” EXTENDING THE GENOCIDE” HRW report

In the first days of the genocide, its leaders rapidly rallied support among military, militia, and administrators who supported the MRND and the CDR. The next week, with the announcement on April 12 that Tutsi were the only enemy, they attracted increasing numbers of officials from MDR-Power and other parties to the killing campaign. But by mid-April, they still had not won the support of some influential military officers and administrators. The prefects of Butare and Gitarama and many of the burgomasters under their direction as well as isolated administrators elsewhere, like the burgomasters of Giti in Byumba and of Musebeya in Gikongoro, continued traveling through their regions to deter attacks, facing down crowds of assailants, and arresting the aggressors. In those areas, there were relatively few Tutsi killed before the interim government decided to extend the genocide.1

The leaders of the killing campaign had to invest considerable political and military resources to end opposition to the genocide and they did so, belying their assertion that they were trying to halt the slaughter. They killed or removed some of the dissenting soldiers and officials and intimidated others into compliance. They left other opponents of the slaughter in place, but destroyed their effectiveness—by bypassing them, by sapping their political control, or by withholding or withdrawing the military or police support they needed.

As they extended the slaughter, national leaders also sought to tighten control over it by formalizing the system of “civilian self-defense.” They hoped to improve their image abroad by making the killing more discreet as well as to curb dissension among Hutu as they finished the “work” of eliminating Tutsi. As the number of Tutsi diminished, Hutu attacked each other over questions of property and power, often using the same accusations and deceptions against each other that they had been using against Tutsi. In the end, the leaders of the genocide failed in their goal of creating Hutu solidarity, which they had been ready to purchase at the cost of so many Tutsi lives.

The rapid advance of the RPF spurred some authorities to more frenetic killing but also showed others, officials and ordinarily people alike, the futility of trying to fight the war through the genocide. With the final victory of the RPF, the interim government fled to Zaire, leaving behind a people divided by fear and hatred as never before in their history.

Removing Dissenters

Ten days after the start of the genocide, leaders of the killing campaign had to contend with continuing opposition within Rwanda but faced no challenge from abroad to their policy. The evacuation of foreigners, begun a week before, had been concluded and the troops sent for that purpose had also left Rwanda without intervening in the slaughter. The Belgians had withdrawn their soldiers from the peacekeeping force and, at the end of its April 15 meeting, the Security Council was leaning towards a total recall of UNAMIR, although no decision had been made. The Rwandan ambassador to the U.N., a member of the Security Council at the time, no doubt promptly communicated the tenor of the debate to the interim government.2

The next morning, on April 16, the ministers—presumably assisted, as usual, by political leaders—felt sufficiently confident to move against opponents of the genocide. In the military domain, they removed Gatsinzi as chief of staff of the armed forces and named instead Col. Augustin Bizimungu, whom Bagosora had first proposed on April 6. They promoted Bizimungu to general and did the same with Gatsinzi and Rusatira, perhaps hoping in this way to win their support.3

The Ministry of Defense also recalled to active duty certain officers who had been obliged to retire sometime before, including Bagosora himself and Colonels Rwagafilita, Serubuga, and Gasake, all supporters of Bagosora. Gatsinzi signed the recall shortly before his removal and then tried to cancel it after learning that he could invalidate the order on a technicality. His radio announcement voiding the recall was apparently ignored.4

In the civilian sphere, the government on April 17 removed Prefect Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana of Butare who had been successfully opposing the killings. The radio had prepared public opinion for Habyalimana’s removal by announcing earlier in the week that he had not attended the April 11 meeting of prefects, an unusual item to broadcast as part of the news and one which implied negligence on his part. Unlike Gatsinzi who lost his post but escaped with his life, the prefect of Butare was arrested and later summarily executed by soldiers or National Police. His family was slaughtered after his execution. Prefect Godefroid Ruzindana was also fired. He had tried to prevent slaughter in his prefecture of Kibungo, but had done so less successfully than Habyalimana, perhaps because important leaders like Colonel Rwagafilita had struck swiftly and ruthlessly after April 6. Ruzindana and his family were massacred while trying to flee.5

In naming candidates to replace these prefects and to fill vacant posts in the three northern prefectures, the government chose men whom they expected would support the genocidal program. François Karera, previously a sub-prefect, who was named to head the prefecture of Kigali, had no hesitation later in justifying the massacres to a New York Times reporter by saying that Tutsi were “originally bad.” Another new prefect was Elie Nyirimbibi, the first member of the CDR ever to be given such a post.6

The interim government anounced Gatsinzi’s removal on April 16 and the administrative changes on Sunday evening, the 17th. The dismissal of Habyalimana, the outstanding opponent of slaughter, was announced just after a presidential address to the nation about “pacification.”

After having replaced Prefect Habyalimana, the interim government in May and June dismissed several dozen other administrators—prefects, sub-prefects, and burgomasters—and they permitted or encouraged local authorities to replace councilors and cell heads during these same months. By substituting apparently committed supporters of the genocide for those who did not back the program, they also warned others about the loss of post—and possibly life—that might result from continued opposition to the new power-holders.

At the same time the authorities showed their willingness to pay for collaboration, scarce though public funds were. At the end of April the interim government agreed to begin paying salaries to cell heads, local officials who had not previously been remunerated by the state and whose cooperation was important to the success of the killing campaign. In July, as the interim government was preparing to decamp to Zaire, the prefect of Kibuye sought to arrange for payments to communal youth organizers, who had apparently been actively supporting the genocidal program in the preceding months.7

Continued Conflicts Among the Military

With the beginning of the genocide, even Tutsi in the armed forces were accused of being ibyitso. Virtually no Tutsi had risen to command positions in the army, but a small number had become officers in the National Police. They, as well as Tutsi in the ranks, were targeted by fellow military and by militia. At barriers on the outskirts of Kigali, National Police were disarmed and killed by soldiers and militia because they were Tutsi—or thought to be Tutsi.8 Maj. François Kambanda, initially saved by Ndindiliyimana, was later killed by militia at Nyanza. Lieutenant Mpakaniye was shot on the parade ground in the military camp at Cyangugu, reportedly by Lt. Samuel Imanishimwe. Adjutant Karwanira was killed by a corporal from Gisenyi in the cafeteria of the National Police camp. The murderer then fled to the camp of the Presidential Guard, where soldiers at first protected him but eventually allowed the National Police to arrest him.9

Some military men, especially those from the south, had wives or other relatives who were Tutsi and they feared for the lives of these family members. Military men were supposedly not allowed to marry Tutsi women, but in fact some did so. Once the genocide began, National Policemen at Kacyiru camp in Kigali and soldiers at the Bigogwe camp in Gisenyi had to protect their Tutsi wives from local assailants. Soldiers and National Policemen moved Tutsi relatives and friends to military camps or National Police brigades in hopes they would be safe there.10 As the slaughter continued, many learned that relatives and friends had in fact been killed—not just those who were Tutsi, but also others who were mistaken for Tutsi or had tried to help Tutsi. Lieutenant Colonel Nzungize, commander of the Bigogwe camp, had a grandson—Hutu like himself—slain in Gikongoro because he looked Tutsi. He also lost a sister, Felicitas Niyitegeka, who was killed, as described above, because she was rescuing Tutsi.11

Some soldiers and National Policemen showed their opposition to the genocide by trying to save lives. On April 7, Lieutenant Colonel Nzungize cooperated with Belgian soldiers, still present as part of a military assistance program, to bring to safety some 350 to 400 people. Other officers whose names are not known saved lives in the early days, including National Police lieutenants at Busogo and Nyamirambo, an army lieutenant at Nyundo, and an army major who protected people at the Institut Africain et Mauricien des Statistiques et d’Economie Appliquée outside Kigali. National Police Majors Jean-Baptiste Jabo at Kibuye and Cyriaque Habyarabatuma at Butare sought to prevent slaughter in areas under their jurisdiction. Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi later protected thousands of Tutsi at a displaced persons camp in Cyangugu, as mentioned above. Major Jean-Baptiste Nsanzimfura was one of the gendarmes who protected Tutsi at churches and the Hotel Mille Collines in Kigali; he also rescued Tutsi who had hidden for weeks at the churches of Ruli and Rwankuba.12

Bagosora and his supporters tried to suppress dissent against himself and the program of slaughter. Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi was attacked with a grenade and Major Augustin Cyiza was arrested and returned to Kigali in handcuffs when he tried to escort his family to safety elsewhere. Like Rusatira, they went into hiding for a week or more in the early days of the genocide. Major Habyarabatuma of the National Police in Butare was warned that Capt. Ildephonse Nizeyimana of the local military camp, was planning to kill him. As Bagosora’s power increased, his supporters occasionally openly disobeyed and even insulted their superiors who were known to be opposed to the new authorities.13 When Rusatira summonedMajor Mpiranya, head of the Presidential Guard, in early April, he refused to come. Ndindiliyimana had an armored personnel carrier under his authority appropriated by a junior officer of the reconnaissance battalion. He protested to the chief of staff, but was unable to get the vehicle restored to his command.14

Throughout this period, the interim government frequently transferred troops, both units and individual officers, supposedly in response to the demands of the war. In some cases, these changes served to prevent the development of resistance to the new authorities and to advance the genocide. With thousands of combat troops at its disposal, the general staff transferred National Police under Majors Jean-Baptiste Jabo and Habyarabatuma to the battlefront, removing them from posts where they could have protected Tutsi from attack. In Gikongoro, the National Police commander, Maj. Christophe Bizimungu, who tried to restrain a subordinate who favored attacks against Tutsi, was replaced by an officer who made no effort to stop the killings.15

Although their position was clearly out of favor, some high-ranking officers persisted in trying to get an end to attacks on civilians. On April 16, Rusatira sought out interim Prime Minister Kambanda and Minister of Defense Bizimana at Murambi, in Gitarama prefecture, to tell them that the departure of the government from Kigali had spurred further violence, both in the capital and in Gitarama. He urged them to stop the killings.16 Six days later, on April 22, Rusatira came back again, this time accompanied by Ndindiliyimana, to try to convince officials of the interim government and political party leaders that the genocide was destroying the morale of the troops and could discredit Rwanda with foreign governments whose support was essential. In a meeting that reportedly included Kambanda and political leaders like Murego, Mugenzi, Karemera, and Shingiro, the officers argued that the slaughter was “a prelude to defeat.” The politicians refused to heed their warnings. They insisted that the killings were “self-defense”and must continue. They reportedly declared that if soldiers refused to collaborate in the killing campaign, they had another way to carry it out.17

In mid-April, General Ndindiliyimana and Colonels Gatsinzi and Rusatira summoned Gaspard Gahigi of RTLM and Jean-François Nsengiyumva of Radio Rwanda to the military school in Kigali. The officers supposedly told them that the radios must stop calling for violence against Tutsi and discrediting military officers opposed to the genocide. Announcer George Ruggiu had questioned Rusatira’s intentions in making frequent contacts with General Dallaire and another RTLM announcer incited militia to attack Ndindiliyimana by reporting that he was transporting RPF soldiers in his vehicle—for which the license plate number was given—when he was trying to help Tutsi escape. Major Habyarabatuma was also threatened on RTLM.18

Either the message was not clearly enough delivered or the propagandists of hate knew they were supported by other more powerful soldiers. Instead of tempering their calls for violence against Tutsi, the radios at about this time began broadcasting spurious reports that RPF brigades were threatening civilians in different parts of the country.19 Nor did they soften their stance on dissident military. Throughout the rest of the war RTLM continued to issue general warnings about military opposed to the interim government who were responsible, they said, for each loss by the government forces to the RPF.20

On April 29, the general staff of the army wrote to the minister of defense complaining that the National Police, which had been used in combat in Mutara and Kibungo, had been responsible for the defeats by the RPF in those regions. Officers of the National Police learned of the letter and suspected that some army officers intended to simply dissolve their force. Although no such step was taken,the incident contributed to hostile feelings between officers of the two services. RTLM exacerbated the ill-feeling by making derogatory comments about the National Police, who were thought too tolerant of Tutsi and southerners.21

Destroying Opposition in Gitarama

Among the opponents of genocide left in place after April 16 were the prefect, Fidele Uwizeye, and most of the burgomasters of Gitarama prefecture. The government may have retained these men because they feared alienating their party, the MDR, which was the predominant political organization in Gitarama, or because they expected to be able to oblige them to change their position. Over a period of several weeks officials, political leaders, the military, the militia, and the media worked together to force such a change.

As elsewhere in Rwanda, the MDR in Gitarama was divided between moderates and advocates of Hutu Power. In the first days of the genocide, not just the moderates, but even some of the MDR Power politicians refused to join the killing, believing that the MRND and the CDR had launched the violence simply to capture power for themselves.

When the people of Gitarama refused to attack Tutsi, MRND and CDR militia raided across the prefectural boundary, striking first and most vigorously from the city of Kigali and its periphery. Setiba, the Interahamwe leader whom UNAMIR police had been afraid to arrest and disarm the previous December, now put his weapons to good use. Supported by a few soldiers, he led his militia in attacks against the communes of Runda and Taba. The prefect complained about the raids to officials, including presumably Kalimanzira, who was acting for the minister of the interior, and to MRND leaders, but without result. Militia from communes of Kibuye, Gisenyi, and Ruhengeri prefectures also began crossing boundaries to raid and burn in Gitarama. These incursions were intended both to kill Tutsi and to force hitherto inactive Hutu to join in the attacks.22

Uwizeye organized his burgomasters to defend the prefecture. Under the direction of local officials, Hutu and Tutsi fought together to drive off the assailants and killed a number of them. In communes further from prefectural boundaries, like Nyamabuye, where attacks from outside the prefecture were less of a problem, burgomasters successfully opposed the efforts of local troublemakers to begin the killing campaign. Uwizeye and several of his burgomasters also prohibited establishing barriers, although RTLM was encouraging people to do so. Some burgomasters, like the one of Nyamabuye, discouraged people from even listening to RTLM.23

When the interim government moved its headquarters to a training school in Murambi on April 12, it brought the political, military, and administrative leaders of the genocide into the heart of Gitarama prefecture, just a few miles from the prefectural offices. In later testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the man who had been burgomaster of Nyamabuye was asked if it would have been possible to prevent killings in his commune if the national government had not relocated to Gitarama. He responded:

Yes, it is possible if other people—if other forces did not come from outside to come back—to fight against what the burgomaster was doing in his commune. I believe that if the government had not come into Gitarama prefecture with many soldiers and Interahamwe, it would have been possible.24

Elsewhere in his testimony, the former burgomaster remarked:

The Presidential Guard and the Interahamwe who were present in Gitarama were moving within the country, talking to the population, teaching the ideology of killing, of massacres. They incited the population to hate the local authority by saying that those who did not kill the Tutsi were accomplices of the Inkotanyi.25

The same day that the government moved to Gitarama, MDR-Power leader Karamira had exhorted MDR supporters to collaborate with the MRND and the CDR in fighting the common enemy. The MRND minister of youth and cooperatives, Callixte Nzabonimana, himself from Gitarama, brought the message home even more dramatically. He freed men arrested by the burgomaster of Rutobwe for having slaughtered Tutsi cattle and publicly slapped the burgomaster for refusing to join the killing campaign. Nzabonimana also addressed a large public meeting near the church of Kivumu, where “he asked the local population why they had not done their ‘work’” and suggested that the Tutsi cattle were just waiting to be eaten.26

Hundreds of militia—perhaps somewhat more than a thousand—followed the interim government from Kigali to Gitarama, where they took up residence in schools in Runda and Taba. Now inside the prefecture, they were better placed to reinforce directives from the national leaders. They forced the burgomasters of Kayenzi, Mugina, Musambira, and Taba to flee their communes briefly. One of the Interahamwe shot at the burgomaster of Taba and killed the communal policeman who was accompanying him. Later, another man stabbed a communal policeman in Taba and then joined the Interahamwe for protection. The burgomaster of Nyamabuye also recalled having been threatened by the Interahamwe.27 At a session of the International Tribunal he declared:

I received messages saying that if I continued to protect people I would be killed. They also asked soldiers to shoot at me. They did in fact shoot at me but I was not struck by a bullet. They prevented me from driving about in the commune, and if I did, they would stop me at the roadblock….28

Prefect Uwizeye pleaded for reinforcements from the National Police, but was told that all were occupied at the front. The burgomaster of Nyamabuye later remarked that even had National Police been available, most of those stationed in Gitarama supported the slaughter and would not have tried to restore order. Uwizeye found few persons of stature ready to support his struggle to halt the genocide. One was Abbé André Sibomana, the highly respected editor of the widely-read journal Kinyamateka who managed to flee to Gitarama from Kigali,where militia had been looking for him. Sibomana met with the prefect and encouraged his opposition to the killing.29

Early on Monday, April 18, the morning after Butare Prefect Habyalimana’s replacement had been announced, Prefect Uwizeye called together the burgomasters and local party leaders and clergy to discuss the growing political and military pressure for genocide. When the interim prime minister heard of the planned meeting, he ordered the session moved from the prefectural center to Murambi. Uwizeye and his subordinates arrived there to find a group that reportedly included interim Prime Minister Kambanda, interim ministers Callixte Nzabonimana, André Rwamakuba, Dr. Straton Nsabumukunzi, Eliézer Niyitegeka, Jean de Dieu Habineza, and Justin Mugenzi as well as MDR-Power leaders Murego and Shingiro and MRND leader Edouard Karemera.30

The Gitarama prefect and his burgomasters asked the national authorities to begin restoring order by stopping the distribution of arms and by terminating incitements to slaughter by RTLM. They also asked members of the Presidential Guard to help end the violence. The interim prime minister failed to address the problem directly and replied instead with a cliché-ridden speech about national unity and the need to support the new government. When the prefect asked once more for concrete measures to help himself and his subordinates, the interim prime minister stepped aside to allow Hutu Power political leaders to deliver a more explicit response. They railed at the Gitarama officials for failing to support the militia who were protecting Rwanda against the enemy. According to the burgomaster of Nyamabuye, one of the MRND ministers denounced their opposition to genocide by saying:

that he knew very well that some of the commune leaders in Gitarama were Inkotanyi accomplices, and furthermore if these people continued to work in this manner, that there will be very serious consequences for them.31

Two of the burgomasters who attended the meeting subsequently told the International Tribunal that official authorities never directed them specifically to kill Tutsi. Rather they offered no assistance in putting down violence by militia and soldiers and they indicated that continuing to resist violence would have many costs and no rewards. Pressed on the question of whether they were given any directions about exterminating Tutsi, the burgomaster of Nyamabuye replied, “When you are threatened and somebody tells you that you are an Inkotanyi accomplice, it is the same as saying go on and do that.”32 He related that the meeting ended inconclusively and that the participants, all frightened, returned home without discussing the session. Asked by one of the judges if such behavior after a meeting were normal, the burgomaster replied, “We were in an abnormal situation.”33

The Gitarama officials understood the message and some responded to it promptly. According to the prosecutor and many witnesses at the International Tribunal, Jean-Paul Akayesu, the burgomaster of Taba, was one of those who changed from a protector to a killer of Tutsi immediately after the meeting of April 18.34 At about the same time that the interim government and national political leaders were applying pressure from above, Akayesu also had to contend with a challenge from newly-strengthened Interahamwe inside the commune. Silas Kubwimana, an honorary vice-president of the Interahamwe at the national level and a political rival of Akayesu, had left the commune some months before when Akayesu was powerful. Now he returned with the backing of the national Interahamwe leadership and with guns, grenades, and military uniforms to distribute to his followers. A former communal policeman testified at the International Tribunal that there were nine communal policemen armed with seven firearms in Taba at this time to face the far more numerous and well-armed militia.35 Akayesu maintains that Kubwimana effectively took over running the commune, directing killings, harassing opponents, and even appropriating a vehicle from the burgomaster. While not disputing that the Interahamwe leader played a role, the prosecutor and many witnesses conclude that Akayesu was not the frightened tool of Kubwimana, but his active partner.

According to Akayesu, he was also threatened by charges, made by RTLM and others, that he himself was Tutsi. The radio talked about his height and light, brown skin and warned listeners that he intended to “exterminate the Interahamwe.” In addition, the burgomaster had to deal with large numbers of displaced persons, including many originally from Byumba, who were pushed south by the fighting in and around Kigali. Embittered by their long months of misery, they swelled the numbers of persons ready to kill Tutsi. Akayesu told the International Tribunal of one case where he had supposedly attempted to save a Tutsi woman from a crowd of displaced persons. The sub-prefect of Byumba who was with the crowd told him it was no use even to try to defend her. As if to prove his colleague’s good intentions, Akayesu reported that the sub-prefect had bought her a soda even if he did not save her from the assailants who presumably finally killed her.36

In other communes as well, RTLM hammered home the risks of continued dissent while militia multiplied their attacks. RTLM encouraged militia to strike in the commune of Mukingi, broadcasting: “All the enemies have gone to hide at Mukingi.”37 The burgomaster who had at first saved Tutsi by transporting them to the church center at Kabgayi lost heart under such attacks, particularly after he tried to get help from the National Police and was refused. In addition, a person of national importance mobilized killers inside the commune, playing a role much like that of Kubwimana in Taba. Lt. Col. Aloys Simba, a well-known military and political figure organized young men from the Byimana commercial center to attack the Tutsi who had taken shelter in the schools and communal office of Mukingi. He distributed large quantities of beer as a reward. Under these pressures, the burgomaster reportedly gave up trying to quell the attacks.38

Before April 18, Justin Nyandwi, burgomaster of Musambira, also opposed Hutu Power and the violence it espoused. On a trip into the city of Kigali, he encountered Rose Karushara, councilor of Kimisigara and a supporter of the killing campaign. She reportedly directed her Interahamwe to attack him and the three communal police who accompanied him, but they were saved by the intervention of Major Nyamuhimba of the National Police. On April 14, RTLM increased the pressure on Nyandwi by naming him as an opponent of the massacres. On April 20, a group of Interahamwe came in a pickup truck to attack him at home, but he escaped death and temporarily fled the commune. A survivor from his commune described him as a good man who was finally overwhelmed by the forces against him. Although he gave up his opposition to the genocide, he still failed to satisfy the interim government, which replaced him with MRND leader Abdelrahman Iyakaremye, who was committed to carrying out the genocide promptly and thoroughly.39

The burgomaster of Nyamabuye, although subjected to the same pressures as the others, says that he continued to protect Tutsi, by taking them to safety at Kabgayi, by dissuading local people from attacking the camps where they had sought refuge, and by providing them with needed documents. Instead of carrying out these activities openly as he had before April 18, however, he worked at night to avoid being seen by Presidential Guards. He continued going around the commune out in the countryside, but he avoided the town where soldiers were more likely to be found and, he said, “I tried to not go where the Interahamwe were.”40 He was supported by some—although not all—of the communal police and with their backing he could rescue people from barriers provided the guards were not soldiers and were not armed. But if he encountered soldiers or armed militia, neither his authority nor the guns of the local police were enough to obtain the release of the persons being held. Instead, he told the court,

…we had recourse to all the means. Sometimes we would give them money to buy beer, or we would tell them that we are going to take these people to the highest authority. We used all other means like that.41

The burgomaster of Mugina commune, Callixte Ndagijimana persisted in trying to protect Tutsi even at the cost of his own life. After the April 18 meeting, the six National Police who had been assigned to help him in the commune were recalled. For two days more he kept on opposing the killings and organizing transport for Tutsi to Kabgayi. On April 20, the same day that the burgomaster of neighboring Musambira was attacked, Interahamwe from Kigali invaded Muginaand murdered Ndagijimana. With the chief resister against the genocide removed, a local judge came to the market the next day to get the killing started. The soldiers accompanying him fired their guns in the air and then told the crowd, “We want you to destroy Tutsi houses and kill Tutsi.”42 In the next days, local people, who had earlier refused to kill, began to join the slaughter. Led by Burundian refugees from a nearby camp, they massacred an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people in their homes and in the parish church. The prefect managed to save 176 wounded survivors whom he had brought to the church center at Kabgayi.43

The prefect meanwhile sought to limit the violence by such measures as suspending the prefectural security committee, a step he took because he believed some members would use the committee to increase the slaughter. But he could not count on support from the National Police, not trusting them even to provide the guard for his own family. Instead, he called on communal police from Nyamabuye for that duty. Nor did his own subordinates back his efforts to prevent the slaughter. In his estimation, five of six sub-prefects actively encouraged the killing. When confronted by determined killers like one lieutenant who reportedly slaughtered thirty-one people in the commune of Nyakabanda, the prefect could do little but complain to higher authorities. Finally convinced of the futility of continued opposition, Uwizeye fled west to Kibuye at the end of May. The interim government removed him from office and named Major Jean-Damascene Ukurukiyezu prefect of Gitarama.44

The combined pressure by political and military authorities, militia, and the radio succeeded in destroying open opposition to the interim government and its genocidal program in Gitarama. But the killing campaign failed to exterminate all the Tutsi of the region, in part because Hutu officials and ordinary people continued to aid Tutsi, even if only furtively, and in part because the rapid assemblage of thousands of Tutsi at Kabgayi created an agglomeration protected by its sheer size. From the start many Tutsi had fled spontaneously to the extensive grounds of the Catholic diocese at Kabgayi. Governmental authorities also encouraged and helped Tutsi to assemble there, some of them believing that people at risk were safer at Kabgayi than in their home communes, others because they understood that gathering Tutsi together was part of the genocidal plan. Military and militia never launched an open assault on the extensive camps, but were preparing to do so when the RPF took Kabgayi in early June.45

The extension of the genocide in Gitarama was part of a larger campaign to spread the slaughter throughout the country. After having delivered the message to Prefect Uwizeye and his burgomasters, the interim authorities moved south to ensure that the killing campaign would be implemented in Butare and Gikongoro. Everywhere they went, their “pacification” visits sparked or increased the slaughter.

“The Population Is Trying to Defend Itself”

As political leaders extended the genocide by force into the center and south of the country, they also moved to tighten control over the whole killing campaign by establishing a formal structure for the “civilian self-defense” force. Proposed by AMASASU, sketched in Bagosora’s appointment book, discussed by a committee of the Rwandan army on October 30, 1993 and again on March 30, 1994, the force had not been completely organized by early April. The basic plan of mobilizing civilians by administrative division and putting them under the command of retired soldiers or other military men had nonetheless been put quickly into effect, particularly during the early weeks of large-scale massacres. It was no doubt this force—which RTLM called “the real shield, the true army”46—that politicians had been referring to when they told dissident military leaders that they had another way to execute the genocide if the regular soldiers refused to participate.47

The force was vigorous but needed greater discipline and organization. Having delivered a license to kill the “enemy,” authorities found that some civilian executioners were deciding for themselves—on partisan or personal grounds—who was the “enemy.” In some cases, the killers ignored the message that “there is one enemy and he is the Tutsi” and slaughtered other Hutu. On April 21, Kalimanzira of the Ministry of Interior directed prefects to ensure that people not kill others for reasons of “jealousy, hostility, or spirit of vengeance.”48 National leaders worried not just that some Hutu were being killed, but also that some Tutsi were escaping death as local authorities and ordinary executioners yielded to entreaty or bribe. On RTLM Kantano Habimana railed against those who would allow Tutsi to buy back their lives, saying “If you are an inyenzi, well, then, you are an inyenzi; let them kill you, there is no way that you can buy yourself out of it.”49

In communes where militia were already operating, the “civilian self-defense” program offered a way to expand them, to make them more legitimate, and, at the same time, to subject them to tighter control. As militia leaders told the press, their groups provided the elite striking force (fer de lance) of “civilian self-defense.” They had been carrying out the same duties that were now assigned to the “civilian self-defense” groups: to assist regular troops in protecting the population and public property, to “obtain information on the enemy presence” in their communities, and to “denounce infiltrators and accomplices of the enemy.”50 The training of the militia became the model for the “self-defense” groups, a brief program carried out by retired soldiers or others with military training. Once trained, “self-defense” recruits joined the militia at the barriers and on patrol. They sometimes went into actual combat together, as they did at Nyanza under Lieutenant Colonel Simba. Officials and administrators, Bagosora among them, recognized that militia and self-defense groups were essentially the same when they used one term for the other.51 In the order concerning the “self-defense fund” mentioned above, the minister of the interior specified “refreshments for the militia” and expenses for their transport to operations as legitimate uses for the money.52

Within a week of the plane crash and nearly two weeks before the formal announcement of “civilian self-defense,” soldiers were teaching military skills to young men on the streets of Kigali.53 Soon after, authorities began recruiting new forces throughout the rest of the country. On April 21, for example, the army commander for Butare-Gikongoro asked local burgomasters to furnish recruits for the program.54

The authorities announced the new program on Radio Rwanda on April 26, explaining that it was necessary because “the war was being fought all over the country,” but it was another month before the interim prime minister revealed the formal organizational plan. The structure was almost a parody of the Rwandan penchant for administrative complexity. It included supervisory committees at the national, prefectural, and communal and sectoral levels to facilitate collaboration between administrative, military, and political party authorities. In urban communes, the organization was carried down to the level of the cell. The duties of the committee members at each level echoed the division of tasks at the army general staff: a member in charge of personnel (G1 of the army), another in charge of intelligence and communication (G2), another responsible for operations (G3), and a fourth in charge of logistics and finance (G4). At the national level, the committee included eight designated members, chaired by the minister of the interior and including also the minister of defense and the army commander in chief. The officer in charge of operations was supposed to be a major and the one in charge of logistics and finance was required to have at least a bachelor’s degree in economics or accounting. An “experienced” person was to be responsible for intelligence. At the prefectoral, communal, and sectoral level, elected councils were to oversee the corresponding supervisory committee. At the prefectoral level, retired soldiers, political party leaders, and the local military commander were also to monitor the work. Communal policemen and former soldiers were to train both the young recruits and the population in general about how to dig trenches, how to gather intelligence, and how to obtain necessary supplies. Although the programhad been publically announced, participants were to keep the details of its operation as secret as possible.55

In creating this system, the interim government added a fourth chain of command to the military, political, and administrative hierarchies that had henceforth executed the genocide. The new channel was to allow for more direct, efficient control over civilian assailants. The officers named to staff the program were a remarkably homogenous group, very like each other and very like Bagosora in age, background, and, apparently, in political ideas. More likely to follow Bagosora’s lead than the broader group of officers who had refused to allow him to take power on April 7 and 8, they were the ideal candidates to direct a paramilitary force that would implement his orders without question. The direction of the “civilian self-defense” program was lodged in Bagosora’s office at the Ministry of Defense.56

The commander at the national level was Colonel Gasake, who had temporarily replaced Nsabimana as chief of staff the year before. In 1993, Bagosora had already noted the possibility of using Gasake to head a propaganda campaign. The two men were apparently personal friends as well as colleagues. Among the regional commanders were Lieutenant Colonel Simba for Butare and Gikongoro, Colonel Rwagafilita for Kibungo, Maj. Protais Bivambagara for Kigali, Maj. Jean-Damascene Ukurukiyezu for Gitarama, and Lt.-Col. Bonaventure Ntibitura for Ruhengeri. Col. Laurent Serubuga was reportedly named to the post for Gisenyi but refused it. Several of the group, like Simba and Rwagafilita, had already been involved in genocidal killings before their appointment. They were all retired officers and they were ordered to designate other soldiers no longer in active service as their seconds in command.57

Three of these officers, Ukuruliyezu, Ntibitura, and Simba, had been deputies in parliament, all of them representing the MRND. A fourth, Rwagafilita, was due to take his seat as deputy for the MRND as soon as the transitional government was installed. Both Serubuga and Rwagafilita were part of the akazu.58

Of these officers, at least one shared Bagosora’s contempt for soldiers opposed to the genocide. In May, Simba sought to discredit Rusatira, who had been posted to Gikongoro, and incited militia to attack the general and his staff, whom he labeled Inkotanyi. Although none of Simba’s supporters dared openly assault the officers, Rusatira was unable to stop the accusations.59

In a lengthy order on May 25, the minister of interior directed administrators to assist the “civilian self-defense” effort by recruiting staff, such as retired soldiers, preparing inventories of firearms available, helping people to obtain traditional weapons, locating appropriate means of communication within and between groups, monitoring the work of barriers and patrols, and—as usual—keeping the population ready to “defend” itself whenever necessary. One task not listed but already current practice was supervising the distribution of the firearms being made available under the program.60

The new program offered an opportunity to force changes in the attitudes of administrators who opposed the genocide or to remove them altogether. The minister of interior ordered the prefects to identify local authorities “who could potentially hinder the execution of the strategy of self defense” and he warned against the danger of “infiltration by elements working for the enemy cause.”61 When the interim authorities removed the prefect of Gitarama in late May, they replaced him with the local “civilian self-defense” councilor, Major Ukurukiyezu, a further indication of how the new structure could be used to shape the administrative system already in place.

Because the organizers of the “civilian self-defense” program made no distinction between the civilian Tutsi population and RPF soldiers, they expected recruits to go to battle against the advancing RPF troops as well as to assist in the genocide of the Tutsi. The young men were badly trained and most of them were armed only with bows and arrows, spears, and machetes. The authorities exhorted them to take the Vietnamese as an example of what a courageous people could do, even without modern weapons. In combat against the RPF in Nyanza, Mugusa, and Muyaga in early June, the “civilian self-defense” forces suffered heavy casualties.62

Tightening Control

The change in structure represented by “civilian self defense” was paralleled by a change in tactics, a shift from the open and often large-scale killing that had characterized the first weeks of the genocide to a less public, smaller-scale approach to eliminating Tutsi. Instead of attacking sizable concentrations of Tutsi, such as those at churches in Kigali, assailants came in squads, night after night, to take away small numbers to be executed elsewhere. In May and June, authorities transported some groups of Tutsi to less accessible sites. They sent people from the Cyangugu stadium, for example, to the remote Nyarushishi camp and moved other groups back to their home communes, presumably with the intention of slaughtering them with less attention. The cut off in massive slaughter was neither immediate nor total: massacres, begun later in Butare, were continuing even as the new policy was being broadcast and horrible, if less frequent, attacks were launched elsewhere in May and June. But, in general, the worst massacres had finished by the end of April.

The new policy of more disciplined killing was called “pacification,” borrowing the term the interim government was already using to disguise its efforts to increase killing in the south and center of the country. “Pacification” meaning “more killing” merged into “pacification” meaning “more discreet killing.” It enlarged to a national scale the small deceptions that were already taking place in communities where killers had announced an end to the slaughter in order to lure victims from hiding or in order to give them a false sense of reassurance before launching a new attack.

The authorities began “pacification” after they had exterminated a substantial part—perhaps half—of the Tutsi population of Rwanda and after they had begun to hear faint sounds of indignation from the international community.

Restoring to Rwanda “Its Good Name”

From the early days of the genocide, the interim government demonstrated its concern with international opinion. Interim President Sindikubwabo talked about the need for Rwanda to restore “its good name, so that friendly countries will trust us once again.”63 Near bankruptcy, the interim government depended on foreignfunds to function; at war with the RPF and engaged in a genocide in which firearms were used, it needed foreign deliveries of arms and ammunition; burdened with hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, it required international humanitarian assistance to keep people alive. Not just national authorities and the urban-dwelling intellectuals but even most ordinary people knew the importance of foreign assistance which had brought the benefits of development projects to their own or adjacent communes.

The interim government was increasingly discredited as human rights and humanitarian organizations stressed the genocidal nature of the killings. On April 19, Human Rights Watch called the slaughter genocide and demanded that the U.N. and its member states meet their legal obligation to intervene. Respected and articulate human rights activists who had fled Rwanda, like Monique Mujyawamariya and Alphonse-Marie Nkubito, arrived in Europe and North America where their accounts were attracting the attention of officials and journalists. On April 22 Anthony Lake, National Security Adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton, received Mujyawamariya and a representative of Human Rights Watch, who described the extent of the genocide and the importance of the military in its execution. Later that day Lake issued a statement from the White House, calling on Bagosora, Bizimungu, and other military officers by name to halt the killings. The statement was the first by a major international actor to publicly assign responsibility for the ongoing killing to specific individuals, but it stopped short of calling the slaughter genocide.

That same day—although too early to have been in reaction to the Lake statement—the chief of staff, General Bizimungu, called for “the people to stop fighting each other and forget about ethnic differences. They have to stand side by side and help the government forces fight the enemy, the RPF.” Radio RTLM broadcast Bizimungu’s statement as well as another in a similar vein by Ndindiliyimana.64

Also on April 22, the interim government announced the departure abroad of delegations “to explain the government position on the Rwandan crisis.”65 Minister of Commerce Justin Mugenzi and MRND president Mathieu Ngirumpatse went to Kenya and other African states. Foreign Minister Jérôme Bicamumpaka and CDR head Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza traveled to Europe and the U.N. where they sought to convince officials and the press that the Hutu had risen up in justifiable rage after the death of their president. “Inter-ethnic fighting” had followed in which, according to Bicamumpaka, “the Tutsi and Hutus have massacred each other to an equal extent.”66 The Rwandan spokesmen did their best to minimize the number of fatalities. Bicamumpaka described the estimates recently given by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of 100,000 dead as “grossly exaggerated” and suggested that 10,000 might be more accurate. He concluded that no one could know because “There are no witnesses to give evidence.” He asserted that, in any case, “There is no more killing.”67 The Rwandan ambassador in Brussels did his part by sending around an open letter explaining how Kambanda and other national authorities had undertaken “pacification actions” throughout Rwanda.68

Meanwhile, in a Nairobi press conference, Mugenzi and Ngirumpatse told the press that the government was simply overwhelmed because all of its soldiers were occupied at the front. When journalists protested that they had seen soldiers killing civilians in Kigali, Ngirumpatse said that some soldiers were on leave and that all armies had some ill-disciplined elements. Taking up the argument presented by the “intellectuals of Butare” on April 18, he asserted that a cease-fire would end the killing of Tutsi civilians. He commented, “The best way of stopping those mass killings is to stop the shooting from the RPF and tell people: ‘You are secure and have no reason to hunt down people from the RPF.’”69

On April 27, Bicamumpaka and Barayagwiza met with French President Mitterrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs Alain Juppé, and other highly placed officials. They apparently heard from these usually understanding supporters that the killings were undermining Rwandan standing in the international community.70

On April 30, the U.N. Security Council issued a sterner warning by reminding Rwandan leaders that they would bear personal responsibility for violations of international law. Without using the word genocide, the statement spoke in the language of the genocide convention about the attempt to destroy an ethnic group. In addition the council called on all nations to provide no further arms or military aid to the parties to the conflict and declared itself in principle ready to impose an embargo on arms deliveries to Rwanda. The interim government attributed this initiative to the Belgians and Radio Rwanda reported it as their work. The U.S. also took a strong stand in favor of an embargo, as the interim government knew.71

The next day, the U.S. reinforced the Security Council message through a telephone call by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Prudence Bushnell, to the chief of staff. She had asked to speak to Bagosora, but, as always happened, he declined to come to the phone so Bushnell delivered the message to Bizimungu instead. She reiterated Lake’s message that the United States authorities at the highest levels would hold these officers responsible if they failed to stop the massacres. Bizimungu replied in a flip manner, “How nice of them to think of me,” but he was concerned enough to write to the Ministry of Defense the next day saying that it was “urgent…to stop the massacres everywhere in the country.”72

On May 3, the pope issued a strong condemnation of the genocidal slaughter and the next day Secretary-General Boutros Ghali stated that there was “a real genocide” in Rwanda.73

Rwandan authorities judged the international outcry in the light of the Security Council decision to withdraw most of the peacekeepers made just days before. With this in mind, they found the protests important enough to stop the major massacres, but not important enough to stop all killing and prevent its recurrence.

“Violence…Should Stop”

On April 24, administrative, military and militia leaders met to discuss measures to make the slaughter more circumspect. Prefect Renzaho, General Bizimungu for the army, and Col. Laurent Rutayisire for the National Police and the heads of the militia agreed that the bands of killers would end slaughter at the barriers and on the roads; they would instead take “suspects” to the appropriate authorities to have their cases investigated and decided. The militia would continue to search out “infiltrated RPF elements,” but would do so in a more orderly fashion than previously through “crisis committees,” a name echoing that of the military committee established at Bagosora’s direction on April 7. The authorities asked all who were armed “to rationalize the use of these weapons.” They also directed militia to allow staff and vehicles of the ICRC to pass without hindrance. There had been several incidents in which militia had taken wounded persons from their ambulances and executed them. The international protest that greeted such incidents illustrated just the kind of censure that Rwandan authorities wanted to avoid.74

The president of the Interahamwe, Robert Kajuga, went on the radio twice to instruct his men in the new approach. Two days later, Kajuga and his vice president, George Rutaganda, delivered a signed statement to the ICRC, expressing the laudable but vague desire to “see the massacres end as soon as possible,” and, in any case, committing the militia to observing the new policy.75 Prefect Renzaho reinforced the orders to militia and others by a long radio message on April 27, condemning the murder of innocent people and pillaging.76

On April 27 also, the interim prime minister declared that “violence, pillage, and other acts of cruelty should stop.” He directed that barriers should be established by local authorities in conjunction with military officers and that guards and members of patrols “should avoid committing acts of violence against the innocent.” He clarified the new approach by stating that the population should continue seeking out the enemy but should deliver him to the authorities, rather than dealing with him on the spot. If necessary, the people could call the armed forces for help in doing so. To show that this was not really a message to leave Tutsi in peace, he repeated the usual directive that the authorities, civilian and military, should be ready to help the population “defend itself when it is attacked.” He reminded prefects of the means at their disposal to implement the more discreet elimination of the Tutsi: they and their subordinates were to enforce rigorously the requirement that people traveling between communes and between prefectures must have written authorisations from the appropriate authorities.77

To show the population that the period of large-scale murder and pillage had ended, the interim prime minister ordered the prefects to restore “normality” to daily life “as soon as security is restored in your prefecture[s].” They were to make sure that offices were functioning, that markets were held, and that factories were back on schedule. Farmers should return to their fields.78

As part of the “pacification,” the interim prime minister announced that the enemy was the RPF and advised people to avoid ethnic, regional, or partisan divisions which would weaken resistance against them.79 Even RTLM announcer Gaspard Gahigi adopted this position for a brief time, explaining in a broadcast that “nobody should be killed because of his ethnic group” and that Tutsi, “even those with an aquiline nose,” who love their country should not be attacked.80 This effort to depict the slaughter as politically rather than ethnically motivated coincided with the change from large-scale massacres—where a whole group was slaughtered on what could only be ethnic grounds—to more selective executions of smaller groups and individuals, for whom there could be a pretense of establishing that they were actually linked with the RPF.

“No More Cadavers…On the Road”

Prefects received the “pacification” message from the interim prime minister and passed it on to their subordinates who called the population to meetings to hear about the new policy. At the same time that administrators explained “pacification,” they announced the official establishment of barriers and patrols as part of the “civilian self-defense” effort. Many of the barriers and patrols already functioning had been set up by militia or local political leaders on their own initiative. Now burgomasters ordered all men to participate in these “self-defense” measures, making government authority rather than informal community pressure the force that assured participation. The radio repeated the same message, ensuring that even those who had not come to the meetings would know what they were expected to do. Measures which had been used to catch and kill Tutsi became part of the program of “self-defense” and known killers were named to direct the “pacification” effort. In Taba and adjacent communes, Silas Kubwimana, the honorary vice-president of the Interahamwe and leader of the genocide in Taba, for example, was assigned responsibility for “pacification.”81

Given the double message of “pacification,” some militia felt free to continue killing. Georges Rutaganda, vice-president of the Interahamwe, himself led an attack on the Cyahafi neighborhood of Kigali just four days after the militia leaders called for an end to open violence.82 Militia continued to kill at some barriers outside Kigali and they attacked the cathedral at Nyundo on May 1, where they slaughtered 218 survivors of previous assaults. The same day they killed more than thirty orphans and Rwandan Red Cross workers in Butare and several days later they attacked Marie Merci School at Kibeho where they massacred some ninety students.83

RTLM announcers showed their understanding of “pacification” by declaring a general “clean-up” of Tutsi left in Kigali. They asked listeners to finish killing all the Tutsi in the capital by May 5, the date when Habyarimana’s funeral was supposed to take place.84

On May 3, soldiers of the para commando battalion ignored a safe-conduct signed by Chief of Staff Bizimungu and halted a convoy of Tutsi and others en route from the Hotel Mille Collines to the airport for evacuation. UNAMIR peacekeepers escorting the convoy stood aside and permitted the para commandos to force the persons under their protection out of two of the four trucks. The soldiers had begun beating the civilians when militia, apparently alerted by RTLM, arrived and joined in the attack. One of the militia fired, attempting to kill Kigali prosecutor Francois-Xavier Nsanzuwera who was among the evacuees, but instead he wounded a soldier. In the ensuing confusion, a lieutenant of the para-commandos ordered people back into the trucks. Prefect Renzaho and Rutaganda then intervened and directed the convoy to return to the Hotel Mille Collines.85

On May 9, the Interahamwe leaders reaffirmed the earlier directives to their members and declared support for the “pacification” visits of authorities throughout the country. They repeated that the neutrality of the Red Cross must be respected and added that the same kind of treatment should be accorded to UNAMIR and other U.N. personnel. This may have been both a response to the May 3 attack on the convoy and also a warning concerning the expected visit of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights José Ayala Lasso, which was scheduled for the next week.86

Rwandans directly in touch with international opinion may have felt more pressure to end the slaughter—or at least to appear to have ended it—than others in the interim government. Bizimungu and others responsible for fighting the RPF, for example, took seriously the threat of an arms embargo and understood that continued killing of Tutsi might well result in such a measure. In addition to the radio message of April 22 and his May 1 letter about stopping the massacres, Bizimungu reacted to the killing of the orphans in Butare—and the international censure of the incident—by directing his subordinates in that town “to do everything [necessary] to stop these barbarities.”87 After having approved the evacuation of Tutsi and others from the Hotel Mille Collines, he reportedly intervened twice more to protect the highly visible hostages whose safety was closely monitored by foreigners.

It was not just the fear of international censure but also the hope of concrete support that pushed Rwandan authorities to change their way of killing. Ten days after the Rwandan apologists of genocide were well received by French officials, the interim government sent Lt.-Col. Ephrem Rwabalinda to French military cooperation headquarters in Paris with a list of the arms, ammunition, and equipment most needed by the Rwandan army. Rwabalinda was told that French assistance would depend on improving the Rwandan image abroad.88

The day Rwabalinda finished his four day mission, Kantano Habimana of RTLM began a series of announcements calling for violence to end. On May 13, he berated those who kept on killing, saying “the president of the Interahamwe, the prime minister, the president of the republic, everyone, each of them says, ‘Please, the killings are finished, those who are dead are dead.’”89 Two days later, he explained the need for controlling the killings. “Since we have begun to restrain ourselves, the international community will certainly not fail to notice and will say, ‘Those Hutu are really disciplined, we should understand them and help them, hum!’” Three days later, he was more explicit still, announcing cheerfully that France had promised to begin aiding Rwanda again, “with considerable aid, with promises to increase it. Only, for this good news to continue coming, they ask that there be no more cadavers visible on the roads and also that no one kill another person while others stand around and laugh, instead of delivering the person to the authorities.”90

“Pacification” as Deception

A remarkable series of minutes from meetings of the security committee in the commune of Bwakira, in the hills of western Rwanda, show how quickly and efficiently the administration transmitted orders from the center to the communes, how the concerns of the military influenced policy—or at least were used to justify that policy—and how well the double meaning of “pacification” was disseminated at local level.

On April 29, the burgomaster described the major issue of the day for the committee: all the ammunition used against the RPF is imported; the governments that provided that ammunition “are reluctant to arm us while we are killing one another”; and the interim government has expressed its “wish for the war [ i.e., killing Tutsi] to end so that we can straighten out our relations with the international community.” So, the burgomaster concluded, “People should obey government orders and stop carrying their weapons around with them. This is serious business, not a joke.”91 The next week, the burgomaster explained that the Belgian government wanted to impose an embargo on Rwanda. To avoid this happening, he recommended that people go back to work, as the government asked, and stop thinking that every Tutsi was Inkotanyi. At the meeting of May 20, the burgomaster relayed the demands of the U.S., apparently those specified in Bizimungu’s May 1 conversation with Bushnell. They were:

The Rwandan Government must end all killings before it will be recognized by the international community. It must arrest and bring to trial all soldiers and youth [i.e., militia] who committed crimes. It must release all detainees [i.e., Tutsi still held hostage in the Hotel Mille Collines and elsewhere] and let them seek refuge in countries of their choice.92

At a meeting four days later, the burgomaster repeated the message and added,

You must enforce security. Some people imagine that what happens on their hills is not known because they do not know that there are satellites in the sky which take pictures. Killings must stop for good. The councilors must transmit these orders in meetings with the population.93

Local authorities elsewhere delivered the same “pacification” messages, complete with cautions about the likelihood of satellite surveillance, to the people in their jurisdictions.

The burgomaster of Bwakira followed up his announcements of “pacification” by drafting a model of a reprimand for councilors to use in writing to persons who continued to assault others.

But, in Bwakira, as elsewhere in Rwanda, “pacification” was not what it seemed. On May 5, immediately after telling people to stop killing, the burgomaster related that an RPF soldier had been caught in sector Nyabiranga of the neighboring commune of Gitesi. He was searched and found to be carrying an unidentified white power. When he was forced to eat it, he died immediately. This supposed incident replicated the features of the scare tactics used since October 1990: a soldier is purportedly found in the vicinity—near enough to be threatening but not so near as to permit easy verification of the story—in possession of the means to kill people and apparently on a mission to do so. The burgomaster in the next breath said that people must do patrols conscientiously at night to catch such infiltrators.94

At the council meeting of May 24, one member dared to raise the difference between rhetoric and reality. Remarking that most of the Tutsi had already been killed or driven from the commune, he declared:

It is a shame that only people of the same ethnic group are left. Authorities do not deal with problems consistently. Some say one thing, but act differently. It is not the ordinary people who kill, but the authorities who fail to carry out the laws that they know well.95

Others pointed out that violence continued because the authorities did nothing to enforce orders against the killing. One citizen commented that at Shyembe, “people kill any Tutsi they see, despite the fact that in the last meeting held there, people were elected to a security committee.” Another person responded that the security committee must enforce the law. He remarked that the violence against Tutsi in 1959 ended only after some people had been arrested and put in jail.96

As directed by their superiors, administrators disseminated the message of “pacification” and called on Tutsi to come out of hiding. In some communities, they used a sound truck to deliver the news up and down the streets of the town. Out on the hills, they beat a drum to attract attention to the message that killings had ended. Those Hutu who were hiding Tutsi carried the word to them.

Some Tutsi understood the deception. Pastor Kumubuga who was in touch with the Tutsi hidden around Bwakira told others at the committee meeting, “The people say that the advice to leave the bushes will lead to their death….they say that it is a political game.”97 Tens of thousands understood that and stayed hidden. But others, perhaps thousands of others, still had faith in the integrity of their authorities. They came out and were slain. The policy of “pacification,” meant to tighten control over the killing and to impress the foreigners, also in the end served the additional purpose of enticing more Tutsi to their deaths.“Justice” During the Genocide

The interim prime minister’s message of April 27 spoke about reopening courts that had been closed and using the judicial system to punish killings and deter further violence. But by that time, “justice,” like “security,” was meant only for the Hutu.

That had not been the case in the first days of the genocide when officials opposed to the slaughter had actually tried to use the judicial system to protect Tutsi. They arrested assailants and pillagers and began preparing cases against them. But as soon as the national leaders of genocide exerted their influence in the communes, the burgomasters released the detainees. The liberation of persons who had been seen burning and pillaging property and killing Tutsi signaled the community that the local authority had decided to tolerate, if not to support, violence against Tutsi.

Few prosecutors heeded the interim prime minister’s call to resume work at the end of April. Where they did and began investigating cases, the nature of the charges varied from murder to the theft of mud-guards from a bicycle. The cases had a common element: the victim was Hutu.

No longer the beneficiary of official judicial protection, Tutsi became the accused in an unofficial parody of justice. In communal offices, at barriers, or in bars, they were “tried” on charges of being the “enemy.” Since the start of the genocide, some Tutsi had been brought to the burgomaster in a continuation of the earlier practice of handing over any suspected criminal to the local authorities. With the “pacification” campaign, the number delivered apparently increased, with Tutsi being brought to the burgomaster, the councilor, a security committee, or to the head of a barrier or a patrol. There they would be interrogated about the pretexts that supposedly proved their guilt, such as possessing arms or lists of people to kill. If the accused were women, they might be distributed to male militia members for sexual service instead of being killed.98

Spurious as the process was, it formed a logical sequel to the denunciations against individuals. By carrying it through, the authorities added credibility to the whole deception and may have convinced some doubters that the person charged had actually worked for the RPF. Most of those captured were slain after perfunctory questioning. In some cases, the Tutsi were released, but just as condemnations usually had nothing to do with guilt having been established, so the reprieves rarely had to do with innocence having been proved. They resulted rather from bribes, personal connections, or some inexplicable stroke of good fortune.

Many killers treated the directive to take Tutsi to the authorities as just one more pretense. In mock compliance, the killers in Gisenyi labeled the cemetery, a usual place of execution, “the commune.” Elsewhere assailants announced that they were taking the Tutsi “to the burgomaster” when they led them into a banana grove or off into the bush to be killed.99Mid-May Slaughter: Women and Children as Victims

Through the last days of April, the RPF made dramatic advances. They took Byumba in the northeast on April 21, Rwamagana in the east on April 27, and Rusumo in the southeast on April 29-30. In a major blow to the Rwandan army, they swung west and in mid-May cut the main road linking Kigali to Gitarama. At this time, authorities ordered a new wave of killings. Militia and military launched new large-scale attacks on Tutsi at Bisesero and a raid was planned on the Hotel Mille Collines, although it was never carried out. RTLM, too, returned to frankly genocidal calls for slaughter. Kantano Habimana insisted:

Let 100,000 young men be rapidly recruited, so that they all rise up and then we will kill the Inkotanyi, we will exterminate them all the more easily since…the proof that we will exterminate them is that they are a single ethnic group. So look at a person and see his height and how he looks, just look at his pretty little nose and then break it.100

In many communities, women and children who had survived the first weeks of the genocide were slain in mid-May.101 In the past Rwandans had not usually killed women in conflicts and at the beginning of the genocide assailants often spared them. When militia had wanted to kill women during an attack in Kigali in late April, for example, Renzaho had intervened to stop it.102 Killers in Gikongorotold a woman that she was safe because “Sex has no ethnic group.”103 The number of attacks against women, all at about the same time, indicates that a decision to kill women had been made at the national level and was being implemented in local communities. Women who had been living on their own, as well as those who had been kept alive to serve the sexual demands of their captors, were slaughtered. In the note quoted above, the head of the barrier is directed to deliver “the three girls of Gapfizi” early the next morning so that the measures which the security council has decided can be carried out. This document, almost certainly the death warrant for the three young women, dates to mid-May.104

Some killers urged eliminating Tutsi women because, they said, they would produce only Tutsi children, regardless of the ethnic group of their husbands. This argument, which reversed the usual custom of assigning children to the group of their fathers, paved the way to demanding death also for Tutsi wives of Hutu husbands. Many were killed at this time, some by their own husbands. In some communities, however, local authorities worked to keep these women alive, particularly if their husbands were men of some importance. Depriving a man of the productive and reproductive capacities of his wife harmed his interests and a man injured in this way might demand punishment for the murderers or some other form of satisfaction. Because these cases involved the interests of a Hutu as much as the life of a Tutsi, a husband thus injured could expect support at least from his immediate kin and friends. Burgomasters and communal security committees spent a substantial amount of time trying to balance the interests of the husbands, generally acknowledged as valid, against the demands for action by hard-liners within the community. Often the support of authorities was not enough and husbands had to pay assailants to leave their wives unharmed; others fought, sometimes successfully, to save their wives.

Infants and young children who had survived or been saved in the first weeks were also slain in mid-May. Killers sought to justify their slaughter by repeating a phrase about Kagame or Rwigema, the RPF commander who had led the 1990 invasion, having once been a baby too. This explanation, voiced uniformly throughout the country, carried the idea of “self-defense” to its logically absurd and genocidal end. Hutu who tried to buy the lives of children or save them in other ways had little success and sometimes had to pay fines for having protected them.“Opening a Breach to the Enemy”: Conflicts Among Hutu

In the later part of May and in June, administrators found ordinary people were deserting the barriers and refusing to do the patrols. With the great majority of Tutsi dead, gone, or in hiding, people wanted to return to that “normality” preached by the authorities themselves. In permitting or directing the slaughter of the weak, the elderly, women, and infants, who posed no threat to anyone, authorities discredited the justification that killing was an act of self-defense. Prefects pressed burgomasters who pressed councilors who pressed the citizens to carry out their assigned duties, but with shrinking success.

As the more stable and established citizens withdrew, the militia and young men from the “civilian self-defense” program increasingly dominated the barriers and the patrols. They sometimes were armed with guns or grenades and had received enough training in military skills to intimidate others. With far fewer Tutsi to be caught, they spent more time harassing, robbing, and killing Hutu passersby. The minister of interior asked that those at the barriers and on patrols “use better judgment and not confuse the guilty with the innocent.”105 Several days later, the prefect of Kibuye reported to him that young people at a barrier tried to help themselves to the beer and tobacco from passing trucks that belonged to an important government official. The prefect had intervened to protect the goods, but, he commented, the incident showed “that there are people who still do not understand the role of the barriers.”106 Burgomasters and members of the councils of several communes expressed their anger at the abusive young men who controlled the roads and paths of their communities. One critic remarked later, “It is a good thing that the RPF arrived when it did. The thugs were beginning to take over.”107

Political Struggles

With the genocide, the accepted criteria for success in the political and administrative domains had been supplanted by new measures of worth: hostility to Tutsi and efficiency in getting them killed. This led to struggles for power as people in each community nurtured new enmities and built new alliances to deal with the changes in standards and leaders. People from one sector attacked those in the adjacent sector and residents of one commune raided those of another.

The disputes sometimes involved cattle or land or revenge for previous killings, but questions of political party loyalty often underlay the other considerations. Burgomasters, party leaders, and other locally important persons generally had the services of armed guards, sometimes communal policemen or, if they could be obtained, National Police or soldiers. They sent these guards to intimidate or assault other officials or party leaders. A number of these cases resulted in deaths, such as a conflict between authorities of Gishyita and Gisovu that ended with seven persons dead, two of them National Policemen. In early June, the burgomaster of Rutsiro feared an attack by people from the adjacent commune of Murunda because of “unexplained mortality among certain people of the MDR in the region of Murunda.”108

National authorities intended “pacification” to limit conflict among Hutu, but some local authorities used the policy as a pretext for harassing their political adversaries. Just as some burgomasters had once charged opponents with refusing to participate in killings of Tutsi, so some now accused adversaries of continuing such attacks.

Disputes Over Property

Many Hutu fought over the property left by Tutsi. At the start of the genocide, authorities froze Tutsi bank accounts, presumably intending to appropriate these funds for the national government. In at least one commune, that of Gisovu, the burgomaster supposedly got there first and embezzled 726,000 Rwandan francs (some U.S.$4,800) from “missing clients.” Minister of Information Eliézer Niyitegeka, who was from the region, used this allegation and other charges to demand that the burgomaster be replaced by a candidate he favored. To cap a number of allegations of corruption and mismanagement, Niyitegeka added what he apparently supposed would be the ultimate charge, that the burgomaster lacked enthusiasm for “civilian self-defense.”109 In Bwakira commune, thieves who were caught trying to rob a bank protested that they were just separating money belonging to Tutsi from money belonging to Hutu.110

Most people fought not over money but over land, cattle, or crops. Some disputed the boundaries of fields they had been allocated and others tried to harvest crops that had been assigned to someone else. In Gisovu, the burgomaster and the councilor fought so bitterly over pillaged cattle that “the matter created an open hatred” between them.111 Communal councilors in Bwakira had to deal with assailants who wanted the cattle of Tutsi eaten immediately—to the enjoyment of many—rather than kept alive—for the profit of a few.112 Looters fought over the distribution of the goods taken from development projects, schools, and hospitals as well as over Tutsi belongings.

Authorities directed burgomasters to deal with the disposition of Tutsi goods and land promptly to avoid trouble. As early as mid-April in some places, burgomasters ordered their subordinates to prepare inventories of the property of Tutsi who had been killed or driven away. One reason for the lists of people killed, initiated also at this time, was to identify which households were completely eliminated, meaning that their property was available for redistribution, and which had some survivors, meaning the land would be available only after further killing. Rural burgomasters were most preoccupied with distributing fields for cultivation; authorities in the towns like Butare also allocated houses and even market stalls during the months of May and June.

Communal councils spent more time discussing property than any other issue except “security” measures themselves. Most communities divided the property into three categories, so similar from one commune to the next as to indicate they were determined at the national level. Pillaged goods belonged to the one who took them, except for particularly valuable items that were supposed to go to the authorities to be sold; land reverted to the commune, as was customary, for short-term rental or permanent allocation; and crops already standing were to be protected and harvested by individuals for their own benefit or by the authorities for the public good. In some cases, authorities directed that grain of the dead Tutsi be brewed into beer to reward the militia or to be sold to help pay the costs of war.113

In documents where recipients of vacated lands are identified, it appears that one or a small number of persons sometimes benefited more than others in the community. In some cases, the rewards may have corresponded to the extent of participation in the genocide. The prompt parceling out of the victims’ land demonstrated the solid advantage to be gained by joining in attacks and no doubt tempted some to kill who would not otherwise have been done so.

“Where Will It End?”

Soldiers and National Police, both those posted in a region and those who had returned home after deserting the battlefront, exacerbated conflicts by pillaging and committing exactions against the local population. Administrators or politicians, emboldened by having soldiers or police as armed guards, also committed abuses against people in their jursidictions.

The number of firearms and grenades available meant that conflicts often had serious consequences. From the first days of the genocide, officials opposed to the killings had tried without success to locate and, if possible, confiscate the weapons that had already been distributed in preparation for the killing. Beginning in late April, those who approved the genocide also saw the need to control the use of firearms. The minister of interior insisted that the “tools” which have been “put at the disposition of people” were to be “used only for the purpose for which they have received them and not for anything else.”114

In various communes, council members deplored the vandalism and banditry of armed young men. In Bwakira, council member Dr. Kamanzi raised the issue of “young men who possess grenades and guns while we do not have any. We do not even know where those guns came from. I wish they could be taken away from them.”115 The burgomaster was ready to disarm some, but not all who had such weapons. He declared:

Each person’s particular conduct must be taken into consideration, however, since some of those people have good behavior and own grenades only to protect themselves in case they are assaulted.116

In late May, the minister of the interior ordered burgomasters to prepare inventories of all the firearms in their communes, suggesting that they might be confiscated and redistributed. The order occasioned a flood of letters from persons who had firearms and wanted to obtain official authorisation for them, as the law required. When authorities distributed thousands of firearms beginning in mid-May, many competed to obtain a weapon.

As the scramble to obtain firearms demonstrated, many Hutu felt more rather than less afraid after the majority of Tutsi—the supposed enemy—had been eliminated. The RPF was, of course, increasingly a threat, but, in addition, Hutu feared other Hutu.

After some weeks of slaughter, people were beginning to understand that a system dedicated to the destruction of Tutsi provided no security for Hutu either. One witness described the astonishment and indignation of his Hutu neighbors when one of their number was seized by a soldier. “We defended him, saying he is Hutu. You are supposed to be killing Tutsi, so why take him? If you start taking Hutu, where will it end?”117RPF Victory

In late May, the RPF took both the airport and the major military camp at Kanombe in Kigali and, on May 27, the militia leaders and many of their followers fled although Rwandan army troops continued to hold on to part of the capital. On May 29, they took Nyabisindu and on June 2, Kabgayi, only a few miles from Gitarama. The Rwandan army counterattacked, backed by militia and “civilian self-defense” forces, but the RPF routed them and rolled on to take Gitarama on June 13. Leaders of the interim government fled west to Kibuye and then north to Gisenyi. There they created a new national assembly in a last vain effort to establish legitimacy.

As the RPF advanced into each region, authorities managed to galvanize killers to hunt for the last remaining Tutsi. They launched these final attacks in June and early July, on dates that varied according to the moment of the RPF arrival nearby. In early June, assailants had surrounded at least one of the three large camps of Tutsi at Kabgayi, but were overwhelmed by a rapid RPF advance before they could carry out the planned attack. In late June, militia and military tried to complete the annihilation at Bisesero, as is described above. Others poised to launch a major attack on the some ten thousand Tutsi at Nyarushishi camp in Cyangugu failed to move because of the presence of National Police under Lieutenant Colonel Bavugamenshi.

In June Bemerki pushed killers to complete the elimination of Tutsi, “their total extermination, putting them all to death, their total extinction.”118 On July 2Kantano Habimana exultantly invited his listeners to join him in a song of celebration.

Let’s rejoice, friends! The Inkotanyi have been exterminated! Let’s rejoice, friend. God can never be unjust!…these criminals…these suicide commandos…without doubt, they will have been exterminated…Let us go on. Let us tighten our belts and exterminate them…so that our children and our grandchildren and the children of our grandchildren never again hear of what is called Inkotanyi.119

Two days later the RPF took Kigali and two weeks after that the authorities responsible for the genocide fled Rwanda.

Read the report with footnotes at source: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno4-7-04.htm