They Believed in What They Were Doing --- That Killing Was Good

A special UN report released in the summer of 1994 said the massacres of ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates carried out in Rwanda were premeditated and systematically coordinated -- not the result some sort of spontaneous explosion triggered by the April sixth death of the country's President. While in Rwanda, I met a former top Rwandan government official who confirmed the killings were indeed planned far in advance.

Ismael Amrisued was an aide and advisor to President Juvenal Habyarimana as well as a former Rwandan ambassador. He says it was no secret that as early as 1992, young people from the ethnic Hutu majority were being recruited and trained at special camps to join extremist militia groups like the Interahamwe.

“It was public. They used to recruit young people, put them in buses, take them to Gabirow areas, Gabco, Gisenyi side and those guys were staying there one month or more and they were coming back quite proud, telling their stories how they are going to get us one day, how they are going to kill us. Just showing you the gun they are carrying."

Mr. Amrisued is himself a Hutu. But he says he was marked for death because he was regarded as a political moderate who favored reconciliation with the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front, the RPF. He says he personally received threats several times -- even before the death of President Habyarimana in early April.

He says there had also been several political killings by then -- killings that had prompted him to send his wife and children abroad before the mass slaughter began.

Mr. Habyarimana's death when his plane was apparently shot down on the evening of April sixth still remains the critical focal point in the wave of killings that subsequently swept across Rwanda. But Mr. Amrisued says the killing that began that night could hardly have been spontaneous.

By the morning of April seventh, just hours after the plane went down on the outskirts of Kigali, he says even in such distant parts of the country as the southwestern town of Cyangugu, hundreds had already been killed.

“In Cyangugu, on Thursday morning, they had already, I mean around eight (AM), more than 500 people were already killed and it's quite far from Kigali."

He says that since people in Rwanda tend to go to bed early, and given that the Presidential plane went down late at night, few could have heard the news on the radio.

“But at two in the morning, they had already started killing, which means, instruction or some phone exchange had been circulating in the country and then they started killing those who were already targeted or listed to be killed and of course Tutsi were there to be killed."

Mr. Amrisued is among those who believe Mr. Habyarimana was killed by former political allies who feared he was prepared to implement a peace and power-sharing agreement with the rebel RPF. But he still holds the late President responsible for the massacres since he says Mr. Habyarimana spurned repeated appeals from moderates to halt the mass arming of civilians.

The former envoy says that in addition to guns, machetes were being handed out to the extremists starting in 1992. He does not know for certain but believes they were bought by Interahamwe leaders and distributed for free.

“You have seen those small machetes. You'll see a small, small machete which are used in some Asian countries. Those machetes are just for killings and we don't know who has imported them but all Interahamwe used to have them on their belts."

Mr. Amrisued hints at possible drug use by those involved in carrying out the massacres. But he dismisses suggestions most of the killers had to be forced to participate in the bloodshed.

“They were believing in what they are doing. I can't say all of them, but most of them were doing it willingly because they had been taught to do so. Once you believe that killing is good, killing a Tutsi is good, then you go and kill him. They have learned very well their lesson."

Go back and read the April 6th post:
http://reporterregrets.blogspot.com/2007/04/anniversary-to-remember.html
You'll see it was also the international community that knew what was coming in Rwanda and failed to act.