Genocide against the Tutsi was planned, not accidental

When Genocide was launched in early April 1994, was fast and devastating

One key plank often used by genocide revisionists and deniers is that the Genocide against the Tutsi was triggered by the downing of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart Cyprian Ntaryamira on April 6, 1994.

According to them, the assassination of the president which was falsely blamed on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) triggered a popular rage that pushed them to massacre more than one million Tutsi. However, evidence from documents recently published by the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) prove that the extremists in the genocidal regime meticulously planned the extermination of the Tutsi.

Preparations were in many forms. They all worked to put in place the killing infrastructure. According to CNLG, the genocidal regime proceeded to episodic massacres of the Tutsi in different parts of the country, distributed weapons, and created an extremist newspaper called Interahamwe. In addition, it launched the extremist political  party called the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR).  Strangely, at the same time,  the regime was participating in the Arusha peace negotiations to give the impression that it was interested in peace. This was an illusion because while talks were ongoing, it also carried out massacres in some areas of the country, notably Bugesera.

They started with the killings of the Bagogwe pastoralists in the former Mutura Commune, Gisenyi. The CNLG report indicates that “on the night of February 4,1991, the para-commandos of the Bigogwe military camp fired into the air overnight to make it seem like it was an assault by RPF troops.

This masquerade was prepared to provide a credible pretext for the massacres that were to follow. The next day, soldiers invaded Tutsi homes, massacred many after torturing them in Kanzenze Sector, and claimed to have killed RPF combatants while they were innocent Tutsi civilians. Those murdered had their skulls smashed. That day, more than 300 Tutsi were killed.

Another 277 Tutsi in the former prefectures of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi were massacred, in January 1991, according to the international commission of enquiry by the Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH). It was found that these massacres had taken place in different communes of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri prefectures. The victims were mostly young men, and most had multiple factures to the face and skulls, caused by blunt instruments.

The massacres which took place between 1990 and 1994 were trials aimed at testing reaction both nationally and internationally. They also served another purpose, that of trial to see how to efficiently carry out large-scale massacres. Each time, the government and the killers felt emboldened and planned more. That is why, when Genocide was eventually launched in early April 1994, it was fast and devastating.

Another aspect of the preparation of the Genocide was the training of the youth militias and the distribution of weapons. The CNLG report notes: “On March 18, 1991, the head of the intelligence service in Ruhengeri Prefecture, Munyangoga Eugène, sent his director general in Kigali a report in which he suggested distributing weapons to the people of Ruhengeri." In this report, Munyangoga affirmed that the young people between 18 and 25 years of age are robust and that they should receive military training, an operation which had to be coordinated by the local authorities - mayors, advisers, and cell heads.

According to the report, after their training, young people returned to their areas of origin, received weapons but continued to put on civilian clothes.

For the first time, Munyangoga used the term “militia” to designate this youth, saying that it will be useful for the government and the army, which will not cost the state much at the time because these young people would not receive any wages. He advised the government to put the youth under the command of the army which could use them in the operation “to fight the Inkotanyi who used to infiltrate at night to robe and kill."

Another element that proves that genocide was prepared is the creation of the extremist media that included different newspapers and the hate radio Radio Television des Mille Collines (RTLM).

But the publication of Interahamwe newspaper called INTERAHAMWE, affiliated to the MRND Party, and which was headed by Robert Kajuga, a leader of the militia with the same name, is telling. There was also the distribution of weapons to the population of Byumba Prefecture, in areas where there was fighting between the RPF rebels and the then government troops.

In Muvumba Commune, a group of 250 people were selected by Bourgmestre Onesphore Rwabukombe and sent for training at Gabiro from January 29, to February 5, 1992 to be trained in the use of guns. These weapons were used to kill the Tutsi in Byumba. The uncontested indication that the extremist government was seriously preparing the genocide was the creation of the CDR party which played a big role in the genocidal propaganda and was heavily involved in implementing the genocide.

This party was instrumental in mobilizing “the Hutu to join forces to exterminate the Tutsi” the report says. The idea to create the CDR was born from different meetings held at the National University of Rwanda, Nyakinama camps, between October 22, 1991, and January 17, 1992.

Genocide revisionists, including the Brussels-based Jambo asbl, an association that comprises children of well-known genocide fugitives, should stop peddling falsehoods.