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“WORKERS WHO WANT TO WORK FOR THEIR COUNTRY”

In two weeks of massacres, genocidal authorities annihilated more than half the Tutsi in Butare. Then they allowed violence to dwindle for a period of between ten days and three weeks at the end of April and into the first part of May, with the dates and length of the period varying somewhat from one community to the next. At this time, administrators pushed forward the organization of “civilian self-defense,” meant to shift responsibility for “security” from military into civilian hands, official and unofficial.

Just as the week before Interim President Sindikubwabo had come to urge killings in Butare, so on April 27 he returned to tell the prefectural security committee that it was time to bring the slaughter under tighter control. The press release issued after that meeting and a more general message issued by the prefect the same day indicated that in Butare, as elsewhere, “pacification” meant greater circumspection in killing Tutsi: no one should be attacked unless “there is proof that he is a real supporter of the Inkotanyi” and such persons must be brought to the communal authorities.1 At the same time, “pacification” represented an effort to halt the violence among Hutu, particularly that conducted on the pretext of association with the Inkotanyi. The messages from the authorities also demanded an end to the pillage of state property, to “criminal behavior,” and to the unauthorized use of arms.2

The local speeches and national radio messages alike made clear that “pacification” was the prelude to “civilian self-defense.” As the Ministry of Defense announced on Radio Rwanda, “security has been restored except in combat zones,” meaning that the large-scale killing of Tutsi had been effective, but “the people must be vigilant because the Inyenzi are ready to infiltrate.”3 With the people being “vigilant” and increasingly tightly organized to exercise this vigilance, military forces would be left freer to confront the RPF. The burgomasterof Muganza on May 5 protested the recall of a National Police detachment from his commune, complaining that he could not complete the “pacification of the population” without its support. But the prefectural security council the next day reaffirmed that administrators were no longer to call on the armed forces, but rather to rely on such local resources as communal police “in cases of insecurity.”4

“Civilian Self-Defense” in Butare

Leadership and Finance

The highly bureaucratic plan for “self-defense,” incorporating civilian and military elements into an autonomous hierarchy, was sent to prefects on May 25 (see above), but the command structure in Butare was already being assembled in late April or early May. Colonel Simba was the local commander, an arrangement regularized by a mid-May letter of appointment. Acknowledging the important role to be played by former soldiers whom Simba would choose as his subordinates, the letter for the first time specified that such participants would be paid by the Ministry of Defense, unlike the great mass who would be unpaid volunteers.5

While Simba oversaw the military training of the recruits, Lt. Col. Alphonse Nteziryayo was in charge of coordination with the civilian authorities. A native of Kibayi commune, Nteziryayo had for some time been seconded from the army to the Ministry of Interior. In the opinion of some colleagues, northern officers had shunted Nteziryayo into this out-of-the-way position out of personal rivalry or because they suspected him of not sharing their ideas. At the Ministry of Interior, where he had charge of programs for the communal police, he presumably worked closely with Kalimanzira, then head of administration and a fellow native of Butare. Apparently it was Kalimanzira who arranged for Nteziryayo to come to Butare.6

Nteziryayo took up residence at the Hotel Ibis shortly before Kajuga arrived with his Interahamwe. With the two of them lodged there, the Ibis became the informal local headquarters for the genocide campaign. According to one witness, the lieutenant colonel used militia members—dressed in ill-assorted combinations of civilian and military dress—instead of regular soldiers as his personal bodyguard. Nteziryayo reportedly eliminated Tutsi in his own immediate surroundings as well as organizing genocide throughout the prefecture. According to testimony, he and his men abducted three girls who worked at the hotel, two of whom were killed. The third was saved by a Protestant evangelical soldier who opposed the killings. Nteziryayo’s group also reportedly bludgeoned to death three young men who had hidden at the Hotel Faucon and they were said to have killed Thomas Nyandwi, a Hutu, whom they accused of being an icyitso because he had taken in a Tutsi orphan.7

In promoting “civilian self-defense,” Nteziryayo got his greatest support from the administrator, Kalimanzira, and from politician Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who worked closely together throughout the prefecture. Kalimanzira and Nyiramasuhuko shared a loyalty to the MRND and years of experience in national politics. Another powerful politician who supported “civilian self-defense” was Felix Semwaga, a prosperous local merchant. Semwaga was treasurer of the MDR-Power for the prefecture, a member of the national governing body of the party, and a prefectural representative on the board of the national Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the genocide, he enjoyed the protection of two or three soldiers from camp Ngoma, a privilege that he may have negotiated directly with Lieutenant Hategekimana but which some attributed to his connection with the interim prime minister, also a MDR-Power politician from Butare. Party rivalries caused tensions between Semwaga and MRND supporters Kalimanzira and Nyiramasuhuko, but, at least in the early days, they minimized their differences in the larger interests of Hutu Power. Jean-Baptiste Ruzindaza, president of the Court of First Instance, agreed to help run the civilian part of the training program.8

Representatives of the political, intellectual, and commercial elite of the prefecture helped formalize the structure of “civilian self-defense.” Neither Kalimanzira nor Nyiramasuhuko appeared on the list of those preparing the organization and financing of the “Youth Meetings”—not surprising given thattheir importance was national rather than prefectural—but Semwaga figured among those listed on the organizing committee. This group included three representatives each from the MDR, the PSD, and the MRND block (two MRND, one CDR). Among them were a teacher, a medical assistant, an important businessman, a former soldier, and at least two prefectural employees. Semwaga and two teachers, one from the Groupe Scolaire and another the head of the Buye Centre de Formation made up a more restricted three person committee that supervised “civilian self-defense.” The fund-raising committee included such notables as the rector and vice-rector of the university, the director of the university library, who was a former member of President Habyarimana’s staff, two university professors, one other teacher, two doctors, two important businessmen and one burgomaster. Two members of this committee were employed at SORWAL. People identified by witnesses as organizers or participants in the killings that preceded the formal establishment of “civilian self-defense,” including Emmanuel Rekeraho, Faustin Niyonzima, Simeon Remera, Céléstin Halindintwali, and Martin Dusabe, served on one committee or the other.9

Kalimanzira and Nyiramasuhuko reportedly insisted on generous contributions from the urban and intellectual elite of Butare to finance the “self-defense” effort. In response to their urging and in conformity with instructions from the national level, the prefect established a special fund for “civilian self-defense,” as distinct from prior accounts for national and local security. The vice-rector contributed a check from the university employees savings association for six and a half million Rwandan francs (U.S.$36,000), as mentioned above. By late June, the “civilian self-defense” account amounted to about twelve million Rwandan francs, four million of which was added by the authorities after the public prosecutor confiscated and sold the property of a Tutsi trader whose nickname was Nouveau Riche. The rest was contributed mostly by local businessmen.10 The committee with authority over the account included: Sub-prefect Faustin Rutayisire, Vice-Rector Nshimyumuremyi, Venant Gakwaya, an important businessman and secretary of the Butare Chamber of Commerce, and Jean-Baptiste Sebalinda, theadministrative and financial head of SORWAL.11 As the above-mentioned directive from the Ministry of the Interior ordered, the funds were to be spent for such items as weapons, supplies, and “refreshments” for the militia.

Training and Weapons

In Butare, as elsewhere in Rwanda, the “vigilant” masses were to be headed by young men trained to “lead the population so that it will be able to prevent the infiltration of the enemy [Eni].”12 On April 21, just two days after Sindikubwabo’s speech, Lieutenant Colonel Muvunyi wrote burgomasters explaining the program and ordering them to choose ten “reliable and patriotic” young men from each sector to be trained in the use of firearms and grenades. He emphasized the distinction between this program and regular army service, for which he had asked burgomasters to recruit men two days before. This second group of recruits, trained locally and living at home, were to be used against the “enemy” in the immediate region.

The authorities had no difficulty recruiting men for the self-defense training. According to one participant, people fought for the opportunity to participate.13 Some no doubt were motivated by real fear and desire to protect their homes from the threat so dramatically depicted by the government. The inhabitants of Butamenwa cell seemed convinced of the need for such defense when they wrote to ask the prefect for guns. They explained that their request followed from:

...the government recommendations that require all people to assist the national army in safeguarding territorial integrity, in pursuing the Inyenzi wherever they may be, from wherever they come, whether they are among us or whether they come from the outside....14

Many others hurried to the training because they wanted to have firearms and to know how to use them for personal or political ends as well as for fighting the “enemy.” Although teaching men how to shoot was a primary goal of the program, some were also instructed in how to use spears and bows and arrows. Soon after the call for recruits went out, hundreds of men began training on the football fields and in stadiums and open spaces near government offices in the town of Butare and throughout the prefecture. In some places, one cycle of training immediately followed another. One group of trainees in town comprised about 400 men. In the end, several thousand men were trained.15

Local groups requested assurances that their members be allowed to participate. On April 25, Professor Vincent Ntezimana, a friend of Captain Nizeyimana, host to militia member Nkuyubwatsi, and president of the faculty association, and Professor J. Népomuscène Rutayisire, president of the security committee of Buye, asked the local commander to arrange for university faculty to learn how to shoot, and when appropriate, to provide them with arms.16 Subsequently, the director of the Rubona agricultural research station requested that places in the self-defense training program be reserved for his staff and offered four former soldiers to be put at the disposition of the program. Students resident on the Butare campus asked to be trained to help keep “infiltrators” off the university grounds.17

Young men who had completed the training program took on responsibility for conducting patrols and manning the barricades. One set of five men sent to be trained from Gishamvu commune, for example, was scheduled to begin guarding the barrier at the bridge over the Mukura River as soon as they had finished their training. Those who successfully completed the training were sometimes rewardedwith a shirt or trousers from a military uniform which they wore with pride to show they ranked above ordinary citizens.18

At the start, few of those trained had access to firearms or grenades, which were even more highly prized than uniforms because they carried real and not just symbolic power. By mid-May, however, enough firearms had arrived in the prefecture to permit a distribution of weapons to communes thought most at risk of an actual RPF attack. On May 15, Colonel Gasake handed over fifty Kalachnikovs to Prefect Nsabimana for “civil defense” in the commune of Muyira and Colonel Simba distributed guns in various other places in the prefecture. Towards the end of May, a South African airplane delivered a large number of firearms to the Butare airport. A witness who observed the arrival of the firearms reported:

The cases were unloaded in front of the prefecture. The Rwandans stroked them and admired them, so beautiful did they find them. All the militia members had new arms at the barriers the next day....19

Burgomasters in Butare for a meeting one day were issued sixty firearms at the prefecture. The sub-prefect of Nyabisindu collected weapons for the communes in his district where there were no burgomasters at the time. Burgomaster Kanyabashi, who at one point had sixty-eight firearms in his communal arsenal, handed them out to councilors of the sectors on May 28, requiring each to sign a receipt noting the registration number of the weapon. Communes in the north, like Muyira, or along the frontier, and urban agglomerations, like Butare and Nyabisindu, received the firearms first.20 Less favored communes sought to hasten acquisition ofweapons by encouraging or requiring residents to contribute funds to the self-defense program so that it could buy more guns. In Ndora Commune, people were urged to drink less and give more to the “self-defense” effort while in Muyaga each family was required to contribute one hundred Rwandan francs to the program.21

Security Concerns Everyone

In meetings at every level of the hierarchy, administrators explained the new policy of more discreet killing. Having received the word from the interim president, the interim prime minister, and the prefect, sub-prefects transmitted the directives to burgomasters. One sub-prefect, Dominiko Ntawukuliryayo, even provided subordinates with a schedule of meetings to be held in the sectors for this purpose, complete with a list of those to be invited and the topics to be discussed. In a meeting with the burgomasters of his district, he ordered, “The people in the sectors should receive long explanations about how they should behave during these times....” stressing that “the enemy has not laid down his arms” and reminding them that they “must not lower their guard, that they should, on the contrary, reinforce their vigilance.” At this, the burgomaster of Kibayi, Pierre Canisius Kajyambere reminded his colleagues to pay attention to the fields of sorghum and the bush because the “enemy” was more likely to pass that way to avoid the barriers.22

Burgomasters carried the word down to the population. Déogratias Hategekimana, burgomaster of Runyinya, for example, chaired the required meetings at which he ordered that everyone “must be ready at all times to fight the Inkotanyi in case they dare to appear.” Each person should be “vigilant,” and ready to grab his weapon. With this premise clear, he developed the same “principal ideas” that were being disseminated in Butare town and elsewhere in the prefecture: that public violence must end, that suspect persons must be delivered to the authorities, and that only authorized persons could bear arms, conduct searches,and guard barriers. As was ordered in Butare town, he directed that all bodies left out on the hills be buried immediately. And, as in town, he ordered that all strangers lodging in the commune be brought to authorities “so that they could make sure that there was no one collaborating with the enemy among them.” In general, such persons were to be “sent back to their home communes so that their own authorities could examine their cases.”23

Sub-prefects and burgomasters also passed on the other part of the “pacification” message: that the people, that is, the Hutu, must not “attack their brothers” and must “defend and maintain their unity at all costs.”24 The burgomaster of Runyinya, for example, warned that assailants must choose their targets carefully. He told the citizens of his commune “that it was forbidden to kill just anyone.”25

Barriers and Patrols: Obligatory Participation

Authorities at various levels began the formal implementation of “civilian self-defense” by meeting with security committees, where they existed, or with less formal groups of councilors, political party heads, and locally important people. Together they determined the placement of barriers, the routes of patrols, and the schedules for participation.26

The burgomaster of Ngoma convoked such a meeting in Butare town on April 26 but then was called away for “other more urgent business” and handed the meeting over to Bernard Mutwewingabo and Jean-Bosco Nzitabakuze, both professors at the university. His readiness to leave arrangements for “self-defense” in the hands of local activists, who were known for their support of Hutu Power, recalls the interim prime minister’s willingness to leave clarification of genocidalpolicies in the hands of political leaders at the meeting with authorities of Gitarama prefecture. The two professors explained the organization of a system of patrols and barriers set up in 1993 to deter crime in the neighborhoods of Kabutare and Buye and guided the other participants in setting up a similar system throughout the town.27

Some who participated later argued that the system simply continued the original effort against crime. Others depicted it as meant to detect the passage of unknown strangers, particularly RPF soldiers or agents. These objectives may have existed, but those who organized the system on April 26 clearly meant it primarily to catch any Tutsi hiding in the neighborhood. Leaders of the meeting remarked on the need to pay special attention to small woods or places with bushes as potential hiding places and they talked about asking the authorities to order a day of communal labor, umuganda, to cut the brush. They declared that even apparently “empty” houses must be searched because people might be hiding inside.

Participants at the meeting wanted to ensure that “innocent” people who happened to be staying in the neighborhood “not be mistaken for Inyenzi,” an issue that was to be resolved by registering all such persons with those responsible for neighborhood security. Lists found in prefectural offices after the genocide recorded information about temporary residents, such as their names, places of origin, ages, and where they were lodged, evidence that the registration system was put in place. For Hutu, there was presumably no problem with being registered, but Tutsi faced a dilemma: if they registered, they exposed themselves to attack at the pleasure of the local security committee and if they did not, they risked immediate condemnation as Inyenzi if they were discovered.28

The organizers projected a need for some 300 men to fill all the posts and patrols twenty-four hours a day. They divided each cell of the sector into six or seven zones and they mapped out the routes to be taken by patrols within those zones. They prepared the schedules for work, complete with telephone numbers of those who had telephones at home.

At first it was arranged for the civilians to patrol the streets within each neighborhood with soldiers responsible for the main roads through town, but then the civilian elite prevailed upon the military to provide soldiers to accompany them within the neighborhoods as well. This presumably helped remedy the problem oftoo “few tools” that the organizers complained of, but the elite also asked that they be trained in the use of firearms as soon as possible. Although concerned to minimize any risk to which they might be exposed, some of the participants seemed to enjoy being soldiers in a popular army. One group described a “kind of general staff” that they had set up in their neighborhood and others insisted on the need for passwords so that strangers could not penetrate the system.29

It appears that many of the able-bodied adult men in Butare participated in the patrols and guarding the barriers. As one witness put it, “As for the barriers, there was nothing to discuss. They told you to do it and you had to do it.”30 Another witness from Cyarwa sector suggested that the youth were more involved than older men. He remarked:

The young men of each cell were organized into a group who were PAWA [Power]. They used the greeting “PAWA!” and you had to respond “PAWA” so they would know you were not an enemy. It was these groups who manned the barricades. When two PAWA patrols would meet, they would shout “PAWA!” to each other, so you would sometimes hear that.31

A few men, such as high-ranking clergy or government officials, were exempted by their status and a few others were able to refuse because they were protected by the powerful. Professor Ntezimana, for example, participated in patrols only twice and then refused to do more. He says he refused because he did not want to be involved in possible violence, but others present at the time say he refused because he was not given a firearm of his own. In any case, the organizers probably tolerated his refusal because of his friendship with Captain Nizeyimana.32 One man, well-respected in his community, participated briefly in the patrols at the start and refused after that. He was regularly harrassed by others in the sectorand his house was raided many times, supposedly to find Inkotanyi who were said to be hidden there. Many participated to avoid this kind of harassment and possible injury or death. Some who had Tutsi hidden in their homes had an additional motive to cooperate: they knew that refusal would arouse suspicions that would lead to a search of their houses, exposing the Tutsi to probable discovery and death. A university professor protecting Tutsi children from his wife’s family took part in the barriers after his house had been attacked by soldiers and searched repeatedly by neighborhood teams. A doctor who had concealed his Tutsi neighbors in his backyard did the same. A priest, Abbé Denis Sekamana, manned the barrier in front of the African Catechism Institute (Institut Africain Catéchique, ICA) every day from April 28 to June 28. He had hidden seven Tutsi, two of them wounded, in his house.33 Intellectual and moral leaders of the community who decided to participate under such circumstances no doubt increased the security of those whom they were protecting but did so at the price of contributing to the legitimacy of the genocidal system.34

Authorities outside of town generally settled for simpler and less bureaucratic arrangements for their patrols and barriers. But some, like the burgomaster of Runyinya, seem to have followed the model of the urban system. He too divided the cells into zones based on the number of available men, all of whom were to be properly registered for duty. Each team was to choose its own head who would receive written authorization from the burgomaster to direct the group. The burgomaster recommended also that residents contribute to the purchase of “communication equipment,” “especially whistles,” that could be used by the heads of the various “mobile alert squads.”35

Security Committees

Security committees had existed at communal as well as prefectural level since 1990, but many were no longer functioning by 1994. In mid-April, Mugusa commune was one of the first to revive its security committee. Perhaps foreseeing the kinds of duties that would be involved, one person who had been part of the committee previously now asked how he could resign his position. In other communes, already existing committees started to work once more or new ones were set up, as in Nyakizu where the communal council appointed to it men who had led the first phase of the genocide and who supported the burgomaster. (See chapter ten.) By early May, Burgomaster Kanyabashi was directing the establishment of security committees at the sectoral level in Ngoma commune. Elsewhere in the prefecture, burgomasters and councilors set up sectoral committees during the third and last weeks of the month. Eventually, the more zealous administrators, like the sub-prefect of Gisagara, would urge the formation of such committees down to the level of the “sub-cell” or zone. He suggested calling the committees at communal level the “Etat-Major” or general staff of the commune, a phrase that was already in use in the town of Butare. As the phrase suggests, the security committees would in some places merge into the “civilian self-defense” committees specified for each administrative level in the plan issued by national authorities at the end of May.36

Some at least of the committees were elected by the local population but the bodies were not meant to be representative of public opinion so much as to provide administrative and political authorities with one more channel to implement the policies of the interim government. The committees had no power beyond community opinion to enforce their decisions.37 The meetings establishing the security committees and often the committees themselves incorporated leaders of the political parties (or, as Burgomaster Kanyabashi specified, of those parties now participating in the government) as well as other important people in the community. In Huye, for example, at meetings to set up the security committees,Rekeraho, representing MDR-Power and Joseph Muganga for the MRND spoke as well as the burgomaster. According to Burgomaster Ruremesha:

Each [speaker] tried to make the people understand that anyone who does not follow the directives of the prime minister and of the prefect of the prefecture of Butare to the letter will have shown that he is an enemy and he will be prosecuted by the authorities after the security committee in the sector has examined his case.38

Anyone, for example, who did not do patrols was an enemy. The burgomaster recommended that committees should meet every Saturday with all the people of the sector to make them understand how they must support the “government of national salvation” (Abatabazi).39

Most security committees became active only after the period of massive slaughter had ended and did not plan or direct large-scale attacks. Instead they focused on tracking down the remaining Tutsi by gathering information, by searching houses, and by clearing the brush where they hid, as described below.

The committees were also meant to stop or at least reduce conflict among Hutu. The councilor of Cyarwa-Sumo explained that the committee was to help him investigate the “wrongdoings of troublemakers,” among which he cited killing “innocent” people. He warned that anyone caught committing such abuses in the future would be severely punished.40 In the adjacent sector of Cyarwa-Cyimana, the councilor and others went even further in condemning those who “liberate” (kubohoza) Hutu and their property, those who vandalize crops that are not yet ripe, and those who misbehave at the barriers. The councilor declared:

It is becoming absolutely necessary to put a security committee in place that has the power to punish these terrorists; these abuses are beginning to go really beyond all bounds.41

Apparently oblivious to just how far beyond all bounds the abuses had already gone, he threatened that those guilty of such behavior risked their lives by continuing.42

Virtually all the committees helped execute the genocidal campaign as was intended. But in communities where the violence had begun to threaten Hutu also, some citizens may have understood that disregard for the lives of Tutsi led to disregard for the lives of Hutu and consequently tried to use the committees to halt all killings. Such appears to have been the case in Ngoma sector of Ngoma commune. Just as the presence of persons opposed to killing resulted in some barriers being “good” (see chapter five), similarly the presence of such people on security committees may have limited killings of Tutsi in some neighborhoods.

Most Tutsi residents of Ngoma sector had already been slain before the security committees were set up in May, but some survivors were hidden in a number of places, especially with members of the Muslim community. When Hutu residents of Ngoma came together to choose their security committee, they declared that they wanted an end to murder, rape and pillage. While some wanted to end such abuses against Hutu, others wanted also to protect the few remaining Tutsi.43 The results of the election reflected these different wishes. Several locally powerful men who had been active in killing Tutsi, like Jacques Habimana and Edouard Niyitegeka, both associated with SORWAL and both involved in theassault on Ngoma church, got themselves elected, but the community also chose Laurien Ntezimana, a Catholic lay leader known for protecting Tutsi.44

Ntezimana and Théophile Batware, a judicial police inspector, were only two of the nine committee members, but they were able to block numerous searches proposed by the others because the committee was supposed to act by consensus only. They reportedly exploited the new policy requiring “proof” of RPF connections before acting and were thus able to prevent the discovery and further killing of the Tutsi in their sector. Data on property left vacant by Tutsi owners suggests that, for whatever reason, a far lower percentage of Tutsi were killed in Ngoma sector than in other sectors of the commune (see below).45

The councilor of Ngoma sector, Said Munyankumburwa, had tried to defend Tutsi early in the genocide. He had been threatened and fled, but later returned to resume his post. He then became involved in pillaging with soldiers and eventually disputed the division of the loot with them. Soon after the committee was set up, a soldier named Gatwaza46 abducted the councilor and another person from a meeting. Ntezimana telephoned Burgomaster Kanyabashi for help, but the soldiers summoned by the burgomaster arrived half an hour later, too late to save Said. With the backing of Gatwaza, Habimana of the security committee became the new councilor, an arrangement at least nominally approved by the burgomaster.47

Even with Habimana in charge of the sector, however, there was reportedly only one more killing in Ngoma through July. A young man known as Kivenge was murdered, supposedly by Habimana and Niyitegeka who wanted to pillage a house that he was occupying. Given that Kivenge was not in hiding at the time, he was presumably Hutu. Habimana and Nyitegeka both implicated soldiers, particularly a Corporal Uwamahoro, in the crime. Batware, acting as judicial policeinspector, had Habimana and Niyitegeka arrested but they spent only one night in jail before soldiers forced their release. Kivenge’s family was so outraged at this that they complained to the prosecutor that ordinarily someone who killed even a chicken would spend longer than one night in jail.48 The murders of Said and Kivenge, like some of Ntaganzwa’s murders in Nyakizu, showed that those who killed Tutsi with impunity might then go on to killing Hutu. Those who wanted the security committee to protect Tutsi as well as Hutu had perhaps come to that realization.

The Murders in May

While still talking of “pacification,” some Butare authorities joined in the renewed attack on Tutsi called for by RTLM in the last days of April.49 At its May 6 meeting, the prefectural security committee decided to put up more barriers for “pacification,” or, as a parenthetical note made clear, to catch “persons who have disappeared without our knowledge.” Like the Ngoma sector committee, they presented themselves as following the pacification directives to seize only proven members of the RPF, but their standards of proof were low. They identified five “members of the RPF who are still in town and who should be apprehended.” They included Abbé Furaha, Modeste, Kayitakire, J.B. Habyalimana, and Professor Alexis. Abbé Justin Furaha was a priest at the parish of Save, the oldest parish in Rwanda, just north of Butare. Modeste was almost certainly the Abbé Modeste Mungwarareba, former head of Karubanda seminary, who was working in the reconciliation program with Laurien Ntezimana. J.B. Habyalimana was the former prefect; next to his name was the note “no one knows where he is.” Kayitakire and Professor Alexis were not otherwise identified. Next to Abbé Furaha’s name was the notation, 2,000,000 frw. (about U.S.$11,000). In a different hand was added the explanation that this was the reward to be delivered to those who provided information leading to his capture.50

Within three days, the first of the five, Abbé Furaha, had been caught and imprisoned, as had Abbé Ngoga of Kibeho. Ngoga was not on the Butare prefecture list, but he was the object of a reward posted in his home prefecture of Gikongoro, by sub-prefect Biniga and the head of the Mata tea plantation: Ngoga had been recognized and captured at Ngoma church. In accord with the new emphasis on following orderly procedures the prosecutor Mathias Bushishi questioned them and confirmed their detention.51 Ten days later, on May 20, Abbé Ngoga and Abbé Mungwarareba were both attacked on RTLM by Valérie Bemeriki. In a diatribe against eighty-eight Tutsi who were ready “to commit the irreparable,” that is, kill Hutu, she accused Abbé Ngoga of having fired on Hutu when Kibeho church was being attacked and she charged Abbé Mungwarareba with having hidden guns and ammunition in the sacristy of a church. She asserted that priests distributed guns to displaced persons who had taken refuge in churches. Thus armed, she claimed, the Tutsi would make sorties out of churches to liquidate Hutu and then retreat back into the churches, “daring to profane the dwelling of the Lord.”52

Bemeriki’s attack on the clergy suggests that national authorities had decided to eliminate those, like clergy, who had previously been protected by their status in the community just as they were now determined to eliminate women and children, earlier protected by their sex or age. Assailants killed three religious brothers in Butare on May 8, along with two women and perhaps others who had taken shelter with them. Three priests who had been confined in the Butare prison were sent home to Gikongoro to be killed on May 13. The parish priest of Cyahinda was slain on May 21 in Nyakizu. Rather than execute priests who were known to be in their custody, authorities released Abbé Ngoga and Abbé Furaha, along with Abbé Firmin Butera of Higiro parish, on May 31, 1994. They were set upon by assailants and killed just after leaving the prison.53

Abbé Mungwarareba was more fortunate. On April 20, he had hidden unnoticed in the sacristry of the cathedral, where he spent the next nine days, living from two packets of communion wafers and two buckets of water. When these supplies were exhausted, he had managed to attract the attention of nuns passing the window, and had them bring him food. On April 30, the nuns informed him that military authorities were insisting that the bishop say mass in the cathedral the next day to show that “life was continuing as normal.” If a mass were to be said, the sacristry would be opened, so Abbé Mungwarareba moved first to the convent, then back to a nearby office where he sat for two days squeezed against a wall between two windows so that he could not be seen from the outside. He then moved to his own office, where he lay under a table, concealed from any passersby who might look in the window. On May 13, he heard a group searching the church compound and decided that he must leave. That night, he moved to a convent in another part of Butare, where he remained hidden until the arrival of French troops in early July.54

Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana evaded capture in the weeks after his removal from office, hiding, some said, with the bishop of Butare at one time, with his grandmother at Save at another. According to one witness, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko and Straton Nsabumukunzi were the most determined to catch the former prefect. A week or so after the prefectural security committee pushed for new efforts to locate Habyalimana, he was captured at his home reportedly by Jean-Baptiste Ruzindaza, the president of the Tribunal de Première Instance, and one of the local leaders of “civilian self-defense.” Habyalimana was imprisoned in the small, dark lock-up next to the prefecture building where he had once had his office. Prefect Nsabimana apparently knew he was there, but did not intervene to save him. After a brief period, Habyalimana was sent to the headquarters of the national government in Gitarama, where he was executed. In late May and June, his residence looked unoccupied, with its grass uncut, but Habyalimana’s wife and two daughters continued living there until near the end of June. At one point the prosecutor, Bushishi, took charge of the widow and her little girls, but at another time, it seems that the sub-prefect Faustin Rutayisire was responsible for her. She appealed to the prefect to help her return to Ndora, her commune of origin, butbefore she could leave, she and her daughters were killed by soldiers from the ESO.55

The fourth of the five named in the list, a man named Kayitakire, was apparently the businessman and former teacher Athanase Kayitakire. At first hidden by Gakwaya, the businessman involved in “civilian self-defense,” Kayitakire was discovered in early May. Like the three priests mentioned above, he and his wife were imprisoned briefly and then released only to be murdered immediately after. Shalom and his militia are said to have killed them on the road near the cathedral. We have been unable to identify definitively Professor Alexis, but he may have been a teacher at the Groupe Scolaire.56

As at the summit of the prefecture, so too at the lower levels of sector and cell, officials and security committees intensified efforts to locate Tutsi in early and mid-May. In Matyazo, the councilor, soldiers, and local people raided the house of Froduald Gatabazi and found four Tutsi, all children of a man named Sugira, and two cattle also belonging to Sugira. A participant in the raid reported that the people took away the cattle, slaughtered, and ate them. He says nothing about what they did to the Tutsi.57 On May 7 in the commune of Mbazi, cell head Savien Ntivuguruzwa and his committee decided to destroy the house of an elderly Hutu woman, Judith Mukandabalinze, because she was said to be hiding her Tutsi grandsons. Some seventy-five men carried out the order immediately, but the targeted Tutsi escaped.58

In the effort to carry the genocide to completion, authorities once again warned against helping Tutsi. On May 12, for example, the security committee for Cyarwa-Cyimana directed, “People who had hidden others should bring them out, so that we can all do patrols together as well as the other activities of every day.” Then, showing that the order was not motivated by a simple desire to have everyone sharein the same activities, they went on to warn, “Those who are caught while they are still in hiding will be considered as enemies.”59

When the killing began in Butare town, Vincent Kageruka had tried to flee to Burundi but had been driven back to his Tumba neighborhood, where he had hidden in a hole from late April until May 14. One of those who found him that day seemed inclined to try to save him and two others were willing to exchange his life for money, but the news of his discovery spread rapidly, making any prospect of help—paid or otherwise—impossible. A large crowd came to his house, shouting “Power,” “Power.” Calling him the “king of Tumba,” they congratulated themselves on having captured one of the few remaining educated Tutsi of the sector. Jailed with ten others, first in the sector under the control of Dr. Munyemana and later at the prefectural lock-up, Kageruka escaped on May 24 when the ten others were taken off to be killed.60

As in Nyakizu and elsewhere in the country, assailants multiplied attacks against Tutsi women beginning in mid-May. They tracked them down in places around Butare town like Buye, Tumba, and Matyazo and in communes as far afield as Ntyazo and Ndora. In some communes, burgomasters were still instructing assailants to leave in peace Tutsi women who were married to Hutu men. The burgomaster of Huye declared: “anyone who attacks these women does it as a deliberate provocation because the husband will certainly take vengeance.”61 Those with less formal liaisons with Hutu, including those taken for sexual service during the genocide, however, were no longer protected and many of those women were killed at this time. Some women avoided death by formalizing their relationships with Hutu men. At such a marriage ceremony, the Mbazi burgomaster reportedly made clear that becoming the wife of a Hutu male was the only possible avenue to safety for the Tutsi women before him. One woman who felt obliged to enter into such a marriage remembers him saying:

Now that you are married to Hutu, you have the right to live and to enjoy the country. However, you must always be aware that it is on account of your Hutu husbands that you are alive.62

As with women, so too with children. Only those children with an acknowledged Hutu protector might hope—even if only temporarily—for safety. On May 31, a person of Ndora commune asked Sub-prefect Ntawukuliryayo what should be done with children left by the people who had gone away, that is, Tutsi children. The sub-prefect answered that they should all be registered with the authorities. This measure, innocuous on its face, facilitated the elimination of these children whenever the authorities so chose.63

Protection

Given and Refused

In the early days of May the push to eliminate remaining Tutsi brought new attention to locations where the presence of Tutsi had been thus far tolerated. In the commune of Shyanda, the extensive Catholic church compound of Save had been attacked and pillaged in late April. Some of the sisters of the Benebikira congregation had left the convent and sought to hide among the local population. Prefect Nsabimana reportedly intervened to have the sisters recalled to the convent and to have them protected by local police. In the first days of May, either the sisters or Nsabimana himself felt the need for a greater protection. Sister Felicienne Uzarama prepared a list of 146 persons, some of them Tutsi, who were lodged in the Benebikira buildings. Included in the group were dozens of sisters who had fled from congregations throughout the region and more than a dozen lay workers and temporary residents. Reportedly with Nsabimana’s support, the sisters obtained permission from Lieutenant Colonel Muvunyi for these persons to stay in the convent. With a military guard provided by Muvunyi, the sisters, lay workers, and temporary residents remained safe until July.64

A similar situation at Sovu in Huye commune had a tragically different outcome, perhaps because local leaders—religious, administrative, or political—were less courageous, perhaps because assailants were more ruthless. The Benedictine sisters at the Sovu convent had been sheltering some sixty persons since mid-April. On April 17 and 18, women in the area had taken refuge in the Sovu health center, while men had stayed on the hills to fight off attackers. On April 20, when attacks led by Emmanuel Rekeraho became too strong, the men also retreated to the health center. The next day, Rekeraho and other MDR-Power activists led an assault on the health center which caused many Tutsi to flee to the convent itself. There, despite locked gates, they managed to force their way in. The mother superior, Sister Gertrude Consolata Mukangango, supposedly feared that the convent would be attacked if the Tutsi remained and got the help of communal police and six soldiers to force most of them to leave. Many of those expelled returned to the health center and were slain on April 22 and 23. Tutsi related to members of the congregation and some others had been permited to stay at the convent and constituted the group, largely women, children, and the elderly who were still there in early May.65

On May 5, Sister Gertrude wrote the burgomaster declaring that the convent had no way to keep “illegal visitors.” She complained that she had asked the communal authorities to come several days before to order them out, either to go home or somewhere else. She continued:

I urgently ask your cooperation, Mr. Burgomaster, to see that these people are gone by May 6 at the latest, so that the convent can again take up its usual activities without anxiety.66

On May 6, after morning prayers, Sister Gertrude reportedly ordered all sisters who were protecting displaced persons in the convent to put them out immediately. She talked of the need to protect the convent and she warned that she would force thedeparture of any who did not go of their own accord. That afternoon she went to get the burgomaster, who came in his own vehicle with communal police. The police forced the displaced persons to leave the convent, reportedly stealing from them in the process. Of those expelled, many were killed, either immediately or en route to their homes. The burgomaster took away in his vehicle those who came from outside the immediate region. It is not known if they were killed in Huye or if they were sent to their home communes “so that their own authorities could examine their cases,” as the administrators liked to say.67

Some time later, a Benedictine sister defended Sister Gertrude, saying she had tried without success to buy protection for the Tutsi who were being expelled. She stated that Sister Gertrude had been told by the burgomaster and “another important person” that the Tutsi must leave or that everyone—including Tutsi members of the congregation—might be killed.68 The tone of the letter to the burgomaster, however, suggests that it was Sister Gertrude who took the initiative, although it is not impossible that she acted under pressure either from “another important person” or from local assailants, such as Rekeraho.

Sister Gertrude was only one of several religious to give up Tutsi to the killers. In addition to the clergy who permitted militia to take Tutsi from church complexes in Kigali and Kabgayi, a European brother in Butare allowed an armed group to take away the Rwandan brothers from his congregation on April 22. Rekeraho, who was leading the crowd, claimed that the brothers had been summoned to see a military officer. As the assailants led them away, the European brother expressed the hope that none would be killed. The assailants escorted the eight or nine brothers a short distance down a path. There they asked for their identity cards and separated the Hutu from the Tutsi.69 According to a witness, Rekeraho accused the two Tutsi of being Inkotanyi and directed his armed followers, “Go on, get rid of that filth for me.” And they did.70

Others, whether Rwandan or foreign, clergy or lay people, soldiers or civilians refused protection to Tutsi.71 Some occasionally tried to mitigate the consequences of the refusal by finding another form of help for them. Those who yielded the Tutsi to murderers sometimes express regret for the decision but say it was necessary to save their own lives or those of others. These claims should not be rejected out of hand, but for some they served only to cover willing participation in the genocide.

Partial Protection: The Group at the Prefecture

From the start of violence elsewhere in the prefecture, some Tutsi had sought protection at prefectural offices in town. Many of the men in that group had been removed by soldiers on April 19, as mentioned above. The rest stayed and grew in number in the following days, particularly after Tutsi were forced out of the hospital in the first days of May. Some displaced Hutu or street children also moved in and out of the crowd, whenever they saw a chance to find food or protection close to the government building.

When Tutsi arrived from the hospital, Interahamwe from various communes were at the prefecture waiting to identify them and escort them back home. On several subsequent days, burgomasters like Ruremesha of Huye came to pick up residents of their communes, many of whom were killed when they returned home. But the effort to send the Tutsi home to be “taken care of” in their own communes was only partially successful. On the one hand, some Tutsi evaded capture when authorities arrived to look for them. On the other, some burgomasters began refusing to come to collect the Tutsi from their communes, asserting that they would be killed if brought home. Some may have been motivated by a desire to save lives, believing the Tutsi safer in front of the prefecture than out on the hills. Others had perhaps tired of the genocide campaign and simply did not want to bother with the additional work of collecting, killing, and burying these Tutsi who were already outside the limits of their territorial responsibility.72

During the days when the prefectural offices were open, the group was relatively safe. But at night and during week-ends, soldiers and militia arrived to take men to be killed and women to be raped and killed. In some cases, the crimes were committed behind the prefectural building and men from the group werecalled to bury the bodies the next day before the offices opened. In other cases, the Tutsi were taken away in a van or pickup truck, usually never to be seen again. One woman, taken to be killed, escaped death by agreeing to sexual servitude. She reported that the killings were carried out in the valley of Rwabayanga, behind the ESO. A number of witnesses have testified that Shalom led the operations to seize people at the prefecture and raped women taken from the crowd there. His mother, the minister Nyiramasuhuko, reportedly sometimes accompanied him and once stood watching as a woman who resisted being forced into the vehicle was killed on the spot.73

In early May, Kalimanzira and others on the prefectural security council decided that the group must be moved away from the prefecture to some place less visible. At about this same time authorities in Cyangugu began moving Tutsi from the stadium in town to a deserted refugee camp in the woods at Nyarushishi. Administrators in these two prefectures were probably implementing a policy determined at the national level, where authorities were becoming increasingly concerned to hide evidence of the genocide from foreigners whose visits were expected in the near future. (See chapter seven.) Butare authorities moved the Tutsi from the prefecture to a nearby complex of buildings belonging to the Episcopal church, where other Tutsi had already sought refuge. During the next ten days or two weeks, soldiers, some of them wounded in battle, and militia continued the same kind of abuses committed at the prefecture. They took women to rape and men to kill. They often clubbed the men to death in the nearby woods. According to testimony, Shalom himself came to seize men for killing on at least two occasions. On May 18 or 19, Monsignor Ndandari, the Episcopal authority in charge, insisted that the Tutsi return to the prefecture. He said that their presence would hinder plans to reopen the primary school at the compound, but he really wished simply to end the killings and other abuses on church premises.74

Kalimanzira and the others did not want the Tutsi back at the prefecture, so the prefect and his staff arranged to send them to Nyange, a deserted camp for Burundian refugees in the commune of Nyaruhengeri, a short distance outside of town. On May 30, the prefect requisitioned a bus from the National Population Office for the purpose of “national defense.” It is likely that this was one of thethree vehicles that set out to take Tutsi to Nyange.75 Witness testimony differs about the kind of vehicles, about whether all three reached Nyange and about how many people were left there.76 But it is clear that once the Tutsi reached Nyange, they were attacked by either local militia or communal policemen, or both. A number of the Tutsi were killed, but according to several witnesses, local authorities then called a halt and refused to kill any more. They declared that the Tutsi should go home and be killed by the Hutu on their own hills.77

The Tutsi who escaped, some of them injured and many of them stripped of clothing and other possessions, headed back towards Butare. The prefect, perhaps aware that an attack had taken place, found them on the road the next morning. He arranged with the local councilor to house them temporarily at Rango. That night or the next day, the local people began threatening the Tutsi and they took off once more. Those who knew the region well went through the valleys and wooded areas to return to the prefecture, but others who were not from the area were caught by militia or soldiers on the roads and killed there.78

The prefect apparently then arranged a guard of National Police to protect the Tutsi, a measure which improved their security, although it did not assure it completely. A team of foreign journalists present in mid-June remarked that some people were still being seized from the group at the prefecture. Soldiers or National Police, presumably on orders from above, reacted to the presence of the foreigners by prohibiting further nighttime raids by militia.79

Seeking Intellectual Reinforcement: The Interim Prime Minister and the Professors

By mid-May, RPF forces had swung south through the eastern part of Rwanda, reached the southeastern frontier and were moving west towards the center of the country. They had taken the major military camp at Gako, in the region known as Bugesera, and were at the main highway that connected the capital to the southern part of Rwanda.80 The interim government in Gitarama was at risk of being encircled or at least of being cut off from the southern prefectures. With the war against the RPF going so badly, Interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda came to the university on May 14 seeking support and new ideas. Most of the faculty, as well as local officials, like the prefect, attended the session, which was organized by the vice-rector. The interim prime minister obviously felt the need to try to explain all the slaughter that had been taking place in the town and surrounding areas. Kambanda asserted that “there had been no massacres in Butare and Kibungo as the RPF claimed; the population had been attacked and had defended itself. There was a war.”81 His statement fit well with those being broadcast by RTLM at about the same time. Six days after the meeting, Valérie Bemeriki declared on the radio:

So you have understood that the troubles in Butare are nothing but the wickedness of the Tutsi who have started it all to make it look like it was the Hutu and the GP [Presidential Guard] when instead it is the Tutsi who tried to exterminate the Hutu....82

Kambanda tried, apparently without much success, to justify the killing of former Prefect Habyarimana. He also did his best to minimize the losses to the RPF, declaring scornfully that “they have not taken any place; rather we have given it to them.” And, conversely, he emphasized the achievements of his government, such as the appointment of new prefects and sub-prefects and the promise that cell heads would be paid by the government for duties that had previously been done without salary. Responding apparently to the pressure to make training in the use of arms and the firearms themselves available to all, the interim prime minister declared that such universal preparedness should be the goal rather than the earlier, more limited aims of civilian self-defense. He advocated training one hundred young men for each sector of Ngoma commune, instead of the ten previously proposed,but indicated that this idea would have to be worked out between heads of the political parties together with Colonels Gasake and Simba. Either he or others at the meeting spoke about buying some 200 firearms for men in the community, which would cost an estimated seven million Rwandan francs (about U.S.$39,000).83 Some ten days later, the vice-rector deposited the above-mentioned six and a half million Rwandan francs, nearly the amount needed to buy the weapons.84

The interim prime minister called for the professors to work on a number of commissions: to develop ideas for the government on winning the war; to organize “civilian self-defense”; to deal with displaced persons and others in need; to obtain supplies from abroad; and to improve foreign relations, including preparing accusations against Uganda and Belgium for their alleged support of the RPF. Many professors agreed to participate and several of the commissions subsequently met for two or three sessions. But apparently none ever produced a report.85

Among the faculty who responded to the interim prime minister’s address on May 14 was a physician, Eugène Rwamucyo, who spoke for four political parties: the MRND, the MDR, the PSD, and a small, relatively new party, the Party of Democratic Renewal (Parti du Renouveau Démocratique, PRD), recently organized by Professor Ntezimana. Rwamucyo, who had apparently taken charge of removing bodies throughout the town, also represented a group called the Cercle des Républicains. He called for stronger state action, for uniformity of language among authorities, and for doing away with the “myth of the icyitso.” He did not specify what was to replace the “myth of icyitso,” but certainly the doctrine of genocide as a form of self-defense was the idea that dominated the proceedings. He also echoed Sindikubwabo’s April 19 speech by saying that “every person must understand that he must ‘work’ in order to win the war.” After other speakers reinforced these ideas, Eugène Uwimana took the floor to urge careful controls against Inyenzi atthe barriers and assistance to all those who wanted to buy guns “to defend themselves.”86

Not all the faculty approved the position presented by Kambanda. Some demanded the right to see a list that university authorities had supposedly prepared of “enemies” remaining among faculty members. They were refused.

Students did not attend the meeting with Kambanda, but some hastened to express their complete support. The university and secondary school students of Muganza commune several days later distributed a statement echoing the sentiments expressed on May 15 by Kambanda and their professors. Perhaps prompted by Elie Ndayambaje, a former burgomaster turned university student, soon to be named burgomaster once more, the young people of the commune “condemned vigorously the diabolical intentions of the inyenzi inkotanyi to eliminate the popular democratic mass” in order to take power. Like their elders, they called for military training for all young people and for the rapid distribution of “effective methods of direct self-defense.” They also condemned the RPF “lies” that the intellectuals of the region had been massacred and they denounced the RPF propaganda that was “intoxicating” public opinion abroad. They called for the population to “remain vigilant, to denounce and to fight any suspect element that could undermine public security.”87

While some professors, teachers, and medical personnel participated in these activities only under pressure and to protect themselves or Tutsi hidden in their houses, others undertook a far more active role. Professors Nzitabakuze and Mutwewingabo, who led the meeting for organizing the patrols and barriers for Butare town, were reportedly also seen in the burgomaster’s office in mid-May, looking like they had just finished a hunt in the bush. They were wearing dirty clothes and had whistles around their necks.88 Nzitabakuze later led a search at the home of a departed European. He found a gun there and wrote to the military commander to ask permission to keep it for his patrol group in zone seven ofBuye.89 Faustin Ndayisaba, also a staff member at the university, similarly reported to the burgomaster that he had found three hunting rifles in a search at the Ibis Hotel. He reported that he had kept one of the weapons for “our barrier” and left the other two with the Interahamwe at the Ibis Hotel. He assured the burgomaster: “Nothing, nothing at all was damaged. Just to prove that, I was with Dr. Kageruka, soldiers and a crowd of people.” Dr. Kageruka was Dr. Martin Kageruka, a member of the staff at the university hospital.90 Dr. Kageruka himself allegedly led a search team that visited the Benebikira convent at the end of May. The other members were two university professors, a deputy prosecutor, a sub-prefect, and a merchant. Armed with their own weapon, the searchers had no soldiers with them, an indication that by this time the “civilian self-defense” program was operating as planned.91

Guhumbahumba: To Track Down the Last Tutsi

When the prefectural security council met to assess the situation on May 20, the senior administrators—most likely led by Kalimanzira—were far from satisfied. Despite the capture and killing of targeted individuals and the slaughter of previously protected people the zeal of ordinary citizens for guarding barriers and doing patrols had rapidly diminished. Burgomasters and other local authorities were not getting the work done. To make the situation more critical, the FAR were fleeing before the RPF and had abandoned the battlefield in Ntyazo in the northern part of the prefecture.

At the prefectural security meeting on that day, a senior administrator complained that “the burgomasters give the impression of being asleep” and the military commander expressed annoyance that many things were talked of but never implemented. “All decisions should be executed,” he said. The meeting resolved to once more convoke a series of meetings with the people. According to the notes of the meeting:

Self-Defense: we should go to the cells to raise political consciousness; it [“civilian self-defense”] will be carried out if everyone knows what he is supposed to do.92

The participants decided to go first to the most exposed communes, those on the periphery of the prefecture. They set out a schedule of dates and hours for senior administrators and military officers to meet with the population in eight of the twenty communes. They were to impress upon the people the importance of doing patrols, guarding barriers, and searching everywhere for the “enemy.” According to witnesses from Nyakizu, it was such a meeting that provoked a new round of killings in the commune, particularly of women and small children. (See chapter ten.) RTLM disseminated a new term for this final stage of the killing campaign: guhumbahumba, meaning to track down the last remaining Tutsi.

The sub-prefect of Gisagara was responsible for conducting meetings in the five communes of his district and reported on the successful completion of his assignment on May 28. He had informed people about:

l). security and aid to the armed forces in this war

2). raising their consciousness about their own welfare (to work)

The parenthetical explanation “to work” apparently meant that the subprefect had told his audiences that their welfare depended on killing Tutsi.

The sub-prefect found the population receptive, or so he said. He reported that they were ready to contribute (presumably money and food) to the soldiers and anxious to receive as quickly as possible the tools (ibikoresho, literally, the things to work with), meaning firearms, needed in their sectors. But clearly not everyone showed the same zeal, for Ntawukurkiryayo found it necessary to give severe and repeated warnings. Using the same phrases made current by Sindikubwabo in his April 19 speech, the sub-prefect declared that those whose attitude was “this doesn’t concern me” (ntibindeba) must disappear from the communes. He insisted:

Anyone who does not help his fellow Rwandans to fight the RPF is also an enemy and must be treated as an Inkotanyi....Whoever hides and does notshow up to carry out the plans decided on by the administration is also an enemy.93

An additional order prohibited hiding ibyitso “when the people denounce them.” This showed that “to fight the RPF” meant to attack local Tutsi in the area, not to combat RPF soldiers at the front.94

Burgomasters passed on to their subordinates the reprimands they had received at the May 20 meeting. The burgomaster of Mbazi wrote the councilor of Mwulire sector, for example, about the absence of guards at a barrier next to the main paved road:

Several times in the course of our meetings together, I have reminded you about the question of keeping a reinforced guard on that barrier, but I see that it was wasted effort.

So I am asking you to let me know if you have on your own arrived at the conclusion that the war is finished and security assured [or] if you have other forces that you can count on besides the citizens at the barriers and doing patrols.95

From the start, authorities had used clearing the brush both as a way to catch Tutsi hiding there and to remove the cover that might provide them protection in the future. In the days just after the systematic slaughter of April 21 to 25 in Butare town, residents of sectors like Ngoma and neighborhoods like Kabutare were summoned to days of umuganda to cut the brush. Less frequent for a short while, these operations were ordered again after the middle of May. The cell committee of Tonga, for example, decided on May 18 that all residents would get up early the next morning to go cut “bad branches” in the Gafurwe forest. They directed, “When this work is finished, the people will go to Nyabitare where they will cut all the bushes and they should search all the empty houses to see if there isn’t someonehidden in them.”96 The same day, the security committee for Muyaga commune directed the people “to destroy the brush that could serve as hiding places for the enemy.”97

The prefectural security council decided on larger-scale brush cutting operations, probably at its May 20 meeting, and on May 24, Burgomaster Kanyabashi instructed the councilors to turn out the people at 7 a.m., May 27 for umuganda. They were to bring machetes and other cutting tools and to clear the brush along the Rwabayanga road and along the main road leading to the university.98

Searching the Fields, Forests and Valleys

A further RPF advance at the end of May spurred an apparent panic among high-level administrators. At a May 31 meeting, the prefectural security council decided that there would be a large-scale search on June 2 in Mugusa, Muyaga, and Rusatira. They directed searchers to bring a three day supply of food and warned them against looting along the way. One participant recorded the orders in his notebook:

From tonight, increase the number of men; they should search everywhere in their own places; each one should take a weapon. Signal: how to recognize each other. Determine the departure line: cell heads.99

The sub-prefect Ntawukuriryayo hurried directly from the prefectural meeting to a communal meeting in Ndora to impress on participants the need to “search the houses of everyone who is suspected of collaborating with the enemy.” After hearing his warning that the RPF might have already infiltrated the town of Nyabisindu, the participants at the meeting agreed that no market would be held the next day and that everyone must “search the sorghum fields and the forests andwherever the enemy could be hidden.” The day after the local search, Ndora people were to join the search ordered by prefectural authorities and were to assist the people of Mugusa commune in beating the bushes at Ngiryi, along the banks of a river that flowed down from the commune of Muyaga. They were told: “Everyone must go with the others, with his arms, and anyone who fails to go will be taken to be an icyitso.”100

The burgomaster of Runyinya worried about the hiding places offered by the forests and caves in the high hills of his territory and by the extensive tea plantations in the valleys. Apparently the survivors of attacks on large agglomerations of Tutsi had retreated into these areas just as Tutsi had sought refuge on the hilltops of Bisesero in Kibuye. At almost the same moment when the prefect of Kibuye was requesting military help to eliminate the survivors at Bisesero, the Runyinya burgomaster was asking for ten firearms, presumably for the use of the fifty former soldiers who were at his disposition in Runyinya. To underscore the need for this help, the burgomaster wrote:

Our worries are well founded, since last week the people discovered five unknown people in the forests of Rukara-Gikombe; three were taken but refused to reveal their identities; two succeeded in escaping into the forest and are still being sought. We could not bring those captured to the higher authorities because they refused to be brought to the communal office; those who caught them killed them on the spot.101

Authorities aimed to find not just Tutsi who were locally resident, but also those who had escaped killing in their home regions further north. These survivors were moving south and west into and through Butare prefecture with the masses of other displaced persons fleeing the RPF advances. After the sub-prefect of Gisagara aroused new zeal for tracking Tutsi by his late May security meetings, he asked the prefect to arrange for at least ten soldiers “to support the population and its [communal] police.” He was anxious that “the enthusiasm that the people shownot be allowed to die” but rather be directed with the help of the soldiers towards “making sure that there are no enemies hidden in this crowd of refugees.”102

Kalimanzira, as the most senior official of the territorial administration in the area, spurred this increasingly fanatical tone among his subordinates. Both he and the sub-prefect of Gisagara were dissatisfied with the lack of zeal shown by the burgomaster of Ndora: one or both of these higher ranking officials sometimes took over the burgomaster’s meetings with the people of his commune. This was particularly easy for the sub-prefect because his offices were located in the commune of Ndora. Kalimanzira also managed to appear at a number of these local meetings, sometimes in the company of other dignitaries.

At a meeting in Ndora commune on June 7, Kalimanzira was flanked by several locally important people, including Bernadette Mukarurangwa, deputy of the national assembly. Kalimanzira gave the usual canned review of the orgins of the war and warned the people that the Inkotanyi had “elaborated a plan to eliminate all the Hutu everywhere in the country, from the level of the prefecture down to that of the cell.” He declared, “The Inkotanyi send their spies (supporters of the RPF)...who tell them about what is going on.” Trying to explain away the recent RPF advance into Ntyazo commune, he said that a mere handful of their soldiers had succeeded there because they had been helped by people whom they called “refugees,” but who were really their spies hidden in the sorghum fields, “refugees who were carrying radio sets,” meaning two-way radios for communicating with the RPF. To ensure the capture of such “spies,” Kalimanzira insisted on a closer examination of all who passed through barriers, including interrogation about their origins and destination. He also demanded thorough searches of the whole commune to catch those who got around the barriers by going through valleys and swamps.

At this meeting, Kalimanzira warned even that “The Inkotanyi use small children (abana bato),” suggesting that they too were enemies to be killed.

On the issue of “civilian self-defense,” Deputy Mukarurangwa wanted her opinion heard about the best way to recruit and train young people. On the recommendations of the authorities, the people at the meeting then resolved to arm themselves with traditional weapons and asked those who knew how to make bows and arrows to turn out enough so that they could be sold at market. As Kalimanzira had specifically directed, they also decided to form batallions of 600 young menarmed with such weapons to be commanded by one former soldier with a firearm.103

Searching Butare Town

The RPF advances also spurred renewed efforts to find Tutsi in Butare town. In the first days of June, militia and soldiers discovered Tutsi hidden in the convent of the Benebikira near the cathedral. They had tied up the men and apparently were preparing to kill them when Lieutenant Colonel Muvunyi arrived, having been summoned by the mother superior. He prevented the killings and sent the Tutsi to join those gathered in front of the prefecture, some of them just returned from Nyange.104 On June 3, there was a raid at the Junior Seminary at Karubanda in which three women and two infants were taken and killed, without any effective effort by the priests to intervene. On June 5 and 6, there was a new “sweeping out” of the hospital, forcing out the last Tutsi who were hidden there.105

Also on June 5, the security committee of Cyarwa-Cyimana, “following the orders received from the government of salvation about the security of the Rwandan people,” decided to raid the home of Margueritte Kaniwabo. They carried out the search the next day, together with the local people, and found four “traitors,” two of them women, hidden in the ceiling of the house. According to those reporting the incident to the prefect,

All these people were being guarded by Eric Mujyambere, who had a firearm, and he had received that firearm from the communal authorities so that he, along with other inhabitants, could assure the security of the population. Thosecarrying out the search had to defend themselves and the above-named ibyitso got into the fray and lost their lives.106

On June 7, a committee met to plan another drive to clear the brush in Butare town, where residents continued to report the presence of Inyenzi in wooded areas such as the arboretum next to the university.107 The minutes of the meeting suggest how ordinary citizens acting in accord with the policy of “civilian self-defense” took on the tasks of officials in implementing the genocide. Bernard Mutwewingabo, the university professor and Faustin Twagirayezu, the secondary school teacher, active in organizing the system of patrols and barriers, seem to have led the meeting. Ayobangira and Elisée Mutereye, members of the finance committee for “civilian self-defense,” participated as did Vénuste Uwizeye, councilor of Butare town,108 representing the administration. Several agents of the forest or agricultural service attended, apparently to give technical advice on burning the brush. After listing the eight wooded areas in and around the town, the participants decided whether each was to be burned or cut down and who was to do the work. The minutes refer several times to the “head” (umuyobozi) of the commune, without ever using his title of burgomaster. He is noted always as the recipient, not the initiator of requests—or perhaps even orders—from the other participants. He is directed to arrange with the prefect for a day of umuganda to cut the brush in the Rwasave valley; he is asked to order the councilor of Tumba sector to have residents of that sector cut the brush near the hospital; and he is told to “make the councilor of Ngoma sector understand that he has to get the people in this sector to cut the brush.” The group decided that the people of neighboring Shyanda commune would also have to be involved because they would need to cut a firebreak to protect their fields. One of the group, Jean Mubiligi, an agriculturalresearcher and a person with no official authority, volunteered to go tell the burgomaster of Shyanda that he would have to arrange for this to be done.109

Fired with zeal to confront the “enemy” and strengthened by a sense of their own importance, such self-appointed leaders clearly expected to be heard by civilian and military officials. In a letter to the military commander of Butare, the “coordinator of patrols” J.N. Rutayisire asks him to send twenty soldiers to assist civilians with patrols and even informs him how they should be assigned to the various teams. When this message and a second, on a related subject, did not produce the expected prompt response, Rutayisire wrote to the burgomaster two days later informing him that the citizens of Buye “would like an immediate positive response” to their two letters. They ask Kanyabashi to “stand up firmly” for their requests in the prefectural security council and, if this is impossible, to arrange for them to meet directly with military authorities to explain the urgency of their security concerns.110

“Civilian self-defense” organized a substantial part of the population to hunt down Tutsi, either to kill them immediately or to hand them over to local authorities for execution. It also recruited and trained several thousand young men in the prefecture and provided them with firearms, making it possible for them to supply the firepower needed to support the “work” of the larger body of civilians. While many citizens appear to have participated with little zeal or under coercion, withdrawing as soon as possible, a small number willingly shouldered the burdens of leadership in the genocidal system. The materials available for this study make clearest the role played by intellectuals in the town, but other community leaders—businessmen, successful farmers, clergy, teachers—apparently played the same role out on the hills. Led into the killing campaign by local and national officials, they were the good “workers who want to work” for their country solicited by Sindikubwabo in his April 19 speech.

1 Sylvain Nsabimana, Prefe wa Prefegitura ya Butare, “Ubutumwa Bugamije Kugarura Umutekano mu Makomini ya Prefegitura ya Butare,” April 27, 1994 (Butare prefecture).

2 Ibid.; Sylvain Nsabimana, Prefe wa Prefegitura ya Butare, “Itangazo Kuri Radio Rwanda,” (April 27, 1994) (Butare prefecture).

3 UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 19:00, May 11, 1994. Similar messages were heard on RTLM, 17:00, April 22, 1994 and on Radio Rwanda, 20:00 May 5, 1994.

4 Chrysologue Bimenyimana, Bourgmestre de la Commune Muganza, to Monsieur le Commandant de Groupement Gendarme, no. 070/04.09.01/1, May 5, 1994; [Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara] to Bwana Burgumestri, no. 006/04.01.02, May 14, 1994 (Butare prefecture).

5 Augustin Bizimana, Ministre de la Défense, to Lt. Col. e.r. Simba Aloys, no. 51/06.1.9/01 May 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 6 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 20, 1995; Kigali, November 21, 1995; Brussels, by telephone, January 25, 1997; Augustin Bizimana, Ministre de la Défense au Lt. Colonel e.r. Simba Aloys, no. 51/06.1.9/01, May 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture); “Interview of Sylvain Nsabimana, October 1, 1994”; Nsabimana, “The Truth about the Massacres in Butare.” 7 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, December 13, 1995; Nairobi, by telephone, March 25 and April 3, 1996. 8 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 18, 1995; Nairobi, by telephone, March 26 and April 3, 1996. 9 “Amanama y’Urubyiruko” (undated document) (Butare prefecture). 10 Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Vice-Recteur, to Monsieur le Préfet, P2-12/226/94, May 25, 1994; Sylvain Nsabimana, Préfet, to Monsieur le Vice-Recteur, Butare [no date, no number]; Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Vice-Recteur, to Monsieur le Préfet, P2-18/236/94, June 15, 1994 and attached payment order, no. 1955802 (Butare prefecture). 11 Sylvain Nsabimana, Préfet, to Monsieur le Gérant de la B.K., Agence de Butare, no. 884/—/04.13, June 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 12 Augustin Bizimana, Ministre de la Défense au Lt. Col. e.r. Simba Aloys, no. 51/06.1.9/01, May 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 13 Ibid. 14 The inhabitants of the Butamenwa cell, Tumba sector, Ngoma commune to the Prefect, May 5, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 15 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, November 1, 1995. 16 Vincent Ntezimana and J. Népomuscène Rutayisire to Monsieur le Commandant de place de la Zone Butare-Gikongoro, April 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 17 Venant Rutunga, Directeur du Centre Régional, ISAR, Station Rubona, to Monsieur le Préfet and Monsieur le Bourgmestre (undated, but received before May 26, 1994) and Anaclet Nkulikiyumukiza, Président, Pour le comité des étudiants déplacés de guerre logés à l’ UNR-CUB to Monsieur le Commandant de Place, May 31, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 18 J. Damascene Ruganintwali, Secrétaire, Bureau du Comité d’Auto-Défense Civile, to Bwana Burgmestri, June 20, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, December 29, 1995, January 2, 1996. 19 Patrick de Saint-Exupery, “France-Rwanda: des mensonges d’Etat,” Le Figaro, April 2, 1998. 20 Bordereau de Livraison No. 002/D.C./94, signed by Colonel Gasake and Sylvain Nsabimana, May 15, 1994; Series of documents labeled “Inyandiko-mvugo yo guhererekanya imbunda,” (Record of receipt of weapon), signed by Burgomaster Joseph Kanyabashi and councilors of Butare-ville, Cyarwa-Cyimana, Cyarwa-Sumo, Matyazo, Ngoma, Nkubi, Sahera, Tumba sectors of Ngoma commune, all May 28, 1994; “Verification Armament par Secteur,” Commune Ngoma (undated but after May 28, 1994); Fidele Nzamwita, Bourgmestre wa Komine Muyaga, to Bwana S/Prefe wa S/prefegitura Gisagara,no. 1-/04/09/01/1994, May 27, 1994; Muyaga commune, “Imyanzuro y’Inama ya Komini Muyaga Yaguye yo kuwa 18/5/1994” (Butare prefecture). 21 Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, Célestin Rwankubito, “Inama y’Abaturage Ba Komini Ndora yo kuwa 7 kamena 1994;” Muyaga commune, “Imyanzuro y’Inama ya Komini Muyaga Yaguye yo kuwa 18/05/94” (Butare prefecture). 22 Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, Sous-Prefét, to Monsieur le Préfet de la Préfecture, no. 005/04.09.01/18, May 10, 1994; Proces-Verbal de la Réunion des Bourgmestres des Communes de la Sous-Prefecture Gisagara, tenue le 3 mai 1994 (Butare prefecture). 23 Déogratias Hategekimana, Burgmestri wa Komini Runyinya, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura, no. 110/04.09.01/4, May 18, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 24 Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, Sous-Prefét, to Monsieur le Préfet de la Préfecture, no. 005/04.09.01/18, May 10, 1994; Proces-Verbal de la Réunion des Bourgmestres des Communes de la Sous-Prefecture Gisagara, tenue le 3 mai 1994 (Butare prefecture). 25 He wrote kwica uwo ariwe wese birabujijwe. Had he meant to ban all killing, he would have been more likely to have said kwica uwo birabujijwe or kwica ku muntu uwo ariwe wese birabujijwe. 26 Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, Sous-Prefét, to Monsieur le Préfet de la Préfecture, no. 005/04.09.01/18, May 10, 1994; Proces-Verbal de la Réunion des Bourgmestres des Communes de la Sous-Prefecture Gisagara, tenue le 3 mai 1994 (Butare prefecture). 27 Ngoma commune, Butare town, “Inyandikomvugo y’inama yagizwe n’abatuye muli selire Butareville taliki ya 26/04/1994” (Butare prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, December 14, 1995. 28 Various lists of “Abacumbitsi,” temporary residents (Butare prefecture). 29 Ngoma commune, Butare town, “Inyandikomvugo y’inama yagizwe n’abatuye muli selire Butareville taliki ya 26/04/1994” (Butare prefecture); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, December 14, 1995. 30 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, November 1, 1995. 31 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, December 19 and 29, 1995. 32 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, July 6, December 19 and 29, 1995; Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, Section Criminelle, Dossier 37/95, P.V. unnumbered, April 27, 1995. 33 At the time of our investigation Abbe Sekamana had not been formally charged with killing anyone, although he admitted to having seen soldiers attack a young man. Some accuse him of involvement in the death of Malik Karenzi, an allegation which we have not investigated. One witness, not questioned specifically about the priest, spontaneously offered the information that Sekamana protected people from harm at his barrier. Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, October 29, 1995. 34 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, February 25, July 6, October 27, 1995; March 5, 1996. 35 Déogratias Hategekimana, Burgmestri wa Komini Runyinya, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura, no. 110/04.09.01/4, May 18, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 36 [Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara] to Bwana Burgumestri, no. 006/04.01.02, May 14, 1994 and Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara, to Bwana Prefe wa Prefegitura, no. 007/04.09.01, May 28, 1994; Mugusa commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama z’umutekano za Komini Mugusa zateranye mu matariki ya 13 na 14 mata;” Joseph Kanyabashi, Burgmestri wa Komini y’Umujyi ya Ngoma, to Bwana Konseye wa Segiteri (Bose), no. 198/04.09.01, May 10, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 37 Froduald Nsabimana, Umwanditsi, “Inyandiko Mvugo y’Inama Rusange ya Secteur Cyimana,” May 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 38 Jonathas Ruremesha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Huye, to Bwana Prefe, Huye, May 19, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 39 Ibid. 40 Nicodeme Hategikimana (sic), Conseiller, “Inama y’umutekano y’abaturage ba secteur Cyarwa-Sumo yateranye le 12 gicurasi 1994” (Butare prefecture). 41 Ngoma commune, Cyarwa-Cyimana sector, “Inyandiko Mvugo y’Inama y’Umutekano: Cyarwa Cyimana,” May 13, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 42 Froduald Nsabimana, Umwanditsi, “Inyandiko Mvugo y’Inama Rusange ya Secteur Cyimana,” May 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 43 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. No. 0304 and Ngoma commune, “Inyandiko Mvugo y’Inama Bourgmestre wa Commune y’Umujyi ya Ngoma Yagiranye na Commission y’Umutekano ya Secteur Ngoma”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, by telephone, January 19, 1998. 44 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, February 9, 1995; Brussels, by telephone, January 19 and 29 , 1998; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 0117; Production Alter ciné, “Chronique d’un génocide annoncé.” 45 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Brussels, by telephone, January 29 and February 15, 1998; Rome, by telephone, February 4, 1998. 46 Probably the same one who launched the slaughter at the Mbazi stadium. See above. 47 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. No. 0304; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, February 9, 1995; Brussels, by telephone, January 19 and 29, 1998; Production Alter ciné, “Chronique d’un génocide annoncé.” 48 République Rwandaise, MINADEF, Gendarmerie Nationale, Brigade de Butare, Projustia [no number], P.V. d’Interrogatoire du Prévenu Niyitegeka Edouard, May 18, 1994 et Projustia no. 195, P.V. d’Interrogatoire du Prévenu Habimana Jacques; J. Chrysostome Ndakaza to Bwana Procureur wa Republika i Butare, June 3, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 49 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, by telephone, April 29, 1994. 50 If in fact meant to represent a reward, the sum may have been intended for the capture of any or all of the group listed. Two million francs seems too large an amount to have been intended for information about just one of those sought. The note in the differentscript may have been added some time after the rest of the entry was written. 51 Musoni, “Holocauste noir,” pp. 86-7. 52 Chrétien, Rwanda, les médias, pp. 327-28. 53 In a number of cases where authorities did not want to be blamed for murder, they released the persons in their charge to near immediate assault and death. République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 117; Guy Theunis, “Liste des prêtres, religieux, religieuses et laïcs consacrés tués au Rwanda,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September 1994, pp. 123, 125. Militia killed clergy and one nun at Kabgayi on May 24. (Seechapter six.) 54 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, April 12, 1995. 55 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Nairobi, by telephone, March 25, 1996. 56 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, February 4, 1998; Pie-Joseph Ngilimana, “Vision Synoptique des Massacres à Butare à partir du 7 avril 1994,” typescript, August 19, 1994. 57 Enias Semashinge Ntamushobora, to Bwana Conseiller wa Segiteri ya Matyazo, May 16, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 58 République Rwandaise, Ministère de la Défense, Gendarmerie Nationale, Groupement Butare, Pro Justitia/Procès-Verbaux de Renseignement of Emmanuel Gakuru and Sikubwabo, May 17, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 59 Ngoma commune, Cyarwa-Cyimana sector, “Inyandiko mvugo y’Inama y’umutekano: Cyarwa Cyimana,” May 13, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 60 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, October 25, 1995. 61 Jonathas Ruremesha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Huye, to Bwana Perefe, May 19, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 62 African Rights, Witness to Genocide, issue 7, September 1997, p. 57. 63 Célestin Rwankubito, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, “Inyandiko-Mvugo y’Inama y’Abaturage B’Amasegiteri Gisagara, Mukande, Ndora na Cyamukuza yo kuwa 31 Gicurasi 1994” (Butare prefecture). 64 List entitled “Benebikira Maison-Mère Save” with note of authorisation signed by Lieutenant Colonel Muvunyi, dated May 6, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Nsabimana, “The Truth About the Massacres in Butare.” 65 Survivors have accused Sister Julienne Kizito of having been present at the attack on April 23, but she may have fled with other sisters to Ngoma church, Butare between April 22 and 24. The question needs further research. African Rights, Rwanda, Not so Innocent, pp. 161-81; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, March 26, 1996 and by telephone, Rome February 4, 1998; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 0117. 66 Soeur Gertrude Consolate Mukangango to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Huye, May 5, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 67 African Rights, Rwanda, Not so Innocent, p. 185. 68 Ibid., p. 187-88. 69 Church sources identify the two as Brothers Gaëtan Gatera and Antoine Rutagengwa, but a local witness referred to one of the two as Brother Innocent. Theunis, “Liste des prêtres,” p. 131. 70 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, December 18, 1995. 71 Beginning, of course, with the UNAMIR forces. 72 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, November 9, 1995; Kigali, January 19, 1996; Nairobi, by telephone, April 3, 1996; Nsabimana, “The Truth About the Massacres in Butare.” 73 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, May 21, 1997; Nairobi, by telephone, April 3, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda, Not So Innocent, pp. 94, 99-104. 74 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, May 21, 1997; Nairobi, by telephone, April 3, 1996. 75 S/Prefet Rutayisire, for the prefect, Proces-verbal de requisition, for vehicle from ONAPO, license number A8285, May 30, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 76 Two witnesses declare that only one of the vehicles reached Nyange and that the others were stopped at the barrier of the Presidential Guard at Cyarwa and returned to the prefecture. 77 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, May 21, 1997, Nairobi, by telephone, April 3, 1996; African Rights, Rwanda, Not So Innocent, p. 100. 78 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, May 21, 1997, Nairobi, by telephone, April 3, 1996; Nsabimana, “The Truth About the Massacres in Butare.” 79 Nsabimana, “The Truth About the Massacres in Butare;” Fergal Keane, Season of Blood (London:Viking, 1995), p.175; African Rights, Rwanda, Not So Innocent, p. 104. 80 Kamanzi, Rwanda, Du Génocide à la Defaite, pp.145-46. 81 Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for May 14, 1994. 82 Chrétien, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 194. 83 Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for May 14, 1994; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, July 5, 1996. 84 Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Vice-Recteur, to Monsieur le Préfet, P2-12/226/94, May 25, 1994; Sylvain Nsabimana, Préfet, to Monsieur le Vice-Recteur, Butare [no date, no number]; Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Vice-Recteur, to Monsieur le Préfet, P2-18/236/94, June 15, 1994 and attached payment order, no. 1955802 (Butare prefecture). 85 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, July 6, 1996. 86 Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for May 14, 1994. Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, Section Criminelle, PVs. no. 22.192 and no. 44.450. 87 Anatole Havugimana, Emmanuel Mbarushimana, and Domina Ntakirutimana, Itangazo ry’Abanyeshuri b’i Muganza and its French translation, Declaration des Etudiants de la Commune Muganza, May 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 88 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 0115. 89 Prof. J. Bosco Nzitabakuze to M. Le Commandant de place, June 9, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 90 Faustin Ndayisaba to Monsieur le Maire de la C.U. de Ngoma, June 9, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 91 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, March 15, 1995. 92 Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for May 20, 1994. 93 Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara, to Bwana Prefe wa Prefegitura, no. 007/04.09.01, May 28, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 94 Ibid. 95 Antoine Sibomana, Burugumestri wa Komini Mbazi, to Bwana Konseye wa Segiteri Mwulire, no. 112/04.09.01, May 20, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 96 Banyangilike Etienne umwanditsi, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama yateranye le 18/5/94” (Butare prefecture). 97 Muyaga commune, “Imyanzuro y’Inama ya Komini Muyaga yaguye yo kuwa 18/05/94” (Butare prefecture). 98 Burgmestri wa Komini y’Umujyi ya Ngoma, Joseph Kanyabashi, to Bwana Konseye wa Segiteri, no. 200/04.09.01, May 24, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 99 Anonymous, Notebook 1, entry for May 31, 1994. 100 Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, Célestin Rwankubito, “Inyandiko-Mvugo y’Inama y’Abaturage B’Amasegiteri Gisagara, Mukande, Ndora na Cyamukuza yo kuwa 31 Gicurasi 1994” (Butare prefecture). 101 Déogratias Hategekimana, Burgmestri wa Komini Runyinya, to Bwana Commandant de Place, no. 118/04.06, June 3, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 102 Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara, to Bwana Prefe wa Prefegitura, no. 007/04.09.01, May 28, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 103 Célestin Rwankubito, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, “Inama y’Abaturage ba Komini Ndora yo kuwa 7 Kamena 1994” enclosed in Célestin Rwankubito, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura, no. 132/04.04/2, June 16, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 104 At least several of those sent to the prefecture were then transferred to Rango, where they remained until the arrival of the RPF, African Rights, Rwanda, Not So Innocent, p. 104. 105 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, December 12, 1995; République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République, P.V. no. 117; African Rights, Rwanda, Not So Innocent, p. 103. 106 Abahagarariye abaturage ba Cyarwa-Cyimana to Nyakubahwa Perefe wa Perefegitura ya Butare, June 6, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 107 Nicodème Hategekimana, chair of the meeting, “Inama y’umutekano y’abaturage ba secteur Cyarwa-Sumo yateranye le 12 gicurasi 1994” (Butare prefecture). 108 Identified in the minutes of the meeting as councilor, Uwizeye was only acting in that capacity at this time. He was named to the post some two weeks later after the previous councilor, Francois Semanzi, was killed. [See below.] 109 Bernard Mutwewingabo, Rapporteri, “Inyandikomvugo y’inama ya komisiyo yashyinzwe kwiga uko ibihuru bigomba kuvanwaho mu mashyamba akikije umugi wa Butare” (Butare prefecture). 110 J.N. Rutayisire, Coordinateur des rondes dans la cellule Buye, to Monsieur le Commandant de Place, May 1, 1994; J.N. Rutayisire to Monsieur le Bourgmestre de la Commune de Ngoma, May 3, 1994 (Butare prefecture).

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