Rwanda
Politics | Human rights | Society
afrol News, 24 November - The French judiciary claims to have proof
indicating Rwanda 's President Paul Kagame ordered his rebels to shoot down the
plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana in April 1994. The Kigali
government blames radical Hutu groups. But does this question really matter?
Would Mr Kagame's assumed guilt mean the Rwandan genocide needs to be looked on
differently?
Those most interested in claiming President Kagame is guilty of killing
thus-President Habyarimana are the defence lawyers at the Tanzania-based
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The lawyers, who defend
those accused of the worst thinkable crimes against humanity during the 1994
genocide, claim that this would make the current regime in Rwanda
co-responsible.
Kingsley Moghalu, a former special counsel of the Tribunal, reached a horrible
conclusion in his recent book, " Rwanda 's Genocide: the Politics of Global
Justice". He claims that if Mr Kagame and the Tutsi rebels he led in April 1994
shot down the President's plane, then they triggered the genocide. Therefore,
guilt for the genocide would need to be divided between the Tutsis and Hutus of
Rwanda.
Critics of Mr Moghalu's conclusions - in the case they are not too outraged to
be able to respond at all - say this theory is like saying the Germans and the
Jews needed to share responsibility for the Holocaust, as the Jews had
"triggered" bad feelings among Germans.
"Triggering" has become a word commonly used when mentioning the Habyarimana
assassination. It "triggered the genocide", all journalists agree when writing
about the current French case against President Kagame. If rebel leader Kagame
killed President Habyarimana, then he "triggered" the genocide. That makes him
co-responsible.
Forgotten is the fact that radical Hutu groups had been preparing for genocide
for a long time. The Interahamwe militia was radicalised, armed and trained to
start slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus at a given signal. Hate speech had
been transmitted through Hutu media, radicalising the population, which was
easy to lead into supporting the slaughtering of their neighbours when the
Interahamwe led the way. Lists of "enemies" to slaughter were ready. The
apparatus was built.
This was when President Habyarimana was still alive. President Habyarimana, a
close friend of the French, was himself not among the most radical Hutus, but
his government included several of the leaders of the genocide, the Akazu.
The official story in contemporary Rwanda - where President Kagame undoubtedly
has contributed to a conscious rewriting of history - is that it was the Akazu
that stood behind President Habyarimana's assassination. These radical Hutus
were against a power sharing deal agreed upon with Mr Kagame's Tutsi rebels in
Arusha in 1993, and decided to get rid of the President and get on with the
genocide they had planned.
But what if that is not true? What if President Kagame is covering up his own
role from when he was commander of the Uganda-based Rwanda Patriotic Front
(RPF) rebels. What if it was the RPF that wanted to get rid of President
Habyarimana to avoid power sharing and grab total powers for themselves?
That would make Mr Kagame a coupist, for sure, but would it make him
co-responsible for the genocide? Of course not. If based in Germany and trying
to discuss whether the Jews were co-responsible for the Holocaust, one commits
a criminal act, out of understandable reasons. This should not be different
regarding the Rwandan genocide, because it was not the result of a war or an
assassination, but of careful planning committed by Hutu extremists.
This has also been understood by the ICTR. Louise Arbour, when heading the
Arusha tribunal, therefore ordered the court's prosecutor to stop
investigations into the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane. It was
"not within the Tribunal's mandate," she said, acknowledging that the incident
may have caused the Hutu extremists to start executing their genocide plan but
that this plan was already developed and approved of.
The ICTR has failed to shed light on all the crucial details one needs to
understand how the genocide was all planned and how the orders for its
execution were given. But much is known about the detailed planning of the
extremists in power in Kigali and their long preparation for the cruellest
episode ever in African history. Enough to place guilt where it belongs.
Mr Kagame may have the blood of President Habyarimana, his Burundian
counterpart and the airplane's partly French staff at his hands. This would
however make him guilty of just another coup d'état in Africa in the 1990s. And
- if interpreted very widely - of a terrorist attack; if interpreted more
conservatively, of a political assassination that saw civilian victims. History
and today's world is full of such, and although they should not be approved of,
they are not prosecuted if not being part of systematic war crimes. Nobody
accuses the RPF of that.
Rebel Kagame, while he may have stood behind the Habyarimana killing, later
made more than up for himself. He led the RPF to victory over Rwanda 's
genocidal rulers without foreign help and as the outside world did nothing to
stop the extremists from slaughtering around 800,000 civilians. Thanks to Mr
Kagame and the RPF, there are still Tutsis in Rwanda and the genocide could be
stopped before hundreds of thousands of more Rwandans were killed. And just
that will for always be Mr Kagame's legacy.
By Rainer Chr. Hennig
Sharangabo Rufagari
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