Remembering President Habyarimana of Rwanda and President Ntaryamira of Burundi ...
20 years ago - April 6 1994 -, the plane - Falcon 50 - carrying Rwandese President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundese President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down on landing at Kigali airport, killing all passengers and sparking a horrible genocide for the next 3 months, in which more than a million Rwandese were savagely killed. The Rwandese Joint Chief of Staff, two military advisors to Haby, and two Burundese ministers were also in the plane crash along with the two pilots and a mechanic, the last three being French.
So many lies, manipulations, false witnesses are hanging around this attack and the whole official version of the genocide is being re-written.
[I'm reading two great books on the Rwandese crisis: Black Furies White Liars by Pierre Péan: http://hungryoftruth.blogspot.be/2010/12/book-blacks-furies-whites-liars-rwanda.html
and "Rwanda: un génocide en question" by Bernard Lugan (not yet translated into English)]
The idea that the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis were a Belgian invention already is a lie. As a matter of fact, the Tutsis came to Rwanda in the Middle-Ages when Hutus were already there. But between 1959 and 1961, the Belgians and the Catholic Church started to promote democracy in Rwanda, which ultimately gave the power to the greater ethnic (in population), the Hutu (so called Social Revolution).
At that time, some Tutsis escaped to Uganda and others stayed in Rwanda. Those who stayed suffered massacres for the next decade until the coup by General Habyarimana in 1973. By then, there were still ethnic tensions but no more massacres. But in 1986, the descendants from the Tutsis who had escaped to Uganda supported the coup by Museveni in Uganda. In 1988 the RPF was created, Ugandan Tutsi movement, led by Kagame, supported by Museveni and eager to conquer Rwanda back.
They started on October 1 1990 but were stopped by the Rwandese army (FAR) and their then allies, French, Belgians and Zairians. They will try again in 1991, 1992 and 1993. Each times, it caused, massacres, exiles, rapes, etc but also retaliation from the Hutu power against the local Tutsi population, which Kagame did not care about, he despised the local Tutsis whom he considered colloaborationists.
On August 3 1993 the 4th Arusha agreement said that the RPF should control 40% of the force of the new Rwandese army and 50% of commanding posts. It was an outrageously favourable agreement to the RPF. Yet it was also only temporary because elections were planned before two years and elections would give the victory to Haby’s party MRND (D).
In the meantime, at the summit of La Baule, President Mitterrand called for democracy in the former French colonies and Habyarimana accepted multipartism. Even his government was led by the Hutu opposition.
The attack on Habyarimana’s plane was said to be the act of Hutu extremists who did not accept Arusha IV and who had already planned a genocide. Kagame and the RPF were just the liberators.
Until the noughties that was the accepted version. But the ICTR cleared all of the presumed genocide planners of the charge of premedition. If the genocide was not premeditated, then it was “spontaneous”. If it was “spontaneous”, an event should have triggered and that event can only be the attack on the President’s plane. But the ICTR never was mandated to investigate the attack, only the genocide… Which is a scandal in itself. Two heads of state were killed in it and there’s no international investigation…
By 2000 the families of the French victims lodged a complaint about the attack and an investigation is led by French judge Bruguière, who discovered that the plane was shot down by surface-to air missiles – SAM-16 – made in the USSR and sold by the former USSR to Uganda in 1987, which reinforce presumption on the RPF. Since then many former RPF have accused Kagame.
Many things have been said about the role by the French intervention – Operation Turquoise, while it now seems that Turquoise was strictly a humanitarian operation decided by President Mitterrand and that it did stop the killings, both of Tutsis by the Hutus and of Hutus by Tutsis (at least provisionally). The only thing is that it came much too late.
Kagame also massacred dozens of Catholic priests. He did not tolerate their support for the Hutus since the end of the monarchy. The Catholic universalism is incompatible with the unegalitarian ethnic distinction of traditional Rwanda.
Among his victims were Father Claude Simard (Canadian) killed on Oct. 17 1994, 4 Spanish Marist Brothers on Oct. 31 1996, Father Guy Pinard (Canadian) on Oct. 2 1997 or Father Curic Vijeko (Croatian) on Oct. 31 1998. Father Guy Theunis (Belgian) wasn’t killed but was sent to jail in miserable conditions just for saying “a dictatorship has been replaced by another smarter one.” We should also mention the great role played by father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka who hosted some 18,000 refugees (Hutu and Tutsi combined) at the Church of the Sainte-Famille in Kigali and made sure that all got enough to eat etc. He’s subsequently been accused of the most outrageous acts by the RPF and its false witnesses.
After the genocide the war extended to neighbouring Zaire/Congo – 1997 - when Kagame’s Rwanda and Uganda set up an army behind Laurent-Désiré Kabila to overthrow Mobutu and in the meantime, creating another genocide in Hutu refugee camps in Zaire (2 million dead in 1997), while raping women (which is still a plague in Eastern Congo) and also getting grip on the Congo mineral resources like the coltan with which mobile phones, tv flat screen, etc. Kagame was sponsored by Clinton’s US administration for his war (up to 1M$ it’s been said) and also directly by giant companies like American Mineral Field or Barrick Gold or the South-African De Beers …
When Kabila got the power, he thanked his patrons and asked them to get back home and that is why Museveni and Kagame started a second rebellion. That was in 1998 but they could not overthrow him (he found allies in Angola and Zimbabwe) until he was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 2001 and it’s very likely that Rwanda played a role in the assassination. While Kabila’s son Joseph, now still in power, is much more tolerant to Anglophone interest in Eastern Congo than his father was …
20 years ago - April 6 1994 -, the plane - Falcon 50 - carrying Rwandese President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundese President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down on landing at Kigali airport, killing all passengers and sparking a horrible genocide for the next 3 months, in which more than a million Rwandese were savagely killed. The Rwandese Joint Chief of Staff, two military advisors to Haby, and two Burundese ministers were also in the plane crash along with the two pilots and a mechanic, the last three being French.
So many lies, manipulations, false witnesses are hanging around this attack and the whole official version of the genocide is being re-written.
[I'm reading two great books on the Rwandese crisis: Black Furies White Liars by Pierre Péan: http://hungryoftruth.blogspot.be/2010/12/book-blacks-furies-whites-liars-rwanda.html
and "Rwanda: un génocide en question" by Bernard Lugan (not yet translated into English)]
The idea that the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis were a Belgian invention already is a lie. As a matter of fact, the Tutsis came to Rwanda in the Middle-Ages when Hutus were already there. But between 1959 and 1961, the Belgians and the Catholic Church started to promote democracy in Rwanda, which ultimately gave the power to the greater ethnic (in population), the Hutu (so called Social Revolution).
At that time, some Tutsis escaped to Uganda and others stayed in Rwanda. Those who stayed suffered massacres for the next decade until the coup by General Habyarimana in 1973. By then, there were still ethnic tensions but no more massacres. But in 1986, the descendants from the Tutsis who had escaped to Uganda supported the coup by Museveni in Uganda. In 1988 the RPF was created, Ugandan Tutsi movement, led by Kagame, supported by Museveni and eager to conquer Rwanda back.
They started on October 1 1990 but were stopped by the Rwandese army (FAR) and their then allies, French, Belgians and Zairians. They will try again in 1991, 1992 and 1993. Each times, it caused, massacres, exiles, rapes, etc but also retaliation from the Hutu power against the local Tutsi population, which Kagame did not care about, he despised the local Tutsis whom he considered colloaborationists.
On August 3 1993 the 4th Arusha agreement said that the RPF should control 40% of the force of the new Rwandese army and 50% of commanding posts. It was an outrageously favourable agreement to the RPF. Yet it was also only temporary because elections were planned before two years and elections would give the victory to Haby’s party MRND (D).
In the meantime, at the summit of La Baule, President Mitterrand called for democracy in the former French colonies and Habyarimana accepted multipartism. Even his government was led by the Hutu opposition.
The attack on Habyarimana’s plane was said to be the act of Hutu extremists who did not accept Arusha IV and who had already planned a genocide. Kagame and the RPF were just the liberators.
Until the noughties that was the accepted version. But the ICTR cleared all of the presumed genocide planners of the charge of premedition. If the genocide was not premeditated, then it was “spontaneous”. If it was “spontaneous”, an event should have triggered and that event can only be the attack on the President’s plane. But the ICTR never was mandated to investigate the attack, only the genocide… Which is a scandal in itself. Two heads of state were killed in it and there’s no international investigation…
By 2000 the families of the French victims lodged a complaint about the attack and an investigation is led by French judge Bruguière, who discovered that the plane was shot down by surface-to air missiles – SAM-16 – made in the USSR and sold by the former USSR to Uganda in 1987, which reinforce presumption on the RPF. Since then many former RPF have accused Kagame.
Many things have been said about the role by the French intervention – Operation Turquoise, while it now seems that Turquoise was strictly a humanitarian operation decided by President Mitterrand and that it did stop the killings, both of Tutsis by the Hutus and of Hutus by Tutsis (at least provisionally). The only thing is that it came much too late.
Kagame also massacred dozens of Catholic priests. He did not tolerate their support for the Hutus since the end of the monarchy. The Catholic universalism is incompatible with the unegalitarian ethnic distinction of traditional Rwanda.
Among his victims were Father Claude Simard (Canadian) killed on Oct. 17 1994, 4 Spanish Marist Brothers on Oct. 31 1996, Father Guy Pinard (Canadian) on Oct. 2 1997 or Father Curic Vijeko (Croatian) on Oct. 31 1998. Father Guy Theunis (Belgian) wasn’t killed but was sent to jail in miserable conditions just for saying “a dictatorship has been replaced by another smarter one.” We should also mention the great role played by father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka who hosted some 18,000 refugees (Hutu and Tutsi combined) at the Church of the Sainte-Famille in Kigali and made sure that all got enough to eat etc. He’s subsequently been accused of the most outrageous acts by the RPF and its false witnesses.
After the genocide the war extended to neighbouring Zaire/Congo – 1997 - when Kagame’s Rwanda and Uganda set up an army behind Laurent-Désiré Kabila to overthrow Mobutu and in the meantime, creating another genocide in Hutu refugee camps in Zaire (2 million dead in 1997), while raping women (which is still a plague in Eastern Congo) and also getting grip on the Congo mineral resources like the coltan with which mobile phones, tv flat screen, etc. Kagame was sponsored by Clinton’s US administration for his war (up to 1M$ it’s been said) and also directly by giant companies like American Mineral Field or Barrick Gold or the South-African De Beers …
When Kabila got the power, he thanked his patrons and asked them to get back home and that is why Museveni and Kagame started a second rebellion. That was in 1998 but they could not overthrow him (he found allies in Angola and Zimbabwe) until he was assassinated in mysterious circumstances in 2001 and it’s very likely that Rwanda played a role in the assassination. While Kabila’s son Joseph, now still in power, is much more tolerant to Anglophone interest in Eastern Congo than his father was …
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram