Rwanda: Habyarimana’s assassination was the talk of town since 1992

Author: Moses Kayinamura

• 2023-04-15 06:03:00

Four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of the Reichstag, the German Parliament building was set on fire and burnt down on February 27, 1933. An atmosphere of panic and terror followed. Many decrees were signed to oppress the opposition, especially Jewish people who were not allowed to have properties in Germany.

In Rwanda, the Hutu extremists around President Juvénal Habyarimana were against any Peace Agreement between the Government and the Rwanda Patriotic Front, three decades ago.

They created chaos to disrupt the negotiations and after President Habyarimana signed the Arusha peace agreement, he became a target for Hutu extremists. The plot to assassinate Habyarimana became public in 1992 after he demobilized senior officers including the chiefs of staff of military and gendarmerie: Col Laurent Serubuga, Col Pierre Celestin Rwagafirita, Col Theoneste Bagosora, as well as Col Bonaventure Buregeya, head of national security and the cousin of the President’s wife, and others. The then minister of defense, James Gasana, faced with death threats, had to flee and take refuge abroad.

The senior officers came together and found an association known as AMASASU (Alliance des Militaires Agacés par les Séculaires Actes Sournois des Unaristes) which means: Alliance of the Military Annoyed by the Age-Old Devious Acts of the Unarists. This association started a violent campaign of opposition to the merger of the two armies (RPA and ex-FAR) and the withdrawal of the FAR soldiers

In December 1993, following the arrival of the RPF delegation to take part in the transition government as per the Arusha Peace Agreement, Kangura newspaper predicted that the death of Habyarimana would take place in March 1994, stating that the perpetrator would be a Hutu. Kangura reported that Habyarimana will be killed in either of the following ways: 1. he will be shot during mass; 2. he will be shot during an important meeting which he will have attended with the other leaders of the time.

Kangura added that “some people will say that he [president Habyarimana] is the cause of his own death due to the allegiance he granted to the Inyenzi and the unseemly promises he made them. We have this information from extremely well-informed sources. (…) Nobody loves the life of Habyarimana more than him himself, and the most important thing for us is to reveal to him the way in which he will be killed.”

Lieutenant Jean de Dieu Tuyisenge who worked as an intelligence officer for the President from 1988 to 1994, then as a secret agent in the service of Colonel Elie Sagatwa, special secretary to the President, told the Mutsinzi Committee which investigated the attack against Habyarimana’s plane that the idea of assassinating Habyarimana began to be mentioned in February 1994, at the instigation of the AMASASU group. The latter was totally against the Arusha talks and Peace Accords.

Did Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko know about the plot against Habyarimana by his entourage?

On April 4, 1994, Habyarimana traveled to Gbadolite to see his god father, President Mobutu. Honoré Ngbanda Nzambo Atumba who was special adviser to Mobutu after having been in charge of Zaire's security and intelligence services (from 1985 to 1990), then Minister of National Defense (from 1990 to 1992), wrote in his book, “Last days of Mobutu,” that he attended the last meeting between the two presidents in Gbadolite. He described Habyarimana as "exasperated", "scandalized", "revolted", and "angry".

According to Ngbanda, Habyarimana was inexhaustible, almost pathetic.

Mobutu reassured him, promised to participate, the next day, in a new meeting of the regional heads of state, to re-examine the situation, in Dar-es Salam, Tanzania. Habyarimana left reassured.

According to Ngbanda, the Dar-es-Salam regional meeting which took place on April 6, was supposed to take place one day earlier.

Habyarimana did not know that Mobutu would not attend the Dar Es Salam meeting following the advice of "security specialists" who confirmed to him that the threat of an attack must be taken very seriously. Mobutu skipped the meeting.

As per the Arusha Peace Agreement, the new integrated army could be increased 40 per cent for RPF and 60 per cent for government. In 1994, the number of government soldiers was more than 35,000 while the Arusha protocol on army put the total number at 13,000. This meant that 67 per cent of the government soldiers were about to leave the army. They were hostile towards the Arusha Accords and the President’s decision to implement the peace agreement.