The President's Plane, The President's Palace

One of the lingering mysteries of the 1994 outbreak of genocidal violence in Rwanda involves the circumstances of the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana on the evening of April sixth that year. As he returned from peace talks in Tanzania, accompanied by the President of neighboring Burundi, his plane was apparently shot down by a rocket as it made its final landing approach into Kigali. Just who fired the rocket remains unknown. But ironically, the aircraft, a French-built executive jet, crashed into the backyard of the President's own residence. I visited the site in May 1994 and filed this report.

The plane slammed into a banana grove just outside the wall surrounding the Presidential estate, losing its wings and tail section before the fuselage punched a gaping hole in the wall itself, stopping just short of a decorative garden pool.

Pieces of scorched and twisted metal debris now litter the overgrown yard. Pages from the pilot's mapbook flutter in the breeze.

All appears to have been preserved as it was on that fateful night -- but the exact cause of the crash may never be determined. That's because the Rwandan presidential guard, which has been accused of shooting down the plane, prevented UN investigators from examining the wreckage. The aircraft's "black box" flight recorder was removed by government officials in the weeks immediately following the crash and has since disappeared.

Lieutenant Frank Ndore of the rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front, the RPF, says it may have been sent abroad.

“By the time the RPF reached here the black box was nowhere to be seen and from some sources it is said that it was taken to Paris, to France by I don't know which organization or what individuals but it wasn't there anywhere so there is nothing to investigate, nowhere to start exactly except looking at the wreckage and looking at the debris and that's all. I think all the RPF has done is to put up some guard here for any journalists who come here can find the area reserved as it were.”

Aside from a handful of RPF guards and a few pathetic-looking peacocks, the crash site and the estate are now abandoned.

But on the night of the crash, Mr. Habyarimana's wife and other members of his family were at home, ensconsed in the comfortably-outfitted three-story building. They have since fled the country, joining the hundreds of thousands who have sought to escape the massive blood-letting that began the night Mr. Habyarimana died.

The house has since been ransacked. Broken glass litters the floors. Clothing, some of it quite elegant, is scattered throughout the many rooms. Papers ranging from official documents to an honorary degree given to the Rwandan leader by the University of Quebec are strewn about randomly. Candid personal photographs lie on the floors. Some furniture has been overturned. A large aquarium that once held exotic fish is now filled with algae.

The stench of death pervades parts of the building and the grounds. 22-year-old Sergeant Edmond Kareem heads the RPF security detail at the Presidential estate. Speaking through an interpreter, he says Mr. Habyarimana lived well -- at the expense of the Rwandan people.

“The President had a lot of money but it wasn't his own money. It was government money that was used to build his palaces and he has a lot of money abroad.”

Despite the chaos in the house, it appears that little has been taken. Elaborate decorations such as a tapestry of the Great Wall of China still hang from the walls. The shelves of the cabinets in the large living room are still filled with crystal wine goblets. The powerful stereo sound system looks broken but dozens of compact disks, most of them of classical music, lie about, still inside their cases.

The rebels say the disarray was caused by the government soldiers and Presidential guards who fled the site late last month as RPF forces tightened their grip on the Rwandan capital.