, while those from Karambo carried the violence into Musange.
Attackers crossed prefectural lines as well, with some from Mwendo in Kibuye attacking into the
northern part of Gikongoro and others from Gikongoro exporting the violence to Butare. 34
National Police, former soldiers, and communal police played an essential role in extending the
violence, foreshadowing the even more important part they would play in later large-scale massacres.
Assailants who burned and pillaged Tutsi houses in Kivu commune declared that they had been
authorized to do so by a passing National Police patrol, apparently including guards of Sub-Prefect
Biniga.35 In Kinyamakara, two National Policemen, who described themselves as responsible for
security, went through the area telling people along the road to attack the 2,000 Tutsi of the
commune. They did it discreetly, speaking to small clusters of people here and there, rather than
gathering a public meeting. They told Hutu that if they failed to burn the houses of Tutsi, the police
would be back to burn all the houses in the region since, as strangers, they would have no way to
distinguish the homes of Hutu from the homes of Tutsi.36 When attackers could not defeat the
population—Hutu and Tutsi—of a hill in Karambo commune who were defending a Tutsi woman from
attack, they retreated only to come back the next day with National Police to back their assault.37
In these first days of burning, pillaging, and killing, there was some confusion about who was being
targeted. Because it was known almost immediately that government leaders who were Hutu and
members of the MDR, PSD, and PL had been slain in Kigali, people elsewhere at first believed that
local supporters of these parties were to be attacked also. In Musebeya, for example, Hutu supporters
of the PSD or the MDR, particularly those who were thought to be rich, were harassed and threatened
by backers of the MRND and CDR. Reacting to the intimidation as if it were a continuation of kubohoza
tactics, several wealthy traders moved to protect themselves by resigning from the PSD or MDR and
buying off their attackers with money for beer. One Hutu known to oppose the MRND and CDR felt so
intimidated that he fled to the Bushigishigi health center for protection. 38 In many places Hutu fled
together with Tutsi or joined with them in fighting off the attackers who began burning houses on April
11.39
34
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 1 and June 8, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995.
35
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
36
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
37
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
38
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 23, 1995.
39
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 1 and June 8, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
218
The Radio Targets Tutsi
After the first two or three days of violence, attackers in Gikongoro followed national directives and
targeted only Tutsi. Hutu who had sought safety elsewhere were reassured enough to return home. At
the church of Muganza, for example, the Hutu who had taken refuge together with Tutsi on April 11 left
the following day.40 The focus on eliminating Tutsi resulted from the new solidarity among Hutu and
sealed that solidarity. When Biniga learned of the death of Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana, he
supposedly bought drinks for everyone in a bar to celebrate the end of hostility between the MRND
and the MDR. He reportedly said, “Everything is equalized,” meaning that now both parties had lost
their leaders and on the basis of their mutual loss could join together in defeating the Tutsi enemy.41
Witnesses remember that it was the radio that disseminated the message. As one commented:
We found out from RTLM that it was the inkotanyi that were supposed to be killed.
This was on April 9, the day they named a new government in Kigali. The government
called for calm and stated there was one common enemy—the inkotanyi-inyenzi.42
Another witness declared, “After April 10, the orders to kill were coming from above, and the radio was
transmitting them.” He added that the radio station itself went beyond the official pronouncements in
“...pushing people to see this as ethnic.” He continued, “People were listening to RTLM which was
telling them, ‘You people, ordinary people, the Tutsi killed your president. Save yourselves. Kill them
before they kill you too.’”43 On April 17, the telephone link with other parts of Rwanda was broken and
the people of Gikongoro depended even more on the radio for information. At most barriers, there was
a radio where the guards stayed tuned to RTLM during their long hours of keeping watch. And when
patrols went out to kill, they went off singing the songs heard on RTLM, such as those of the popular
Simon Bikindi.44
The importance of RTLM was underscored by a group of men from Nyarwungo sector, Musebeya, who
stated that from the time of the plane crash, they started listening to the radio. Those who had no
radios visited neighbors who had them so that they could know what might be coming next. The
genocide, they said, was a concept they understood from the radio, not having known before what it
meant.45
Musebeya
As at the national level, so at the local level, relatively few authorities were committed to a killing
campaign at the start. One dissenter was Higiro, the burgomaster of Musebeya. This mountainous
commune, remote from the prefectural center and bordered on the west by the Nyungwe forest was
home to just under 40,000 people in April 1994, only 300 to 400 of them Tutsi. Only one percent of the
population, the Tutsi were so few and so well-integrated with Hutu through marriage, friendship, and
clientage arrangements—some of them spanning up to five generations—that Musebeya looked
40
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
41
Ibid.
42
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 23, 1995.
43
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, July 16, 1995; Musebeya, June 7 and August 28, 1995.
44
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 7, 1995; Kigali, July 16, 1995.
45
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
219
March 1999
unlikely to be a center of virulent anti-Tutsi sentiment. In addition, Higiro was a member of the PSD
and hence seen as sympathetic to the RPF and probably to Tutsi in general.
Higiro had defeated Simba’s candidate, Ndizihiwe, to become burgomaster less than a year before
and was engaged in an ongoing struggle for power with this MRND leader. He had supported several
teachers in their efforts to oust Ndizihiwe as director of their school. Ndizihiwe was then implicated in
a grenade attack which killed one of these teachers. He had been removed from the directorship of the
school and was facing judicial charges when the genocide began.When teachers at the school were
asked to elect a new director, Higiro played a role in defeating Ndizihiwe’s candidate, providing yet
one more reason for enmity between the two men. Higiro’s house was attacked in January 1993 and,
believing that Ndizihwe was armed, the burgomaster sought unsuccessfully to obtain a gun for his
own protection.46
The PSD and hence Higiro had local support partly because the minister of agriculture, who was a PSD
leader, had taken the side of local people in a dispute over the use of land by the CZN project.
Supposedly intended to increase agricultural production for local residents, the foreign-funded project
had been turned to other ends by powerful actors, including high-ranking soldiers linked to
Habyarimana. In a region where fertile land was scarce, CZN had been allowed to displace cultivators
from plots they had farmed and improved for years. In addition, the project had transformed lightly
wooded areas on the edge of the forest into pasturage for the cattle of the wealthy rather than into
arable plots for the hungry. Foreign funding for CZN was suspended during 1993. In August, CZN
workers went on strike. At this point a detachment of National Police were sent to Gatare, where they
still were in April 1994. The director of the CZN in Musebeya was Celestin Mutabaruka, who was
president of the Union social des démocrates chrétiens (UNISODEC) political party.47
It was because conflict between the MRND and the PSD in Musebeya was still so bitter that some Hutu
also feared attack and fled on April 7 while others renounced the PSD or MDR for a safer haven within
the MRND in the days just after the violence began.
The Burgomaster Opposes the Genocide
When Higiro learned of Habyarimana’s death on the morning of April 7, his first reaction was to seek
direction and help from above. He began calling his party leaders and other important people in Kigali.
No one answered. Those party leaders and other powerful people who might have provided guidance
and helped organize opposition to the genocide were all dead or in flight. Higiro recalls, “I was lost.” 48
When several important members deserted the local PSD for the MRND, Higiro saw his support from
below shrink as well.49 Increasingly isolated, he could rely on an important source of help in trying to
keep order: Major Cyriaque Habyarabatuma, a native of Musebeya, who was commander of the
National Police of Butare prefecture. Based in the town of Butare, an hour and a half away by road,
Habyarabatuma came home to Musebeya right after the plane crash to insist that anyone who killed
46
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
47
Mutabaruka was also a fervent member of the Pentecostal church. According to several observers in the commune, he denied
benefits of participation in the project to anyone who was unwilling to join his party and his church. This is disputed by Mr.
Mutabaruka.
48
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
49
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 23, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
220
others would himself be killed. In the first few days, Higiro used this threat to intimidate potential
assailants. The burgomaster also had support from the four communal police, who were commanded
by a brigadier who was himself Tutsi.50
Beginning on April 8 and 9, assailants crossed into Musebeya from Muko to attack Tutsi in Nyarwungo
and Rugano, the two sectors closest to Muko and the two with the highest concentration of Tutsi
population. The Musebeya people, Tutsi and Hutu, resisted the attacks. Beginning on April 8, the
burgomaster went around the commune, trying to persuade people to stay at home as the government
had requested over the radio.51 He also called together the councilors to get information on what was
happpening in the various sectors. Later in the day, he closed down the usual Friday market because
he feared the crowd might get out of hand. On April 9 he held a meeting in the sector Nyarwungo, to
urge people to continue resisting attacks from Muko.52 In testimony about the period, one survivor
who had been hidden by a Hutu family commented spontaneously about Higiro:
There was the burgomaster whose name was Higiro Viateur. When people were killing
others, he prevented them from killing, saying: “don’t kill.” He held meetings in the
sectors to prevent attacks. I know this because the people who were hiding me told
me so.53
Meanwhile active supporters of the MRND challenged Higiro’s authority and his message. A group of
“intellectuals”—that is, people with higher education and salaried employment—who gathered
frequently at a bar owned by a teacher named Etienne Mugema urged others to take revenge against
the “accomplices” who were responsible for Habyarimana’s death. These troublemakers, reportedly
led by Ndizihiwe, turned Higiro’s request for people to stay at home against him, saying that he
wanted to keep people in their houses so that the Inkotanyi could come and kill them there. Ndizihiwe
denies this charge, saying that he stayed at home during these days, a contention supported by his
wife.54
During the weekend of April 9 and 10, as RTLM pushed people to see the Tutsi as the prime enemy, the
raiders from both the north and the south attacked Musebeya and convinced a few residents of the
commune to cooperate with them, first by pointing out the homes of Tutsi, then by joining in the
attacks.55 By Monday morning April 11, some thirty Tutsi families had been attacked. Seeing a steady
increase in the extent and intensity of the attacks, Higiro called for help from the prefect, Bucyibaruta,
who sent four National Policemen from the detachment in Gikongoro town.
Higiro put the police to use almost immediately. A Hutu who was protecting Tutsi was attacked and he
sent a child to get help from the burgomaster. Higiro went to the place immediately with three of the
National Policemen who dispersed the large crowd simply by firing in the air. As the threatened Hutu
recalls:
50
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 23, 1995; Musebeya, May 5, 1995 and January 26, 1996.
51
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
52
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, May 5,1995 and June 7, 1995; Butare, June 14, 1995.
53
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
54
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, July 16, 1995; Musebeya, June 23 and August 28, 1995; Butare, May 17 and June
14, 1995.
55
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 1 and June 8, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995.
221
March 1999
Before the burgomaster and the police left, they spread the word that we should
bring everyone who was in hiding to them. “I’ll protect them at the commune,” the
burgomaster said. So I looked for those who had hidden in the[fields of] sorghum
and in the bush. I brought them to my house. Then, at night, I took them to the
commune. We arrived there very early in the morning. Even though this was
dangerous, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it for my friends, my neighbors. I didn’t
want them to have problems.56
These Tutsi stayed a day or two at the commune, fed by Hutu neighbors and friends and guarded by
the communal and National Police. Then they decided to leave for Butare where several of them had a
relative, a brother of the Marist congregation. After a telephone conversation with the brother, they
asked Higiro’s help in leaving. He arranged for the health center ambulance to transport as many as
possible of the group and he also took care to get the needed fuel. He sent them off with an assistant
burgomaster and two National Policemen whom he paid for the service. When the group arrived in the
town of Gikongoro, half an hour away from the final destination of Butare, the authorities there refused
to allow them to go any further. The Tutsi were taken to the bishopric in Gikongoro town. Soon after
they were transported to a still unfinished government technical school set high on a hill at a place
called Murambi just northwest of town. There all except one of the Musebeya people were slaughtered
with thousands of other Tutsi. The survivor, an eight-year-old child, lay hidden under the body of his
father. The child was found by local people, who took him in and cared for him for two years. In 1996,
he was reunited with an uncle, one of the few surviving adults in the family.57
Simba Takes the Lead
Once Simba arrived, he took charge of the genocide in Musebeya as well as in the wider area.58 Relying
on his obvious wealth and power, his association with the slain president, his status as colonel, his
position as head of the MRND in Gikongoro, Simba effectively countermanded Higiro’s directives
about keeping order. He congratulated assailants, pushing them to do more. In the company of his
local supporters, Simba supposedly did the rounds of the bars “buying beer for people, saying
‘Organize—you!’ and then going on to the next center to do the same.” Everywhere Simba went, he
incited Hutu to “work” and he reportedly distributed money to young men in payment for their
assaults on Tutsi. When people objected that the burgomaster had told them not to do such things,
Simba supposedly replied, “Whom do you trust? Now the situation is different from what it was.” 59
Indeed it was very different from nine months before when Higiro had been able to defeat Simba’s
candidate for the post of burgomaster. Now the genocide had begun, proclaimed by national leaders
56
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 8, 1995.
57
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews Kigali, May 18, 1995, June 4, 1996. At the time of the 1996 commemoration ceremonies
for the genocide, victims from mass graves at Murambi were exhumed and laid out in the classrooms before being reburied.
Daniele Lacourse, a Canadian film producer, visited the school, where sixty-six classrooms were filled with between forty and
sixty bodies each, totalling between some 2,600 and 4,000 victims exhumed. Current Rwandan government sources speak of
50,000 slain at Murambi, a toll difficult to reconcile with the number of bodies exhumed, even assuming that there are graves
yet to be opened and that not all victims were buried.
58
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
59
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, May 5, 1995. For Simba’s similar efforts at Byimana in Gitarama, before he
came to Gikongoro, see chapter seven.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
222
via the radio. As the local leader of that campaign, Simba had grown stronger and Higiro, deprived of
protection from above and unsure of support from below, was weakened.
With Simba’s leadership, new recruits joined the original small group of organizers, including former
soldiers, staff of the CZN and other assistance projects, teachers, councilors, and local party leaders,
including some from MDR-Power as well as MRND and parties related to it. Simba’s son and a soldier
who was a nephew of Ndizihiwe reportedly helped their relatives lead the campaign.60 In the first days,
those advocating attacks on the Tutsi had worked furtively at night, but as they grew in number, they
became bolder.61
Before April 6, the MRND, the MDR and the PSD had youth wings—some even used the same names as
the names used for the militia elsewhere in Rwanda—but they served primarily as singers and dancers
for party propaganda sessions. Witnesses agree that they had not been armed or trained to kill, a
conclusion that seems reasonable given the continuing conflict between the burgomaster and his
MRND rival. It would have been difficult for the MRND or the CDR to have given military training to
young people without having attracted the attention of Higiro, who would have had every reason to
publicize and oppose such preparations.
In the absence of militia ready to strike, leaders at first gathered assailants informally, often recruiting
them from bars in the evenings. After attackers returned from early raids gloating over the goods they
had pillaged, others decided to participate as well. As one witness remarked, “They said to
themselves, ‘I am poor and young. My friends have gone out and brought back things and here I am
with nothing. I’ll go too.’”62 Older people who wanted to recapture the glory and profit of the 1959
revolution remembered having killed and pillaged then without punishment and decided to do it
again. MDR-Power leader Samuel Rutasi was reportedly involved in killings in 1963 as well as in 1994.
One witness whose families suffered from both these attacks found it understandable that Rutasi
would attack again since he had not been punished the first time. He commented, “This is an example
of what happens when there is no justice.”63
Sometimes the attackers donned banana leaves, particularly if they were going to raid outside the
commune, where they might not be immediately recognized as part of the strike force. Those led by
traders or other well-to-do leaders were transported out to the site of the attack and back in vehicles.
The others set off on foot, following a leader who usually had a whistle which he blew to attract other
participants as the group went along. The chief organizer was entitled to certain benefits, such as
possession of any cattle taken in the raid. As the attackers followed the path, they would often sing,
both to build up courage and to draw others into joining them. The groups agreed more or less upon
“territories” to attack so that they avoided conflict with each other.64
60
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, May 5, 1995, August 28, 1995; Kigali, June 4, 1996.
61
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, June 14, 1995; Kigali, May 16 and May 18, 1995.
62
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
63
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, May 18, 1995.
64
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
223
March 1999
While greed motivated some, fear induced many others to attack or to refuse help to Tutsi. People
were afraid of the RPF who, the radio said, were killing Hutu with great cruelty.65 But many Hutu were
more immediately afraid of fellow Hutu, including local authorities and political leaders.
At the start, some Hutu opened their homes to Tutsi; but as the violence grew, more and more simply
closed the door. A group of women from Nyarwungo sector recalled the genocide as a time when
“Everyone was for himself.” They explained:
Life was paralyzed. Children didn’t go to school. Cultivators didn’t go to the fields.
The churches and markets stopped. All due to fear....We asked ourselves if night
would come to be followed by a day that we would wake to see....We knew it was the
time to hide, just hide and not look so they wouldn’t kill you. 66
A witness from another sector spoke in the same vein: “People wanted to stay at home so as not to
see anything awful. But, of course, you heard things anyway.”67
Another resident traced the role of fear in transforming Musebeya from a place where Tutsi were
protected to a place where most Tutsi were slain.
On the first day, those who went out were people from the MRND, the CDR, and former soldiers. But on
the following days, others joined...those who refused to participate were called “accomplices”
(ibyitso) and the others threatened them:
“Come with us and join us or we will kill you.” Pushed to go out with their neighbors,
they were pushed again once they were out with them. For example, the group would
capture someone and then say, “Now kill her to show that you are really with us!”68
The Barriers
With the burgomaster opposed to executing the genocide, local leaders of the CDR and MDR-Power put
up the first barriers, followed soon after by the appearance of a total of three roadblocks in the vicinity
of the project headquarters at Gatare. Those who maintained the barriers counted on robbing their
victims, but they also enjoyed regular support from the patrons who had established the roadblocks.
Government employees “financed”—that is, supplied the beer for—the guards at the barrier at Gatovu,
an important intersection with the road that went to Kaduha.69
After national authorities insisted that everyone must participate in the work of barriers and patrols as
part of the “self-defense” effort, the burgomaster and councilors also put up barriers and ensured that
they were carefully guarded particularly towards the end of April, when the flow of displaced persons
from the east increased.70 Ordinarily at least one former soldier was posted at each of the most
65
Chrétien, et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 162, 178, 189.
66
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
67
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
68
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1995.
69
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995.
70
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995; interview, Butare, June 14, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
224
important barriers, those at Gasenyi, at Gatovu, at Kwitaba, and at the CZN project.71 In describing how
the officially-sanctioned barriers functioned, one resident of Musebeya stated:
All men worked at the barriers. This was required. It was organized by the councilor of
the sector who compiled a list of those who would work. He would go to the families
and write down the name of the head of the family and all those boys over eight years
old. The councilors and the cell leaders verified who went and who did not....The cell
leader did much of the listing of who lived in his cell. It was not random choosing.
There was hierarchy and politics involved in the choice of who would work....Also the
councilor and the cell leader had to find the place to put up the barrier. Then they had
to find the people...and inform them which day they had to go to work.72
She then went on to make a distinction between guarding a barrier and actually taking lives: “Going to
work at the barrier was obligatory. But killing was by choice. Authorities required people to work at the
barrier, but not to kill.”73 Those barriers where guards were disposed to kill easily were known and
identified by witnesses as more dangerous than others. A witness recounted that the one at Gatovu
was particularly difficult to pass and that a number of people fleeing from killings at Kaduha and
Mushubi, some of them already wounded, were slain by machete there. “At the barrier, you showed
your identity card and they killed you if you were Tutsi.” Another witness stated that a Hutu relative of
his was killed at a barrier because his identity card included the notation “I.” which was taken by the
guards to stand for Inkotanyi and the person was killed.74
“We Must Exterminate Them All!”
Many survivors have testified about the dogged tracking of Tutsi throughout the genocide. A woman of
Musebeya related the narrative of her weeks of hiding as if in a trance, the twisting of her long hands
and the goose-flesh on her arms the only visible signs of emotion. First attacked on April 9, she was
not safe until early July when French troops arrived in Musebeya.
The witness had been born in Karambo commune. A widow with three daughters, she had married a
widower with four sons who lived in Musebeya. The family lived in the sector of Rugano, near the
border of Karambo on the east and Muko on the north. She learned of the killings in Mushubi parish,
Muko, on April 7 and, she says, “The next day, Friday the 8th, I stayed at home. I was waiting to be
killed.” The attackers reached her home the morning after, April 9, at 10 a.m. As the family ran away,
the attackers pillaged everything in the house. Her husband fled with his sons toward Kaduha parish
but he was killed on the way “because he ran more slowly than the boys.” She fled to a neighbor but
was found the next morning. The attackers permitted her to return home because she was a woman
and had only daughters with her. Three hours later they came again, demanding money. When she
said she had none, they said they would kill her, but they left her under the guard of one of their group
while they went after other Tutsi. The guard permitted her and her daughters to escape. She declared:
71
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
72
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
73
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.
74
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 7, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995.
225
March 1999
I fled, following a small river. The attackers saw us and said, “Ah! Catch that little
animal who is fleeing!” As we ran, I knew that we were being pursued. We went
toward the bush. I saw a man and asked him, “Are they nearby?” He told me, “They
are looking for you in the banana grove. Other people say you have passed there.”
This man who helped me was named Faustin.75
I crossed into Karambo commune where I spent the night at Faustin’s house and hid
there the next day, all day. Faustin had a brother in the National Police, who is now in
Zaire. The leader of the attack told Faustin’s brother, “We must find the Inkotanyi who
have gone back to their home communes.” Faustin hid us, telling his brother that
there was nobody there.
On Monday, April 11, a group of about forty people from Musebeya attacked the hill
where I was hiding in Karambo. The whole hill from Karambo went to resist the attack
at the Rurongora River. The Karambo people asked those coming from Musebeya,
“What are you looking for?” The Musebeya people replied, “We are looking for this
woman.” The Karambo people asked, “Why are you seeking her, did she do
something bad?” The Musebeya people said, “Because we killed the others and to
complete our work, we must kill her too.” Then they began to fight, with the Karambo
people saying, “You’ll take her after you die in this attack!”
The Musebeya attackers fought for some time and then said, “You are strong. We will
go and get the National Police and come back with them tomorrow!” Among the
National Policemen was Faustin’s brother. Faustin told us, “I’ve got to move you away
from here to save you.” He brought us to a small forest. We rested there, hiding. We
saw people passing through, coming from pillaging....I told the children, “Do not
scream!” They stayed quiet. Later Faustin brought food for the children to the forest.
He had to return home fast because he did not want anyone to notice.
While we were hiding in the forest, we saw old women who could not flee together
with their grandchildren. They were being killed on the Musebeya side of the river.
The old women were wearing pagnes [lengths of cloth] and the attackers took them
off and killed them all with machetes. I left the forest and went on to sector Rusekera
[back in Musebeya.] When I got there, I met some friendly families who took one of
my children, and another family took another, and I was left with only the youngest
child. I left my children with these families in order to hide. But still attackers were
coming to look for us.
Most people in this sector did not participate in the genocide. In fact, when the
attackers came, the people chased them away. This occurred every day I was there
and I stayed there for some time. The family that hid us sometimes told us that we
could go out and stretch ourselves and get some exercise. When I went out
occasionally, I could see what was happening on the nearby hills because this was
during the day. I could see—and they told me—that attackers were still searching on
75
“Faustin” is a pseudonym.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
226
the nearby hills. People came to the house to give the news that even Tutsi girls who
were married to Hutu men were being killed.
The attackers in Musebeya wore banana leaves, especially around their heads like a
kind of crown, and carried spears, but the people in Karambo wore banana leaf belts
and other leaves tied around their shoulders and chests. They carried wooden clubs
studded with nails. I saw National Police who shot at the houses that were made of
durable material, because the walls were not so easily broken as walls of mud and
packed earth. I saw the houses doused with gasoline to make them burn more easily.
The attackers made lots of noise and blew on whistles. And they shouted, “We must
exterminate them all.” Even if people were hiding, the attackers could find them in
the night and then they blew on whistles to call the rest of the group to come.
Sometimes they seemed intoxicated on marijuana.76 Women came behind the
attackers to pillage. They also did a kind of security detail to see who was hiding. For
example, they would keep track of who was in a house by the kind of laundry that
was put out to dry.
During that time there were also barriers. They stopped everyone at the barriers to
see if they were from my family and if they were, they would be killed. Those who
were fleeing at night accidentally ran into barriers. When I was leaving the forest, I
passed at Gasenyi and saw a fire. The fire showed that there was a barrier. If there
had been no fire, I would have walked into the barrier.
In the final week, the family who was hiding me met the burgomaster77 and he said,
“Get out of here! You are hiding Inkotanyi. But on Monday, I’ll be coming!”
Fortunately, on Saturday the French came and they took us away to Gikongoro. The
family that had hidden me did not go with us to Gikongoro. When the attackers saw
the vehicle leaving, they said to that family, “You said you never had any Inyenzi at
your place, but now we see that they are leaving in a vehicle for Gikongoro!”78
“No Words for Solving the Problem”
Like the burgomaster of Musebeya, some other authorities apparently reacted initially by trying to stop
the violence. The burgomaster of Kinyamakara imprisoned those whom he caught pillaging and
burning in the first few days.79 In Kivu commune, the burgomaster set off with communal police, the
Judicial Police Inspector and other judicial authorities to halt the burning and theft that began on April
11. They frightened the criminals by shooting in the air and then arrested three.80 On April 8, the sub-
76
Marijuana is grown in Musebeya. Habyarimana’s government supposedly made efforts to control the illegal trade in the drug,
but some of those in power may have actually been involved in the business themselves.
77
By this time, Ndizihiwe had replaced Higiro. [See below.]
78
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
79
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
80
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
227
March 1999
prefect of Kaduha also began arresting assailants and by April 20 had imprisoned eighty-five persons
accused of attacking Tutsi.81
Having given at least a semblance of an appropriate response, these administrators looked to the
prefect, Bucyibaruta, for guidance and support. The prefect, however, had decided to support the
interim government and had dutifully answered the summons to a meeting with his fellows and
national authorities in Kigali on April 11. When Bucyibaruta returned to Gikongoro, he gathered
together his sub-prefects and burgomasters to review the security situation. According to an
administrator who attended, the burgomasters of Gikongoro, like those of Gitarama, received no
support in trying to quell the violence. He declared:
In that meeting, there were no words for solving the problem. They were lost. Some
said, “exterminate.” Others were afraid. This is why it turned into a catastrophe. They
were saying, “We have to stop this,” but those who were making decisions did not
know what to do.82
Another official present at the meeting made a similar assessment:
There were never any directives. In the meetings of the burgomasters, we were never
told what to do. Each burgomaster would just report what was happening in his
commune, how many people were killed, where there was violence. And then the
meetings would close. We would just make reports, but we were never given any
guidance. The burgomasters were just left on their own. 83
The absence of support for efforts to protect Tutsi was a powerful, though unstated, message.
Administrators did not need to be told “kill Tutsi” to understand that this was the approved policy.
Bucyibaruta does not seem to have been an enthusiastic supporter of the genocide, but, a loyal
bureaucrat, he failed to oppose his superiors and left those who were opposed to the killing without a
model and without protection, making it unlikely that any of them would take risks to stop the
slaughter.
Attacking Dissenters
Although the burgomaster of Musebeya had received no encouragement or direction from the April 12
meeting with the prefect, he was still willing to try to halt the killings. In the early afternoon of the next
day, April 13, a crowd attacked Tutsi in sector Rugano. En route home, they passed not far from the
communal office, screaming and blowing their whistles. Higiro, backed by the Judicial Police Inspector
and four National Policemen, went out to confront the assailants. They numbered about 150 people,
mostly from Mudasomwa but strengthened by some from Musebeya. Under the command of a former
soldier, they were armed with machetes, swords, bows and arrows, and spears. Higiro’s police went
after the leader and beat him badly. His followers carried him home to Mudosomwa where he died
81
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995; Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
82
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995.
83
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
228
almost immediately. After the struggle, Higiro went back to the office and telephoned the sub-prefect
and the prefect, who supposedly listened to his report and “said nothing.”84
Organizers of the genocide within Musebeya found Higiro was hindering their efforts and they sought
to get rid of him. Borrowing a tactic often used in kubohoza to oust unpopular local officials, they
wrote to higher authorities, including the president and the minister of defense, complaining about
Higiro and asking for his removal. The first letter, dated April 14, the day after Higiro had confronted
the killers, declared that the burgomaster had helped Tutsi flee to Butare, referring to the group whom
he had helped get as far as Gikongoro several days before. It said that these Tutsi intended to go to
Burundi to join up with the RPF so that they could return later to attack Rwanda. Between April 18 and
April 24, the group sent other letters to the National Police at Gikongoro. They asked for help in getting
rid of Higiro whom they accused of being paid by the RPF.85
Higiro had often been called an “accomplice” privately in the months before, but it was only during the
genocide that opponents dared bring the charge openly against him. One day the councilor Innocent
Ngiruwonsanga, a protégé of Ndizihiwe, and others caused a commotion in the market by blowing
whistles and shouting that they had seen Inkotanyi at Higiro’s house. A crowd gathered and went to
surround Higiro’s house. He called the four National Police from the communal office to come defend
him and then permitted his house to be searched. The crowd found nothing. After this incident, his
wife begged Higiro to flee Musebeya that night but he refused to do so.86
On another occasion, Higiro tried to take some Tutsi past the CZN barrier run by the head of the CDR.
He was detained by aggressive guards who demanded to know who were these Inkotanyi. He was able
to continue on his way only after long discussion.87
In the commune of Kinyamakara, the burgomaster Charles Munyaneza—though a member of the
MRND—tried to quell violence against the Tutsi during the early part of April. The son of a Tutsi mother,
he was known for his good relations with Tutsi. But, as in Musebeya, local political leaders were ready
to act if the burgomaster refused to support the slaughter. After National Policemen passing through
the commune had given the signal to start killing Tutsi, a sector leader for MDR-Power reportedly
brought together about one hundred assailants who burned and pillaged first in his own sector of
Kiyaga, then in other sectors.88 An official who observed the spread of violence remarked,
Before this time, there had been killings in Mudasomwa and no one had reacted.
There had been killings at Nyamagabe and no one had reacted. Killings were going
on in Kivu and Nshili. So it is not surprising that it also started in
Kinyamakara....[When it began] the councilors had no power to stop the attacks
because they had no guns. They continued to have power only if they cooperated
84
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid.
87
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
88
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
229
March 1999
with the attacks. [T]he burgomaster was the only one who could oppose the attacks
because he had guns at his disposal.89
When the burgomaster did try to stop the killing, he was labeled an “accomplice” of the enemy. A
crowd attacked his house where he had hidden Tutsi who had fled from slaughter in the neighboring
commune of Nyamagabe. In the assault, Munyaneza and those with him managed to fight off the
assailants, killing five in the process.90
National Authorities Spur the Slaughter
Just as the interim government and its political and military collaborators decided to extend the
genocide to Gitarama and Butare, so they decided to intensify and accelerate it in Gikongoro. To
implement this decision, Interim President Sindikubwabo came to Gikongoro in person on April 18 or
19, just before his visit to Butare. He met with the prefect and a few others, certainly including the
commander of the National Police in Gikongoro and his second in command. The message he
delivered was not broadcast, but everyone could surmise what he had said because his speech in
neighboring Butare was transmitted on the national radio. Everyone understood. Dissenters,
particularly among local authorities, found themselves increasingly threatened. A burgomaster
expressed the isolation and futility that he felt:
The burgomaster, who is the immediate head of security for the commune, has to
report to the sub-prefect and to the police commander. The burgomaster has to
submit to the system. The sub-prefect, who was my direct superior, and to whom I
reported, did nothing. The police commander of Gikongoro, who is in charge of
security, did nothing. Ultimately, the system to which I submitted did nothing to help
me.91
With the unmistakable signs that those bent on genocide were in control, those who had opposed the
killing withdrew into passivity or themselves took on the active role of genocidal leaders.92
Kivu: Evading Responsibility
The burgomaster of Kivu, Juvénal Muhitira, reportedly tried to avert a tragedy at the church of
Muganza, located in his commune. He chose to do so in a way which offered the least risk to himself,
even though it was also the least likely to guarantee protection to Tutsi who had sought refuge in the
church.
He began correctly enough by posting four communal policemen at the church where hundreds of
Tutsi, many of them women and children, had gathered.93 Around 10 a.m. on April 12, a crowd of 300
to 400 armed people moved towards the church, some of them from the sectors of Kivu commune near
Mudasomwa, others from neighboring Rwamiko commune. When the burgomaster confronted the
89
Ibid.
90
Ibid.
91
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
92
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, March 5, 1996.
93
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
230
attackers they demanded that the Tutsi, as the “chief enemy” be chased from the commune.94 The
burgomaster used his authority to calm the crowd and then went to summon the Sub-Prefect Biniga.
The sub-prefect came back, talked some with the leaders of the assailants, and told them to disperse
for the moment until he had time to talk with the prefect. Biniga did not return or communicate further
with the burgomaster until three weeks later when he came back, “singing victory,” and boasting
about the slaughter of the Tutsi and the MRND victory.95
With no word from Biniga and the crisis unresolved, Muhitira decided to take the issue to the prefect.
By this time, the commune no longer had a working telephone. Instead of sending a messenger to the
prefecture, as was usual, he set off in the communal vehicle, knowing it was in poor repair. He spent
the entire day going to and from the prefecture, with no result because the prefect was dealing with
another crisis and unable to see him. When he returned home, he learned that the church had been
attacked in his absence and that one of the assailants had been killed.96
When Muhitira went to the church the next morning, he found that many more Tutsi had streamed in
from the communes of Rwamiko, Mubuga, and Nshili as well as from Kivu. He estimated the crowd as
numbering 16,000, with no food and, for most, no shelter. The Tutsi themselves supposedly asked him
to appeal once more to the prefect both for protection and for food. Rather than send a written appeal,
Muhitira set out once more for Gikongoro the next morning, Friday, April 15. He was finally able to see
the prefect in the afternoon and was sent on to Major Bizimungu who commanded the police brigade.
Presented with the request for National Police, the major responded that since so many of his men
had been transferred to the front to fight the RPF, he had none to send to protect the church. But he
told Muhitira to go ask for help from the police post at Nshili, in the commune next to Kivu, and he
gave him a note to the officer in charge there.97
Muhitira returned to Kivu that evening, April 15, to learn that the assailants had again attacked the
church. They were people from Kivu commune, sectors of Shaba, Cyanyirankora and Kivu, led by
former soldiers or National Policemen. The assailants had been driven back by the Tutsi and had then
gone to the communal office, where they had overpowered the communal policemen and stolen some
guns and ammunition. The attackers returned to attack the church once more. This time they killed
twenty-four Tutsi and lost one or more of their own number. According to Muhitira,
The attackers fought until the bullets were all used. Then they fled....And they left
behind a threat for me. “They’ve got guns,” I told myself. I couldn’t sleep at my
house. I slept outdoors with two policemen. My family left the house also.98
The same kinds of political realignments that had weakened the burgomaster of Musebeya were also
taking place in Kivu. Muhitira was a member of the MDR which together with the PSD had displaced
the MRND as the leading party in the commune. With the new focus on the ethnic issue, with the
increasingly angry accusation that the PSD was a party of the Inkotanyi, and with the slaughter of their
94
Ibid. A witness says Muhitira joined in the April 12 attack. African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 333.
95
Ibid.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview with Juvenal Muhitira, Butare.
231
March 1999
leaders in Kigali, PSD members felt threatened and quit the party. They rejoined the MRND, leaving
Muhitira and his MDR supporters now in the minority. Muhitira had been hearing threats against
himself for several days, but he took them more seriously after the assailants captured the communal
guns and ammunition.
Muhitira left at daybreak April 16 for the police post at Nshili. To avoid being seen by the assailants, he
took a less traveled road through the forest instead of the usual road that passed by the church. At
Nshili, the lieutenant in command had gone to Gikongoro and none of his subordinates could help
Muhitira. He states:
There were already twenty-four dead and now there was no help [to be had]. This
overwhelmed me. I had planned to get the National Police and then conduct a
meeting in the commune. But now I had no National Police.99
During the night of April 15 to 16, the vast majority of people at Muganza church fled. They had heard
of a horrible massacre the previous day at Kibeho church and anticipated the same fate for themselves
if they did not act. When the assailants arrived at the church on the morning of April 16—no doubt at
about the same time when the burgomaster was deliberately taking the other road away from the
church—they slaughtered those who were left, those too old, weak, or injured to have fled with the
others. Fewer people were killed at Muganza than at other churches, probably hundreds rather than
thousands of people, but the relatively low death toll was due to Tutsi having taken the initiative of
fleeing, not to officials having succeeded in protecting them.100
At about 10 in the morning of April 16, Muhitira returned to discover the slaughter at the church and
once more took the road to Gikongoro to tell the prefect what had happened. The prefect said he was
“sorry.” At this point, Muhitira tried to resign, apparently out of concern for his own safety as much as
from revulsion against the genocide. In addition to the threats on his life, he had been attacked at a
barrier in Rwamiko, where the windshield of his vehicle was broken. The prefect persuaded him to stay
on. Muhitira says, “He told me to follow the orders of the military,” meaning the National Police. 101
Muhitira then went to the National Police headquarters, where he saw the second in command,
presumably Captain Sebuhura, who had with him the lieutenant from the Nshili camp. They promised
to assure his security and gave him a National Police guard. Muhitira and the guard returned to the
commune, where the National Policemen organized the burial of the bodies.
Eliminating the Tutsi at Musebeya
On April 18, a crowd of some 300 assailants massed outside the Musebeya office, where there were
then forty-seven Tutsi taking shelter. The attackers were mostly local people, armed with spears,
machetes, and clubs, but included also some former soldiers armed with grenades. 102
99
Ibid.
100
Ibid.
101
These are his words, but, as the context makes clear, he is referring to the head of the National Police group in Gikongoro,
not to a military headquarters as such. There was no army post in Gikongoro.
102
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, May 5, 1995 and June 8, 1995; Kigali, July 16, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
232
The burgomaster Higiro reasoned with the crowd until late in the afternoon. Although he had police to
back him up, he did not order them to shoot. In the opinion of one witness, even had Higiro done so,
his order would have been ignored.103 At the end of the afternoon, Higiro convinced the assailants to
go away and come back the next day. That night he arranged to transport the Tutsi to the parish at
Kaduha, near the center of the sub-prefecture. Tutsi from Musebeya and other communes had taken
refuge at Kaduha in prior times of trouble and some, anticipating that they would again have security
there, had fled to the Kaduha church spontaneously as early as April 9. The commune had no vehicle
large enough to transport the Tutsi, so they took up a collection for the money needed to rent a truck.
The next morning at 4 a.m., Higiro, along with some policemen, escorted the Tutsi to Kaduha and
installed them in one of the classrooms at the parish school with the help of the sub-prefect Joachim
Hategekimana and other officials. He then returned to Musebeya.104 As with the earlier attempt to send
Tutsi to safety in Butare, the transport to Kaduha in the end only postponed the slaughter. Higiro may
well have anticipated or even known that such would be the result; taking them to Kaduha removed
them from the commune but may not have completely ended his responsibility for their fate.
Also on April 18, some seventy Tutsi were taken from the small church at Gatare and were slain beside
the road in the forest belonging to the CZN project. The Tutsi had been promised transportation to
some safe place, perhaps to Kibuye or to Kaduha.105 Sergeant Sothere, in command of the National
Policemen in Musebeya, came with six of his men in a blood-soaked vehicle to report the deaths at the
communal office. He told the brigadier of the communal police to inform the burgomaster that the
people from Gatare were dead. A witness reports, “They didn’t explain anything. They just told the
brigadier, ‘Tell the burgomaster that the people from Gatare are dead.’”106
The lure of safety at Kaduha was used to get Tutsi to embark willingly on a journey to death in the
neighboring commune of Muko as well. The burgomaster loaded the Tutsi men who had been camped
at the communal office for about ten days into vehicles, promising to deliver them to the church at the
sub-prefectural center. They were all massacred en route. Those who had stayed at the communal
office, women and children, were killed some time after.107
Massacre at Kaduha
The church at Kaduha sits high on a hill, with a primary school just above and a hospital down to the
left. At the time the Human Rights Watch/FIDH team visited the site in February 1995, authorities had
recently exhumed hundreds of bodies after rains had washed away the soil from three shallow mass
graves near the church. Between 500 and 1,000 bodies lay on two biers, each about ninety feet long.
There were other mass graves near the school and twelve more across the road from the church and
school. At the time of the visit, classes had recently resumed at the school. Clothing and bones were
still strewn about the site. Some school children played next to scattered rib-bones of other small
103
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 8, 1995.
104
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, May 5, 1995, June 7, 1995, June 8, 1995; Maraba, June 14, 1995; African
Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 316, 320.
105
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, May 18 and June 4, 1995; Musebeya, June 8, 1995, August 28, 1995. Human
Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996.
106
Ibid. The National Police posted at Gatare and at Kaduha were reportedly part of a single detachment and rotated men
between the two places.
107
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Gikongoro, May 23, 1995; June 19, 1996.
233
March 1999
children. The church buildings showed signs of forcible entry and desperate struggle. The kitchen area
had been blown apart, probably by a grenade. Some of the doors had been pried open. Bloody finger
streaks were on the walls, as were marks of machetes. Windows and walls were pocked with bullet
holes.
Soon after the news arrived of Habyarimana’s death, “intellectuals” began spreading the rumor that
Tutsi were preparing to kill Hutu. Sub-prefect Joachim Hategekimana called for National Police from
Gikongoro on April 7. Three policemen were sent but instead of protecting Tutsi they arrested four that
same evening, supposedly for having violated the curfew. They detained them, including two
employees of the Projet de Développement Agricole de Gikongoro, for several days and beat them
badly before releasing them.108
The sub-prefect brought together his administrative subordinates early in the crisis and, like the
prefect, directed them just to ensure that information was reported up the chain of command, from the
heads of cells to the councilors to the burgomasters to the sub-prefect. According to an administrative
official, they “were to follow [each incident], reacting after something happened but not in
advance.”109
The sub-prefect arrested assailants beginning on April 8, when he went to investigate the killings at
Mushubi church in Muko.110 When he came across a group besieging a Tutsi house, he and the police
with him gave chase and shot and killed one of the assailants. A week later, on April 15, he and some
policemen disarmed a large crowd of people at the Masizi market who were massing to attack Tutsi
who had sought refuge at the Musange communal office. According to a witness, the police fired in the
air and the crowd dispersed, leaving behind enough spears, machetes, clubs, and other weapons to
“nearly fill a room.”111
But Hategekimana declined to take responsibility for protecting Tutsi at his own office. One witness
who arrived at the sub-prefecture at about 6 p.m.on April 9 with a group from Muko explains, “We
went there because it was the seat of government power for the region and we thought we would get
protection there.”112 The hope may have been all the greater because Kaduha was the home region of
the prefect himself and people trusted that he would not allow massacres in his own backyard. The
sub-prefect collected the machetes and spears which the Tutsi had brought with them and directed
them to Kaduha church, saying there was no refuge to be had at his office. At this time, the churches
had not yet become slaughterhouses and the Tutsi willingly took shelter there.113
As the attacks expanded from one hill to the next and from one commune to another, Tutsi found it
impossible to stay in their homes and increasingly difficult to hide with Hutu neighbors. Assailants in
Muko, for example, were threatening to make Hutu protectors kill any Tutsi whom they had
108
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 20, 1995, March 5, 1996, and April 15, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda,
Death, Despair, p.317.
109
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995.
110
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
111
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 20, 1995, March 5, 1996, and April 15, 1996.
112
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
113
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kaduha, February 28, 1995; June 12, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
234
sheltered.114 First hundreds, then thousands of people from Musebeya, Muko, Karambo, and Musange
communes gathered at Kaduha parish center, in the church itself, in the adjoining schools, in the
health center and in all the spaces in between. Tutsi from more distant regions, like parts of Muko,
came first. Tutsi in the immediate vicinity of the church moved there only about April 14, when they
were threatened with attacks by Hutu from the hills.115 Many Tutsi had come on their own, but some
had come with the help of local officials, like those transported from Musebeya.116 In Muko, and
perhaps elsewhere, the burgomaster had at first refused to help Tutsi flee to Kaduha, but later
changed his position and began encouraging them to go there.117 Some survivors believe that
authorities decided at a meeting at the sub-prefecture to attract Tutsi to Kaduha for one enormous
massacre rather than to continue killing them in smaller numbers throughout the area. Such a
decision would have been consistent with the pattern of killings elsewhere in the country.
Hategekimana installed five National Policemen to protect Tutsi at the church center. For the first week
or so, the situation was calm, with Tutsi even going home when necessary to replenish their food
supply. According to one witness,
During all of this time, Hutu and Tutsi in the community remained close together.
Hutu neighbors brought food and brought the livestock that their Tutsi neighbors had
left behind. Some people went home themselves to get things they had left.118
The witness indicates that the situation changed dramatically on April 17, just after the adoption of the
more aggressive policy at the national level and the arrival of a new National Police officer, SergeantMajor Ntamwemezi. She continues,
But, beginning the 17th, they began to prevent people...from bringing food and the
Tutsi could no longer leave the church freely. They were stopped by people who put
up barricades. If you decided to go out, if you decided to go home and get some
food, they could kill you. Some people who went out were killed.119
On April 18, the newly arrived police sergeant-major together with the sub-prefect reportedly forced
Tutsi to leave the hospital and go to the church area. A German nun, Sister Melgitta Kösser, who ran
the health center was allowed to keep only Tutsi patients who appeared seriously ill.120
On April 19, the sub-prefect stopped arresting people for attacking Tutsi. On April 20, an
administrative official observed that “all around there were groups who were organizing to come to
Kaduha and exterminate the camp [i.e., the Tutsi camped at the church].” He stopped to speak to
young people whom he did not recognize in the neighboring commune of Musange. They claimed to
be from the area. He reports the exchange:
114
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 326.
115
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
116
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Muko, June 5, 1996.
117
Ibid.
118
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
119
Ibid.
120
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 320.
235
March 1999
I saw that these young people were strangers and wearing military uniforms. But I
could not really question this. I could not interfere with the military, but I suspected
that they had been sent secretly. I saw that they were not from our region. I sensed
that the situation had changed. I asked the head of the National Police, who was
from Ruhengeri, but he said, “Don’t worry.”121
According to one witness, the sub-prefect himself searched Kaduha church for weapons the same
day.122
Just before noon on April 20, the crowd raided livestock and other property of the people at the church.
The Tutsi turned back the assailants with no loss of life. The National Police guarding the church were
said to have persuaded the raiders to give up, perhaps because they realized the force was too small
to overcome the Tutsi. Some witnesses say that the National Police advised the attackers to “go
search for others and then return.”123
That day, the parish priest, a Burundian named Father Robert Nyandwi, sought out a Tutsi teacher at
the parish elementary school who was hiding at her home. The teacher lived near a bar that was
known to be a gathering place for the CDR. The priest told her that the attack would be launched from
there. He reportedly insisted, “I’ll take you to the CND,” an ironic reference to the Conseil National de
Développement, the national parliament building which was serving as RPF headquarters in Kigali. The
teacher relates:
He grabbed me by the arm and...dragged me out into the street and we started to go
on foot to the church. But when we got to the path, I saw there was a huge crowd of
people wearing banana leaves and carrying machetes. I broke free from him and ran.
I went to hide in the home of a friend. He [Father Nyandwi] wanted to turn me over to
the crowd that was preparing to attack the church.124
The final attack began before dawn on April 21 when assailants threw grenades into the house where a
number of Tutsi men had sought refuge, including those first arrested and beaten on April 7. When
morning broke, a crowd of thousands from Musebeya, Muko and other communes attacked,
supported by National Police, soldiers in civilian dress, and former soldiers. After several hours of
shooting and throwing grenades, the assailants paused temporarily while awaiting new supplies of
ammunition. During that period, they continued killing by machete, spear, club, and other weapons. A
witness who was in hiding nearby recounts,
I could hear gunfire and the explosion of grenades and the cries of people being
killed. The attackers fired their guns and threw grenades into the crowd and then
groups of killers with traditional weapons came in and killed those who were still
121
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995.
122
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, February 28, 1995.
123
Ibid.
124
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
236
alive. This began early in the morning on the 21st and it continued all day Thursday
and all day Friday. On Friday, they mostly searched for people who were hiding. 125
Another witness, present in the church, said that the grenade explosion served as a signal for the
attack. He states:
The National Police who were supposed to protect us were lodged in the agricultural
school. When we awoke and found we were surrounded, we tried to defend
ourselves. We were more than they and so we were able to force them back by
throwing rocks. But the National Police came to reinforce them....They began to
organize the crowd. They fired their guns and threw grenades.126
This witness fled in a large group—he estimates it as about 1,000—at about 11 a.m., heading to the
southeast. Another group also broke out of the encirclement and fled to the northeast. Each group
encountered military and civilian assailants waiting along the roads for them. A new radio antenna
had been installed in Kaduha shortly before and it may have made it easier for the police to inform
their troops about the movements of the refugees. When the military encountered the fleeing Tutsi,
they ordered them to sit down and then began firing on them and throwing grenades into their
midst.127
The same day, assailants in Kaduha killed Oscar Gasana, the assistant prosecutor, his Tutsi wife and
several of their children. Gasana was a moderate Hutu who had refused to cooperate in anti-Tutsi
measures before the genocide began. He was one of those who could have mobilized resistance to the
genocide in Kaduha. The bodies of Gasana and his wife were left naked on the street for some days, a
mute reminder of the consequences of resisting.128
Simba was in Kaduha the day before the major attack in the company of militia leaders and, according
to one witness, he arrived with a detachment of military from Gikongoro to launch the first attack with
firearms on the church.129 National Police officers, led by Sergeant-Major Ntamwemezi, former soldiers
and local soldiers in active service directed the attacks at Kaduha. A witness remarked on the role
played by local soldiers and National Police who had returned home the week before from active duty
elsewhere. He declared, “At the church I saw only National Police in uniform. These other soldiers and
National Police....were camouflaged in civilian clothing, but they still had guns. I saw them myself.” 130
Military also led the ambushes of groups in flight and directed the search for and execution of
individual survivors. Militia, including groups brought from outside the region, such as the group
sighted in Musange on April 20, backed up the professional military. Secondary school students from
125
Ibid.
126
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996.
127
Ibid.
128
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 323.
129
From the context, it is clear that the witness is referring to the first day of the attack, which was actually April 21. Human
Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kaduha, February 28, 1995, June 12, 1996.
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kaduha, June 12, 1996; Kigali, June 4, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair,
p. 317. The International Commission that investigated the 1993 violence in Burundi noted the unusually high number of
soldiers home on leave at the time of killings in their communities. Commission Internationale d’enquête sur les violations des
droits de l’homme au Burundi depuis le 21 octobre 1993, “Rapport Final,” July 5, 1994, p. 33.
130
237
March 1999
the north, temporarily housed at Kaduha, and staff of the health center also joined in the slaughter.
One witness relates that the sergeant-major gave a prize of 30,000 Rwandan francs (about U.S.$170)
to a student who had been the best killer and that Father Nyandwi rewarded him with a “radio
cassette.”131 Here, as elsewhere, “intellectuals,” like teachers, school inspectors, and traders with
access to vehicles, provided important support with logistics and organization.132
The great mass of assailants was made up of ordinary people from the surrounding communes,
particularly Musebeya and Muko, as well as from Kaduha itself. One witness estimates that some 400
people came from Musebeya to kill and pillage. Many of them were transported to the first attack by
vehicle, but in subsequent days they went on foot. The same persons who apparently organized the
extermination of Tutsi in their home commune gathered together the assailants to kill at Kaduha. The
day after the first attack, the organizers could be recognized by the new clothes that they were
wearing, pillaged from the vicitims. According to one witness, they included communal councilors,
party leaders like the local head of the CDR, and other “intellectuals” and traders. A witness from
Musebeya states:
This group had motorcycles, and they went around from sector to sector to organize
people to go to Kaduha. The people would come back at night, every night, and meet
at Bar Mugema. They would buy drinks for everyone who helped them. Other people
were told that if they joined in, they could get drinks bought for them as well. They
said, “You can get free beer. Come with us tomorrow and then you can join us at the
bar.” Every evening there was a meeting there at the bar to expand their group.133
Two witnesses place the sub-prefect Hategekimana at the church during the attack while other
testimonies do not mention his presence.134 He asserts that he was at home at the time. He states that
he heard the grenade explosions from his house:
It was in the night, at about 3 o’clock. I was not there. I stayed home, thinking, “This
is the end of me.” The shooting went on until 2 p.m....When it stopped, a neighbor
who was a methodist pastor came to my house and told me, “They have attacked the
camp.” I told him, “Go home.” There were barriers all over the place. At 5 p.m., I did
not hear any more shots. I started talking to the neighbors. At 6 p.m., I went and I
saw the carnage. I saw that the National Police had participated also. I asked what
they had hoped to accomplish...[but]they did not have to explain [to me].
I asked myself, “Where will I go?” But there were barriers everywhere. Where could I
go with my children. And do what?135
Hategekimana knew the attack on Kaduha was being prepared, but did nothing to stop it, apparently
because he was afraid of the military. When it was over, he reported the massacre to the prefect.136
131
African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 322-23.
132
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, June 12, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 321-22.
133
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996.
134
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, February 28, 1995.
135
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare.
136
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, July 19, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
238
Right after the massacre, “higher authorities” released the eighty-five persons whom Hategekimana
had arrested at Kaduha during the previous two weeks and drove off in their car without further
explanation. Hategekimana made no further arrests.137
One woman who survived the slaughter saw the National Police come back to the church on April 23 to
organize burying the dead. They set about killing the survivors whom they found there. They hit the
witness with a hammer and threw her into a pit. She managed to scramble out, but they caught her
and threw her in again. She escaped once more and ran into the bush, where she hid for nine days.
Then she was able to creep back to the residence of the nuns where she took shelter until the French
arrived.138
The slaughter in Kaduha reinforced the message delivered by Sindikubwabo a few days before.
Civilian officials understood and “took orders from the military” as the prefect had told the
burgomaster of Kivu to do. In Kinyamakara, the burgomaster who at first tried responsibly to suppress
the violence apparently became a leader of the slaughter after April 20. He released from the
Kinyamakara jail Hutu who had been detained for their attacks on Tutsi and he supposedly mobilized
the Hutu of his commune for attacks across the prefectural border into the hitherto peaceful commune
of Ruhashya in Butare. “The violence came especially from the military authorities and no one could
stop them,” was the assessment of one official.139
Higiro, the burgomaster, gave up public resistance in Musebeya after the Kaduha massacre. Although
well aware of the steady erosion of his support within the commune, Higiro had had no sign of official
disapproval from his superiors before Sindikubwabo’s visit. But, after that, when he went to Gikongoro
town to attend a meeting mentioned to him by the burgomaster of Muko, he found that he was
excluded from certain administrative gatherings. The sub-prefect for political and administrative
affairs, Celestin Mushenguzi reportedly confronted him in the hall of the prefecture and asked why he
had come when he had not been invited. Shut out by the hard-liners, Higiro went home. He states:
I went home in fear. At any time, they could set up a barrier for me and it would be
finished. I had no means of escape. They kept me like a mouse inside a house. I was
running around looking for hole in order to escape.140
Major Habyarabatuma had also been sent from his post in Butare to the front shortly before, leaving
Higiro without a powerful military protector. The burgomaster reports that he hid with friendly families,
not daring to stay in his own home. When he felt the need to show up at the communal office, he sent
someone ahead to scout out the situation before going himself.141
Tightening Control
By the end of April, assailants had slain Tutsi in one attack after another in churches, schools, health
centers, and communal offices. According to one administrative official, by this time “just about all
137
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995.
138
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kaduha, February 28, 1995.
139
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
140
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya.
141
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya.
239
March 1999
the camps had been exterminated.”142 In smaller incidents out on the hills, assailants had killed large
numbers of Tutsi either in the initial attacks or as they fled the sites of massacres. As one witness
remarked, “Those Tutsi not killed the first day were pursued everywhere until they were finally
slaughtered.”143
“Pacification” in Gikongoro
On April 26th, Prefect Bucyibaruta assembled the sub-prefects and the burgomasters to carry out
orders from Kalimanzira of the Ministry of the Interior to tighten control over the killing campaign.
Three days later, he issued a long and complex message to the population, summarizing the meeting.
He insisted that reckless killing must be halted and remarked with concern, “The troubles are
beginning to take on other dimensions [by which he apparently means other than killing Tutsi]: we see
that people are being attacked for their property or are betrayed and killed out of hatred.” Later in the
text, he elaborated on the different conflicts that were turning people against one another: quarrels
over pillaged goods, disputes over land, harvests or other property left by Tutsi, and the desire to
settle old scores, all of which caused divisions that could facilitate the advance of the enemy.
The prefect also explained that the disorder in Rwanda had caused foreigners to stop aiding the
country. He warned, “As long as we are unable to rapidly stop these troubles, the enemy will profit
from this and the international aid that was destined for our country may be delivered to the enemy
instead of to us.” He bemoaned the damage and losses to schools, hospitals, and other public
facilities in the course of the attacks and the paralysis of international and domestic trade that had
resulted from the massive disorder. In great detail he depicted the consequences of the violence on
the lives of all in the prefecture: the loss of educational opportunity for children, the difficulty of
getting medical care, even the impossibility of getting prescriptions filled with pharmacies closed. He
cautioned that involving children in violence now could result in harm to their parents in the future and
he called for repentance and returning to God in shunning all evil acts.
After this grim preamble, the prefect announced a series of measures that would replace the looser
conglomerate of killers with a more tightly controlled force through the self-defense program. He
indicated that burgomasters had been directed to recruit people from each sector who would be given
arms and proper training on how to use them. He called for the security committees to meet at the
sectoral level to establish barriers and patrols to “discover the enemy who often infiltrates using
different disguises.” He then prohibited “massacres, pillage, and other acts of violence of whatever
kind” because the enemy could use such acts to blacken the reputation of Rwanda in the international
community, causing the loss of much needed aid. He also directed the security committees to
“publicly disavow” those who attacked others and he ordered officials to use force, if necessary, to
eliminate groups of assailants. He insisted that people taken at barriers or during patrols be turned
over to authorities instead of being dealt with by their captors. He also declared that any military
materials, such as grenades, guns, uniforms and so on, must be turned in to the authorities before the
next week. Persons found with such materials in their possession after that time would be considered
“killer[s] or troublemaker[s]...who will be prosecuted according to the law without mercy.”
142
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, March 5, 1995.
143
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
240
To avoid further conflict over property, the prefect ordered that land and other goods left by Tutsi
would be administered by the communal authorities, who should begin to inventory such property
immediately.
Bucyibaruta directed burgomasters to read his message to meetings of the population in their
communes, for which he prepared a schedule. He delegated a prefectural official to be present at each
meeting along with the burgomaster. Bucyibaruta informed the burgomasters that they were free to
add their own ideas if they found something missing in his words, but they were to do so only after
having read his message. Perhaps the presence of the prefectural officials was meant to ensure that
this order be obeyed.144
Bucyibaruta himself took the liberty of adding to the message transmitted to him by the Ministry of the
Interior. His text stretches to seven pages, while the original directive is less than a page long. Rather
than merely mouthing the usual appeals for order, he crafted what appears to be a real and wellargued plea for ending the violence, stressing, of course, its unfortunate consequences for the
population in general rather than the loss of lives among the Tutsi.145
The “pacification” meetings took place and the message was delivered, but the killing did not stop.
Indeed, in many cases, the message simply presaged new slaughter as Tutsi were lured out of hiding.
In the commune of Kinyamakara, the burgomaster held the meeting to announce the reestablishment
of order, as directed, on April 29. Taking the directive to be genuine, an official brought his young
brother-in-law to the meeting. He had been protecting the Tutsi at his house, which had been attacked
twice. Anti-Tutsi leaders like the MDR-Power sector leader who had launched the first attacks in the
commune (see above) and the head of the MRND youth wing wanted to attack both the official and his
Tutsi relative immediately. A witness declared:
At the meeting, some asked, “Is it time to stop the killing while there are still Tutsi
alive?” They had no shame asking that, even in public. It was the time to kill. They did
not even see that it was a human being that they were busy killing.146
In this case, the burgomaster protected the threatened persons, announcing that anyone who killed
them would himself be pursued. But, after the meeting and its declaration of renewed security, says
one witness, “authorities continued to meet with the leaders of the band to plan and direct searches
for the [other] remaining Tutsi.”147 In many cases, Tutsi who emerged after the proclamation of the
“peace” were immediately killed. The regularity with which the slaughter followed the statement of
reassurance makes clear that the promise of safety was not a sincere guarantee which authorities
were simply unable to enforce but rather a deliberate tactic to carry forward the genocide.
144
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Prefe, to Bwana Suprefe, Kaduha, Karaba, Munini; Bwana Umuyobozi w’imirimo uri mu kanama
k’umutekano, Bwana Burugumestri wa komini (bose), no. 125/04.17.02, April 27, 1994 (Gikongoro prefecture).
145
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Ubutumwa bwa Prefe wa Prefegitura ya Gikongoro Bwo Kugarura Umutekano Kuri Prefegitura, April 29,
1994 (Gikongoro prefecture).
146
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
147
Ibid.
241
March 1999
“Civilian Self-Defense” in Gikongoro
As is clear from the prefect’s message of April 29, burgomasters had already been charged at this time
with recruiting young men for the self-defense units, which were to be organized by sector. But it was
only on May 18 that the prefect notified burgomasters of Col. Simba’s appointment as “Civil Defense
Counsellor” for the prefectures of Gikongoro and Butare, an arrangement which replicated the formal
military structure with its commander responsible for both prefectures.
Sometimes people who had played little or no role in the genocide joined the self-defense program,
but often it was the very same persons who led the killings at the start who later directed the selfdefense recruitment.148 In Musebeya, the group who gathered regularly at Mugema’s bar are said to
have organized the self-defense group, which took the name “The Nyungwe Battalion.” Those who
were intended to do the fighting, however, were younger men who were trained by former soldiers and
communal police as well as by Interahamwe militia who arrived from outside the region. 149 Simba was
in charge of distributing the guns which were then handed out, usually by the burgomasters in each
commune.150
Simba eventually led some of these units, such as those from the communes of Kinyamakara,
Rukondo, and Karama in attacking RPF troops near the town of Nyabisindu in Butare prefecture. The
attack occurred at night and cost many, perhaps hundreds of lives, among the self-defense units.
Poorly trained and inexperienced in handling their weapons, they were no match for the battlehardened RPF troops. After this one experience, the self-defense units from Gikongoro apparently did
not go to combat again.
The stated objectives of self-defense included not just fighting against the RPF but also “obtaining
information about the actions or presence of the enemy in the commune, the cell or the
neighborhood” and “denouncing infiltrators and accomplices of the enemy.”151 As the self-defense
units were trained, they began to replace the less skilled and less structured groups on the barriers
and in the patrols. According to one official, there were two kinds of barriers: “barriers against the war
and barriers against an ethnic group, and these [i.e., the latter] were far away from the war.”152
Authorities put increasing importance on catching Tutsi at the barriers in May and June when many
tried to flee, hidden in the tens of thousands of displaced persons who streamed into Gikongoro from
the north and east, often en route for Cyangugu and eventually Zaire. They hoped that the self-defense
units, commanded by people with military training, could be kept focused on eliminating the
remaining Tutsi instead of drifting off into attacks for profit or for reasons of private vendetta against
other Hutu. The importance of tightening control over the violence was underlined in mid-May when a
148
Ibid.
149
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gikongoro, June 19, 1996.
150
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
151
Kambanda, “Directive du Premier Ministre aux Préfets pour l’Organisation de l’Auto-Défense Civile.”
152
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 12, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
242
group of Hutu killed Charles Nyilidandi, the Hutu burgomaster of Mubuga commune, apparently when
he was trying to stop them from pillaging the property of a local development project.153
With the self-defense units being set up, ordinary citizens were in part relieved of the burden of killing
and were supposed to return to “normality.” In accord with orders from the Ministry of the Interior, the
prefect and his subordinates had directed everyone to return to work on May 2.154 In early May they
pressed hard to have schools reopened, which was done several weeks later. But beneath the veneer
of normality, the killing continued. The massacres were finished, but individuals remained to be
tracked down. In a new burst of activity in mid-May assailants intensified their searches, combing the
bush and the fields of sorghum for survivors. At this time, they slaughtered many Tutsi women,
including wives of Hutu, spared in most communities until then.155 Hutu husbands in Musebeya, for
example, had been able to buy the safety of their Tutsi wives, to defend them by force, or to hide them
successfully until May 16. On that date, many of these women were killed.156
Removing the Burgomaster of Musebeya
Under attack by local rivals, outweighed by the power of Simba, and unsupported by his superiors,
Higiro had little authority to command the attention of local residents.157 His power slipped further
when the four National Policemen who had been supporting him were recalled to the prefecture. His
opponents then came around threatening him, “singing outside my office, that they were in control,
that I was an Inyenzi accomplice. When I went to have a drink, they would announce as I went by in the
bar, ‘There goes the Inyenzi.’”158 Higiro’s growing alienation from many local people came to a head
over his failure to stop a group of pillagers who attacked the sector of Bushigishigi to raid cattle from
wealthy Hutu. Higiro claimed he had not intervened because he had feared an ambush, but other
accused him of having been in league with the pillagers.159
Higiro was removed as burgomaster following a meeting of prefects with higher members of the
government at Gitarama on May 28, 1994. The sub-prefect of Kaduha, Hategekimana, informed Higiro
of the decision immediately, but it was not announced until June 17. According to an official, Higiro
was removed because “he was not dynamic, was leaning towards the RPF and was running a business
in pillaged materials.”160 A Tutsi survivor from Musebeya had another assessment:
People said, “Give us a burgomaster who thinks as we do.” So they overthrew Higiro
and they put in Ndizihiwe who was the chief of the attackers and the barriers. The
family who was hiding me met Ndizihiwe Jean-Chrysostome at the market. Ndizihiwe
153
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Prefét, to Monsieur Hategekimana Jean, Conseiller, Nyarushishi, no. 1365/04.01.01, May 17, 1994;
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, No. 136/04.17.02, May 18,
1994 (Gikongoro prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, July 16, 1994.
154
Laurent Bucyibaruta, Préfet, to Monsieur le chef de service (tous) et Monsieur le Bourgmestre (tous), no. 127/04.01.01., May
2, 1994 (Gikongoro prefecture).
155
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
156
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, April 11, l995.
157
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, May 5, 1995.
158
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
159
Ibid.
160
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 18, 1995.
243
March 1999
was there saying, “Who favors Inkotanyi?” When he saw them, he confronted the
family who was hiding me. He confronted them and intimidated them, saying, “It is
thanks to Higiro that you are hiding Inkotanyi. You are doing this because he favors
you. I will kill you all!”161
The sub-prefect Hategekimana arranged a semblance of consultation with the population and
installed Ndizihiwe as burgomaster.162 The decision only confirmed officially the suffocation of
opposition to the genocide that had happened over a period of weeks.
Symbolic of the change was the reaction of the new burgomaster to a call for help from a wealthy Hutu
trader with a Tutsi wife. His home was attacked six times during the genocide. The first time, when
assailants sought to kill Tutsi whom he had been sheltering, he had called for and received help from
Higiro who had come with National Policemen to drive away the assailants. When assailants had
returned on four subsequent occasions demanding his wife, the Hutu had bought them off or fought
them off with the help of neighbors. When a crowd approximately one hundred strong appeared on
July 2, anxious to kill one of the few Tutsi left in the community, the Hutu hurried to the commune for
help. This time, the burgomaster was Ndizihiwe and there were no more National Police in Musebeya
resisting the genocide. Ndizihiwe refused to help. When the husband returned home, he found his
wife and her mother had been captured by the crowd. Fortunately, his neighbors had followed the
attackers and persuaded them to relinquish the women.163
By early July, there were no more authorities to provide protection to Tutsi in Gikongoro. The prefect,
able to craft a convincing appeal for an end to violence, never tried to back his words with action. The
sub-prefect, who had found that the military owed him no explanation, had shut his door on
preparations for a massacre. Muhitira of Kivu had given up public opposition and was “following the
orders of the military” and Munyaneza of Kinyamakara was organizing attacks into the prefecture of
Butare. Higiro of Musebeya, who had stood up to crowds of assailants on several occasions, had
lapsed into inaction and had finally been replaced by Ndizihiwe.
The only ones left to protect the Tutsi were ordinary people, without authority but with a sense of
common humanity.
Nyakizu: The Massacres
In the early days of the genocide, Tutsi saw the prefecture of Butare in southern Rwanda as the
ultimate haven. For nearly two weeks, it held out the hope of safety, largely because the prefect,
backed by the local police commander, insisted on protecting Tutsi. Following his model and covered
by his authority, most of his subordinates offered protection too. The burgomaster of Nyakizu was one
who did not: he launched the first killing campaign in Butare directly in opposition to the prefect’s
efforts to keep order. Already experienced in using force to build his political base, he imitated leaders
at the national level in exploiting ethnic bonds to tighten his hold on power. With the assistance of
161
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, June 14, 1995.
162
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, May 17, 1995; Musebeya, August 28, 1995.
163
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Musebeya, June 1 and June 8, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
244
supporters loyal to him personally and to MDR-Power, he murdered opponents of the genocide and
intimidated other dissenters into silence. He led National Police, soldiers, and the people of Nyakizu
and adjacent communes in massacring Tutsi at the Cyahinda church, on hilltops where they had taken
refuge, and along the paths as they tried to flee.
Butare: The Prefect and the Prefecture
Hutu from the northern part of Rwanda sometimes used to say there are no Hutu in Butare, meaning
that the Hutu population there was so fully integrated with the Tutsi that it had lost any distinctively
Hutu characteristics. With a population more than 17 percent Tutsi, Butare was the prefecture with the
highest concentration of Tutsi and it was reputedly the part of Rwanda where Hutu and Tutsi had
intermarried most often. The old royal capital of Nyanza, in the northwestern corner of the prefecture,
had been renamed Nyabisindu to purge it of its association with the past, but it remained nonetheless
a historical symbol unifying Hutu and Tutsi of the region. The town of Butare, long second only to Kigali
in size and importance, had been eclipsed in the 1980s by the northwestern town of Ruhengeri, but it
remained very much the focus of interest and activity for Butare prefecture. It was above all a
university town, home to the National University of Rwanda which was established after
independence, and to a number of other institutions of higher education, including the Groupe
Scolaire, the first high school in Rwanda. As intellectual center of the nation and focus of a region
where Hutu and Tutsi long lived together, Butare had a reputation for tolerance and moderation. In the
Habyarimana years, a branch of the university had been opened in Ruhengeri and an important
number of northerners had been awarded posts in faculty and administration on the Butare campus.
With its predominance challenged by the Ruhengeri campus and the character of its faculty changed,
the Butare campus was no longer the model of moderation it had once been, but the ideal of respect
for the individual once associated with it continued to figure in the image of the prefecture as a whole.
The prefect, Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, was the exemplar of the openness and rationality for which
Butare was known. The only Tutsi prefect in the country, he was also the only member of the relatively
small Liberal Party to direct a prefecture. He was exceptional, too, in having been able to pursue higher
studies abroad and he had received a PhD in engineering from an American university. A slender,
bespectacled figure, he looked very much like the intellectual that he was. While he was in the U.S.,
several friends had counseled him to claim political asylum rather than return to Rwanda where Tutsi
suffered such discrimination. But he had great faith in his fellow Rwandans and a strong sense of the
need to bring home the skills that he had acquired abroad. He returned in 1990 to teach at the
university and was almost immediately swept up in the October arrests. Later released, he returned to
teaching, which he reluctantly gave up in July 1992 when he agreed to accept the post of prefect. Soon
after, he told a Human Rights Watch researcher that the nomination proved the correctness of his
decision to return home: now he had the opportunity to play a leading role in enhancing democracy
and respect for human rights.164
Nyakizu Commune
In many respects, Nyakizu was much like other communes in Butare, desperately poor and densely
populated. It was located in the southwestern corner of the prefecture, on the border with Burundi.
164
Human Rights Watch/Africa interview with Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, Butare, July 11, 1992.
245
March 1999
According to the March 1994 figures, the population was 61,366 with a density of 451 persons per
square kilometer, far more than the land could productively support within the constraints of the
technology available.165 Because farmers were forced to keep their fields in almost constant
cultivation, the fertility of the soil was declining. In the western part of the commune, where the hills
were higher and the slopes sharper, erosion was a serious problem. More people lived in the eastern
part of the commune where the hills were lower and broader, both easier to cultivate and less eroded.
In addition to food staples like beans or sorghum, some farmers raised a small amount of coffee to
sell for cash to buy such necessities as soap or, if they were wealthy enough, to pay the costs of
sending children to school.
The commune itself was the main source of salaried work, with some sixty employees, followed by the
Catholic and Baptist churches with their associated schools and health centers. A small number of
traders, profiting largely from commerce across the frontier to Burundi, rose far enough above the
usual level of poverty to own vehicles and solid homes.166 Although those with paid employment
earned usually less than a hundred dollars a month, the approximate salary of the burgomaster, they
lived a far more comfortable life than did ordinary farmers.167 In addition, they often had cash available
to acquire land when their poorer neighbors were in need and forced to sell or rent their fields. The
salaried elite thus built up larger holdings of land which the land-poor or landless then cultivated in
order to earn a living. The elite were also able to pay for at least some of their children to leave the
commune to attend secondary school, making it far more likely that they would have well-paying jobs
in the future.
More than 18 percent of the population of Nyakizu was Tutsi in early 1994, just above the percentage
for the prefecture as whole and considerably above the national level, which official statistics placed
at some 8 percent.168 Extremists would argue that the large number of Tutsi in the commune increased
the likelihood of RPF infiltration and even of actual attack across the nearby border from Burundi. The
RPF’s Radio Muhabura also reportedly talked of strong RPF support in the commune which added
weight to these charges.
Burgomaster Ntaganzwa: Victory Through Kubohoza
Like the prefect of Butare, the burgomaster of Nyakizu, Ladislas Ntaganzwa, was relatively new to
politics. Trained as a medical assistant, he was working at the Cyahinda health center in Nyakizu, his
home commune, when multiple political parties were authorized in 1991. He was strong and athletic,
proud of the karate that he had mastered at secondary school. Respected for his competence in
medicine and generally liked by people of the commune, he had become head of the local branch of
the MDR. He organized a vigorous youth wing, the Jeunesse Démocrate Républiciane (JDR), and with its
help used kubohoza to destroy the MRND. A communal councilor related:
165
Commune Nyakizu, Raporo y’ibarura ry’abaturage ukwezi kwa gashyantare 1994 (Nyakizu commune).
166
Five entrepreneurs operated small carpentry workshops that provided salaried jobs to a total of about one hundred workers.
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
167
Prefecture de Butare, Liste du Personnel Communal au 30 juin 1993, Commune Nyakizu.
168
Commune Nyakizu, Raporo y’ibarura ry’abaturage ukwezi kwa gashyantare 1994. Calculation based on a total population of
61,366, including 5,527 Tutsi men and 5,786 Tutsi women.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
246
In kubohoza, what they were doing was forcing people out of the MRND and into
MDR. To give you examples of people who were treated this way, there was Ndekezi
Thadée who was a victim of kubohoza. He was beaten, but afterward, he agreed to
join the other party....And there was Mutagano Innocent who did not agree to change
parties and was injured.169
Another person who lived through the experience described it this way:
The MDR came to knock on the door. You had to come out. “Go to your room and
bring out your MRND card.” And then they could beat you or force their way into your
house. You would bring your card, and...there were these poles on which they placed
the card after stabbing a hole in it. They did the same thing to your MRND hat,
impaled it and displayed it on a pole. The card represented the person who was the
target of kubohoza. After being the target of kubohoza, the person was now visibly
MDR.
They also beat up people, although they did not do this to women. But they beat up
respected older men, including my father. They brought you with the group and
herded you to a public place like the market, as if you were a goat. They herded you
with the others who were also being targeted by kubohoza, the people who were
called abahoza. The JDR chanted and sang, “We’ve done well! Our party has won!”
They did this openly during the day. They passed from house to house, gathering the
group of people to be targeted. They herded everyone together, with the JDR singing
and they beat those who resisted.170
The enforcers of kubohoza even made written reports of their campaigns, in which they noted the
names and places of residence of the persons “liberated” along with remarks about whether cards or
hats were taken at the time of the “visit.” They extorted payments from the victims in order to
guarantee that the party president, Ntaganzwa, look favorably on the requests for admission to the
MDR. Should Ntaganzwa not accept the requests, the unfortunates would continue to be harassed
until their next opportunity to “apply” for admission.171
By the middle of 1992, Ntaganzwa was feeling strong enough to turn kubohoza against the
burgomaster himself, Jean-Baptiste Gasana, a member of the MRND. According to people in the
commune, supporters of Ntaganzwa came to Gasana’s home with trucks full of machetes and other
weapons, suggesting that they would be used against him. Some informants claim that he was
beaten. Gasana fled his home and then left the commune with his family.172
The PSD had helped Ntaganzwa and the MDR break the power of the MRND. In November 1992, after
Gasana left, the PSD leader and Assistant Burgomaster Jean-Marie Gasingwa was named interim
burgomaster, sparking a new political struggle in the commune. Ntaganzwa now tackled Gasingwa,
who was only twenty-four years old and recently named as assistant burgomaster. The contest in
169
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, Nyakizu, June 26, 1995.
170
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, Nyakizu, May 3, 1995.
171
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
172
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Cyahinda church, June 26, 1996; Butare, October 9, 1995; Nyakizu, August 28, 1995.
247
March 1999
Nyakizu had reverberations at the national level. With Ntaganzwa’s forceful tactics, the MDR stood a
chance of taking Nyakizu, thus establishing a first foothold in a region where the MDR had never
before been strong. Athanase Sebucocyero, an important official in the ministry of transportation, was
from Nyakizu and, according to witnesses in the commune, served as Ntaganzwa's chief supporter in
the national level of MDR. At the same time, the PSD was in the process of establishing itself as the
leading party in the prefecture and it was anxious to support Gasingwa who might be able to resist the
MDR and to keep Nyakizu within the PSD camp.
During the time when the MDR was fighting to establish its predominance, crime was increasing in
Nyakizu, as elsewhere in Rwanda. Local authorities repeatedly expressed concern over the mounting
number of robberies, arsons, and violent attacks on persons, including five murders in the course of
1992. Often the line between common crime and politically motivated attacks was blurred. Political
activists engaged in kubohoza might rob as well as beat political opponents while criminals might
cover their wrongdoing by claiming to be acting for political ends.173
In behavior that presaged the comportment of many authorities during the genocide, officials did little
to halt this violence. The local judicial official declared he was unable to carry out his responsibilities.
The interim burgomaster asked to be relieved of his functions. Other officials avoided going to work if
they believed a conflict was in the offing.174
As partisan struggles grew, authorities ordered an election for burgomaster with a limited number of
voters, as was done in other communes at the time. On March 23, 1993, Ntaganzwa ran as a candidate
for burgomaster against Gasingwa of the PSD and Etienne Muragizi of the PL. Ntaganzwa and
Gasingwa each received seventeen votes, while Muragizi received two.175 The several dozen electors,
apparently fearing reprisals if Ntaganzwa were not chosen, at first asked authorities simply to
designate the new burgomaster. When officials insisted that another election be held, members of the
MDR threatened that if the PSD candidate won, the party would be forced to “leave the commune.”176 A
second poll was taken in May and Ntaganzwa was unanimously elected. According to one of the
participants in the election, “We elected MDR to save our lives. I needed to save my life and my family.
I was afraid....The threat was real.”177
Consolidating Control
Once elected, Ntaganzwa used his authority as burgomaster to consolidate his own power and that of
his party.178 First he removed opponents—personal and political—from the communal payroll. When he
took office, the financial situation of Nyakizu was desperate. The debt of some U.S.$30,000 that had
burdened the commune in 1990 and 1991 had nearly doubled to more than U.S.$50,000 by the end of
173
Nyakizu commune, minutes from security meeting November 17, 1992.
174
Nyakizu commune, minutes from security meeting November 17, 1992; telegram no. 757/04/09.01, S/Préfet, Busoro to
Préfet, Butare, November 19, 1992; telegram no. 763/04.09.01, S/préfet, Busoro to Préfet, Butare, November 20, 1993;
telegram no. 733/04.09.01 from the S/préfet, Busoro to Préfet, Butare, November 11, 1992 (Butare prefecture).
175
Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, undated (Butare
prefecture).
176
Telegram from S/Préfet, Busoro, to Préfet, Butare, November 20, 1993.
177
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
178
Runyinya Barabwiliza, President of the MRND in Butare prefecture, to Madame le Premier Ministre, October 5, 1993 (Butare
prefecture).
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
248
1992. Ordered by his superiors to cut costs, Ntaganzwa began by eliminating the posts of employees
who were long-serving and apparently competent but who had not given him their unqualified
support. This effort brought Ntaganzwa immediately into conflict with the prefect, who sought to
ensure that fiscal considerations not be used to cover a form of administrative kubohoza. The powers
of the prefect to intervene were limited, however, so long as Ntaganzwa had the support of the
communal council for the decisions. After extensive correspondence, Ntaganzwa emerged the victor
on most of these questions.179
But Ntaganzwa could not bring the entire administrative system into line right away. Gasingwa, for
example, his chief rival and the PSD candidate for burgomaster, could not be simply removed from his
post as assistant burgomaster because he was named by the Ministry of Interior. As long as Gasingwa
was in place, other communal employees and councilors also retained their membership in the PSD or
its ally, the PL.
The burgomaster continued to rely on the young people who had helped bring him to power. To
increase their effectiveness, he organized them by sector, each of which had its “youth president.” In
November 1993, on the same day when the commune dismissed several employees for lack of funds,
Ntaganzwa rehired a “youth organizer” whose job had been ended in 1989. The national government,
though facing a severe shortage of funds, was to pay part of the youth organizer’s salary in Nyakizu
and in other communes. The hard-strapped local and national authorities found money for these posts
just as preparations for the genocide were intensifying. Some months before, Bagosora had noted in
his appointment book that young people formed an important pool of recruits for the “self-defense”
program.180
Ntaganzwa also developed links with many intellectual, religious, and business leaders in Nyakizu.
One of the most influential of this circle was François Bazaramba, a Hutu refugee from the 1972
massacres in Burundi who was the youth director of the Baptist church at Maraba.181 The Baptists,
important first in Burundi, established themselves in Rwanda in the 1950s and were usually identified
far more with Hutu than with Tutsi interests. In addition to helping to direct one of the two Baptist
churches in Nyakizu, Bazaramba was connected through marriage with other persons in the Baptist
system. Among others in the group were Geoffrey Dusabe, the school inspector who had considerable
influence because he supervised teachers throughout the commune and distributed their salaries;
Sampson Marembo, from the sector of Rutobwe; Festus Nyamukara, director of the primary school at
179
Among other examples are: letters of Symphrose Mukankusi to Bwana Prefe, Nyakizu, July 8 and 9, 1993; Approbation no.
924 du 15/07/1993 du Prefet du Proces verbal de la Réunion des Conseillers de la Commune Nyakizu, du 30/06/1993 et envoyé
au Prefet au 30/07/1993 (Butare prefecture).
180
Ladislas Ntaganzwa, Bourgmestre, to Monsieur l’Encadreur Préfectoral de la Jeunesse et des Associations, Butare, no.
7941/04.01.02, received December 10, 1993 (Butare prefecture). Shortly before the genocide, a youth organizer, identified by
title but not by name, was included on a list of anti-Tutsi “extremists” that circulated at Nyakizu. Another was accused of
involvement in the genocide in Kivu commune. The Kibuye prefect urged that the organizers be paid in July 1994, a time when
most government salaries were not being paid. The role of youth organizers in the genocide should be investigated further.
181
Mr. Bazaramba says he is a native of Rwanda and was not born in Burundi. He says he was neither friend nor ally to
Ntaganzwa and was appointed to the security council because of his important social role as the leader of the Baptist Youth
Center in Nyakizu. He further says he was not involved in partisan politics at all in the 1990s. In April 2007, Mr. Bazaramba was
under police investigation for genocide in Finland. Letter from Ville Hoikkla, legal representative for François Bazaramba, to
Human Rights Watch, April 23, 2007.
249
March 1999
Nyantanga; and Celestin Batakanwa, the director of the Center of Integrated Rural Artisanal Education
(CERAI), a vocational secondary school at Muhambara.
Those communal councilors who were MDR and loyal to Ntaganzwa also formed part of his circle, but
those whose party ties or views on Tutsi differed from those of Ntaganzwa were informally and
unofficially replaced by men from Ntaganzwa’s own network.182 As one observer commented,
In sectors where the councilor was not MDR, he would be eclipsed by one of two
other persons, either the representative of MDR or the JDR representative. In
Rutobwe, for example, the councilor had been MRND before. Under pressure he had
switched to MDR. But he had a wife who was Tutsi, so no one listened to him. The
representative of the MDR was Sampson Marembo. He replaced the councilor at the
end of April 1994. Even before that, he was the “real” head of the sector. In Rutobwe
sector, the JDR members were called to meetings but the councilor was not.183
Faced with Ntaganzwa’s official authority as burgomaster, his informal network of support, and the
ever-present threat of violence by the JDR, the vast majority of the population came to accept
Ntaganzwa’s control. Asked to define the basis of his power, people said repeatedly and simply: fear.
Hutu Power
When Ntaganzwa became burgomaster, the MDR was still a single party, but several months later it
divided into MDR and MDR-Power. Forced to chose his camp, Ntaganzwa opted for MDR-Power and
thus acquired a new weapon to forge support, the ideology of ethnic loyalty. Like Hutu Power
politicians at the national level, Ntaganzwa saw that he and his party could benefit from identification
with the Hutu cause.
By the time the MDR divided, Ntaganzwa was strong enough to prevent any challenge by supporters of
the other branch. He was even able to block a visit from the prime minister—a leader of the MDR—to
the commune in late 1993, so denying her the opportunity to contest him on his own territory.184 Most
of the MDR-Power leaders at the national level, such as Donat Murego or Froduald Karamira, were from
other regions of Rwanda, but the future interim Prime Minister Kambanda was from Gishamvu, the
commune adjacent to Nyakizu. He appears to have had a special relationship with Ntaganzwa and
came to see and reward him during the genocide. (See below.)
With the arrival of Hutu Power, kubohoza was used to enforce not just political loyalty but also ethnic
solidarity. A politically active businessman declared, “When Hutu Power was installed here, everything
changed. Anyone who was Tutsi or who did not speak the language of Hutu Power was the enemy.”185
By early 1994, MDR-Power claimed to be the only channel for Hutu to oppose the RPF, Ntaganzwa was
its unquestioned local leader, and force was the “normal” way of separating supporters from the
“enemy.”
182
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
183
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
184
Telegram no. 310/04.9.01, S/Préfet, Busoro to Madame le Premier Ministre, c/o MININTER, undated (Butare prefecture).
185
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, October 20, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
250
The Border and the Burundians
Rwandans who lived near the frontier traded easily across the border at a number of points where
there were no government agents and they crossed the river between the countries easily and often.
Many had friends or relations in Burundi whom they trusted to keep them informed of events there.
Their own observations and information from their contacts in Burundi made them think there was no
danger of RPF attack from Burundi.186 But, as in Gikongoro, civilian and military authorities further
removed from the frontier saw the situation from a larger perspective and many of them supposed that
the RPF could suddenly mount an attack from the south just as they had once launched an invasion
from the north. Although they took no concrete measures to defend the frontier, they talked enough
about the possible danger to plant fear among community leaders in Nyakizu.187
On April 23, 1993, the communal council first took note of a recent warning from the Ministry of Interior
about the possibility the RPF could be transporting arms in fake funeral possessions, then it went on
to look at the specific threat to Nyakizu. The minutes from that meeting read:
As Nyakizu commune is located on the frontier, it is possible for the Inkotanyi to
infiltrate easily here. The chair asked the councilors to give their opinions and
proposed solutions for preventing the Inkotanyi from infiltrating and bringing in arms.
Each participant spoke and everyone recognized that it is not easy to stop the
Inkotanyi because they may have valid identity cards delivered by Rwandan
authorities. They suggested restoring the old system of laissez-passer. Since it seems
difficult to do this surveillance and since the councilors themselves cannot do it, they
asked the representatives of the parties to get their supporters to help the councilors
keep track of who was entering the commune by patrolling at night. The interim
burgomaster agreed to put the decision into effect immediately.188
Turning to the political parties to help organize patrols was an important precedent for the genocide,
establishing that security was as much the concern of the party and the individual citizen as of the
government. The reliance on citizens to deal with problems of insecurity in Nyakizu paralleled efforts
in other communes to recruit citizens for patrols to counter growing crime. 189
After the assassination of President Ndadaye, approximately 15,000 primarily Hutu Burundians
flooded into Nyakizu, a number that equaled one quarter of the total population of the commune.
Some 13,000 of these refugees were installed in a large camp at Uwimfizi in Nyagisozi sector, not far
from the communal office and Cyahinda church, while the rest found shelter with Rwandan families in
the commune.190
Having been driven from their homes by the largely Tutsi army in Burundi, many of the refugees feared
and hated Tutsi and encouraged similar feelings among the Hutu of Nyakizu. As the refugees began
186
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Nyagisozi, Nyakizu, January 5, 1996; interview, Nyakizu, January 5, 1995.
187
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, December 14, 1995.
188
J.M.V. Gasingwa, Inyandiko-Mvugo y’Inama ya Komini yo Kuwa 23/4/1993, enclosed in J.M.V. Gasingwa, Burgmestri a.i. wa
Komini Nyakizu, to Bwana Prefe wa Prefegitura, no. 54/04.01.02, April 26, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
189
As discussed above for Rwamiko, Gikongoro prefecture, and below, for Ngoma, Butare prefecture.
190
Jean Baptiste Habyalimana, Préfet, to Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communale, “Rapport sur la
situation des réfugiés Burundais,” November 14, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
251
March 1999
arriving, some Tutsi in the commune were frightened by rumors that Hutu would attack them. A Tutsi
woman from Nyagisozi explains, “When the Burundians arrived here in Nyakizu, some Tutsi families
fled to the church. They sensed even then that something was wrong.” Assured by the burgomaster
that they were not in danger, they returned to their homes.191 During the month of November,
unidentified assailants destroyed several bars owned by Tutsi in Rusenge sector, people from
Yaramba sector accused others of supporting Inkotanyi, and people from Maraba speculated that
some from their sector had gone to Burundi to join the RPF and wondered “what kind of welcome
people would give them the day that they came back.” The councilor from Maraba commented that
“all conflict between two individuals has begun to have an ethnic coloration.”192
According to regulations, the refugees were not supposed to cultivate or engage in trade, but many
were soon participating in local economic life, making use of contacts established when they were still
in Burundi. Many sent their children to the local school and formed drinking friendships with local
people.193 More important for the history of the genocide, the Burundians also became part of the
political life of the commune. François Bazaramba, the Baptist youth director, was named chief of the
camp, an official post that allowed him to serve as liaison between the refugees and the government
and other outside agencies. With his church connections and his own origin as a refugee from
Burundi, he was well suited for the job. As one of Ntaganzwa’s associates, he drew the refugees into
the group supporting the burgomaster.194 The communal administrator—the equivalent of a
burgomaster—of the Burundi commune of Kabarore was among the refugees. He was reportedly
lodged at a house belonging to another one of Ntaganzwa’s inner circle.195 One witness described the
changes that followed the arrival of the refugees:
It became more tense when the Burundians came. They wanted to continue the
killing that they had started over in Burundi. [A]fter the arrival of the Burundians,
there was only one party here [MDR-Power]....The Burundians were favored. They
were given the right to speak in meetings. They even had their own “burgomaster of
the Burundians,” who fled together with the Rwandans to Zaire.196
Burundian refugees had engaged in military training at camps elsewhere in Rwanda for some time and
those newly arrived in Nyakizu soon began similar activities. In November, 1993 the office of U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees in Kigali protested this training which violated international convention
and U.N. regulations and asked the Rwandan authorities to halt it.197 Ntaganzwa did not intervene
although he must have known that some fifty refugees were being trained not far from the communal
office.198 According to one witness, Ntaganzwa had been selling arms to militants even while they were
191
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, August 28, 1995; Inama ya Komini yo kuwa 12/11/1993, enclosed in Ladislas
Ntaganzwa, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Nyakizu to Bwana Prefe wa Perefegitura, no. 498/04.01.02, November 23, 1993 (Butare
prefecture).
192
Inama ya Komini yo kuwa 12/11/1993.
193
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
194
Telegram from Prefect to MINITRASO, no.150.3/04.09.01/4, December 14, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
195
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, October 21, 1995; Nyakizu, August 28, 1995.
196
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, August 28, 1995.
197
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Kigali, November 18,
1993 (International commission).
198
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
252
in Burundi. He had acquired the weapons from Rwandan authorities, claiming he needed them to
defend the frontier and then had sold them at a profit to Burundians.
A leading Hutu businessman and former parliamentary deputy, Ange Nshimiryayo, wrote to warn the
prime minister about the growing probems in Nyakizu.199 At the end of November 1993, Prime Minister
Uwilingiyimana visited the commune to try to ease tensions between Hutu and Tutsi and, specifically,
to warn the refugees that they must halt their military training.200
Training and Arms
Witnesses from Nyakizu state that some young men from the commune began their own military
training sessions as early as September or October 1993, with local military reservists as instructors. 201
Most of the Rwandans trained appear to have been from the JDR, but young men from other parties
also were included, so long as they were Hutu.202 Several witnesses report having seen young men
picked up in the communal truck from throughout Nyakizu and taken to a training site. Another
reported that young men were taken out of the commune for training.203
Once the Burundians arrived, Rwandan militia trained together with them, sometimes under the
supervision of Bazaramba.204 Another who reported that the “intellectuals” had learned how to shoot
from the Burundians added:
Before the genocide, there was military training going on here. It was former soldiers
who trained people. I never saw them directly, but they did training at night and
exercises. At four in the morning, they would run and do exercises. They didn’t sing
[as soldiers in training in Rwanda commonly do], but you could hear their
feet....Burundians helped in the military training, including these 4 a.m. exercises.205
Nyakizu received three new “commando rifles” in an official distribution in January 1994 and
apparently other arms were delivered through informal channels as well.206 Once the genocide began
several dozen men, former soldiers and members of Ntaganzwa’s circle, brought out firearms and
grenades. Ntaganzwa and his supporters stockpiled traditional arms as well as firearms and
distributed them when the killing began. Assailants obtained spears from the neighboring commune
199
Ladislas Ntaganzwa, Burgumesitiri wa komini Nyakizu to Bwana Perefe wa Prefegitura wa Butare, no. 143/04.09.01/4, June
27, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
200
Telegram no. 375/04.09.01/14, S/Préfet, Busoro to MININTER, December 3, 1993 (Butare prefecture).
201
In 1990 there were four reservists in the commune. By 1994, the number was certainly higher. Burgomaster Jean Baptiste
Gasana to the Commandant de Place, Butare-Gikongoro, January 19, 1990.
202
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyantanga, Nyakizu, June 20, 1995.
203
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Cyahinda church, June 26, 1995; Cyahinda church, July 7, 1995; Maraba, Nyakizu, June
20 and August 16, 1995; Gasasa, Nyakizu, August 9, 1995.
204
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, June 26, 1995.
205
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, August 28, 1995.
206
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, August 28, 1995; telegram no 56/04.06, Préfet, Butare to Bourgmestres,
Muyira, Ntyazo, Muganza, Muyaga, Kibayi, Kigembe, Nyakizu, Nyabisindu, Ngoma, January 20, 1994 (Butare prefecture).
253
March 1999
of Gishamvu where they were made by specialists, but they made their own cruder weapons, such as
nail-studded clubs.207
In February, 1994, the popular PSD leader Gatabazi was assassinated in Kigali and the CDR president
Bucyana was lynched in retaliation the day after, near Butare. As people on all sides became more
frightened, Ntaganzwa launched a new campaign of kubohoza in which political and ethnic loyalties
were now completely intertwined. One witness declared:
Many people were imprisoned in February 1994. It was a time of great kubohoza.
They were saying “Inkotanyi are attacking.” They traumatized a lot of people looking
for accomplices of the Inkotanyi. They had many meetings, particularly in February. 208
One older man reported:
Kubohoza was very strong here. I myself was a victim. My wife was Tutsi, and in
February 1994, they brought me to my knees and made me give money [for party
membership dues]. I was PL, but they made me give 2,000 francs [about U.S.$10]
and become MDR-Power. They also put me in prison, beat me, and threatened my
wife.209
Beginning in February 1994, the communal administration insisted that the security patrols begun the
previous April be done more regularly. As one witness remembers:
There had been organization before and people guarding and such, but in February
there was a whole new level of organization. Before there had been patrols, but in
February...they were each night. The councilor or cell leader was involved in
organizing them....People who were not in the burgomaster’s party and also the Tutsi
were obliged to join the patrols, but they did not work at the barriers.210
In addition, during this period, a contingent of gendarmes was sent from Butare to help maintain order
in the commune.
In March 1994, a newly arrived group of Hutu refugees got into a dispute with the political leader and
businessman Ange Nshimiryayo and on March 23 tried to shoot him.211
As these signals of danger to Tutsi and moderates multiplied, an unidentified person circulated a
handwritten list of “Extremists in the Commune of Nyakizu,” naming “the burgomaster and his group
at the head,” many Burundian refugees, the youth organizer, several policemen, teachers, and the
inspector of schools, Geoffrey Dusabe, “and his friends.” The list was sent to the prefect who wrote to
207
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Gasasa, August 9, 1995; Butare, June 12, 1995; Maraba, August 16, 1995.
208
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nkakwa, Nyakizu, August 15, 1995.
209
Ibid.
210
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nkakwa, August 15, 1995.
211
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, January 5, 1996.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
254
ask Ntaganzwa about it. The burgomaster replied by denying that there were any problems in Nyakizu
except for sickness and hunger.212
Shortly before the genocide began, leaders of MDR-Power from Nyakizu met several times with their
counterparts from communes in Gikongoro. During this period, Ntaganzwa himself was reportedly
seeing the sub-prefect Biniga.213 The burgomaster went to Kigali for a meeting on March 31 or April 1,
just after the March 30 meeting on civilian self-defense at the army headquarters (see above).
According to one witness, neither his wife nor his driver knew—or would admit to knowing—exactly
where he had gone or for what purpose.214
Beginning the Genocide
The use of violence against political opponents, the identification of all Tutsi with the RPF, the ideology
of Hutu power, growth of insecurity, the pressure from the Burundian refugees, the training of the
militia, and the demand for loyalty to the burgomaster all worked together to prepare for genocide in
Nyakizu. As elsewhere, the catalyst would be the killing of Habyarimana, but as one informant
asserted, “If the president had not died, still something would have happened.”215
As in other parts of Rwanda, most residents of Nyakizu heard about the death of President
Habyarimana from the radio. That same afternoon, witnesses saw smoke from the first houses burning
far away in the Gikongoro commune of Rwamiko and, soon after, people fleeing from Gikongoro began
arriving in Nyakizu.216 At first, people were unsure what was happening. The restrictions on movement
and the cancelling of the Friday market meant they could not gather news from others as they usually
did. But as people began arriving from Gikongoro, Hutu as well as Tutsi were afraid and some fled their
homes.217 A Hutu informant from the northern-most sector of Gihango recalled:
The first people who fled Gikongoro arrived in our sector on Thursday and...said that
the Interahamwe had attacked them. Their houses were being burned in Gikongoro
all the time from Thursday through Saturday. When we saw the people whom we
knew, I thought to myself: this is the war....I fled with my family on Tuesday of the
next week, after I saw houses burning nearby. I was really afraid....I fled with
Gikongoro people toward Rusenge...where I got information about the war: it was a
war for killing Tutsi. At the beginning, I didn’t know who was attacking whom. It was
just houses burning. Gikongoro people said that...it was first of all for killing Tutsi
and...so we returned home.218
In Rutobwe sector, removed by the entire length of the commune from Gihango, people also learned
on Tuesday, April 12, that it was Tutsi who were being targeted. The prosperous trader Charles
212
Ladislas Ntaganzwa, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Nyakizu, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefigutura wa Butare, no. 68/04.09.01/4,
March 7, 1994, and attached Liste des Extrêmists en commune Nyakizu (Butare prefecture).
213
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gasasa, August 9, 1995.
214
Human Rights Watch interview, Nyakizu, August 28, 1995.
215
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyakizu, August 19, 1995.
216
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gasasa, August 9, 1995.
217
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Cyahinda church, November 8, 1994 and Butare, October 19, 1995.
218
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 9, 1995.
255
March 1999
Rwahama gathered the information from Tutsi at the church of Cyahinda and brought the news to
Rutobwe. As one witness recalls:
We saw smoke, but we didn’t know who in particular was in danger. But Charles
Rwahama came to tell us that it was Tutsi especially who were seeking refuge in the
parish. He decided to go to Burundi...He went together with his younger brother who
was a student. He left his family behind. He didn’t know anything about the
seriousness of the situation, or he would have taken them....And when he came
back, his family was dead.219
A survivor from Bunge described how hostility grew against the Tutsi:
When we heard that the president was dead, we also heard that Kigali was having
problems. And here, when you spoke to Hutu, you got no response. Except they said
threateningly, “Things are going to happen.” Hutu stopped speaking to us completely
when they saw people coming here from Gikongoro. We knew that now it would be
our turn. We knew we would have to seek refuge. Then one week after the president’s
death, houses began burning here.220
Gathering the Tutsi, Mobilizing the Hutu
As was so often the case during the genocide, public reassurances masked the secret organization of
the killings. A Hutu witness who lived near the communal office reported:
We saw the burgomaster at the center and asked what we could do so that it [the
violence] would not happen here. “It is the Interahamwe of Damien Biniga who are
doing it,” that’s what the burgomaster said. “The Tutsi here don’t have to worry
because there are no Interahamwe here. We are all MDR and PSD.” After reassuring
us, he held another meeting with his inner circle at the communal office to tell them
what was really going to happen. I saw him summoning them to this meeting by
name. I was not invited because he did not trust me.221
Ntaganzwa used his inner circle of party and personal supporters to carry out the genocide, backing up
the cooperative members of the official hierarchy and supplanting those opposed to the slaughter. He
sent them first to organize patrols in each sector and particularly to monitor the area to the west and
north where people were arriving from Gikongoro. Some were hoping to flee to Burundi, but others
expected to find safety at Nyakizu. The burgomaster insisted that the Tutsi go to Cyahinda church
rather than seeking shelter with families. Ntaganzwa’s supporters, JDR and MDR leaders, communal
councilors, cell leaders, and police, both communal and national, all helped direct the new arrivals to
the church. According to one witness from Gikongoro:
I was in Mubuga....The assailants from Gikongoro were behind us together with the
sub-prefect of Munini [Biniga]. In front of us was Nyakizu, and the burgomaster of
Nyakizu was at the border...reassuring us: “If you come to my commune, you’ll be
219
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 19, 1995.
220
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nyantanga, June 20, 1995.
221
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, November 8, 1994.
“Leave None to Tell the Story”
256
safe.” He was together with the community leaders and with some ordinary people.
They did patrols in the night to reassure the people that Nyakizu was safe.222
According to a Nyakizu resident:
As the Gikongoro people came fleeing in this direction, they were saying: “There are
cadavers!” But the burgomaster said “That is not going to happen here. I am
protecting you.”223
Another elderly survivor recalled:
The burgomaster welcomed people who were being pursued, saying, “Go to
Cyahinda.” And the intellectuals and other authorities assisted people to come to
Cyahinda. That is how I came with my family to Cyahinda.224
Ntaganzwa directed a communal employee to organize the Tutsi at the church by their sector of origin
and to appoint a leader for each group, thus reinforcing the impression that he did intend to take
responsibility for their welfare.225
In addition to controlling the flow of people, the patrols were supposed to prevent troublemakers from
Gikongoro from raiding Nyakizu or, alternatively, to prevent infiltration by the RPF who might hide
among the crowds. Initially Tutsi took part in the patrols.226 As a Tutsi from Yaramba recounts:
I participated in the patrols from April 7 through April 11. They said, “The president is
dead and Inyenzi are going to invade.” We all did turns during the nights....If we
encountered a person whom we did not know, we put the person somewhere, and in
the morning we called the chief of the hill [chef de colline] who would ask, “Who are
you?” to see if the person was Inyenzi or not.227
One patrol in the Cyahinda sector captured a man who had come to pillage. They turned him over to
the burgomaster, who put him in the communal lockup but then freed him the next day. After this
incident, the burgomaster directed people, “Keep your eyes open. Stay together. Do not let anyone be
alone.”228 Tutsi then began to realize that the patrols were not so much for general security as to keep
track of their movements and they stopped participating in them.
Even while the authorities were taking measures supposed to promote security, Ntaganzwa’s men
were promoting fear of the Tutsi. A witness from Rutobwe linked the anti-Tutsi propaganda directly to
Ntaganzwa’s meetings with his circle:
222
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, July 7, 1995.
223
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, June 26, 1995.
224
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, July 7, 1995.
225
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, August 19, 1995.
226
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Cyahinda church, November 8, 1994.
227
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Maraba, Nyakizu, October 20, 1995.
228
Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 19, 1995; Nyantanga, June 20, 1995.
257
March 1999
At these meetings, every sector was represented by one or more people, friends of
the burgomaster, who kept his secrets. They were the abanyamabanga.229 From
Rutobwe, the person was Celestin Batakanwa of the CERAI. Those people trusted by
the burgomaster came out of the meetings and they spoke to others. They went to the
leaders of the party, saying: “Be careful, those Tutsi are going to kill us. There are RPF
all over. They have hidden arms.”
In this way, by spreading these rumors, they made a large part of the population
afraid of the RPF. I remember once I was speaking with one of my students, and I told
him: “You're crazy to say that all Tutsi are armed RPF.” Even though he said these
things, I really didn't believe that he was serious. “Did you ever see an RPF soldier?” I
asked him. But he was serious. They cultivated fear.230
The message reached even ordinary people on the outskirts of the commune. One said that he had
heard rumors “that the Inkotanyi would take power. It was said that the Tutsi had to be killed, or they
would kill the Hutu.”231 Many people prepared for the worst. One Hutu married to a Tutsi woman said
they had discussed the situation and decided simply to remain in their home and to die together. 232
The First Killings
On April 13, RTLM warned that Inyenzi were hiding themselves among crowds of people fleeing into the
prefectures of Gitarama and Butare. The shrill Valérie Bemeriki broadcast: “I have told you
repeatedly...that the Inkotanyi say that they will make their breakthrough especially in the prefecture
of Butare and that they will find an opening there and we are not unaware that they have ‘accomplices’
everywhere there....”233 That night assailants killed the first Tutsi, quietly, along the banks of the
Akanyaru River, in the sector of Nkakwa.
A Tutsi survivor who lived in a house from which he could see across the river into Burundi, reports
having seen groups of armed Hutu patrolling along the banks of the river on the Burundi side for
several days. On April 13, they stopped a group of Tutsi, apparently from Gikongoro, who had forded
the river and they brought them back across to Rwanda, where armed civilians were waiting. The
Rwandans and Burundians together used machetes and other traditional weapons to kill the Tutsi,
then threw their bodies into the river. Because both the burgomaster and the ordinary people of
Nyakizu had frequent contacts with people on the other side of the frontier, this kind of cooperation
was easily arranged. One witness who lived near the river stated, “Rwandans promised Burundians
cows if they would help. I heard neighbors say this and, after the massacres, the cows were given.”234
Also on April 13, in the sector of Maraba in the center of the commune,