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THE ORGANIZATION

In the past, the Rwandan government had often mobilized the population for campaigns of various kinds, such as to end illiteracy, to vaccinate children, or to improve the status of women. It had executed these efforts through the existing administrative and political hierarchies, requiring agents to go beyond their usual duties for a limited period of time for some national goal of major importance. The organizers of the genocide similarly exploited the structures that already existed—administrative, political, and military—and called upon personnel to execute a campaign to kill Tutsi and Hutu presumed to oppose Hutu Power. Through these three channels, the organizers were able to reach all Rwandans and to incite or force most Hutu into acquiescing in or participating in the slaughter.

The organization that ran the campaign was flexible: primacy depended more on commitment to the killing than on formal position in the hierarchy. Thus within the administrative system, sub-prefects could eclipse prefects, as they did in Gikongoro and Gitarama, and in the military domain, lieutenants could ignore colonels, as happened in Butare. This flexibility encouraged initiative and ambition among those willing to purchase advancement at the cost of human lives. To preserve appearances, an inferior might obtain the approval of his superior for decisions he made, but those receiving the orders knew who really had the power.1

Similarly, actors bypassed the usual legal and bureaucratic limits on their activities. Military men, retired or in active service, took charge in the civilian domain, as did Col. Simba when he took the chair of prefectural meetings away from the prefect of Gikongoro, and civilians, even those with no legal authority, obtained military support for their attacks on Tutsi. Administrators gave orders to militia groups and Interahamwe leaders intervened in the administrative realm, as when their national committee ruled on the acceptability of the candidate to replace the prefect of Butare. Party leaders like Karemera of the MRND and Murego of the MDR-Power participated in meetings of the council of ministers while others like Ngirumpatse of the MRND represented the interim government abroad in its efforts to legitimate the genocide.2 The prime minister and the Ministry of the Interior directed prefects to involve local politicians in the efforts to assure “security.” Theydid and they made sure their subordinates did the same.3 Like officials of the administration, important party leaders were protected by military guards and, like them, they toured the hills bringing the message of the government to the people.

Individuals from other sectors—the akazu, the church, the business community, the university, schools and hospitals—backed the efforts of the officials.

The Military

Soldiers and National Police, whether on active duty or retired, killed civilians and they gave permission, set the example, and commanded others to kill. Although fewer in number than civilian killers, the military played a decisive role by initiating and directing the slaughter. In the first hours in Kigali, soldiers of the Presidential Guard and the paracommando and reconnaisance battalions, along with some National Policemen, carried out the carnage in one neighborhood after another. Soldiers, National Police and the communal police also launched the slaughter and organized all large-scale massacres elsewhere in the country.

Witnesses in Kigali and other towns have identified as killers certain soldiers and National Policemen whom they knew before the genocide. But elsewhere, witnesses found it difficult to identify the persons or even the units responsible for given crimes because soldiers and National Police wore the same uniforms and only sometimes wore the berets of different colors which indicated the service to which they belonged. Witnesses often say that soldiers from the Presidential Guard attacked them, but troops from other army units or from the National Police may actually have committed some of these crimes.4

Regardless of the responsibility of individuals or units, the widespread and systematic participation of military personnel throughout the entire period of genocide indicates that the most powerful authorities at the national level ordered or approved their role in the slaughter. Bagosora, as shown above, has been identified by other officers as the leader who launched the genocide. General Bizimungu, named chief of staff with Bagosora’s support, and Minister of DefenseAugustin Bizimana at the least collaborated actively with Bagosora, while officers in charge of the elite units, Majors Protais Mpiranya, François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, and Aloys Ntabakuze, as well as others like Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, Lieutenant Colonels Léonard Nkundiye and Anatole Nsengiyumva, Captain Gaspard Hategekimana, and Major Bernard Ntuyahaga carried out the killings of Tutsi and Hutu civilians.

On April 10, Colonel Gatsinzi, then temporarily chief of staff, and the Ministry of Defense each ordered subordinates to halt the killings of civilians, using force if necessary. The Ministry of Defense sent a second, weaker command on April 28 “to cooperate with local authorities to halt pillage and assassinations.” But neither the general staff nor the Ministry of Defense enforced the orders, leaving subordinates to conclude that the directives had no importance. In fact, as some officers had observed from the start, the authorities countermanded the official orders by another message, passed discreetly to like-minded officers who executed the informal order to kill rather than the official directive to stop the killings.5

The military also led militia and ordinary civilians in slaughter, giving orders to citizens directly and through civilian administrators. At the national level, civilian and military authorities directed the population to obey these orders, insisting that civilians must “work with,” “assist,” or “support” the army.6 According to a foreign witness, soldiers taught hesitant young people to kill on the streets of Kigali. When the young people balked at striking Tutsi, soldiers stoned the victims until the novices were ready to attack.7 In the prefecture of Gitarama, soldiers said to be Presidential Guards drove around in a black Pajero jeep, killing and inciting others to kill in the communes of Musambira and Mukingi. Others launched the killing of Tutsi at a market in the commune of Mugina. In Kivu and Kinyamakara communes in Gikongoro, soldiers or National Police directed crowds gathered at market and people found along the roads to attack Tutsi. Soldiers led killing in Cyangugu starting on April 7.8

Soldiers and National Police distributed arms and ammunition to civilians discreetly before April 6 and openly after that date.9 They also provided reinforcements in men and materiel to civilians who found it impossible to overcome resistance from Tutsi. A medical assistant who was trying to kill Tutsi in the commune of Ntyazo at the end of April asked for military support:

Mr. Muhutu A.

Deputy

We have a large number of Tutsi at Karama (sector headed by the councilor Kanamugire). We have tried to fight them, but they have turned out to be stronger than we expected. So we ask for your help once again; send us a few National Police and four other [communal?] police to help the population that is fighting with bows.

P.S. We have guns and grenades.

Mathieu

27/4/9410

Military personnel also ensured the spread of the genocide by refusing assistance to authorities, including the prefect of Gitarama and burgomasters in Gitarama, Gikongoro, and Butare who tried to stop killing and other acts of destruction.11

In addition, soldiers and National Police used force or the threat of force against Hutu who tried to resist the slaughter. At the request of administrators, like the burgomaster of Nyakizu, they intimidated citizens into joining in attacks. Even more extraordinary, they directed or permitted militia to exert the same kind of pressure on administrators if they dissented from the campaign of genocide.

Soldiers who had been wounded in war formed a particularly brutal category of military killers. Some joined in beating Belgian UNAMIR peacekeepers to death, others attacked Tutsi at the Adventist university at Mudende, and still others killed and harassed Tutsi in the town of Butare, at Kabgayi, and near the hospital at Cyakabili.12

Politicians and Militia

Political leaders at every level championed the genocide, launching themselves into the killing campaign as a way to increase their own importance and to displace rivals. They were uninhibited by any of the formal responsibilities that sometimes constrained administrators and led them to disguise their intentions in indirect language. Invited by authorities to participate fully in official meetings from the national to the local level, they took the floor to demand ruthless action against Tutsi and those who helped them.13

Politicians used their personal authority and channels of communication within their parties to direct attacks on Tutsi. In Taba commune, Gitarama prefecture, the local MRND leader Silas Kubwimana distributed arms and launched killings.14 In Butare prefecture, National Assembly Deputy Muhutu arranged military support for civilian killers, Deputy Bernadette Mukarurangwa ordered barriers put up, and Deputy Laurent Baravuga reportedly patrolled with his own band of killers.15 In some cases, politicians organized “security” measures in accord with the local administrators. In other cases, where administrators showed no commitment to thegenocide, political leaders effectively took over the extermination campaign in their communities.

Politicians claimed to speak for the people in demanding the extermination of the Tutsi when in fact they often incited them to make that demand.16 In person and on the radio, Shingiro Mbonyumutwa of MRD-Power, son of the president of the first Rwandan Republic, used his considerable prestige to whip up fear and hatred of the Tutsi. In a use of the now-familiar “accusation in a mirror,” he told Radio Rwanda listeners that Tutsi intended to carry out a genocide of the Hutu:

They are going to exterminate, exterminate, exterminate, exterminate [ugutsembatsemba-tsembatsemba]...They are going to exterminate you until they are the only ones left in this country, so that the power which their fathers kept for four hundred years, they can keep for a thousand years!17

The Militia

Political organizations provided the civilian striking force of the genocide, the militia. Before April 6, the militia—in the sense of those who had at least some training and experience fighting as a unit—numbered some two thousand in Kigali, with a smaller number outside the capital in communes where the MRND and the CDR were strong. Once the genocide began and militia members began reaping the rewards of violence, their numbers swelled rapidly to between twenty and thirty thousand for the country as a whole.18

The Interahamwe was an unincorporated organization supposedly independent of the MRND, but heavily influenced by it. The militia was directed by a national committee that included Jerry Robert Kajuga, president (himself the son of a Tutsi father and Hutu mother), Phénéas Ruhumuriza, first vice-president, George Rutaganda, second vice president, Eugene Mbarushimana, secretary-general, Dieudonné Niyitegeka, treasurer and, as councilors, Bernard Maniragaba, Joseph Serugendo, Ephrem Nkezabera, Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka, and Alphonse Kanimba. The Interahamwe had committees at the prefectural level, but it is unclear how important a role they played in the genocide. The best trained groups, those in Kigali, operated under the command of local leaders like “Congolais” inthe region of Gikondo and Kigingi and Jean-de-Dieu in Nyamirambo.19 The Impuzamugambi had no leaders apart from those of the CDR, the best known of whom was Barayagwiza.

Once the genocide began, there was virtually no distinction between Impuzamugambi and Interahamwe in the field, although members of each might still wear the distinctive garb or colors belonging to their parties. Some men participated in both groups, attacking when and where action seemed most profitable. As early as February, the Interahamwe were directed to cooperate also with Inkuba, the MDR-Power militia, but in the first days of the genocide, many MDR members—including those identified with MDR-Power—fought against the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. After Karamira’s April 12 message on the radio and similar directives by other party leaders, however, MDR youth groups began cooperating with the Interahamwe in attacking Tutsi. In Butare, the young supporters of the PSD also eventually participated in attacks with the Interahamwe, exchanging one party hat for another and putting into effect the order that it was time to forget party loyalties for the larger good of the killing campaign.20

From the start of the genocide, political leaders put the militia at the disposition of military. In a statement prepared for judicial proceedings, General Dallaire declared:

...[W]henever we attempted to establish communications with the Interahamwe leadership for cease-fire and humanitarian operations, our most sure and effective conduit to them was Colonel Bagosora. I believe, based on my experiences with the cross-line refugee exchanges in particular, that the militia and the control thereof seemed to be responsive to direction received from Col. Bagosora.21

As Interahamwe head Kajuga explained to a reporter,

The goverment authorises us. We go in behind the army. We watch them and learn....We have to defend our country. The government authorises us to defend ourselves by taking up clubs, machetes and whatever guns we could find.22

In his radio address on April 12, Karamira used the same phrase, remarking that the militia “go in behind the army.” At major massacres, such as the attack on Gikondo church on April 9, witnesses report that militia were clearly following the orders of the soldiers on the spot.23

In an account written later, CDR leader Barayagwiza recounts how the militia became real paramilitary forces once the “interethnic massacres” began. He admits that they attacked Tutsi civilians:

The targets were no longer the youth of other political parties [as in the days of kubohoza] but the soldiers of the RPF, especially infiltrators in the ranks of civilians, as well as the civilian accomplices of the enemy.24

Militia also carried out the commands of civilian administrators. Witnesses report that prefect Renzaho gave orders to the Interahamwe during their attack in late April at the Centre d’Etudes des Langues Africaines (CELA) in Kigali and that Odette Nyirabagenzi, a communal councilor in Kigali, sent militia to seize Tutsi to be killed at the Sainte Famille church and the adjacent St. Paul’s center. In another case, a witness relates that he was attacked by Interahamwe at the direction of Rose Karushara, also a communal councilor in Kigali, who urged the assailants to kill him.25

In response to needs identified by the authorities or party heads, the militia leaders displaced their men from one area to another. These temporary transfers ofassailants demonstrate the extent to which the genocide was centrally directed. Leaders dispatched militia from Kigali to Butare town and others from Nyabisindu were ordered to Gatagara in Butare prefecture. They sent militia from other locations to participate in massacres at Kaduha church in Gikongoro, at Rutonde commune in Kibungo, and at Ntongwe commune in Gitarama. They transported militia from Gisenyi to Kibuye, where they lodged at the Golfe Eden Rock Hotel and assisted the military and the local population in attacking the large groups of Tutsi at Karongi and Bisesero. They ordered militia from several places to help attack Mugonero hospital in Kibuye. A survivor of that massacre identified the party affiliation of the assailants from their distinctive garb, the blue and yellow print boubou of the Interahamwe and the black, yellow, and red neck kerchiefs and hats of the Impuzamugambi. He could tell, too, that they came from several regions. As was common in such large-scale attacks, assailants wore leaves from the plants found in their home regions to distinguish themselves from the victims. The witness saw assailants wearing leaves from tea plants, probably from Gisovu, others with leaves from coffee plants, presumably from Gishyita and Mubuga, and those of a third group with leaves from banana plants, apparently from Cyangugu.26 In mid-June when national authorities began to fear increased RPF pressure on the capital, Interahamwe leaders broadcast orders over RTLM recalling their men to Kigali.27

National leaders used militia, as they did the military, to destroy Hutu opposition to the genocide. They sent groups across communal and prefectural boundaries to intimidate reluctant Hutu into attacking Tutsi.

Although generally responsive to directives from civilian and military authorities, leaders of the militia represented a force with its own base of power—particularly as the number of their members grew—and they dealt with authorities at the highest level. On occasion they met with ministers, prefects, and the chief of staff of the army.28 Like the leaders of political parties, they often claimed to speak for the people in demanding the most extreme measures against Tutsi. In early May, militia attacked a convoy of civilians leaving the Hotel Mille Collines although it had received a safe conduct from General Bizimungu. In asimilar case in mid-May, U.N. officers negotiated for three hours to obtain the authorization of military and civilian authorities to evacuate a group of orphans. Then some young militia members in tee shirts and jeans stood up and imposed conditions that made the operation impossible. The officials said nothing and the effort failed.29 In such cases the greater radicalism of the militia may have been contrary to the stated position of officials but in conformity with their real, hidden intentions. If militia acted without military approval and soldiers wished to stop them, they generally had little difficulty doing so. When General Bizimungu disapproved of an Interahamwe attack on the Hotel Mille Collines on June 17, for example, he quickly expelled them although he had only his personal guard at hand to enforce his order.30

The Administration

The military and the militia brought essential skills and and firearms to the slaughter, but they were too few to kill Tutsi on a massive scale in a short span of time. Executing an extermination campaign rapidly required the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, tens of thousands to actually slaughter and the others to spy, search, guard, burn, and pillage. In some situations, crowds were needed immediately and for only a few days to participate in a massacre; in others, a reliable supply of long-term “workers” was required to do patrols, man the barriers and track survivors. Bagosora, the AMASASU, the CDR, and Kangura had foreseen that turning out large numbers of civilians was the only way to attack an “enemy” dispersed in the population. As Karamira had said in his radio speech of April 12, this “war” had to become everyone’s responsibility.

The interim government directed the administration to carry out this mobilization. Some ministers already known for their determined support of Hutu Power, such as Minister of Family and the Promotion of Women Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, Minister of Commerce Justin Mugenzi, Minister of Information Eliézer Niyitegeka, Minister of Youth Callixte Nzabonimana, and Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Dr. André Rwamakuba were apparently the most insistent about executing the genocide.31 Judging from the way InterimPresident Sindikubwabo and interim Prime Minister Kambanda were assigned their roles in the government, they probably lacked the stature to influence major decisions, but they nonetheless shared responsiblity for implementing them.32

Passing the Word

On April 19, Interim President Sindikubwabo identified his government as “a government of saviors” that would come directly to the people “to tell you what it expects of you.”33 Ministers and other high-ranking government representatives did indeed go out to the countryside, exhorting and insisting on the need to support the genocide, promising rewards to supporters and threatening sanctions against dissenters.34 The practice of going out to the hills had been used to mobilize people for projects of public good, but it also harked back to the 1960s when ministers used tours of rural areas to set off the killing of Tutsi.35

In the continuing absence of the minister of interior and communal development, the administrative head of the ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira, was responsible for implementing the government policy. He counted on a bureaucracy that was known for executing orders promptly and fully. When he directed subordinates to “alert the population to the necessity of continuing to track the enemy wherever he is to be found and wherever he hid his arms,” most of them did so. To make clear that directives about “security” came from the highest authorities and must be obeyed, Kalimanzira ordered that speeches by the president and theprime minister be disseminated widely. This would serve, he said, to make citizens “more determined to assure their own security and to warn all troublemakers.”36

When Kalimanzira directed that meetings about security be held, prefects passed the order to burgomasters, who scheduled meetings and alerted councilors and cell heads. The burgomaster of Bwakira, for example, wrote to subordinates on April 19, ordering them to inform all residents of a series of scheduled meetings. He told them to use whistles and drums to summon the population “so that no one will be absent.”37 Prefects and sub-prefects expected and received reports of these meetings, many of which were recorded in minutes that were carefully taken and neatly transcribed.38

Administrators were responsible for informing their superiors about all important developments within their jurisdictions. In correspondence, in telephone conversations, and in meetings they regularly reported on the “state of security.”

In orders passed down the administrative hierarchy as in the reports passed back up, crucial elements were sometimes left unstated, or were expressed in vague or ambiguous language.39 Superiors told their subordinates to seek out the “enemy” in their midst, but did not specify what was to be done with him when found. Subordinates reported on the capture of “accomplices” but neglected to mention what measures had been taken against them. No one asked for further clarification because everyone understood.

As was usual in Rwanda, authorities at the national level dealt even with matters of detail. The widespread use of banana leaves or other foliage to distinguish attackers from intended victims throughout the country suggests adecision made in Kigali, as does the frequent reliance on whistles as a means of communication among assailants.

Mobilizing the Population

Prefects transmitted orders and supervised results, but it was burgomasters and their subordinates who really mobilized the people. Using their authority to summon citizens for communal projects, as they were used to doing for umuganda, burgomasters delivered assailants to the massacre sites, where military personnel or former soldiers then usually took charge of the operation. Just as burgomasters had organized barriers and patrols before the genocide so now they enforced regular and routine participation in such activities directed against the Tutsi. They sent councilors and their subordinates from house to house to sign up all adult males, informing them when they were to work. Or they drew up lists and posted the schedules at the places where public notices were usually affixed.

Burgomasters were responsible for ensuring the continuity of the genocidal work over a period of weeks, a task that many found difficult. “Intellectuals” were needed at barriers to read documents presented by passersby, but many disliked the duty and tried to evade it. Some councilors tired of making the rounds to check on the functioning of barriers. Burgomasters threatened sanctions against laggards and removed councilors who failed in their responsibilities.40 The administrators also had to resolve squabbles among participants and sometimes resorted to having them draw up written agreements, such as that produced by workers assigned to the checkpoint near the Trafipro shop in the commune Bwakira. All the participants agreed to “be more vigilant” and to refuse bribes. They were reminded to check identity cards and baggage carefully and to interrogate all passersby. They were cautioned against drunkenness and disagreements. “To avoid such disorders, the meeting resolved to create teams, with a leader for each team. The leader will be accountable... for whatever happens at his checkpoint. He will be responsible for the success of the patrol. Every team will have its own patrol day.” And because “it is not easy to check everyone, since some travellers dodge checkpoints,” the group asked the whole population to stop and interrogate any unfamiliar person, wherever encountered.41

Burgomasters, as well as those above and below them in the hierarchy, worked with local councils in implementing the genocide. In some cases, the elected communal council assisted them, but more often a committee or council42 devoted specifically to security played this role. Security committees had existed before April 6 at the level of the prefecture and commune and, in some places, in sectors and cells as well. At the prefectural and communal levels, they had included government employees, military or police officers, and other locally important people such as clergy. At the lower levels, they were comprised mostly of community leaders. After the genocide began, administrators set up security committees for jurisdictions where they had not previously existed and gave new importance to committees that had existed before in name only. The officials regularly invited party leaders to meetings, as was being done at the national level and as they had been directed to do by Kalimanzira.43

In some communes, the security committee did little but approve decisions made privately by the burgomaster and his immediate circle, but in others they helped determine the daily details of the genocide, such as whose house would be searched and where and by whom barriers would be maintained. As the following document from Ntyazo commune shows, the committee sometimes determined the fate of Tutsi who had been caught.

Monsieur Gatwa Abias

“Barrier chief at Bugina”

Concerning the three girls of Gapfizi, I ask you to find two or three men to take them very early tomorrow morning to the sector councilor [illegible] where the measures will be carried out regarding them as was decided at the last meeting of the communal security committee that was held on May 13, 1994.

Ndahimana Mathieu

Assistant Médical

P.S. [illegible] asks permission to miss the patrol because he is very tired.44

Burgomasters occasionally called in soldiers or National Policemen, particularly if there were many Tutsi to kill. More usually they relied on local resources: the population, militia, and the communal police. In the course of the preceding months, many communal police had received new firearms or additional supplies of ammunition so they were well-equipped to serve as the local force for slaughter. They often guarded the sites where Tutsi had gathered until groups of assailants were organized for the attack and they then helped direct the massacre. Others led search parties to capture and kill Tutsi in their homes or in the bush.45 Although most communal police followed orders to participate in the extermination, some did refuse. Others were killed themselves, either because they were Tutsi or because they tried to save the lives of Tutsi.

Burgomasters used the same forces to oblige dissident citizens to join in the genocide. They directed or permitted communal police, militia, or simply other citizens to burn down houses and to threaten the lives of those who refused to join in the violence.46

They also offered powerful incentives to draw the hesitant into killing. They or others solicited by them provided cash payments, food, drink and, in some cases, marijuana to assailants. They encouraged the looting of Tutsi property, even to the point of having the pillage supervised by communal police. In many areas, authorities led the people from one stage of crime to the next as they directed them from pillaging property to burning homes to killing the owners of the homes. In several places, police reprimanded those people who wanted only to pillage and not to kill. Assailants at Nyundo reminded each other “Kill first and pillage later.”47

One of the most important resources for the burgomaster in enlisting participants was his authority to control the distribution of land, a much desired andscarce source of wealth for the largely agricultural population. Hutu who had attacked Tutsi in the 1960s had acquired the fields of their victims. A generation later, people again hoped to get more land by killing or driving Tutsi away. As Pasteur Kumubuga commented in a meeting in Bwakira commune “Those who killed say that the properties of the victims belong to them.”48 At a later meeting, another participant commented that people were cultivating lands taken from victims “to reward themselves for the work they had done.”49 As usual, “work” meant “killings.”

Enforcing Regulations

The burgomaster did more than just recruit and organize participants in attacks and patrols. As head of the local administration, he became the arbiter of life and death through the implementation of administrative regulations. Because population registration was done at the commune, the burgomaster was the ultimate authority in cases of contested ethnic classification. In the commune of Bwakira, the burgomaster responded to an appeal from a woman named Mujawashema who said people accused her children of being Tutsi and wanted to kill them. The burgomaster carried the research back three generations to the status of Nsengiyumva, grandfather of the children’s father. From a file completed on April 16, 1948, the burgomaster learned that the greatgrandfather of the children was Hutu. He concluded, “Therefore, no one must harm those children.”50

In the commune of Ndora, members of a family accused of being Tutsi wrote to the burgomaster:

After the misfortunes that have struck our family in the course of the recent troubles, misfortunes caused by the jealousy and the hatred spread by certain residents of the commune against us and which resulted in the pillageof our goods, in the destruction of our houses, and even in the massacre of several of our family under the pretext that they could try to make them [i.e., the wrongdoers] pay for what they had done, and to this end, they have accused us of belonging to the ethnic group of the Batutsi, to the point that those [among us] who are safe owe this to their having a son in the national army; and even so, these residents are still pursuing them in the place where they have sought refuge.

We are writing to ask your help especially concerning the question of our ethnic affiliation, which is the pretext put forward by the residents of the commune, that it be clarified and explained to them because the ethnic group in which we believe and with which we identify is that of the Bahutu.51

They concluded by giving the names of four past and present officials in Ndora commune and others in Gishamvu, where the family had originally lived, who could verify their Hutu identity.

Persons who hoped to pass for Hutu often “lost” their identity cards and then requested temporary papers from the councilor or a new card from the burgomaster, hoping the administrator would be persuaded to falsify the document. In testimony at the International Tribunal about his powers during the genocide, one former burgomaster declared, “In the countryside, the mere fact of giving an attestation to a person sufficed to save him.”52 Tutsi who succeeded in obtaining such papers in their home communes sometimes found themselves caught by less obliging officials as they tried to flee through other communes. In another manoeuvre, Hutu mothers of children fathered by Tutsi sometimes tried to protect their children by claiming they were illegimate and seeking to have them registered on their cards—as Hutu—rather than on the cards of the fathers. The burgomaster of Huye commune, reluctant to deal with these issues, passed such a case to the local judicial official, who passed it back to him with a bare explanation of the law that gave no real guidance on how to deal with the problem.53

In several cases, the burgomaster himself or members of his family were accused of hiding a Tutsi identity behind an officially Hutu exterior. One of them, the burgomaster of Mabanza, appealed to the Kibuye prefect, Kayishema, to defend him. He wrote:

Regarding my personal problem—[accusations] that my wife is a Tutsi, that I am supposedly an accomplice of the enemy, that I protect Tutsi and Hutu with Tutsi wives—these rumors are spread by my political opponents who want to replace me. My wife is a Hutu of the Bagiga, a large Hutu family who live at Rubengera, commune Mabanza.

The accusations that my mother-in-law is Tutsi are groundless as well. And if she were, children take the ethnic identity of their father, not their mother. Those who say that my mother-in-law is Tutsi are wrong: she is from sector Ruragwe, commune Gitesi, from the Barenga family, a well-known Hutu family, as the burgomaster of Gitesi explained in his letter no. D 249/04/05/3 of June 6, 1994, addressed to the councilor of sector Ruragwe and of which you have a copy.54

Administrative officials recorded changes in the population extremely carefully before the genocide, noting births, deaths, and movement into and out of the commune on a monthly as well as a quarterly basis. With this data, officials knew how many Tutsi, whether male or female, adult or child, lived in each administrative unit, information useful in any attempt to eliminate them. Prefect Kayishema was so concerned about the accuracy of this data that he took time in early May to review census data submitted by burgomasters for the last quarter of 1993. He found errors in at least two of the reports, that of Mabanza, which recorded the increase in female Tutsi as fifty-two instead of fifty-three, and that of Rwamatamu where an error of seven was made in accounting for the male Tutsi population and an error of six was made in recording that of female Tutsi.55

Even before April 1994, Rwandans were supposed to be registered in the communes of residence if these differed from their communes of birth. Nyumbakumi, cell heads, and councilors all were involved in making sure that no strangers lived unnoticed in a commune. With the start of the genocide and the renewal of combat, tens of thousands of people fled the capital, some heading directly south, others returning to their communes of origin, wherever they might be. Authorities and radio announcers warned from the start that the Tutsi among these displaced persons were often “infiltrators” in disguise and stressed the need to keep close track of them. Officials usually directed the displaced to a common gathering place and sought to discourage their taking shelter with private families, where it would be harder to keep track of them. But recognising that some went to stay with friends or family, burgomasters passed instructions down to councilors, cell heads, and nyumbakumi that such people must be registered immediately.56 Administrative officials also insisted that clergy or persons responsible for sheltering the displaced provide as much data as possible about those whom they were lodging. Administrators generally declared that such data was needed to assure adequate food supplies, but the information also allowed them to know how many Tutsi were still alive and where they were staying. Often a gathering place was attacked soon after officials had collected data on the displaced persons sheltered there.57

Authorities also revived an earlier requirement that persons wishing to travel outside their communes receive written authorisation to leave (feuilles de route). Burgomasters controlled the distribution of these documents which could permit Tutsi to try to flee for their lives. During periods of curfew, burgomasters also decided who must obey the regulations to remain at home. Officials insisted that Tutsi remain in their houses while granting passes to assailants who could then move freely around the commune to attack them.

Burgomasters and other officials sought to keep accurate records on the dead and missing. In Bwakira, for example, the burgomaster ordered subordinates to prepare such lists on April 29. Five days later councilors submitted lists, by sector, of household heads who had died, the number of people in the household killed,and the number from the household who had fled.58 In Butare, at Kabgayi and elsewhere, some Tutsi were sent back to their home communes to be killed, in part to enable local officials to verify that they were actually dead. Burgomasters kept track not just of overall numbers of dead, but also of the elimination of those persons named as priority targets for their communes. They seem to have borne final responsibility for ensuring that such persons had in fact been slain. Where there was any doubt that a person in question had in fact been killed, authorities would insist on seeing the body to confirm the death. In some cases, burgomasters tracked down escapees from their communes into adjacent areas, including those who had just sought temporary refuge in their jurisdiction before being driven away.

Burgomasters were also charged with disposing of the bodies. Sometimes they left the bodies unburied for days or weeks, a practice which contributed to the “normality” of violent death, but after a while public health considerations dictated disposal of the remains. Authorities summoned people for umuganda which consisted of stuffing bodies down latrines, tossing them in pits, throwing them into rivers or lakes, or digging mass graves in which to bury them. In Kibuye, workers used a bulldozer to push bodies into a pit behind the little church on a peninsula jutting into the lake. In Kigali, Gikongoro, Butare, and elsewhere, authorities also called upon drivers of bulldozers to assist in disposing of the bodies. In Kigali, prisoners went through the streets every three days to gather up the bodies, a service that prisoners performed in Butare as well. One witness related his shock in the early days of killing when he came across a group of prisoners, dressed in their pink prison shirts and shorts, tossing cadavers into a truck. They were appropriating all valuables from the bodies, stripping glasses and watches from them, plunging their hands into pockets to be sure they had extracted all they could from the dead, and then squabbling among themselves over the division of the spoils.59

Support Services: Ideas and Money

Behind the intertwined triple hierarchy of military, administrative, and political authorities stood another set of important, but unofficial and less visible actors. Anumber of them, left over from the akazu, came together under the leadership of Félicien Kabuga, the wealthy businessman who had helped organize RTLM and who had ordered the thousands of machetes imported in 1993 and early 1994. In early April, many of the group retired to the luxury of the Hotel Meridien or other comfortable lodgings in the pleasant, lakeshore town of Gisenyi. From there they gave advice to the interim government on finance, foreign relations, food supply, and even military strategy.

On April 24 and 25, Kabuga brought together a group of local elite and important persons displaced from Kigali to discuss how to support the army “and the young people,” i.e., militia. The meeting established a “Provisional Committee,” including Kabuga, Abijah Kwilingira, and Stanislas Harelimana to present their ideas to the government. In an April 26 “Message to the Government,” the group urged the interim government to improve its image abroad, an objective that it had just decided to address by sending delegations abroad to try to justify the genocide. Several days later, the Rwandan ambassador in Bruxelles released a statement detailing the “pacification” efforts of the interim government and supposed massacres by the RPF of 20,000 civilians.60 The memo by Kabuga and his group also urged immediate action against the Rwandan ambassador in Paris, Jean Marie Vianney Ndagijimana, who had denounced the interim government on French radio. Four days later, the interim government removed Ambassador Ndagijimana. The committee asked the interim government to accuse Uganda and Belgium formally of aiding the RPF. Two weeks later, the Rwandan representative to the U.N. filed a complaint of aggression against Uganda with the U.N. secretary-general and requested an urgent meeting of the Security Council to examine the charges.61

Kabuga and his group also demanded that all young people receive military training. Repeating the language used by the military commission writing about self-defense at the end of March, they urged that “large quantities of traditional weapons” be found for the recruits since there would not be enough firearms for all of them. Several weeks later, Minister of Interior Edouard Karemera orderedprefects to have people arm themselves with such weapons and soon after, several communes established training camps to teach young people how to use them.62

Kabuga and his associates announced a fund to support the “youth” and contributed the first monies for the account. The committee called on the government to publicize this idea rapidly so that others could contribute.63 Within ten days, the project had been relayed to Washington and probably other foreign capitals as well. The Rwandan ambassador in Washington wrote Rwandan citizens resident in the U.S. and asked them to send contributions to an account he had established at Riggs National Bank.64 Within the country, prefects directed their subordinates, businessmen, and the heads of government departments to collect contributions for such a fund from the people under their authority. The contributions solicited by Kabuga from his immediate circle, 25 million Rwandan francs, about U.S.$140,000, was divided among the prefectures and the Ministry of the Interior to allow each to establish its own account. Dr. Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, the vice-rector of the National University of Rwanda, pressed faculty and staff of the university to contribute and within five days had more than 6 million Rwandan francs, about U.S.$34,000 available for deposit in the local fund. The money was transferred from the university “Caisse d’Epargne,” the savings plan of university employees, suggesting that the vice-rector had taken some or all of it from this account. If so, he would have followed the model of the national government which apparently diverted money from the pension fund for state employees to pay the expenses of war.65

The previous government had also solicited contributions to help pay the costs of war, but this fund was different because it was destined “to help civilians fight the enemy,” as wrote the prefect of Kibuye.66 The Ministry of Interior instructed that the money was to be used to pay the expenses of the militia, including their “refreshments,” meaning certainly the beer and, in some cases, drugs used to intoxicate the killers before an attack. The funds were meant also to buy traditional weapons and communications equipment and to pay the costs of transporting the militia (gasoline and the maintenance of vehicles) to the sites of their “operations.”67 The need for “refreshments” was so important that the prefect of Kibuye requested a police escort for a boat bringing beer from the BRALIRWA brewery in Gisenyi to remedy “the scarcity of drinks” in his prefecture.68 Before money became available through the fund, administrators were forced to find resources themselves to pay the costs of keeping militia active. The prefect of Kibuye emptied the MRND youth fund to pay transportation costs and the burgomaster of Taba used funds of the commune to buy food and beer for militia.69

In addition to responding rapidly to the solicitation of money for the civil defense fund, university staff in Butare shared ideas with both Kabuga’s group and the interim government. In an April 18 press release, the “intellectuals of Butare” laid out a justification for the genocide that would be exploited by delegations sent abroad the following week. They blamed the RPF for having refused a cease-fire and for having thus obliged Rwandan troops to remain at the front instead of going to save Tutsi. At a meeting arranged by Vice-rector Nshimyumuremyi in mid-May, interim Prime Minister Kambanda thanked the intellectuals of the university for the ideas and other support they had provided in the past. In the discussion that followed, speakers repeated some of the ideas enunciated by Kabuga on April 26:the importance of a rapid media response to RPF charges against the government, the usefulness of accusing Uganda and Belgium of supporting the RPF, and the need for civilians to help the army fight the war. These same ideas had appeared in a press release on May 10 by the Groupe de Rwandais Défenseurs des intêrets de la Nation and would be discussed at a later meeting of this group and another at the university, Le Cercle des Republicains Universitaires de Butare.70

The Clergy

Within the first twenty-four hours after the plane crash, it was clear that Tutsi clergy would be killed like any other Tutsi and, a day after that, it was evident that the churches would be desecrated by slaughter carried out at the very altar. Still, four days later, the Catholic bishops promised their “support to the new government.” They asked all Rwandans to “respond favorably to calls” from the new authorities and to help them realize the goals they had set, including the return of peace and security. The bishops balanced the statement with a denunciation of troublemakers and a request to the armed forces to protect everyone, regardless of ethnic group, party or region.71 The statement was issued from the Vatican, where the first synod of African bishops was beginning. The Rwandan bishops had been scheduled to attend, but did not leave Rwanda because of the onset of violence.

As the slaughter continued, the bishops reportedly felt the need to temper their early support of the government with criticism but were not allowed to broadcast such a firm statement.72 On April 17, the bishops spoke again, but only to call for an end to bloodshed for which they held both the RPF and the government responsible. It was only a month later that four Catholic bishops, the Anglican archbishop and other Protestant clergy took a stronger position, urging an end to the war, massacres and assassinations. They “condemned all scandalous acts” and,without explicitly denouncing the genocide, asked all Christians to refuse to kill.73 With the hierarchy slow to take a clear stand against the genocide, many local clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, gave tacit approval to the slaughter by participating in security committee meetings.

By not issuing a prompt, firm condemnation of the killing campaign, church authorities left the way clear for officials, politicians, and propagandists to assert that the slaughter actually met with God’s favor. Sindikubwabo finished a speech by assuring his listeners that God would help them in confronting the “enemy.”74 RTLM announcer Bemeriki maintained that the Virgin Mary, said to appear from time to time at Kibeho church, had declared that “we will have the victory.” In the same vein, the announcer Habimana said of the Tutsi, “Even God himself has dropped them.”75

Far from condemning the attempt to exterminate the Tutsi, Archbishop Augustin Nshamihigo and Bishop Jonathan Ruhumuliza of the Anglican Church acted as spokemen for the genocidal government at a press conference in Nairobi. Like many who tried to explain away the slaughter, they placed the blame for the genocide on the RPF because it had attacked Rwanda. Foreign journalists were so disgusted at this presentation that they left the conference.76

Some clergy who might have been able to save lives refused to even try to do so. On April 15 Abbé Pierre Ngoga, who had fled the Kibeho church after soldiers and local people had begun massacring thousands of Tutsi there, called the Bishop of Gikongoro. Abbé Ngoga asked him to rescue the Tutsi who had survived and faced renewed attack. The bishop reportedly refused to help, saying that he had no soldiers to accompany him to Kibeho and that the Tutsi had been attacked because they had arms with them.77

Some clergy, Rwandan and foreign, turned away Tutsi who sought their protection, whether from fear, from misjudgment of the consequences of their action, or from desire to see them killed.78 In other cases, the clergy protected most who sought refuge with them, but nonetheless sacrificed others. At the large Catholic church center at Kabgayi, some 30,000 refugees gathered under the protection of the Archbishop of Kigali, two bishops, and many clergy. Of that number, about 25,000 were Tutsi, 1,500 of whom would be extracted in small groups from the camps and killed during the course of the genocide. In some cases, burgomasters or militia leaders arrived to collect individuals from their communes to take them home to be killed. In other cases, militia, soldiers, and National Police passed through the crowds and chose persons to execute because they looked like members of the elite. They also took women to rape and sometimes to kill afterwards. Shortly before the arrival of the RPF, four soldiers and five militia members presented the archbishop with a list of names of clergy and lay people whom they were seeking because they had links with the “enemy.” The archbishop stood aside and allowed the squad to search the rooms. The killers departed several hours later with sixteen persons, seven religious brothers, four priests, one religious sister, and four lay persons. The nun, Sister Benigna, an older Hutu who was known throughout the region for her work with single mothers and orphans, was apparently battered to death with a hammer. Her body was found in the woods next to the church center.79

A small number of clergy and other religious persons have been accused of having incited genocide, delivered victims to the killers or even of having killed themselves. Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana has been indicted before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in connection with the massacre at Mugonero and Abbé Wenceslas Munyeshyaka of the Sainte Famille Church in Kigali has been charged in France with torture. Two Rwandan priests have been found guilty of genocide and condemned to death by a Rwandan court.

Despite the silence of many clergy, some did defend Tutsi, even at the risk of their own lives. Bishop Frédéric Rubwejanga went to the local military camp to ask protection for Tutsi attacked at the St. Joseph center in Kibungo, as describedbelow. Mgr. Thaddée Ntihinyurwa of Cyangugu preached against the killing of civilians on April 10 and went to Nyamasheke when he learned that Tutsi in the church were under attack. When he returned to the town of Cyangugu the next day, he tried to evacuate Tutsi religious brothers but was unable to protect them from militia who stopped the cars on the road. The three brothers were killed before his eyes.80

One of the most courageous examples of opposition to the genocide was that of Felicitas Niyitegeka of the religious congregation of the Auxiliaires de l’Apostolat. A Hutu, she had given shelter to many Tutsi in Gisenyi since the start of the genocide and had helped them across the border to Zaire. Her brother, Col. Alphonse Nzungize, who commanded the nearby Bigogwe military camp, heard that she was threatened with death for her work and asked her to give it up. She refused. On April 21 she was taken to a cemetery for execution with forty-three persons, including other religious sisters and Tutsi who had sought refuge with them. Once there, militia members who feared retaliation from her brother offered her the chance to leave. She refused to abandon the others. They repeated the offer after they had slain thirty people. She still refused and was shot and thrown naked with the others into the common grave. When her brother heard the news, he went to find her body and had it dressed and properly buried.81

The Radio: Voice of the Campaign

Throughout the genocide, Radio Rwanda and RTLM continued to broadcast both incitations to slaughter and the directions on how to carry it out. Authorities knew that they could reach a far wider audience through the radio than through popular meetings and so told people that they should listen to the radio to know what was expected of them. The burgomaster of Bwakira commune, for example, reminded people that they “have to follow all orders transmitted in meetings or onthe radio.”82 Radio Rwanda also alerted listeners that heads of political parties would use the airwaves to “send messages to their members concerning how they should behave during these times when all of us should be alert and protect the sovereignty of our country.”83 Repeatedly authorities used the radio to caution against “infiltrators” who were said to be coming to kill Hutu and to ask the population to be vigilant in watching out for them.84

On April 12, the same day when Karamira and the Ministry of Defense used the radio to make clear that Tutsi were the target of killing, Prefect Renzaho used Radio Rwanda to give detailed instructions about where to look for them:

...we ask that people do patrols [amarondo], as they are used to doing, in their neighborhoods. They must close ranks, remember how to use their usual tools [i.e., weapons] and defend themselves...I would also ask that each neighborhood try to organize itself to do communal work [umuganda] to clear the brush, to search houses, beginning with those that are abandoned, to search the marshes of the area to be sure that no inyenzi have slipped in to hide themselves there...so they should cut this brush, search the drains and ditches...put up barriers and guard them, chosing reliable people to do this, who have what they need...so that nothing can escape them.85

Authorities used the radio to recall retired soldiers to active duty and to summon the personnel needed for special tasks, such as the drivers of bulldozerswho were urgently called to Kigali prefecture, presumably to help in digging trenches to dispose of bodies.86

Throughout the genocide, RTLM continued its informal, spontaneous style, with announcers recounting what they had seen on their walks around Kigali. The radio made the war immediate for people distant from the front: listeners could hear the explosions of mortars being shot at RTLM. So lively was the wit of the announcers that even wounded RPF soldiers listened to RTLM from their hospital beds. The station carried not just the rhetoric of politicians but also the voice of the ordinary people who took time off from their work on the barriers to say hello to their families back home. The consistency of the message, delivered by the man in the street as well as by ministers and political leaders, increased its impact on listeners. They were convinced by hearing one of the “abaturage,” the masses, declare that a person who could not present the right identity card at a barrier should “maybe lose his head there.”87

The announcers replayed all the now familiar messages of hate: the inherent differences between Hutu and Tutsi, the numerical superiority of the Hutu—the rubanda nyamwinshi, the majority people—the cleverness of the Tutsi in infiltration, their cruelty, their cohesiveness, their intention to restore past repression, the risk they posed to the gains of the 1959 revolution, and, above all, their plan to exterminate the Hutu. Such messages concluded with calls to action, like the following by Kantano Habimana: “Fight them with the weapons that you have at hand, you have arrows, you have spears...go after those inkotanyi, blood flows in their veins as it does in yours....” One RTLM announcer promised that a “shining day” would dawn when there would be not a single Inyenzi left in the country and the word could be forgotten.88

The radio castigated those who failed to participate enthusiastically in the hunt. One listener remembers RTLM saying:

All who try to protect themselves by sympathizing with both sides, they are traitors. It is they who tell a lot to the Inyenzi-Inkotanyi. It is they whom we call accomplices [ibyitso]. They will pay for what they have done.89

Disseminating the message that “there is no place for moderates,” RTLM heaped scorn on those who refused to participate:

The inhabitants of certain sectors don’t dare search! They say that the houses are occupied and that their owners are shut up inside them; they don’t dare search even in the banana groves!90

They warned that those who refused to search could expect sanctions and they cautioned that those who deserted the barriers could expect severe punishment, just as did soldiers who deserted the battlefront.91

RTLM occasionally went beyond government policy. While officials and political leaders were directing militia to follow the lead of the army and not get ahead of the professionals, RTLM exhorted the people of Rubungo commune to attack on their own. It urged them:

Courage! Don’t wait for the armed forces to intervene. Act fast and don’t allow these enemies to continue their advance! If you wait for the authorities, that’s your problem. They are not the ones who are going to look out for your houses during the night! You must defend yourselves.92

RTLM announcer Kantano Habimana even dared criticize the interim government for its decision to withdraw to Gitarama. He asked when these authorities would return to Kigali to support the population and the soldiers and he hoped, “that they aren’t spending their time, sitting inside, receiving their friends....” Instead theyshould “go out on the hills...to support the people, to teach them how to dodge the inkotanyi, how to cut them off, how to kill them with spears....”93

Deception, Pretext, and Pretense

Authorities, military, administrative, and political, engaged in deception with three objectives in mind: they wanted to confuse foreigners in order to avoid criticism and perhaps even to win support; they wanted to mislead Tutsi to make it easier to kill them; and they wanted to manipulate Hutu into participating energetically in the genocidal program. Sometimes a given strategem served more than one purpose and misled two or even all three target audiences at once. The whole effort of deception was remarkably coherent, with diplomats abroad proclaiming the same lies as those told at home and with officials and politicians using the same pretenses in widely separated communities at the same time.

Just as the organizers used genocide to wage war, so they used the war to cover the genocide. Whether speaking in foreign capitals or at sector meetings out on the Rwandan hills, representatives of the interim government always began with a reminder that the RPF had invaded Rwanda in 1990 and from that deduced that the RPF was responsible for all subsequent developments, including the massive killing of Tutsi by Hutu. Without hesitation, they blamed the assassination of Habyarimana on the RPF, making it an illustration of the larger theme of Tutsi aggression and ruthlessness.

In early April, Sindikubwabo described the violence as a spontaneous outburst of rage sparked by “sorrow and aggressive feelings of frustration” after the assassination.94 Kambanda explained that Habyarimana was “not an ordinary man, not a man like any other,” and asserted that his killing created “a certain frustration among people, a certain vague anger that made it impossible for people to keep control after the death of the head of state.”95 The excuse of “spontaneous anger” echoed the attempts at justification during the Habyarimana period when authorities attributed killings of Tutsi to uncontrollable popular wrath.

The pretext of popular anger was meant not just to confuse foreigners about the organized and systematic nature of the violence, but also to encourage Rwandans to feel justified in participating in it. According to witnesses, many assailants declared during attacks that Tutsi deserved to die because the Inyenzi hadkilled the president. After the militia leader, Cyasa Habimana, led the slaughter of some 1,000 persons at the Saint Joseph center in Kibungo, the bishop confronted him to ask why he had killed. The militia leader pointed to the portrait pin of Habyarimana that he wore on his chest and said, “They killed him.”96 In the days just after the plane crash, many Rwandans in the MDR stronghold of Gitarama prefecture began wearing such portrait pins, which had not been seen in the region since the end of the MRND monopoly of power in 1991. The widespread appearance of the pins demonstrated the success of the campaign to make a martyr of the president.97

In another reprise from the Habyarimana years, authorities occasionally tried to shift the blame for violence from the guilty to someone else, even to the victims themselves. In the first days of the genocide, military authorities claimed that it was not soldiers of the Rwandan army but others wearing their uniforms who were slaughtering political leaders. When they could not sustain this pretense, they assigned guilt to a few unruly elements who were said to have disobeyed orders. Later, RTLM announcer Bemeriki asserted that Interahamwe attacks on the Hotel des Mille Collines and the Sainte Famille church were carried out by “people disguised as Interahamwe.” Soon after she claimed that Tutsi were responsible for burning their own houses as a way to trap and kill Hutu.98

Also familiar from the Habyarimana years was the claim that authorities were doing everything posssible to restore order. In speeches on April 13 and 14, Sindikubwabo even went so far as to assert that the “troubles and killings” had ended with the installation of his government. He later retreated to a position of claiming only that the government was there “to prevent the worst” and would work to see “that these troubles, murders, and thefts are ended in Rwanda once and for all.” When Kambanda took office on April 9, he promised that the government “will do everything possible to restore peace as soon as possible, let us say within about two weeks.” Whether coincidence or indication of prior planning, it wasfifteen days later that authorities began real efforts to make killing more circumspect.99

The “spontaneous anger” excuse became less plausible as the days passed and the killings continued, so authorities replaced it with the pretext of slaughter as “self-defense.” On April 15, the foreign ministry directed Rwandan diplomats to inform the world that “the civilian population which rose as a single man...has greatly contributed to the security of persons and property as well as to exposing the FPR combatants who had infiltrated different parts of the city.”100 On his tour abroad to explain the genocide, Mathieu Ngirumpatse would proclaim, “The population is trying to defend itself.”101

Authorities and propagandists insisted that the war was present throughout the country, even if it were not apparent, and the enemy was everywhere, even if he were not obvious.102 Beginning on April 8, Bemeriki had cautioned that “Inkotanyi are now dispersing...spreading out amongst the inhabitants.”103 Hitimana warned that “they are taking off for the hills...They know how to hide and reappear!”104 In another broadcast, RTLM declared that Inkotanyi were arriving “dressed as civilians and unarmed,” leading listeners to believe that all who looked like the “enemy,” i.e., Tutsi, should be considered RPF soldiers.105 As Bemerki exhorted on April 13,

People have to look at who is next to them, look to see if they are not plotting against them. Because those plotters are the worst. The people must rise up, so that the plotters will be exposed, it is not hard to see if someone is plotting against you...106

On April 17, MDR leader Karamira informed Radio Rwanda listeners that the RPF soldier “is not a soldier in any obvious way...” He added that many “are not in uniform and are hidden among the people...”107 In mid-April, the radio intensified this campaign by reporting that not only individual Tutsi but also organized RPF brigades were operating throughout the country and were responsible for alleged attacks, such as on the burgomaster of Runda.108

The “enemy” who was everywhere was extraordinarily cruel, according to the propagandists. Announcers on RTLM frequently reminded listeners of the dozens killed at Kirambo the previous November and insisted that the RPF had committed that massacre. Bemeriki charged the RPF with cannibalism, saying they killed people by dissecting them and cutting out their hearts, livers, and stomachs.109 On the air and in public meetings, officials and political leaders also contributed to this sense of a people besieged by a heartless enemy. In an April 15 broadcast, the minister of defense charged the RPF with “extreme cruelty,” saying that it had massacred 20,000 people and had burned people with gasoline at Nyamirambo in Kigali.110

To make the need for “self-defense” seem more pressing, RTLM and Radio Rwanda announcers broadcast false news reports of Belgian or other Europeanassistance to the RPF or of invasions being planned or actually under way by troops from Uganda or Burundi.111

Like the “spontaneous anger” justification, this effort at legitimating violence through “self-defense” was meant both to quiet foreign critics and to incite Hutu to kill more. When the propagandist who disseminated his summary of the work of Mucchielli wrote about “accusations in a mirror,” he recommended that adversaries be accused of terrorism because “honest people” will take action if they believe they are legitimately defending themselves.112 Officials and propagandists alike encouraged Hutu to feel righteous anger at the Tutsi and to give “them the punishment they deserve.”113

Local authorities invoked several kinds of “proof” to convince Hutu that Tutsi were planning to attack them and hence should be killed first. Both the practice of presenting such “evidence” and the kinds of “evidence” presented were remarkably uniform throughout the country, indicating the central direction to the deception. They also echoed the strategems of the Habyarimana years. In some cases, the “proof” was a local replay of the nationally-broadcast scenario of Hutu being attacked. In Huye commune near Butare, Tutsi were said to have attacked a soldier. In the town of Butare itself, Tutsi were said to be preparing to kill Hutu. In Kibuye, the rumor circulated that the RPF would launch a helicopter strike to free Tutsi in the stadium.114

A still more widely used “proof” of Tutsi guilt was the supposed possession of arms. At the western most reaches of Rwanda, the first Tutsi killed in Kibuye town was accused of having grenades stored in his toilet and Pastor Ezekiel Semugeshi was accused of having arms and Inkotanyi at his home in Mugonero. In Kibungo, all the way to the east, soldiers showed the bishop four gunssupposedly found in a hedge next to the church to justify their slaughter of the Tutsi who had sought shelter there. In the north, at the parish church of Gisenyi, Abbé Ntagara was accused by RTLM of having “replaced the communion hosts with ammunition.” And in the south, Tutsi were accused of having arms at Kibeho church.115

Authorities also discredited Tutsi by reporting that they possessed suspicious documents, ordinarily lists of Hutu to be killed, but alternatively records of RPF meetings or of dues collected for the RPF, maps with houses marked for attack, letters supposedly from RPF members, or diagrams showing how land was to be redistributed in the community once all the Hutu were eliminated. Just as some authorities displayed arms supposedly found in searches, so others produced actual pieces of paper to add credibility to the charges. The prefect of Kibuye kept examples of such suspicious papers to show to foreign visitors in an effort to legitimate the killing that had taken place in his prefecture.116 Militia at a barrier in Kigali asserted that a newspaper containing a letter from RPF president Alexis Kanyarengwe was proof that the person in whose house it had been found was in communication with the RPF.117 Echoing the speech by Léon Mugesera in November 1992, as well as many subsequent similar statements, some local authorities charged families with having sent their children to join the RPF. They also leveled other accusations that had been heard in prior years: that the Tutsi were holding secret meetings, that they had radio equipment for contacting the RPF, and that they had traveled abroad recently. Some said the very flight of Tutsi to churches and other places of refuge showed that they planned some terrible crime and wished to be clear of the scene before the plot was put into operation.

In some instances, Tutsi did have arms or were assisting the RPF, and authorities did have real evidence of their actions. But the cases were few and instead of dealing with them responsibly, officials exaggerated their importance and used them to cast suspicion upon all Tutsi.

Officials and political leaders used some of the same “proofs” as pretexts for attacking Hutu opposed to them, but more often they charged them with hiding Tutsi. They also accused them of having changed their identity from Tutsi to Hutu.

The “intellectuals” of Butare discussed the need for “uniformity and harmony” of language at two meetings that they held during the genocide.118 In official statements made at meetings, in correspondence among administrators and politicians, and in radio broadcasts, this “uniformity and harmony” prevailed and in the vocabulary used even long after the fact by participants, it still prevails. Some ordinary words carry a special meaning, like “to work,” which appears frequently and almost casually, meaning to kill Tutsi and their Hutu supporters. The word refers back to the 1959 revolution and its violence against Tutsi, a link indicated in phrases that advocate “finishing the work of the revolution.” “Work” requires “tools,” that is, firearms, machetes, clubs, spears. In a report on security meetings that he conducted, one sub-prefect declares that he made people understand what they needed to do for their own welfare. In parentheses he adds, “to work.”119

Always using the war to cover the genocide, authorities refer to massacres as “battles” and to the genocide as “interethnic fighting.” The enemy was the Tutsi. Such was the message of the street song, but it was rarely stated openly. Instead Tutsi were described as “accomplices,” “infiltrators,” “Inyenzi,” “Inkotanyi” and “the minority.” The Hutu were called “the great mass” (the rubanda nyamwinshi) or “the majority people” and “the innocent,” meaning the innocent victims of the Tutsi aggressors. Officials also spoke of “the Rwandans,” when they clearly meant only Hutu, thus reinforcing the belief that Tutsi were alien. The interim government repeatedly announced that it intended to ensure security, peace, and the protection of property, but they meant those benefits only for the Hutu, not for all Rwandans.

Authorities issued statements carrying a double message, knowing that Rwandans would be able to decipher their real meaning. In an April 14 speech that is a model of ambiguity, Sindikubwabo began by preaching the need for “peace in the hearts of our citizens so that they will be tolerant of each other and pardon each other.” He directed them to “keep calm, to forget all feelings of anger, hatred or vengeance.” But then he insisted that people must collaborate with the government in “denouncing any person who still has the evil intention of making us return tothe situations of the past,” a phrase that could refer only to Tutsi. He returned to the more benign mode to counsel good behavior so that no one would be unjustly injured. Then, immediately after, he switched to the attack again: “On the other hand, point out [enemies] and alert the army and security authorities, do patrols....”120 In a similarly ambiguous statement on April 15, the minister of defense urged listeners to work with the army to put the enemy “to flight and exterminate [kumulimbura] him wherever he is” but also stated that “we cannot permit the people to begin killing each other.”121 A week later, Kalimanzira of the Ministry of Interior ordered prefects to “Make people aware of the need to continue to hunt the enemy wherever he is...[but] without doing harm to the innocent.”122

The deceptions in language were echoed and intensified by the deceptions in action, such as the pretense of providing police protection to sites where Tutsi had taken refuge. On a number of occasions, authorities or political leaders used promises to lure Tutsi into situations where they could be attacked: in Musebeya, it was the assurance of transport home; in Muko, it was the guarantee of a ride to the Kaduha church; and at Mugonero, it was the promise of protection by U.S. forces who were said to have arrived in the area. A councilor in the Kicukiro commune, Kigali, offered to hide Tutsi, then reportedly put them in a truck and delivered them to militia. Busloads of displaced persons were transported by order of the prefect of Cyangugu from the stadium to a camp at Nyarushishi. En route, one bus took another route and all the persons on it were killed.123

In other cases, those who had escaped death by flight and hiding were summoned to return home, by drum, voice or loudspeaker. The authorities assured them that the killing was finished. When they came out, they were set upon and slain. In a variant of that deception, survivors were told that the killing was over at the end of an attack, only to see the killers reappear later to finish off those whowere still alive.124 After the previously mentioned massacre at the Kibungo bishopric, the leaders of the attack assured the bishop that the survivors would be permitted to live. The militia had even delivered survivors of other attacks to the Saint Joseph center to receive medical care. At the Kibungo military camp three days later, the bishop raised the issue and was again told by Colonel Nkuliyekubona, the camp commander, Colonel Rwagafilita of the akazu, and the local militia leader Cyasa Habimana that the survivors would not be harmed. He returned directly to the bishopric several kilometers away and found that, in his brief absence, the survivors had been loaded into a truck and taken to a large mass grave near the hospital. There the survivors—more than half of them children—were slain and buried or buried alive. The bishop returned to the camp to confront the three leaders. The two colonels seemed to indicate that it was the militia leader who was responsible, but they made no move to arrest him or otherwise hold him accountable for the massacre.125

Deception was central to the genocide. Without being persuaded that the war was in every community, no matter how far from the line of battle, and without believing that all Tutsi—whether strangers on the road or neighbors known for a lifetime—were enemies, some people would have found it harder to transform their Hutu Power beliefs into deadly action.

Popular Participation

When the national authorities ordered the extermination of Tutsi, tens of thousands of Hutu responded quickly, ruthlessly and persistently. They killed without scruple and sometimes with pleasure. They jogged through the streets of Kigali chanting, “Let’s exterminate them all.” They marched through the streets of Butare town shouting “Power, Power.” They returned from raids in Kibuye singing that the only enemy was the Tutsi. They boasted about their murders to each other and to the people whom they intended to kill next.

Many of these zealous killers were poor, drawn from a population 86 percent of whom lived in poverty, the highest percentage in the world.126 They included many young men who had hung out on the streets of Kigali or smaller commercial centers, with little prospect of obtaining either the land or the jobs needed to marry and raise families. They included too thousands of the displaced who focused their fear and anger on the RPF and defined that group to include all Tutsi. As Bagosora and Nahimana had anticipated, young men from the camps were easily enlisted in the “self-defense” effort. Convinced partisans of the MRND or the CDR, particularly those from the northwest who had grown up hearing accounts of Tutsi oppression and who had little contact with Tutsi in their daily lives, constituted another important pool of assailants.

Many refugees from Burundi, who transferred their anger from their Tutsi-dominated government at home to the Tutsi of Rwanda, also rushed to join the killing campaign. They had been trained at some camps by Rwandan soldiers and militia since late 1993 and were prepared to strike. Refugees from Gisali camp in Ntongwe commune launched attacks on Tutsi in the vicinity, while others killed at Gashora commune in Kigali, at Mugina in Gitarama, at Nshili in Gikongoro, and at Nyakizu, Muyaga, Mugusa, and Butare town in Butare.127

Some Rwandans, previously scorned in their communities, seized on the genocide as an opportunity to gain stature as well as wealth. Using their physical strength, their fighting skills, or their knowledge of weapons, men generally regarded as thugs organized bands to serve as ready-made militia to exterminate Tutsi. Women and children sometimes joined in pillaging or destroying property. Less often they too injured or killed Tutsi. As one UNAMIR officer remarked, “I had seen war before, but I had never seen a woman carrying a baby on her back kill another woman with a baby on her back.”128

Not all killers were poor and living in misery. The authorities who directed the genocide constituted a substantial part of the Rwandan elite, vastly richer and better established than the masses—whether participants or victims.

Nor were all the poor killers. Some refused to attack Tutsi, even when offered the prospect of pillage or the chance to acquire land that might provide security for their families. The people of Butare, arguably the poorest and most over-populated prefecture, were the last to join the killing campaign. Those who initially rejected violence wanted only to get on with their own lives. They hoped mostly for an end to war and the seemingly interminable political squabbles of the elite.

Some who refused at the start became convinced to act when all authorities seemed to speak with one voice, when the leaders of their parties joined with administrators to demand their participation and when the military stood behind, ready to intimidate those who hesitated. At this point, the hesitant accepted the deceptions of the supposedly legitimate officials and hid behind them to commit crimes unthinkable in ordinary circumstances.

Unlike the zealous assailants, the reluctant set limits to their participation: they might massacre strangers in churches or at barriers, knowing only that they were Tutsi, and refuse to attack neighbors, knowing that they were Tutsi but knowing also that they were not enemies. They might agree to pillage a Tutsi envied for his wealth and refuse to burn the house of a poor widow; they might join in killing a young man who loudly proclaimed his loyalty to the RPF but refuse to slay an infant. Some became more hardened with experience and learned how to slaughter even those whom they had once refused to harm; others went the other way, apparently swept up by fear or greed in the first days of slaughter, they were later repelled by the efforts to exterminate even the vulnerable.

Tens of thousands of Hutu refused to join the killing campaign and saved Tutsi lives. Hundreds of thousands more disapproved of the genocide but did nothing to oppose it or to help its victims. They did not answer the call of the local cell leader but neither did they respond to the cries of Tutsi in distress. As one witness reported, “We closed the door and tried not to hear.”129

1 Details of the cases mentioned in this chapter are found in chapters on Gikongoro and Butare.

2 Karemera was subsequently named minister of the interior and community development and Barayagwiza became secretary of the assembly created just before the interim government left the country.

3 Ministiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini [actually signed by C. Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 and Yohani Kambanda, Ministiri w’Intebe, to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose) April 27, 1994 (Butare prefecture).

4 In interviews by Human Rights Watch/FIDH, researchers found “Presidential Guard” used as a generic term for military personnel who killed Tutsi and “Interahamwe” used as a generalized description for civilian bands of killers. 5 Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” pp. 96-103 and Appendix IV (Annex D); Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, January 26, 1996. 6 Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 299. 7 Fergal Keane, Season of Blood, pp. 134-35. 8 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, August 18 and 19, 1995; Kigali, August 21, 1995; Mukingi, July 10, 1996. See below for more detail. 9 Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Témoignage à la Commission Spéciale Rwanda, Le Sénat Belge, April 21, 1994, p. 14. 10 Mathieu [Ndahimana, Medical Assistant in Ntyazo] to A[dalbert] Muhutu, Deputy, April 27, 1994 (CLADHO). 11 Fidèle Uwizeye, “Aperçu Analytique sur les Evénements d’Avril 1994 en Préfecture de Gitarama, Rwanda,” August 18, 1994 (confidential source). 12 Des Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du Diocèse,” p. 61. 13 Fawusitini Munyazeza, [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira] Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994, no identifying number (Butare prefecture). 14 Kubwimana’s role is described by many witnesses in the trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, burgomaster of Taba, before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. See the testimony of the witness identified as DZZ, as reported by Ubutabera, No. 28, November 24, 1997, found at http://persoweb.francenet.fr/-intermed . 15 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, December 19 and 29, 1995 and January 2, 1996; “Inama y’Abaturage ba Komini Ndora yo kuwa 7 kamena 1994,” in Célestin Rwankubito, Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, no. 132/04.04/2, June 16, 1994; Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe wa S.prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Prefe, no. 083/04.09.01/4, April 15, 1994 and no. 008/04.17.02, June 8, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 16 Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” pp. 132, 155, 190, 192, 195-6. 17 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 300. 18 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 26, 1997. 19 Anonymous, “La Milice Interahamwe”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, September 23, 1996. 20 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0053; Radio Rwanda, “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal by official of the pro-army faction of the MDR,” April 12, 1994, SWB, AL/1970 A/2, April 13, 1994. 21 Dallaire, “Answers to Questions,” p. 39. 22 Lindsey Hilsum, “Hutu Warlord Defends Child Killing,” Observer (London), July 3, 1994. 23 “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal”; U. S.Committee for Refugees, “Genocide in Rwanda,” pp. 4-9. 24 Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Rwanda, Le Sang Hutu Est-il Rouge? (Yaoundé: 1995), p. 246. 25 African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 645, 704; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Gitarama, July 12, 1995. 26 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, September 12, 1995; July 11, 1996; Butare, October 12, 1995. 27 Ntaribi Kamanzi, Rwanda, Du Génocide à la Defaite (Kigali, Editions Rebero, n.d.), p. 146. 28 UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20:00 hrs, April 24, 1994. 29 “‘Ce sont les miliciens qui commandent’, selon Bernard Kouchner,” BQA, no. 14217, 20/05/94, p. 18. 30 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, November 8, 1998. 31 Fidèle Uwizeye, “Apercu Analytique”; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997; Brussels, October 19 and 20, 1997. 32 Jean Kambanda confessed and pleaded guilty to genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. On September 4, 1998, he was sentenced to life in prison. 33 “Discours du Président Thodore Sindikubwabo prononcé le 19 avril 1996 à la Préfecture de Butare” (Recorded by Radio Rwanda, transcription and translation, confidential source). The term “saviors,” abatabazi, described heroes of the Rwandan past who sacrificed their lives to protect the nation from foreign attack. 34 Callixte Kalimanzira, Umuyobozi mu biro bya Ministere y’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya komini, to Bwana Prefe wa Prefgitura ya Butare, May 24, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to numerous recipients, no. 0282, April 30, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture). 35 Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi, p. 223. 36 Fawusitini Munyazeza, [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira] Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994, two letters, no identifying numbers (Butare prefecture). 37 Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira, to Madame, Bwana Conseiller wa Segiteri (Bose), Bwana Responsable wa Cellule (Bose), no. 0.293/04.09.01/4, April 19, 1994 (Bwakira commune). 38 For one example, see Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe wa S/prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini (Bose), no. 088/04.09.01/16, May 14, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 39 The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the Matter of the Trial of Jean-Paul Akayesu, case no. ICTR-96-4-T, draft transcripts (hereafter ICTR-96-4-T), Testimony of Jean-Paul Akayesu, March 12, 1998. 40 These problems are described in documents from Bwakira commune, Kibuye, and from many communes in Butare prefecture, including Ngoma, Nyakizu, and Mbazi. 41 Bwakira commune, “Inyandikomvugo y’Inama y’Abashingzwe Gucunga Barriere yo kuri Trafipro, May 17, 1994” (Bwakira commune). 42 Both terms were used. 43 Fawusitini Munyazeza [signed by Callixte Kalimanzira], Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe (all), April 21, 1994. 44 Mathieu Ndahimana, Medical Assistant to Abias Gatwa, Barrier chief, Bugina (CLADHO). 45 ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Jean-Paul Akayesu, March 12, 1998. 46 Jacques Broekx, “Les Evénéments d’Avril 1994 à Rusumo,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September, 1994, p. 100; Buchizya Mseteka, “We Were Trained to Kill Tutsis,” Reuter, May 20, 1994; Tina Susman, “Quiet Parish Paradise Destroyed by Massacre,” Associated Press, May 31, 1994. 47 Les Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du Diocèse,” p. 65. 48 Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 5.5.94” (Bwakira commune). “Inyandiko-mvugo” (sometimes with variant spellings) means minutes of a meeting. After the first citation, subsequent citations will be “Inyandiko-mvugo” and the date. 49 Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 20.5.94” in Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana S/Prefe, no. 0329/04.04/2, May 31, 1994 (Bwakira commune). 50 Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana Conseiller wa Segiteli Shyembe, no. 0.359/04.03/3, June 21, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture). 51 Antoine Gakwaya, Fidele Muzamuzi, and Madame Leonille Usaba to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, May 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 52 ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness R, January 28, 1997, p. 83. 53 Jonathan Ruremesha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Huye to Bwana Procureur wa Repubulika, no. 154/04.05/2, May 18, 1994; Mathias Bushishi, Prokireri wa Republika, to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Huye, no. C/0520/D11/A/Proc., May 24, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 54 Ignace Bagilishema, Bourgmestre de la Commune Mabanza to Monsieur le Préfet, no. 0.365/04.09.01/4, June 21, 1994. 55 Dr. Clément Kayishema, Prefe, to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Rwamatamu, no 0290/04.05/1, May 5, 1994 and to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Mabanza, no. 0291/04.05/1, May 11, 1994; Dr.Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Monsieur le Bourgmestre de la Commune Gitesi, no. 0292/04.05/l. Among documents found by researchers from Human Rights Watch and FIDH, there was no indication of error in statistics for the Hutu populations (Kibuye prefecture). 56 “Réunion de Conseil de Sécurité Elargi du 11 Avril 1994,” Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, Dirigeant, Janvier Tulikumwe, Rapporteur (Kibuye prefecture); Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Gisagara to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Ndora, no. 085/04.09.01/4, April 15, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 57 Telegram from Minitranso to Préfet (tous), no. 016/94, May 4,1994 (Butare prefecture). 58 Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-Mvugo y’Inama ya Komini Bwakira Yateranye Kuwa 29/4/94” in Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana S/Prefe wa S/Prefegitura Birambo, No. 0. 316/04.04/2, May 18, 1994 (Bwakira commune). 59 Human Rights Watch/FIDH examination of the grave site, Kibuye church, February 1995; Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Butare, May 25, 1995. 60 François Ngarukinyintwali, Situation Actuelle au Rwanda sur le Plan de la Securité, April 30, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 61 Félicien Kabuga, Prezida, Abijah Kwilingira, Visi Prezida, Stanislas Harelimana, Umunyamabanga, Komite y’agateganyo, Ubutumwa Bugenewe Guverinoma, April 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 62 Edouard Karemera, Ministre de l’Intérieur et du Développement Communal, to Monsieur le Préfet (Tous) May 25, 1994; [Dominiko Ntawukuriryayo, S/prefe]to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini (Bose), no. 009/04.09.01, June 16, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 63 Félicien Kabuga, Prezida, Abijah Kwilingira Visi Prezida, Stanislas Harelimana, Umunyamabanga, Komite y’agateganyo, Ubutumwa Bugenewe Guverinoma, April 25, 1994; Félicien Kabuga, Perezida, Komite y’Agateganyo y’Ikigega Ndengera-Gihugu (F.D.N.) to Nyakubahwa Bwana Ministiri w’Intebe, May 20, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 64 Human Rights Watch/Africa, press release, May 11, 1994. After being notified by Human Rights Watch of the existence of this account, the U.S. government insisted that it be closed. 65 Jean-Berchmans Nshimyumuremyi, Le Vice-Recteur de l’U.N.R. [Université Nationale du Rwanda] to Monsieur le Préfet de la Préfecture de Butare, P2-18/226/94, May 25, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 66 Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Bwana Burugumesitiri (bose), no. 0.330/04.01.01, June 9, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture). 67 Undated document, Instruction Ministerielle Aux Préfets de Préfecture Relative à l’Utilisation du Fonds Destiné au Ministère de l’Interieur et du développement Communal dans le Cadre de l’Auto-défense Civile (Kibuye prefecture). 68 Dr. Clément Kayishema, Préfet, to Monsieur le Commandant de Place, Gendarmerie, no. 0283/04/.09.01/6, May 4, 1994 (Kibuye prefecture). 69 [Dr. Clément Kayishema] “Rapport de Conseil de Sécurité Elargi du 11 avril 1994” (Kibuye prefecture); ICTR-96-4-T, Testimony of Witness K, January 10, 1997, pp. 74-75. 70 Anonymous, Handwritten Notebook recording prefectural security council meetings, entry for 5/14/94. (Butare prefecture.) Hereafter cited as Notebook 1; Le Groupe de Rwandais Défenseurs des Intérêts de la Nation, “Document no. 5: Complicité des Eléments Belges de la Mission des Nations Unies pour l’Assistance au Rwanda (MINUAR) avec Le Front Patriotique Rwandais,” May 10, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 303. 71 Agence France Press, “Les évêques du Rwanda promettent leur soutien au nouveau gouvernement,” BQA, No. 14190, 12/04/94, p.29. 72 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997. 73 Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 10, April 25, 1994 and no.15 and annex, May 26, 1994. 74 “Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika yongeye kugeza ku Baturarwanda kuwa 14 Mata 1994,” in Fawusitini Muyazeza, Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihutu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 75 Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 329, 326. 76 African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 900-902. 77 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0117. 78 Soeur Gertrude Consolata Mukangango to Bwana Burugumesitiri wa Komini Huye, May 5, 1994 (Butare prefecture); Gabriel Maindron, “Rwanda, L’Horreur,” Dialogue, no. 177, August-September, 1994, p. 49; African Rights, Rwanda, Death,Despair, p. 923. 79 Human Rights Watch/Africa interview, Kabgayi, August 29, 1994; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 16, June 2, 1994. 80 Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 10, April 25, 1994. 81 Nzungize himself had saved several hundred Tutsi in the first days of slaughter in a case described in chapter seven. République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0117; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 17, June 9, 1994. 82 Bwakira commune, “Inyandiko-mvugo y’inama ya Komini yateranye kuwa 24.5.94” in Tharcisse Kabasha, Bourgmestre wa Komini Bwakira to Bwana Suprefe wa Suprefegitura, Birambo, no. 0.340/04.04/2, June 6, 1994 (Bwakira commune); Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, p. 139. 83 Radio Rwanda, “Radio Rwanda broadcasts appeal by official of the pro-army faction of the MDR,” April 12, 1994, SWB, AL/1970 A/2, April 13, 1994. 84 Valerie Bemeriki, RTLM, April 8 and 13, 1994 recorded by Faustin Kagame (Provided by Article 19). 85 Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les média, p. 298. 86 Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95; Missionnaires d’Afrique, Guy Theunis and Jef Vleugels, fax no. 5, April 8, 1994. 87 Sezibera Saverini, RTLM broadcast, May 15-May 30, 1994 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda). 88 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 193, 304. 89 Tatien Musabyimana, “R.T.L.M.,” Traits d’Union RWANDA, July 15, 1994, p. 5. 90 Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95. 91 Ibid; RTLM, 15-30 May 1994 (tape provided by Radio Rwanda). 92 Police Judiciaire près le Parquet du Procureur du Roi de Bruxelles, PV no. 30339, Dossier 36/95. 93 Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 305. 94 Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994. 95 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 301. 96 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kibungo, January 30, 1995. 97 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, May 17, 1997. 98 “‘Armed forces’ acting COS says RPF attacks ‘contained,’ appeals for peace talks,” Radio Rwanda, April 10, 1994, SWB, AL/1969 A/1, April 12, 1994; Chrétien et al, Rwanda, Les médias, p. 337. 99 Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994; Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika yagejeje ku Baturarwanda kuwa 13 Mata 1994, in Fawusitini Muyazeza, Minisitiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994 (Butare prefecture). “New prime minister addresses parliament, says talks with RPF will continue,” Radio Rwanda, April 9, 1994, SWB, AL/1968 A/2. 100 Guichaoua, Les crises politiques, p.680. 101 Thadee Nsengiyaremye, “Bombardments Blast Apart Rwandan Rebel Ceasefire,” United Press International, April 27, 1994. 102 UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda broadcast, 10:00 hrs, April 26, 1994. 103 Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide, p.121. 104 Ibid., p. 121. 105 Ibid., p.115. 106 Valérie Bemerki, RTLM, April 13, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (Article 19). 107 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 302. 108 Solidarité Internationale pour les Refugiés Rwandais, “Le Non-dit sur les Massacres,” p.12. The first reference to Cyahinda rather than Runda on this page is apparently an error. 109 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 162. The interim foreign minister made the same charge before the U.N. Security Council. [See below.] 110 Chrétien et al, Rwanda,Les médias, p. 299. 111 UNAMIR, Notes, Radio Rwanda, 20 hrs, 22. [04.94]; 13:00 hrs, 24.[04.94]; 10:00 hrs, 26[04.94]20:00 hrs, 05 [05.94];19:00 hrs, 11.05.1995 [sic, 1994] (confidential source); RTLM, 12:00 hrs, 13 [.04.94]; 17 hrs, 22 [.04.94] 15 hrs, 26 [.04.94]. 112 See chapter two. 113 Kantano Habimana, RTLM, April 13, 1994, recorded by Faustin Kagame (provided by Article 19). 114 République Rwandaise, Parquet de la République de Kigali, PV. no. 0053 and P.V. no. 0117; Fondation Hirondelle, “Des Rumeurs à l’Origine des Massacres de Kibuye, Selon un Témoin,” June 23, 1998. Bagosora supposedly alleged that Rwandan soldiers who killed the ten Belgian peacekeepers had only been protecting themselves after the Belgians had attacked their military camp, Reyntjens, Rwanda,Trois Jours, p. 77. 115 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kibungo, January 30, 1995; Kigali, June 30 and September 12, 1995, July 11, 1996; Butare, October 26, 1995; Neuchatel (Switzerland), December 16, 1995; by telephone, Brussels, April 27, 1997; Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 328. 116 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Buffalo, N.Y., September 21, 1997. 117 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Kigali, September 12, 1995. 118 Dr. Eugène Rwamucyo for Le Cercle des Républicains Universitaires de Butare and Groupe des Défenseurs des Intérêts de la Nation, “Table Ronde Politique à Butare,” June 22, 1994 (Butare prefecture). 119 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, pp. 304-5. 120 “Ijambo Perezida wa Repubulika...kuwa 14 Mata 1994.” 121 Chrétien et al., Rwanda, Les médias, p. 299; Commandement des Forces Armées Rwandaises en Exil, “Contribution des FAR,” p. 96. 122 Ministiri w’Ubutegetsi bw’Igihugu n’Amajyambere ya Komini [actually signed by C, Kalimanzira] to Bwana Perefe wa Perefegitura (Bose), April 21, 1994. 123 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kigali, August 29, 1994, September 12, 1995; Anonymous, “Les Massacres au Stade de Cyangugu,” Dialogue, no. 177, Août-Septembre, 1994, p. 95. See chapter on Gikongoro. 124 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Butare, October 24, November 9, November 30 1995, March 26, 1996; Kigali, September 9, 1995; Des Prêtres du diocèse de Nyundo, “Des Rescapés du diocèse,” p. 63; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, pp. 433, 436, 439, 458, 494, 516, 541, 615, 624. 125 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interviews, Kibungo, January 30, 1995. 126 Uvin, Aiding Violence, p. 117. These data refer to the total population, including Tutsi, but figures pertaining exclusively to Hutu would presumably be nearly the same. 127 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Brussels, February 26, 1997; Commission pour le Mémorial du Génocide et des Massacres, “Rapport Préliminaire,” pp. 8, 28, 178. 128 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Plainsboro, NJ, June 13, 1996. 129 Human Rights Watch/FIDH interview, Musebeya, June 7, 1995.

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