It was 2009 and I was participating in a conference call regarding some lottery projects in South America and the CEO of the company Bryan Tolladay, asked if there were any volunteers to go to Rwanda to save a project there.
I volunteered. The board immediately asked if I knew “everything needed to know about Rwanda”. I did. It was a country in Africa, near the Great Lakes and had that problem with genocide.
Bryan came in and said that I probably knew all about the country and later called me privately to talk about the decision. We chatted and he was curious why I accepted the project and alas, volunteered to the project. It was kind of odd to respond, but the genocide had happened in 1994 and it was a safe and stable country, both politically and socially.
Arriving in Kigali from Brazil is a bit of adventure in itself. One must fly from São Paulo to Johannesburg and layover for some 11 hours and move on to Nairobi in Kenya. From Nairobi to Kigali is a short flight after another three hours of layover.
Rwanda is a landlocked country of no particular geostrategic value colonized by the Belgium, Germans and finally the French. The late socialist president François Mitterrand had a desire to keep Rwanda in the Francophone sphere of influence and had the “Hutus” as allies against the “Tutsis” who being refugees in English speaking Uganda were considered as enemies.
Journalists at the time played down the help from the French president, calling it just the protection of a francophone culture against the onslaught of English speaking Rwandans from Uganda. The genocide cost the lives of 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutu´s lives in three months of carnage that could have been shortened if the French direct military intervention did not prop up the Hutu genocidaires with Operation Turquoise.
CAIN AND ABEL
The two main ethnic groups in the region are the Hutus and Tutsis. The Twa are the third ethnic group, but not particularly involved in the ethnic hatred. The Tutsis are cattle breeders and the Hutus are agricultural oriented. The biblical repetition is clear as a lesson. The animosity between the two groups is long and horrifying.
There were multiple genocides. The one in 1994 is the most fresh one, but there were conflicts in 1959, 1972, 1994 and 2008 in the Kivu are with alleged genocidal intentions. Before that, in the late XIXth century, Tutsi king Rwabugiri imposed taxation upon the Hutus and the Tutsis were exempt. Another characteristic of these ethnicities is that they both claim to be able to determine ethnicity by looking at the physical facial features and kept them from marrying across ethnicity, although marriages were not forbidden.
To make clear, there were mass murders from Tutsis to eliminate Hutus as well as mass murders from Hutus to eliminate the Tutsis.
The Tutsis perpetrated a series of mass killings of Hutus in 1972 in Burundi. This was a reflex of the disputes between the two groups to retain power after independence in 1962. The Rwandan revolution, where the Tutsi monarchy was toppled by the Hutus revolutionaries preempted the Burundian Tutsis to secure their power by preventing the same type of revolution in Burundi. This time in Burundi, the Tutsis mass murdered the Hutus. The resentment between the two ethnic groups is very much biblical, with one group being favored by the colonial powers with government jobs while the other felt deprived from that favor.
In the Rwanda War of Revolution from 1959 to 1962, the Hutus took on the Tutsis, who were supported by the King, and with help from Belgium, created the Republic of Rwanda. The positions of power were appointed to Hutus and mass murders of Tutsis took place in remote locations.
Up to 350 thousand Tutsis fled Rwanda and stablished a refugee camp in Uganda, Burundi, Tanganika and Congo. These refugees would later organize themselves into a guerrilla to attack Rwanda Hutu government.
These population lived in refugee camps for decades and in 1987 the Rwandan Patriotic Front was created with the objective of invading Rwanda and toppling the Hutu Government that have expelled the Tutsis in 1962.
The government in Rwanda, a landlocked country with no abundance of mineral resources nor a hub for commerce was not prosperous. The elected Kayibanda government favored the Hutus in detriment of the Tutsis remaining in Rwanda, creating unrest. By 1973 Juvénal Habyarimana a Liutenent Coronel, staged a coup d´etat and dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution.
The hard divisions of ethnic based power and economic dispensations made governing the country very difficult. Plenty of Hutus always believed to be shortchanged when compared to their Tutsis compatriots.
In 1989, the cartel that controlled the price of coffee was dismantled and the prices were marked to market. This plummeted the value of coffee and made the farmers – Hutus – in Rwanda lose their income, sometimes worse, at the market value, their crops had negative value and thousands of coffee plants were uprooted.
By this time, the RPF, the Rwandan Patriotic Front was already attacking Rwanda from Uganda and the combination of economic crisis, social crisis and the demonstration of apparent weakness by Habyarimana for negotiating the Arusha accords to end the Rwandan Civil War gave way to insubordination.
The poor country plagued with impoverishment and the coffee crisis gave way to nihilistic hatred that found a escape valve on the hatred towards the Tutsis. During years prior to the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, the Radio et Television Libre des Mille Colline has broadcast hate speeches towards the minority, blaming the impoverishment onto the Tutsis, which they called “cockroaches” dehumanizing them and setting the stage for “disinfection”.
The prospect of having to share power with Tutsis after 20 years in power removed support for the president. Those more radical were in fear that their situation would be even worse.
There is no consensus on how the genocide was created. Some believe the planning stages were set since 1990, with the help of the French government and some believe that it was spontaneous rebellion against a minority that threatened the status quo. Some believe the hatred is inherited from their Belgium colonizers.
There was a build up of hatred. The normalization of dehumanizing the Tutsis by calling them “inyenzi” or pests or cockroaches broke the sanctity of their lives. The death of the Hutu elected president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye in the hands of Tutsis in October 1993 confirmed that the Tutsis were enemies that could not be trusted.
The French owned and operated Falcon 50 private jet was struck from the air April 6th 1994, taking the lives of Habyarimana, president dictator of Rwanda, Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of Burundi, the french military pilots and civil servants.
The authorship of the attacks have not been determined to date. There are speculations for the origin of the missile, if it was a missile, who ordered it and who actually operated it. There are reports that attribute the order to Paul Kagame and other reports that claim that the missile was fired by the radical Hutus.
The UNAMIR – United Nations Assistence Mission to Rwanda, Coronel Romeo Dallaire, sent communications to the UN, but his pleas were not answered and his small contingent could only guarantee the security of the UNAMIR itself, and even then the Belgiun soldiers have been already murdered in cold blood. After that, even the original small contingent was withdrawn from Kigali.
The political powers that supported Habyarimana in power included his prime minister Madame Agathe Uwilingiyimana – not his wife name Agathe Habyarimana – a Hutu moderate that was prime minister in from July 17th 1993 until her assassination14 hours after the murder of Habyarimana.
After the death of Habyarimana, Theoneste Bagasora a coronel and general Augustin Ndindiliyimana and other hardliners took power.
These conditions and unleashed the genocide. The moderate Hutus were assassinated or were in hiding and unable to exert any power to control the masses.
The youths that have been trained and armed in the years previous, for defending the country in the Rwandan Civil War or to perpetrate the Rwandan Genocide, as the Interahamwe, “those who work together” were free to murder the Tutsi and moderate Hutus and rape the women at will.
The total numbers of deaths range from 500.000 to 1,2 million, depending on the political side of who counts. These deaths were accrued in three months, using machetes and handguns. The possibility of taking possession of the houses and assets of the victims also played a part in the frantic attack.
The Twa, 1% of the population, were also targets of the genocidaires with about 30% of their population murdered.
During the Rwanda Genocide many Hutus and Tutsis rose above their duties and save lots of lives. The most proeminent is Paul Rusesabagina, who was the manager of the Belgium owned Hotel de Mille Collines in Kigali. His actions were romanticized and portrayed in the Film “Hotel Rwanda”. He also wrote a book. “An Ordinary Man“. Many priests were murdered for protecting the potential victims.
As a sad note, some of the Catholic clerics in Rwanda participated voluntarily in the Genocide.
Another person who did the most to avoid the Rwandan Genocide is the afore mentioned Romeo Dallaire, the head of UNAMIR. His actions have saved the lives of tens of thousands of people. His actions on site were subject to smear from journalists, politicians and even judges that were not on site during the genocide and his personal life was destroyed by this betrayal.
Later, Dallaire was recognize by the international community and even the judge that claimed that could not get deposition from Dallaire had to admit that the general had indeed testified extensively on the matter three years prior. Dallaire had a mental breakdown, fell into depression and underwent treatment. After long recovery he was elected to the Canadian parliament.
The Genocide ended when the Rwandan Patriotic Front conquered Kigali and took power of the country that was devastated by the Genocide and by the Civil War. A huge mass of Hutus fled the country in fear of reprisals by the now governing Tutsis.
There were reprisals but the Ugandan trained RPF officers managed to control the situation with mixed results. There were no big massacres against Hutus.
When I arrived in Kigali all this was past. I never went to the Rwandan Genocide Museum, for I believe the remnants of those people are sacred and must not be displayed in museums (I also no not hang around mummies and other displays of the same quality).
Driving around the city I could recognize the airport, the hospital, the churches and the places described on the books I had read about the Genocide. I went to the Hotel “Des Mille Collines”, for it was the place Paul Rusesabagina saved a thousands of lives.
I saw Tutsis and I saw Hutus working side by side and shopping and living their lives as the genocide has never happened. Their differences were put aside now. Some of the people I worked with in Rwanda were Tutsis who survived.
Some survived because they managed to hide, but one in particular, Robert Mugabe, was spared because he was in line to be murdered by the Interahamwe, but a radio PPT interrupted the murderer and he survived.
We managed to work with the Rwandese people during three months. We were installing computers and GSM lottery terminals for a multinational company. We managed to deliver the contract and make friends in a country that was healing from the worst nightmare possible.
References
‘Blind’ France bears responsibility on Rwanda genocide, historical commission reports (france24.com) https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210326-france-braces-for-historians-report-over-rwanda-genocide-failings
The Coffee Crisis — Coffee & Conservation (coffeehabitat.com) https://www.coffeehabitat.com/2006/02/the_coffee_cris/#:~:text=Under%20the%20free%20market%2C%20prices,vulnerable%20to%20this%20market%20volatility.
An Ordinary Man Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009 Rusesabagina, Paul
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda Picador, 2011 Philip Gourevitch
Dallaire, Romeo – Shake Hands With The Devil_ The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda Random House, 2005