Citation
A FORESEEABLE GENOCIDE
The Role of the French Government in
Connection with the Genocide Against the
Tutsi in Rwanda
19 April 2021
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STAFF ……………………………………………………………………………………………
i
PREFACE ……………………………………………………………………………….............
ii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ……………………………………………………………………...
v
A.
The Investigation ………………………………………………………………………….
v
B.
Background: Rwandan History and French Policy in Africa Prior to October
1990……………………………………………………………………………………….
vi
Report Summary: The Role of French Officials and the Military in Rwanda from
October 1990 to the Present……………………………………………………………….
viii
1. 1990: The French government responded to the RPF offensive by assisting
Habyarimana’s war effort. The French government continued to extend military
support despite human-rights abuses, anti-Tutsi massacres, and reservations
among French officials……………………………………………………………
viii
2. 1991-1992: The French government continued to apply military and diplomatic
pressure on the RPF, while knowingly supporting the Rwandan government
responsible for the abuse and slaughter of Tutsi………………………………….
xii
3. 1993: Ignoring a devastating human rights report exposing the Rwandan
government, France reached the pinnacle of its intervention in the war against
the RPF…………………………………………………………………………..
xiv
4. After the Genocide Against the Tutsi began, French officials remained captive to
the same inverted thinking that had guided their decisions for the previous three
and a half years: the main problem was the RPF—not the genocide the RPF was
fighting to end…………………………………………………………………….
xvii
5. When it eventually redeployed troops to Rwanda through Operation Turquoise,
the French government used this humanitarian action to stop the RPF from
controlling all of Rwanda…………………………………………………………
xix
Analysis: The French Government Bears Significant Responsibility for Enabling a
Foreseeable Genocide……………………………………………………………………..
xxii
C.
D.
CHAPTER I ……………………….……………………………………………………………..
A.
B.
C.
1
In October 1990, When War Broke Out on His Country’s Northeastern Border,
Rwanda’s President Called on France, a Longtime Ally, to Help His Army Fend Off “the
Invaders.” France Obliged.…………………………………………………………….….
1
France Sought to Retain Its Influence in Africa after World War II, with Mitterrand
Playing a Key Role in the Effort.………………………………………………………….
4
The French Government Forged Relations with Post-Colonial Rwanda in the 1960s,
Expanding the Sphere of French Influence into East Africa.……………………………..
6
D.
France Established Relations with the Kayibanda Regime amid a Period of Intensifying
Ethnic Strife in Rwanda …………………………………………………………………..
8
France Deepened Its Diplomatic and Military Ties to Rwanda after the 1973 Coup, as
Habyarimana and a Small Group of Primarily Northern Loyalists Steadily Consolidated
Control over the Country and Perpetuated Kayibanda-Era Anti-Tutsi Policies .…...........
10
Mitterrand Overruled Efforts to “Moralize” France’s Africa Policy, Opting Instead to
Placate Autocratic Rulers in Rwanda and Elsewhere …………………………………….
15
Stateless and Persecuted in the Countries Where They Sought Refuge, Rwandan
Refugees Were Told They Could Not Return Home Because There Was No Room. War
Ensued.……………………………………………………………….................................
22
Notes to Chapter I …………………………………………………………………………
25
CHAPTER II ……………………………………………………………………………………...
43
E.
F.
G.
A.
The RPF Launched Its Military Offensive into Rwanda on 1 October 1990. French
Soldiers Arrived Days Later……………………………………………………………….
43
French Geopolitical Interests in Africa Motivated Mitterrand’s Military Support of the
Habyarimana Government. To Justify Pursuing Those Interests, French Officials Sought
to Delegitimize the RPF by Casting It As a Foreign Aggressor…………………………..
45
In Support of Its Desire to Intervene, the French Government Also Mischaracterized the
RPF As a Tutsi Movement Intent on Dominating the Hutu Majority, Though the RPF
Was a Pluralistic Group with Broad Political Aims.………………………………………
48
French Cooperants Had Been Training the Rwandan Army Units That Stopped the
RPF’s Military Progress at the Start of the War and the French Government Sent More
Troops Immediately Thereafter …………………………………………………………...
52
In the Early Months of the Conflict, the Élysée Extended Military Support to the
Habyarimana Regime Despite Human Rights Abuses, Anti-Tutsi Massacres, and
Reservations among French Officials.…………………………………………………….
54
As Belgium Withdrew, the French Government Increased Its Support…………………..
57
Notes to Chapter II ………………………………………………………………………..
61
CHAPTER III …………………………………………………………………………..………..
73
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Noroît Troops Remained to Deter the RPF Military, Despite Mitterrand’s Claims That
French Troops Were in Rwanda Solely to Evacuate French Citizens ………..…………..
73
Early Warnings by a Senior French Official That Rwandan Leaders Had Genocidal Aims
Did Not Alter French Policy and May Have Caused the Élysée to Marginalize the French
Official.…………………………………………………………………………………….
75
After the Habyarimana Regime Retaliated against an RPF Military Attack by Massacring
Tutsi Civilians, French Officials Increased French Military Support for the Regime ........
78
Mitterrand Escalated French Military Support by Sending Military Trainers to Ruhengeri
and, against Counsel from His Military Advisors, by Keeping the Last Noroît Company
in Kigali …………………………………………………………………………………..
82
Notes to Chapter III……………………………………………………………………….
86
CHAPTER IV ………………………………………………………………………………..…...
95
A.
The French Government Claimed Neutrality at the Negotiating Table As It Worked to
Keep Habyarimana in Power and Attempted to Intimidate RPF Representatives into
Surrendering Their Demands.……………………………………………………………..
95
Habyarimana’s Feigned Embrace of Democratic Reforms Succeeded in Placating His
Benefactors in the French Government, Who Worked behind the Scenes to Keep
Habyarimana in Power.…………………………………………………………………….
98
Notes to Chapter IV……………………………………………………………………….
108
CHAPTER V ……………………………………………………………………………..……….
114
B.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
French Officials Watched As Akazu-Backed Militias Perpetuated Rwanda’s Ethnic
Divisions …………………………………………………………………..........................
114
French Officials Reacted to Rwandan State-Led Terrorism against Tutsi Civilians and
Political Opponents in Bugesera by Refusing to Protect Victims and Increasing Support
to the Perpetrators …………………………………………………………………………
117
Despite Ferdinand Nahimana’s Pivotal Role in the Bugesera Massacres, French Officials
Welcomed Him and Pledged Additional Aid to the Government-Run Media That Had
Incited the Violence.……………………………………………………………………….
125
The French Government Overlooked the Habyarimana Administration’s Complicity in
Massacres and Contended That Incremental Steps Toward Multi-Party Democracy Had
Justified France’s Continued Support for the Regime.……………………………………
127
The French Government Responded to a June 1992 RPF Military Offensive in Byumba
with a Swift Increase in Military Assistance to the Rwandan Government ………………
130
F.
Despite Press Criticism Aimed at French Military Engagement in Rwanda, Following the
Byumba Offensive, French Leaders Provided New Weaponry and Training to the FAR
and, by Several Accounts, Engaged Directly in the Fight………………………………… 132
G.
Following a July 1992 Ceasefire Agreement, French Authorities Supplied More
Weapons to the FAR and Took Measures to Ensure the DAMI “Panda” Advisors Would
Not Be Forced to Leave Rwanda.…………………………………………………………
137
French Officers Worked Alongside Rwandan Gendarmes at the Kigali-Based Criminal
Investigations Center, Despite Allegations That Gendarmes Abused Prisoners There…..
139
Recurring Allegations Have Been Made That French Soldiers Oversaw the Training of
Rwandan Militias in 1992 and 1993.………………………………………………………
143
The Rwandan Government Recognized the Value of French Support in 1992 and Made
Every Effort to Ensure It Continued……………………………………………………….
145
While Halting Progress toward Peace Produced Violent Extremist Reactions, French
Officials Discounted the Backlash and Continued to Shore Up a Government Beholden
to Extremists……………………………………………………………………………….
146
In Late 1992, General Quesnot’s Attempt to Fortify FAR Defensive Positions Resulted
in French Troops Running Afoul of the Cease-Fire……………………………………….
149
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
By the End of 1992, Negotiators in Arusha Had Reached a Framework for Peace That
Left a Sidelined and Furious Col. Bagosora—Widely Considered the Architect of the
Genocide— Announcing That He Would Begin Planning the “Apocalypse.”…………....
151
Notes to Chapter V………………………………………………………………………...
158
CHAPTER VI …………………………………………………………………..………………...
186
A.
French Officials Foretold That Habyarimana’s Dissatisfaction with a Peace Agreement
Signed in Early January 1993 Would Translate into More Unrest by Anti-Tutsi
Extremists.…………………………………………………………………………………. 186
B.
Massacres Began Anew on the Same Day an International Commission Investigating
Previous Massacres Left the Country. That Commission Would Deliver Its Preliminary
Findings Directly to French Officials, Specifically That Officials at the Highest Levels of
the Rwandan Government Were Responsible for Massacres and Targeted Killings….…..
188
When the RPF Launched Its 8 February 1993 Counter-Offensive in Response to the
January 1993 Ethnic Killings, the French Government Increased Military Support of the
FAR with Another 120 French Troops and More Weaponry.……….................................
193
Even a Mission to Evacuate Foreign Nationals from Ruhengeri Served the Unstated
French Goal of Deterring the RPF.……………………………………………………….
197
Disregarding His Defense Minister’s Objections, Mitterrand Ordered the French Army to
Reinforce Noroît.………………………………………………………………………….
198
C.
D.
E.
F.
French Soldiers Manned Checkpoints Alongside Rwandan Gendarmes, Despite a History
of Abuses.……………………............................................................................................. 201
G.
French Special Forces Embarked on a Secret Mission to Direct the War Effort for the
Rwandan Government………………………………………………………………….….
206
As the FAR Flailed, Mitterrand Hatched a Plan to Disengage from Rwanda while, in the
Short Term, Keeping Pressure on the RPF..........................................................................
210
1. As Prospects of a FAR Victory Dimmed, the French Government Sought a UN
Lifeline ……………………………………………………………………….…..
211
2. Mitterrand’s Decision to Pursue a Handoff to the United Nations Disrupted
French Special Forces’ Preparations for a Major Counter-Offensive against the
RPF ……………………………………………………………………………….
216
3. Relenting under Pressure, the French Government Withdrew Two Noroît
Companies ……......................................................................................................
220
Notes to Chapter VI………………………………………………………………………..
225
CHAPTER VII ……………………………………………………………………………………
248
H.
A.
B.
The French Government’s Support for Habyarimana Continued at the Dawn of a New
Era of “Cohabitation” Government in Paris, with French Diplomats Working behind the
Scenes to Neutralize the RPF.……………………………………………………………..
248
France’s New Prime Minister Resolved to Bolster French Assistance to the FAR. An
Expansion of DAMI Panda Soon Followed.………………………………………….……
252
C.
The French Ministry of Defense Disregarded an Internal Recommendation to Reassess
French Policy in Rwanda…………………………………………………………………..
255
In May 1993, French Officials Sidelined General Varret, a Leading Critic of France’s
Rwanda Policy………………………………………………………………………..……
256
At France’s Urging, the UN Security Council Voted to Send Observers to the Ugandan
Border in a Bid to Cut Off RPF Supply Routes.…………………………………….……..
257
Anti-Tutsi Extremists Launched RTLM in July 1993, Inciting Rwandans with Messages
of Hate……………………………………………………………………………………..
259
G.
With Peace, at Last, Seemingly at Hand, France Inched Closer to the Exit……………….
262
H.
Western Reluctance, Including on the Part of France, to Adequately Fund and Equip UN
Peacekeeping Forces Set Up the United Nations for Failure……………………………...
268
Following the August 1993 Truce, France Refused to Contribute Soldiers to the UN
Peacekeeping Force, but Remained in Rwanda and Continued to Advise and Train the
FAR………………………………………………………………………………………...
271
As a New, Larger UN Force Was Created, UNOMUR—the Previously Authorized UN
Border Force, Championed by France—Proved to Be Little More than Symbolic………..
274
As Violence Spiked, the French Government Pulled the Last Remaining Noroît
Companies, Leaving Military Advisers Behind……………………………………………
275
The Remaining French Military Cooperants Continued to Advise and Assist FAR
Leaders in Early 1994, Even As Evidence Emerged That the FAR Was Arming and
Training the Interahamwe, the Militia Suspected of Planning to Exterminate Tutsi………
279
The FAR Received a Delivery of Munitions from France in January 1994, Despite the
Deteriorating Situation on the Ground……………………………………………………..
286
Frustrated, but Not Yet Willing to End the Mission, the UN Security Council Voted on 5
April 1994—One Day before the Start of the Genocide—to Extend UNAMIR’s
Mandate…………………………………………………………………………………….
287
Notes to Chapter VII……………………………………………………………………….
291
CHAPTER VIII …………………………………………………………………………...……...
319
D.
E.
F.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
A.
B.
C.
D.
French Cooperants Accompanied a FAR Officer, Major Aloys Ntabakuze, to Inspect the
Wreckage of President Habyarimana’s Plane, Not Long before Troops under
Ntabakuze’s Command Slaughtered Tutsi.…………………………………………..…….
319
Executing a Clear Plan during the First Day of the Genocide, the French-Trained
Presidential Guard Assassinated Moderate Politicians, Murdered Belgian Peacekeepers,
Attacked the RPF Residing in the CND Building, and Erected Roadblocks throughout
Kigali Where Many Tutsi Were Butchered…………………………………………….…
320
French Officials at the Highest Levels Quickly Became Aware That the French-Trained
Presidential Guard Was Murdering Tutsi Civilians and Moderate Politicians…………….
327
Without Evidence, and Contradicted by French Intelligence, Mitterrand’s Advisors in the
Élysée Reflexively Blamed the RPF for Habyarimana’s Assassination……….………….
328
E.
F.
G.
French Officials Evacuated Their Citizens and Extremist Allies from Rwanda,
Reportedly Delivering Ammunition for Those Allies Who Were Presiding over a
Genocide…………………………………………………………………………………...
330
French Officials Were Willing to Exceed the Mission of Operation Amaryllis to
Evacuate Some Rwandans, Including Some Later Charged with Genocide, but When
Asked about Their Failure to Aid the Victims, Their Answer Was: That Was Not Our
Job………………………………………………………………………………….……...
333
As Operation Amaryllis Came to an End, Advisors in the Élysée and Soldiers on the
Ground Mourned What They Saw as the Abandonment of Their Allies and Even Began a
Short- Lived Secret Operation Meant to Oppose the RPF…………………………..……
337
Notes to Chapter VIII……………………………………………………………………...
343
CHAPTER IX …………………………………………………………………………..………...
356
A.
As Genocidal Massacres Continued in April and May of 1994, French Officials Blamed
the RPF—the Only Force in the World Trying to Stop the Genocide—and Insisted That
the RPF Lay Down Its Arms and Negotiate with the Génocidaires……………………….
356
France Must Clarify How Senior French Officials Responded to the IRG’s Regular
Requests for Arms and Other Support during the Genocide…………………………..…..
358
Due to International Condemnation of the Genocide, the French Government’s
Assistance to the Génocidaires May Have Been Covert………………………….……….
359
As Massacres Took Hundreds of Thousands of Lives in Full View of the International
Community, the French Government Helped Shape a Portrayal of the Crisis as a Sudden
Outbreak of Mindless Violence, as Opposed to a Genocide Orchestrated by Members of
the Interim Rwandan Government…………………………………………………….….
360
French Officials Welcomed IRG Representatives to Paris, Bestowing Legitimacy on a
Genocidal Government as They Discussed How the French Government Might Support
the IRG……………………………………………………………………………....…….
363
During the Genocide, French Mercenaries Paul Barril and Bob Denard Allegedly
Provided Training and Ammunition to the FAR, with the Knowledge of the French
Government………………………………………………………………………………..
368
At the United Nations, French Officials Continued to Obstruct Attempts to Hold the
Génocidaires Responsible for the Slaughter in Rwanda…………………….….…………
371
Despite Intensified Public Criticism of French Inaction in Late May and Early June, the
French Government Continued to Insist It Had No Obligations in Rwanda ….………….
374
I.
France’s African Allies Pressured the French Government to Act in Rwanda……………
378
J.
Under Considerable Pressure, and for a Range of Reasons, Mitterrand and Other HighRanking French Officials Decided to Send French Troops Back to Rwanda …………….
379
As French Officials Devised Turquoise, Planning Was Rushed, Specifics Were Scarce,
and Several Officials Advocated Operations to Prevent an RPF Takeover of Kigali and
to Allow the Establishment of a “Hutu Country” in Western Rwanda …………………..
381
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
K.
L.
As Plans for Turquoise Took Shape, French Officials Encountered Enthusiastic Support
from the IRG, Staunch Opposition from the RPF, and Unusually Direct Skepticism from
the International Community………………………………………………………………
385
Notes to Chapter IX………………………………………………………………………..
391
CHAPTER X ……………………………………………………….…………………………….
412
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
While Operation Turquoise Carried a Humanitarian Mandate, French Forces Deployed
with a Massive Display of Firepower and Some Officers Who Had Previously Supported
the FAR in its War against the RPF………………………………………………………..
412
The Turquoise Forces’ First Foray into Rwandan Territory Was Calculated to Allay
Suspicions That the French Government Was Still Backing the FAR………………..…..
419
Turquoise Officers Met with FAR Leaders, Despite Their Knowledge of the FAR’s
Complicity in the Genocide………………………………………………………………..
422
Following Their First Operation in Cyangugu, French Troops Proceeded to the IRG
Stronghold of Gisenyi and Continued to Fan Out Eastward in the Direction of Kigali
Everywhere, Their Patrols Revealed “an Empty Countryside,” with Few Tutsi Left to
Save……………………………………………………………………………….……….
425
Alarmed by Recent RPF Military Successes and Suspicious of RPF Infiltration in the
Interim Government-Controlled Zone, French Officials Debated Ways of Stopping the
RPF Advance…………………………………………………………………………..…..
428
Confronted with Evidence of Massacres in Bisesero, French Troops Failed to Intervene
for Three Days, Leaving Hundreds of Refugees to Be Slaughtered……………………….
433
With the RPF on the Verge of Victory, President Mitterrand Sought to Excuse France’s
Role in the Lead-Up to the Genocide While Working behind the Scenes to Persuade the
RPF to Stop Its Advance………………………………………………………………….
442
The French Government Established a Safe Humanitarian Zone in Southwestern Rwanda
in Part to Limit RPF Control of Rwanda…………………………………………….……
444
Leveraging the Establishment of the SHZ, French Officials Redoubled Their Efforts to
Catalyze a Cease-fire and Salvage the IRG ………………………………………..…….
450
The Safe Humanitarian Zone Offered Refuge to the Interim Government’s Army and
Other Perpetrators of Massacres, as French Officials Did Not Order Their Troops to
Arrest or Systematically Disarm Génocidaires ……………………..…………………...
454
While Slowing the RPF Forces’ Progress, the French Government Struggled to
Adequately Care for Refugees in the SHZ and Allowed Génocidaires’ Safe Passage to
Zaire ……………………………………………………………………………………...
461
As the War Ended, French Officers Crossed the Border to Meet with Ex-FAR Leaders in
Exile and Express Their Support …………………………………………………………
466
When French Officials Withdrew French Forces from Rwanda, They Proclaimed
Operation Turquoise a Success Despite the Humanitarian Crisis Enveloping the Region ..
471
Notes to Chapter X………………………………………………………………………...
482
EPILOGUE……………………………………………………………………………………….
A.
530
After Operation Turquoise Ended, President Mitterrand Refused to Accept Any
Responsibility for the Genocide, Instead Issuing False Statements Blaming the RPF and
Distorting the History of the Genocide ……………………………………………..…….
530
A 1998 Parliamentary Inquiry Whitewashed the French Government’s Role in the
Genocide……………………………………………………………………………….….
534
A French Judicial Investigation Smeared Rwandan Political Leaders and Gave Credence
to the Claims of Genocide Deniers …………………………………………….…..……..
538
Génocidaires Have Enjoyed Decades of Sanctuary and Freedom in France, Despite
Concerted Efforts by Private Citizens and the Rwandan Government to Bring Them to
Justice ……………………………………………………………………..…….………..
540
The French Government Continues to Withhold Critical Documents Relating to its Role
in the Genocide ……………………………………………………………………….…...
546
For Rwandans, the Toll of the Genocide Continues ………………………………………
549
Notes to Epilogue …………………………………………………………………………
553
CONCLUSIONS AND FINDINGS ……………………………………………………………...
567
DRAMATIS PERSONAE ………………………………………………………………………..
581
GLOSSARY & ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………………………………….
588
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
APPENDICES
A.
Map of Rwanda
B.
Government of Rwanda’s First Request of Documents to the Government of France
C.
Government of Rwanda’s Second Request of Documents to the Government of France
D.
Government of Rwanda’s Third Request of Documents to the Government of France
E.
Yael Danieli Report
STAFF
The following individuals worked on the investigation:
Joshua Levy
Yannick Morgan
Barbara Mulvaney
Remy Munyaneza
Robert Muse
Serge D. Ndikum
Moise Nkundabarashi
Daniel O’Sullivan
Emily Pan
Brianna Reed
Benjamin Schneider
Patrick Sharangabo
Andrew Sharp
Emily Somberg
Saurea Stancioff
Clarisse Umuhire
Fabiola Uwera
Esther Uwicyeza
Pamela Uwineza
Margaret Whitney
Kathryn Wozny
Monique Abrishami
Julie Baleynaud
Scott Brooks
Randy Campana
Rachel Clattenburg
Matt Corboy
William Corboy
Sara Criscitelli
Elise Cuny
Joseph Filvarof
Daren Firestone
Boris Fishman
Valeska Heldt
Seana Holland
Florida Kabasinga
Dorcas Karekezi
Adeline Kayitesi
Harrison Kidd
Logan Kirkpatrick
Christophe Knox
Katherine Krudys
Gentiane Lamoure
i
PREFACE
This Report is about the role of the French government in connection with the 1994
Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, one of the most monstrous atrocities of the 20th century.
How the Genocide happened and who is responsible have been the subjects of hundreds of books,
judicial proceedings, investigations, and journalistic efforts. And still, questions remain
unanswered. Those who seek to evade responsibility have succeeded in hiding, obscuring or
distorting the truth.
When a million human beings are slaughtered over a period of one hundred days, and
generations continue to suffer more than a quarter century later, there is an imperative to finding
the truth. In particular, Rwanda and its people insist on understanding the role of the French
government. For too long, they have watched the French government avoid the truth and fail to
acknowledge its role and responsibility.
The Rwandan government believes that bringing in an outside law firm, based neither in
France nor Rwanda, best helps advance the public’s understanding of the facts. In 2017, the
government commissioned this Washington, DC law firm to conduct a detailed inquiry to
determine the French government’s role. In furtherance of this mandate, our aim has been to locate
and ascertain the facts and circumstances related to the French government’s role, reach
conclusions as to its responsibility, and report to the Government of Rwanda. We do so with this
Report. The submission of this Report to the government marks the end of the investigation and
speaks for itself. We will not be speaking with the media.
The Report is drawn from a range of both primary and secondary documentary sources,
including transcripts; reports and studies by governments, non-government organizations and
academics; diplomatic cables; documentaries and other videos; contemporaneous news articles;
and other such resources. We have met with hundreds of individuals and interviewed more than
250 witnesses in English, French and Kinyarwanda. The Rwandan government has placed no
restrictions on our efforts.
The Report is generally structured in chronological order. It begins with an examination of
the French government’s early experiences in Rwanda and then focuses on the critical four years
when the French government was most involved in Rwandan affairs, starting in October 1990 with
the invasion of the RPF, through the Genocide in 1994, and Operation Turquoise later that summer.
Importantly, the Report looks beyond the time of the actual Genocide. It examines the French
government’s role for the past quarter century and establishes that the Government of France has
continuously obstructed justice, concealed documents, and perpetuated false narratives about the
Genocide. The coverup continues even to the present.
There are some hopeful signs that this may be changing. In 2019, President Emmanuel
Macron ordered the creation of the Research Commission on the French Archives Related to
Rwanda and the Genocide Against the Tutsi (“the Duclert Commission”). Several weeks ago, the
Commission issued its report and conclusions. In many respects, these findings comport with our
own. We commend the effort of the Commission, as it has unearthed new information and
Preface
presented the role of the French government in a more candid and honest manner. This new
approach represents a departure from previous efforts to obscure the facts. However, our Report
parts ways with the Commission in several respects, including:
Responsibility
It appears that neither the Duclert Commission nor the French government has yet come to
a conclusion on the issue of responsibility. The Commission, while speaking of
“overwhelming responsibility” and examining such with abstract considerations, including
“political,” “institutional,” “intellectual,” “ethical,” “cognitive” and “moral” responsibility,
fails to adjudge the actual responsibility of the French government. It fails to state what the
French government was responsible for having done. Specifically, it fails to pronounce that
the Government of France bears significant responsibility for having enabled a foreseeable
genocide. We do so here.
Blindness
The Commission’s conclusion suggests that the French government was “blind” to the
coming Genocide. Not so. Our Report concludes that the Genocide was foreseeable. From
its knowledge of massacres of civilians conducted by the government and its allies, to the
daily dehumanization of the Tutsi, to the cables and other data arriving from Rwanda, the
French government could see that a genocide was coming. The French government was
neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide.
The Coverup
The Commission’s conclusion, in the main, does not address the quarter century after the
Genocide. Our Report, by contrast, details and examines the cover-up, obstruction and
false narratives promulgated by the French government since 1994. The Commission
acknowledges the “limits” of its inquiry, in part born of the fact that the Government of
France continues to withhold critical documents. This approach by the French government
is regrettably consistent with a pattern of 27 years of obstruction.
Our Report was largely completed before the Commission’s work was made public.
Nonetheless, we have at points in this Report incorporated facts unearthed by the Commission that
aid historical understanding. But we have not attempted to incorporate or answer all of its data or
analysis. Neither this Preface nor the Report is an effort to examine and respond to the Duclert
Commission. It is enough to say we have regard for the Commission’s effort but suggest each
report stands on its own.
Throughout this Report, there is a series of boxes set into the text, which feature the voices
of victims who survived the Genocide. They are interspersed in each chapter to remind the reader
that no study of the French government’s role can be complete without a continuing awareness of
what the Genocide actually was. For those who have not lived it, to simply say the word “genocide”
is almost anodyne and cannot convey even the small piece of the horror contained in the
testimonies we have gathered. A scientific examination of the duties and failures of governments
is important to show how their practices can be improved. But it is inadequate to the task of
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Preface
determining and judging responsibility. The role of the French government must be examined in
the context of both the events they enabled and the generations irreparably harmed. It can be
disquieting and uncomfortable to confront what actually happened to the Tutsi, but it must be done.
However awkward and unsettling it may be to consider, France’s role can only be examined and
determined with a full awareness of what did occur.
This Report is the culmination of the superb work of the extraordinary professionals and
staff who conducted the investigation. Every page of the Report reflects their considerable skill,
dedication, judgment, decency and intellectual honesty. It has been an honor to share the mission
with such wonderful colleagues—all now dear friends.
Finally, we wish to acknowledge the considerable assistance we received from witnesses
in Rwanda, who themselves are survivors of the Genocide. Discussing what occurred is fraught
with enormous emotions, and this would often be evidenced in our meetings with witnesses who
spoke with deep and painful feelings about events that remain searing.
April 2021
Washington, D.C.
Robert F. Muse
Levy Firestone Muse LLP
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda stands as one of the darkest and most
horrific chapters of the 20th century. In the span of one hundred days, more than one million human
beings were killed because of ethnic hatred. Still more suffered grievous injuries and losses, the
pain of which lingers to this day.
A. The Investigation
Despite all that has been written about actions taken by the French government in Rwanda
before, during, and after the Genocide, critical aspects of the truth remain unknown or
unacknowledged. Unsatisfied with such an incomplete record on a central element of Rwanda’s
history, the Government of Rwanda engaged this law firm to investigate the role of the French
government in connection with the Genocide.
This investigation has included outreach to hundreds of witnesses and document custodians
on three continents; interviews with over 250 witnesses in English, French, and Kinyarwanda;
collection and analysis of millions of pages of documents, transcripts, and contemporaneous news
articles, primarily in the same three languages; and the examination of reports and studies by
governments, non-governmental organizations, and academics, as well as books and memoirs by
key participants.
The French government, though aware of this investigation, has not been cooperative,
perpetuating what by now can only be characterized as an ongoing cover-up of omission,
deflection, and distortion. France’s cover-up is also a failure to accept responsibility and a
miscarriage of justice. The Government of Rwanda has sent the Government of France multiple
requests for documents to establish the facts. The French government acknowledged receipt of the
Government of Rwanda’s requests for documents on 20 December 2019, 10 July 2020, and 27
January 2021, and has produced zero documents in response.
Until France opens all of its archives and authorizes all of its government and military
officials from the 1990s (and not only those who approve of French actions in Rwanda) to speak
publicly and without fear of reprisal about what transpired, the public will not know the full story.
Only negative inferences can be drawn from the French government’s recalcitrance.
Nonetheless, much of the story can be known now. The Report that we summarize here
details France’s role through an examination of policies, decisions, and events. These details
support our conclusion that the French government bears significant responsibility for enabling a
foreseeable genocide.
Executive Summary
B. Background: Rwandan History and French Policy in Africa Prior to October 1990.
Rwanda is uncommon among the countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region (a term that
generally refers to the areas surrounding Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi and often
encompasses Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), Tanzania, Kenya,
Rwanda, and Burundi). Small and without coastline, it was spared outside interference until the
late 19th century when Germany first made colonial inroads into the region. Rwanda remained a
part of German East Africa until 1916, when, during World War I, the Allies placed it under
Belgium’s authority. The Belgians ruled “Ruanda-Urundi” (Rwanda and Burundi) for the next 44
years.
Belgium enforced strict hierarchical divides among otherwise fluid and overlapping quasiethnic groups—Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa—as a way of maintaining control in Rwanda. At first,
colonial administrators reinforced existing Tutsi elite power structures, working through the Tutsi
monarchy, lending military support to Tutsi leaders, and preserving access to economic
opportunity for the Tutsi ruling elite. But during the late 1950s, the Tutsi monarchy followed
numerous countries in Asia and Africa in pushing for independence from colonial rule. The
Belgian response was to champion long-simmering resentment among the Hutu majority and
reverse the discrimination, now elevating Hutu over Tutsi and creating a new oppressive state
based on the exclusion of Tutsi. This had calamitous results, opening the door to a wave of
pogroms that began in 1959 and continued during the 1960s and early 1970s, resulting in the deaths
of many thousands of Tutsi and driving more than 300,000 primarily Tutsi Rwandans into exile,
mostly to refugee camps in its bordering countries—Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire
(today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo).
Meanwhile, as former French colonies declared their independence, the French
government sought to preserve its influence on the continent. To that end, France cultivated
economic relationships with leaders across Africa, who facilitated the supply of petroleum and
other natural resources to France, and who returned a percentage of revenue to France in return for
military and economic support. France viewed other wealthy countries, particularly the United
Kingdom and the United States, as potential rivals to this influence, significantly in resource-rich
eastern Zaire, on the western border of Uganda and Rwanda. As old colonialism was dying, the
importance of maintaining influence in Africa was not lost on François Mitterrand, who, as
France’s minister of justice, wrote in 1957 that “[w]ithout Africa, there will be no history of France
in the twenty-first century.”
When Rwanda gained independence from Belgium in 1962, France saw an opportunity.
Unlike some of France’s own former colonies in Africa, such as Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville,
Rwanda did not have oil or other precious natural resources. What made Rwanda alluring, from
France’s perspective, was something else: its distinction as one of only a handful of Frenchspeaking countries on the frontier of English-speaking East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania). In
1963, one French Foreign Ministry official, Bertrand Dufourcq, who would serve as secretary
general of the Ministry from 1993 to 1998, asserted that Rwanda, because of “its geographical
location,” could “contribute effectively to the development of French influence” in the region. He
alluded to a hope that Rwandan emigrants would bring their language and culture with them to the
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rest of the region, with the result that, for France, Rwanda would serve as “a significant instrument
of cultural penetration in the English speaking neighboring countries.”
To further its interests in the country and the region, the French government supported the
militant Hutu nationalist regime led by Grégoire Kayibanda, which took power in Rwanda in 1962
and oversaw the massacres of Tutsi over the following years. The year Kayibanda became
president, France signed a “Friendship and Cooperation” agreement with Rwanda. In 1975, two
years after Juvénal Habyarimana deposed President Kayibanda in a military coup d’état, the two
countries signed a “military cooperation” agreement. This agreement authorized French military
personnel (referred to as “cooperants”) to train the Rwandan Gendarmerie (its national police
force) but stated that “[u]nder no circumstances” could the French cooperants “be associated with
the preparation and execution of war operations.” In 1983, the agreement was amended to remove
the ban on French cooperants assisting in war operations. In August 1992, the agreement was
further amended to authorize French assistance not only to the Gendarmerie, but to the “Rwandan
Armed Forces” (Forces armées rwandaises, or FAR).
Such bilateral military cooperation agreements were a fixture of French relations with its
former colonies and other francophone countries. Through these compacts and civil cooperation
agreements, France leveraged its relative wealth, as well as its technical and military know-how,
to strengthen its alliances in Africa and reap the benefits of those ties. These arrangements were
part of a broader French policy established in the early 1960s under French President Charles de
Gaulle and known as françafrique. Run primarily through the Élysée (the office of the French
president), françafrique relied on parallel power networks between French politicians and loyal
African heads of state. The French government provided these African leaders with financial and
military aid in exchange for support of French positions at the United Nations, permission for
France to station troops in their countries, preferential trading agreements, and, in some cases,
exclusive access for French companies to lucrative African mineral sites.
François Mitterrand came to power in 1981 on a Socialist Party platform pledging an end
to France’s military support of corrupt and undemocratic African regimes. “French imperialism in
Africa, which doesn’t think twice about resorting to military means (Gabon, Zaire, Sahara, Chad,
Central Africa) has run its course,” the platform proclaimed. Such statements buoyed exiled
Rwandans. As the Rwandan, mostly Tutsi, refugee population grew, so did their determination to
return to their homeland. Some Rwandan refugee activists in Europe petitioned the new French
President to support their repatriation efforts, which Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana
assiduously resisted. “Rwanda is small,” Habyarimana would say in rejecting proposals for refugee
resettlement. “It is like a glass full of water. If one added more, it would spill.” Mitterrand was
sympathetic to this view, telling Habyarimana during a 1984 speech in Kigali, “Your constant
willingness to maintain good neighborly relations cannot prevent a refugee problem, in your
country or on your doorstep . . . . With an already very large population, you now find yourself
taking on burdens that should not normally be yours.”
Habyarimana had come to power during a 1973 military coup, capitalizing on the
dissatisfaction of northern Rwandans with Kayibanda’s regional sectarianism that favored
Rwandans who hailed from Kayibanda’s power base in southern and central Rwanda.
Habyarimana and his clique of northern powerbrokers—at the core of which was his wife, Agathe
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Kanziga Habyarimana, and her family—responded not only by reportedly murdering Kayibanda
and numerous politicians associated with him, but also by consolidating near total power over
political and economic life in Rwanda. As a former head of Rwandan state-run media wrote in
1992, “[a]ny decision taken by the party organs goes directly or indirectly through” what became
known as the Akazu, meaning “small house,” referring to Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana’s close
family circle. “[T]here are very few,” the former Habyarimana confidant continued, “who, these
last few years, could have been promoted to and/or kept in an important position without being in
thrall to a prominent member of [the Akazu]. An even rarer occurrence was the expression of
opinions to which [the Akazu] had not first given its blessing.”
Determined to end this corrupt system and to escape the oppression of refugeeship endured
in surrounding countries, Rwandan refugees began organizing in the late 1970s to agitate the
Rwandan government for change. But after President Habyarimana’s political party, the
Mouvement révolutionaire national pour le développement, or MRND (the only political party in
Rwanda), issued a 1986 statement rejecting the refugees’ call for collective repatriation, Rwandan
refugees began planning for the possibility of what they called “the Z Option”—war. In December
1987, they formed a new political action group called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which
was uniquely positioned to plan a military option in parallel to its continuing diplomatic efforts.
Many RPF members had escaped the limitations of a life in a refugee camp by spending years
fighting a successful guerilla war in Uganda in Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Army
(NRA). Well-trained and battle-hardened, the Rwandan NRA soldiers had helped Museveni end
Ugandan President Milton Obote’s bloody rule in 1986, and many remained in the NRA, with
several reaching its highest levels. Organizing and training in secret, the RPF began to build its
own army. “Going home to Rwanda was not possible without military struggle,” recalled Richard
Sezibera, who would join the RPF’s army as one of its first medical officers and decades later
serve as Rwanda’s foreign minister. “We all listened to the radio. The government told us that
Rwanda was not for us—it was full.”
After decades of waiting, planning, and advocating, on Monday, 1 October 1990, several
thousand RPF troops crossed the northeast border into Rwanda.
C. Report Summary: The Role of French Officials and the Military in Rwanda from October
1990 to the Present.
1. 1990: The French government responded to the RPF offensive by assisting
Habyarimana’s war effort. The French government continued to extend military
support despite human rights abuses, anti-Tutsi massacres, and reservations
among French officials.
On 2 October 1990, President Habyarimana phoned the Élysée in Paris, to plead for France
to help his government repel the RPF’s military offensive. The French official who took his call
was not President Mitterrand, but rather the president’s son, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the head
of the Élysée’s “Africa Cell,” which largely controlled French policy in Africa. The younger
Mitterrand, responding to Habyarimana’s request for help, gave “a bland and reassuring answer”
before turning to historian Gérard Prunier, who happened to be in the room at the time, and saying,
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“We are going to send him a few boys, old man Habyarimana. We are going to bail him out.” “In
any case,” he added, “the whole thing will be over in two or three months.”
As Jean-Christophe Mitterrand may have known, when the war broke out, there were
already French military cooperants on the ground in Rwanda, including several who had been
working to train key units of the Rwandan Armed Forces—the reconnaissance battalion, the paracommando battalion, and the aviation squadron—that were among the first dispatched to repel the
RPF troops.
By 4 October 1990, three days after the war began, these French military cooperants would
be joined in Rwanda by 150 French troops to help secure Kigali and its airport. This deployment,
followed soon afterward by the arrival of another 150 French soldiers, marked the beginning of
Operation Noroît. President Mitterrand tried to assure the French people that the purpose of this
operation was to “permit[] the evacuation of the French and of a number of foreigners who placed
themselves under our protection.” The Noroît troops, he said, “had no other mission but that one,
and once this mission is completed, of course, they will return to France.” This was a lie. Internal
communications and recent statements from Mitterrand’s advisors confirm that the mission also
had an unofficial purpose: deterring the RPF advance.
To that end, the French intervention was successful. In the skies, Rwandan pilots aboard
French-made Gazelle helicopters unleashed rocket attacks that played a decisive role in halting the
RPF army’s advance. French instructor-pilots often sat alongside their Rwandan pupils during the
early stages of the war. Colonel Laurent Serubuga, the FAR’s deputy chief of staff and a core
member of the Akazu, would later tell a visiting French official that the FAR’s French-trained elite
units, “backed by France,” deserved the credit for the Rwandan government forces’ “October
victory” over the RPF military.
Serubuga welcomed the RPF attack, according to France’s ambassador to Rwanda from
1989 to 1993, Georges Martres. For Serubuga, the attack offered the pretext that government antiTutsi hardliners like himself needed to massacre Tutsi. Although Ambassador Martres knew this,
the French government nonetheless secretly appointed a special advisor to Serubuga to improve
the FAR’s fighting capabilities and to participate in high-level discussions about battlefield tactics.
Massacres of Tutsi civilians were, in fact, already under way on 11 October, the day the
French government appointed the advisor to Serubuga. Days after the RPF military began its 1
October 1990 offensive, Rwandan government soldiers and militias began massacring Tutsi
civilians in the northeast of the country near the site where the RPF entered Rwanda. These
massacres were widely publicized in the Western media. On 10 October 1990, for example,
Reuters reported that approximately 400 Rwandan civilians fled to Uganda after Rwandan
government troops and Hutu militias attacked peasants accused of supporting the RPF: “Soldiers
shot peasants and burned down huts while Hutus hacked women and children with machetes . . .
in attacks on at least nine settlements inhabited mainly by the minority Tutsi tribe in northeast
Rwanda, the villagers said.” One witness recounted the kind of scene that would become all too
familiar four years later, during the Genocide: “One woman died after Hutus hacked off her arms
and forced them into her mouth . . . . Her two small children, aged one and five were then
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slaughtered.” Another witness said, “The whole place was littered with bodies, it seems more
people died than escaped.”
This was not an isolated incident. Government soldiers and militias massacred Tutsi on the
other side of Rwanda, too. More than 250 kilometers southwest of where the RPF troops had
crossed into Rwanda, in the town of Kibilira, they killed more than 300 mostly Tutsi civilians and
burned more than 400 mostly Tutsi homes. The French government knew about these attacks. A
13 October 1990 cable to Paris, signed by Colonel René Galinié, the head of Noroît (who also
served as defense attaché to the French embassy and the head of France’s military assistance
mission in Rwanda) and transmitted by French Ambassador Martres, reported:
Organized by the MRND, Hutu farmers have intensified their search for suspicious
Tutsis in the foothills; massacres are reported in the region of Kibilira, 20
kilometers northwest of Gitarama. As previously indicated, the risk that this conflict
will spread seems to be becoming a reality.
Two days later, on 15 October 1990, Ambassador Martres acknowledged that the Tutsi population
in Rwanda feared a genocide. “[The Tutsi population] is still counting on a military victory,”
Martres wrote in a memo titled “Analysis of the Situation by the Tutsi Population.” “A military
victory,” he continued, “even a partial one, would allow them to escape genocide.”
Despite such warnings, on 18 October, an advisor reported to President Mitterrand, “We .
. . responded positively to the requests made by the Rwandan authorities for the supply of
ammunition and that we have in particular sent rockets for ‘Gazelle’ helicopters. A plane carrying
new rockets left this morning for Kigali.”
On 24 October, Col. Galinié issued a more emphatic warning. Rwandans, he wrote would
never accept the reestablishment in northeast Rwanda of what he called “the despised regime of
the first Tutsi kingdom.” His prediction—chilling, in light of what was to come—was that “this
overt or covert reestablishment would lead[,] in all likelihood, to the physical elimination of the
Tutsi within the country, 500,000 to 700,000 people, by the Hutu, 7,000,000 individuals.”
Looking back at this period during his 1998 testimony before a French parliamentary
mission of inquiry into France’s actions in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994 (Mission d’information
parlementaire, or MIP), Ambassador Martres admitted: “The Genocide was foreseeable as early
as then [October 1990], even if we couldn’t imagine its magnitude and atrociousness.”
Speaking in 2014 at a conference exploring mistakes made before and during the Genocide,
Mitterrand’s closest advisor, Hubert Védrine, acknowledged hearing Mitterrand “say very early,
in 1990-1991, that the situation in Rwanda was very dangerous and could only lead to a civil war
and massacres.” Védrine added, “I am not saying that he anticipated a genocide in the form that it
eventually took, nobody imagined that. But from the very beginning, he had the idea that this was
a dangerous situation which could only lead to massacres.”
The day after the 10 October 1990 reports of government-sponsored massacres appeared
in the European press, Admiral Jacques Lanxade—then Mitterrand’s top military advisor—
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proposed to Mitterrand a partial withdrawal of Noroît forces so that the French government would
not “appear too implicated in supporting Rwandan forces should serious acts of violence against
the population be brought to light in current operations.” Mitterrand turned him down, and Noroît
soldiers would remain in Rwanda even after the Belgian government withdrew its troops over
Habyarimana’s human rights abuses (known also to the French government). Mitterrand
emphasized in a cabinet meeting on 17 October 1990 that the conflict in Rwanda was an
opportunity to fill a vacuum left by Belgium: “We maintain friendly relations with the Government
of Rwanda, which has come closer to France after noticing Belgium’s relative indifference towards
its former colony.”
By early January 1991, some French officials believed the RPF’s military threat had
dwindled sufficiently for France to reduce its military footprint. Mitterrand again rejected
Lanxade’s advice to reduce the number of French troops in Rwanda. Emboldened by continued
French military support, the Rwandan government resisted diplomatic and political engagement
with the RPF. Without political recourse, the RPF resolved to take its case back to the only forum
that demanded the Habyarimana regime’s attention: the battlefield.
In late January 1991, the RPF army, having regrouped under the leadership of Paul
Kagame, staged an unexpected attack on Ruhengeri, a Habyarimana stronghold in northwestern
Rwanda. The evening of the attack, at the Élysée, Mitterrand authorized Noroît to evacuate French
and other foreign nationals from the Ruhengeri area. When Admiral Lanxade recommended that
France limit itself to retrieving its nationals and leave it to the Rwandans to “try to get the rebels
to leave,” Mitterrand balked: “We cannot limit our presence. We are at the edge of the Englishspeaking front. Uganda cannot allow itself to do just anything and everything. We must tell
President Museveni: it’s not normal that the Tutsi minority wants to impose its rule over the [Hutu]
majority.” His reply was clarifying. It showed not only that Mitterrand saw a more expansive role
for French troops in Rwanda, but that his understanding of Rwandans went no deeper than their
ethnic identification. To Mitterrand, Rwanda was a Hutu country, and the RPF, which he
oversimplified as a Tutsi movement, could not lead a Hutu country.
The RPF hoped to persuade its Rwandan and French counterparts that “politics is not in
the blood; it is in the ideas,” in the words of the RPF’s then-Secretary General Tito Rutaremara.
Months before Mitterrand’s late January 1991 remarks, for example, RPF representatives had
explained to French embassy staff in Uganda that the “objective of the RPF [was] to liberate the
country from the dictatorship of Habyarimana.” The French ambassador to Uganda relayed this
information to Paris, along with the RPF’s position that refugee repatriation was “certainly
essential, but it cannot conceal all the domestic problems in Rwanda (widespread corruption,
embezzlement of international aid, political assassinations, etc. ).”
French interests in Rwanda and Africa, however, compelled French officials to disregard
this information. Defending Habyarimana was a given: to refuse to help him would have risked
losing a reliable ally and alarmed other African despots, who would be left to question France’s
commitment to protecting them from threats to their rule. That reaction could threaten the
foundations of French influence on the continent.
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How, exactly, to justify intervention to the French people was a more complicated issue.
Having proclaimed, only recently, that France would offer military support to African allies only
in response to a “foreign menace” (as opposed to “domestic conflicts”), Mitterrand was at risk of
criticism for choosing to help Habyarimana repel an army of Rwandan refugees. He preferred,
instead, to insinuate that what was happening in Rwanda was not a civil war—that, rather, the RPF
was a mere proxy for Uganda and therefore best viewed as a foreign aggressor. Thus, on 24
October 1990, Ambassador Martres advised President Habyarimana to “highlight in the media”
the RPF’s military attack as an external aggression by explaining that “France will be in a better
position to help Rwanda if it’s clearly demonstrated to the international community that this is not
a civil war.”
2. 1991-1992: The French government continued to apply military and diplomatic
pressure on the RPF, while knowingly supporting the Rwandan government
responsible for the abuse and slaughter of Tutsi.
Days after the RPF’s 23 January 1991 Ruhengeri offensive, local authorities in the region
retaliated with organized attacks against the Bagogwe, massacring between 500 and 1,000
members of this pastoral Tutsi subgroup that made its home just above Ruhengeri. But even after
word of these attacks by government actors against civilians reached France, they did not register
inside the Élysée. Instead, a second RPF attack on Ruhengeri on 2 February 1991 persuaded
Admiral Lanxade that the French government should send a supplemental military instruction and
training detachment (Détachement d’assistance militaire d’instruction, or DAMI) “to reinforce
[French] cooperation and to ‘toughen’ the Rwandan [military] apparatus.” Mitterrand agreed. The
DAMI’s subsequent deployment, in March 1991, was meant to be secretive and limited. Originally
to end within four months, it would last over two and a half years.
France paired its military support for Habyarimana with diplomatic pressure on the RPF
disguised as neutral mediation. Paul Dijoud, a French diplomat who oversaw 1991 negotiations
between the RPF and the Rwandan government declared that “the French approach is unbiased
and aims only to help bring peace to the Rwandan-Ugandan border.” Yet, throughout negotiations,
there was no question where French interests lay. According to an August 1991 memorandum
from Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir Bizimungu to President Habyarimana, “Mr. Dijoud
wanted to meet me after the departure of the Ugandan delegation to reiterate France’s
unconditional support of Rwanda,” adding that the diplomatic talks in Paris had “greatly
enlightened us as to France’s determination, which sees itself as a friend and an ally.” Paul
Kagame, at the time chairman of High Command of the RPF military, has recounted that, during
a September meeting in Paris, Dijoud told him, “We hear you are good fighters, I hear you think
you will march to Kigali but even if you are to reach there, you will not find your people. . . . All
these relatives of yours, you won’t find them.” Dijoud purported to couple such pressure on the
RPF with commensurate pressure on the Habyarimana regime to institute democratic reforms.
Habyarimana ended the single-party system in Rwanda but continued to clamp down on dissent
and rig the system to keep his party, the MRND, in power. This farce was good enough for the
French government, which did not, as Dijoud would later acknowledge, expect Habyarimana to
immediately “transform Rwanda into an advanced democracy.”
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The depths of Dijoud’s and the Mitterrand government’s commitment to their Rwandan
allies would become even more apparent when French officials brushed off the Rwandan
government’s participation in a brazen public massacre of Tutsi that would later be referred to as
a “dress rehearsal” for the Genocide. The March 1992 massacres in Bugesera, a region just south
of Kigali with a large Tutsi community, were sparked by propaganda aired on state-run radio
falsely claiming to expose a plot by the RPF and its political allies to murder 22 members of
predominately Hutu political parties. The false report achieved its intended effect. From 4 March,
the day after broadcast, until 11 March 1992, government-sponsored militias began to resolve what
the MRND viewed as the “ethnic problem” and crush the political opposition.
As the killings began, “[t]hey came in a great crowd, shouting like crazy people,” one
survivor said, “They killed four of my children and my wife.” Agence France Press and Reuters
highlighted the barbarity of the slayings in contemporaneous reports—how the killers had set
homes ablaze and burned people alive. In a week, assailants killed nearly 300 and displaced as
many as 13,000.
Ambassador Martres knew within days what the state-run radio station had done. “The
Rwandan broadcast ignited the fire,” he wrote in a 9 March 1992 cable to Paris. Nonetheless,
weeks later, in Paris, French Ministry of Cooperation officials welcomed Ferdinand Nahimana,
who, as head of the state broadcasting agency, had authorized the false radio report. Ministry
officials made commitments to Nahimana to increase funding for a Rwandan state television
station. Two years later, Nahimana would lead RTLM (Radio télévision libre des mille collines),
the hate radio station that exhorted militias to hunt down and kill Tutsi during the Genocide.
France’s military assistance also continued unabated. As the Bugesera massacres unfolded,
Paul Dijoud, the purportedly neutral mediator of peace talks, circulated a note calling for “[a]
reinforcement of French support to the Rwandan army” to help it counter the RPF’s growing
“intransigence.” France would, indeed, commit to sending more military equipment to Rwanda
during the latter half of 1992. In all, the French government provided almost $2.7 million worth
of military equipment to the Rwandan government in 1992, in addition to approving more than
$1.5 million in arms sales to Rwanda.
By mid-1992, French journalists began calling out the French government for its
continuing support of the murderous regime in Kigali. Jean-François Dupaquier, for example,
published a scathing article in June in the French weekly magazine L’Événement du Jeudi titled,
“France at the Bedside of African Fascism,” in which he drew parallels between the Rwandan
government and the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge. He took the French government to task for using
its military advisors to “supervis[e]” a war on behalf of the Rwandan government against the RPF
that was “less and less military, and increasingly uncivil.”
On 5 June 1992, the RPF military launched a major offensive in Byumba for the purpose
of strengthening the RPF’s bargaining position with Habyarimana. The French government swiftly
came to Habyarimana’s aid by deploying an additional 150 Noroît troops and sending new
powerful artillery to the FAR. In August 1992, another massacre of Tutsi, this time in the western
city of Kibuye, did nothing to deter the continuing French military support.
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By October 1992, peace talks, which had proceeded in fits and starts during the war and
produced a cease-fire in July 1992, appeared promising for achieving a comprehensive solution to
the conflict. But extremists came out strongly against the progress. The newly formed anti-Tutsi
extremist party, the Coalition pour la défense de la république (Coalition for the Defense of the
Republic, or CDR) organized an 18 October 1992 march protesting the Arusha negotiations and
supporting “the presence of French troops and François Miterrand [sic].” Within days of the march,
CDR members assassinated two moderate politicians. After negotiators in Arusha, with French
and other international observers present, reached a preliminary power-sharing agreement in
Arusha on 31 October, Habyarimana took a cue from the CDR and immediately began
undermining the peace process, criticizing his own negotiators in two radio addresses in early
November 1992 and then, in mid-November, declaring that a cease-fire reached in July was merely
a piece of paper. “Peace is not confused with papers,” he declared.
One of the government’s negotiators in Arusha, the notorious anti-Tutsi extremist Colonel
Théoneste Bagosora, left the negotiations in Arusha before they were complete and, within
months, initiated a Rwandan military program to arm civilian members of the CDR and
Habyarimana’s MRND party. Years later, Bagosora would come to be known as the architect of
the Genocide.
3. 1993: Ignoring a devastating human rights report exposing the Rwandan
government, France reached the pinnacle of its intervention in the war against the
RPF.
At the beginning of 1993, a consortium of human rights groups brought governmentsponsored ethnic violence in Rwanda into greater focus for the French government and the world
at large. The “FIDH Commission” conducted a fact-finding mission in Rwanda between 7 January
and 21 January 1993. After interviewing hundreds of Rwandans and excavating mass graves, the
investigators concluded that the Rwandan government had “killed or caused to be killed” 2000
Rwandans and that “they [had] been killed and otherwise abused for the sole reason that they
[were] Tutsi.” They briefed French officials in Kigali and Paris on their findings. In a 19 January
1993 cable summarizing his briefing, Ambassador Martres noted the “impressive amount of
information about the massacres” gathered by the FIDH and suggested the mission’s conclusions
would force Habyarimana to answer serious accusations about his role in those massacres. “As for
facts,” Martres observed, “the report that the mission will deliver . . . will only add horror to the
horror we already know.” The warnings could not have been more dire or more clear. Still, the
French government continued and even accelerated its support of the Habyarimana government.
On 21 January 1993, the very day the FIDH mission left Rwanda, the violence that the
government had placed on hold for the benefit of FIDH investigators resumed with a vengeance
in the north of the country, leaving hundreds more Tutsi dead. In response to the killings, the RPF
army resumed hostilities on 8 February 1993, which had been temporarily halted for peace talks.
As Paul Kagame explained to the Christian Science Monitor:
This is not the first time they have done this, they killed people in [Bugesera], and
Kibilira near Gisenyi and also killed the Bagogwe people in the Gisenyi area. We
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thought these killings would die out as we pursued the peace process but they did
not. So we could not be indifferent; just stand by and watch.
France’s response came from the spokesperson of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “We are
aware of the reasons invoked by the RPF to explain the attack. France does not consider the given
reasons [to be] a justification for the resumption of fighting, even if France condemns, in Rwanda
as elsewhere, all violations of human rights.”
Mitterrand and his advisors did not let the FIDH findings interfere with their continuing
determination to pursue the policy that had prevailed for the previous two and a half years: stopping
the RPF remained their priority. With the new RPF advance threatening key Rwandan army
positions, on 8 February 1993, General Christian Quesnot, successor to Admiral Lanxade as
Mitterrand’s chief military advisor, and Bruno Delaye, successor to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand as
the head of the Élysée’s Africa Cell, advised Mitterrand to respond with “delivery of ammunition
and equipment” to the Rwandan army and “technical assistance, especially with artillery,” noting
also that a French company had been put on alert to supplement the French soldiers already in
Rwanda. They made no mention of the ethnic slaughter, let alone any consequence for France’s
continuing support for the government that had carried it out. Mitterrand recorded his response to
his advisors’ suggestions by hand: “Agreed. Urgent[.]”
The same day, the French government dispatched to Rwanda 121 soldiers, raising the
number of Noroît troops to 291 (a number that would grow to 688 by 16 March 1993, in addition
to the 142 French troops deployed as trainers and advisors to the Rwandan military). Along with
the troops, the French government sent more arms. On 12 February 1993, it delivered fifty 12.7
mm machine guns and 100,000 cartridges for the FAR. Five days later, there was another delivery
of 105 mm shells and 68 mm rockets. These shipments were among $1.5 million worth of weapons
and military equipment the French government provided free-of-charge to the Rwandan military
in 1993, much of it arriving in the weeks following the 8 February 1993 RPF attack in response to
the massacres.
When RPF troops moved within 30 kilometers of Kigali, Mitterrand received two military
options from his advisors: withdraw French troops or reinforce them. On 19 February 1993, the
president’s deputy advisor on African affairs warned that withdrawal “will be interpreted as the
failure of our policy in Rwanda. All this will not be without consequences for our relations with
other African countries.” With Mitterrand ignoring competing advice from Defense Minister
Pierre Joxe, who insisted that “we must strictly limit ourselves to the protection of our nationals,”
French special forces flew to Rwanda with a secret mission to assist the Rwandan government
forces in its fight against the RPF. Colonel Didier Tauzin, who led the mission, known as Operation
Chimère, later wrote in a memoire that, while in Rwanda, he “effectively direct[ed] all Rwandan
operations on the entire front.” Tauzin and his men worked closely with Augustin Bizimungu, the
FAR Chief of Staff whom the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) would convict
for genocide and about whom Tauzin, subsequent to Bizimungu’s conviction, would write, “I have
always considered it an honor to have known him and to have fought alongside him.”
Tauzin drew up a counteroffensive against the RPF army, which he would later praise for
the “hard time” it gave the rebels, leaving 800 RPF soldiers dead and as many as 2,500 wounded
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in eight days, in Tauzin’s telling. But, much to Tauzin’s regret, Paris pressured him to call off
plans to launch a massive effort to push back the RPF army. Later lamenting his decision not to
press forward despite his superiors’ disapproval, Tauzin would write, “when the so-called
‘genocide of the Tutsis’ began, I deeply regretted being so disciplined!” His logic, that defeating
the RPF would have prevented the Genocide, would be repeated by several high-level French
officials. During the Genocide itself, this perspective would drive French decision-makers who
viewed stopping the RPF as the key to ending the Genocide.
Tauzin blamed changes in politics in Paris for undermining his mission. And, indeed,
changes were afoot. Not only did the French press continue to look skeptically at the French
involvement in Rwanda—a 17 February 1993 article in Le Canard Enchaîné, for example, was
titled, “Mitterrand is hiding an African war from us”—but even French politicians began to join
in the criticism, with Gérard Fuchs, the French Socialist Party national secretary, releasing a
statement on 28 February 1993 “question[ing] the decision to send new French troops to Rwanda,
when human rights violations by the Habyarimana regime continue[d] to multiply.” With elections
approaching, and Mitterrand’s Socialist Party suffering in the polls—and soon to suffer a
resounding defeat, ushering in a conservative “cohabitation” (i.e., divided between two parties)
government—the French President announced on 3 March 1993 to his closest advisors and cabinet
members, “We must be replaced [in Rwanda] by international forces from the UN as soon as
possible.” Even so, between March and August, France nearly doubled the number of DAMI
advisors in Rwanda, a decision even the 1998 French parliamentary inquiry into France’s actions
in Rwanda later criticized.
In August 1993, an historic peace accord, signed in Arusha, Tanzania, would facilitate the
departure of most, but not all, French troops from Rwanda. Three years of war came to an end (on
paper, at least) on 4 August 1993, when President Habyarimana and RPF Chairman Alexis
Kanyarengwe signed a peace agreement establishing a broad-based transitional government
predicated on power-sharing and an integration of the Rwandan and RPF armies. But it was a
fragile truce dependent on the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force (UNAMIR) that France
and the other Security Council members agreed to establish, albeit at a strength inadequate to meet
the challenges to come. Those challenges came principally from extremists uninterested in peace
with the RPF, who sought to undermine the Arusha Accords and destabilize the country with antiTutsi violence. The hate radio station RTLM, founded in mid-1993, would prove particularly
effective at pushing the extremist agenda.
While the French government withdrew the remaining Noroît troops as of 13 December
1993, Col. Bernard Cussac, France’s military attaché in Rwanda since July 1991, dispensed with
the pretext that Noroît’s sole mission had been to protect French and other foreign nationals and
commended the troops for “present[ing] both a credible deterrent and an effective and decisive
know-how that helped stop the fighting.” And France was “not leaving Rwanda,” as Cussac
explained. A detachment of roughly two dozen French trainers and advisors would remain beyond
UNAMIR’s arrival “to help our Rwandan comrades in the main areas of their military activity.”
They included advisors to high-ranking FAR officers, including Chief of Staff Déogratias
Nsabimana and the commanders of the reconnaissance and para-commando battalions. This work
continued even as evidence emerged, early in 1994, that the FAR was arming and training the
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Interahamwe youth militia in preparation for resumed hostilities against the RPF and a possible
slaughter of Tutsi.
Signals of the coming slaughter amplified in mid-January when an informant identifying
himself as the Interahamwe’s chief trainer disclosed to UNAMIR that the FAR had transferred
weapons and ammunition to the militia with Nsabimana’s consent, and the Interahamwe had
conducted trainings for 1,700 militia members at Rwandan army bases. His superiors, the
informant said, had issued orders to compile lists of Tutsi who, presumably, would be targeted for
extermination. General Roméo Dallaire, the UNAMIR commander, noted this information in an
11 January 1994 cable to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, and in
briefings to French, Belgian, and US diplomats in Kigali. In one of the international community’s
most flagrant failures in Rwanda, the UN Secretariat declined Dallaire’s request to raid the
suspected weapons caches.
Ten days later, a plane landed in Kigali bearing 1,000 mortar rounds (manufactured by a
French company and exported with the French government’s authorization) for delivery from
Châteauroux, France to the FAR. Knowing this ammunition had arrived in a nation on the brink,
Gen. Dallaire ordered it impounded. “We were all supposed to be moving toward peace, not
preparing for war,” Dallaire later wrote.
During the first three months of 1994, the extremists continued to thwart the
implementation of the Arusha Accords with violent protests and targeted assassinations intended
to obstruct the seating of the broad-based transitional government. Having failed to intercede when
it mattered, the UN was left “praying for a miracle,” in the words of an RPF official. Although on
5 April 1994, the Security Council decided to renew UNAMIR’s mandate for an additional four
months, as the next two days would reveal, Rwanda’s extremists had other, far more horrific plans
for their country.
4. After the Genocide Against the Tutsi began, French officials remained captive to
the same inverted thinking that had guided their decisions for the previous three
and a half years: the main problem was the RPF—not the genocide the RPF was
fighting to end.
On Wednesday, 6 April 1994, President Habyarimana, along with Burundian President
Cyprien Ntaryamira and others, boarded Habyarimana’s private jet, which the French government
had gifted him. The passengers had been in Dar es Salaam to complete aspects of the Arusha
Agreement that would facilitate the implementation of the broad-based transitional government.
At around 8:30 PM, as the plane was set to land in Kigali, there was a powerful explosion over the
Kigali airport. The plane had been shot down, killing both presidents and all others on board. “It
is going to be terrible,” President Mitterrand exclaimed to Hubert Védrine after learning of the
plane crash.
Without evidence, President Mitterrand and his key Élysée advisors immediately blamed
the attack on the RPF. French officials would continue to promote this claim for decades, even
though cables that have been leaked to the public suggest that France’s own intelligence service,
the DGSE, ascribed responsibility to prominent Akazu member Col. Laurent Serubuga, who had
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worked with French advisors from 1990 on, and to Col. Théoneste Bagosora, widely reputed to be
the architect of the Genocide Against the Tutsi.
The night of the crash, French military cooperants who had remained in Rwanda to train
the FAR surveyed the wreckage at the crash site with Major Aloys Ntabakuze, the head of the
para-commando unit. Days later, Ntabakuze would oversee para-commandos who massacred Tutsi
men, women, and children who had taken shelter at the ETO (École technique officielle) in Kigali
(some estimates have the number killed as high as 4,000).
By the morning after the crash, it was clear that preparations for the Genocide were in
place. As Jean-Michel Marlaud, the French Ambassador to Rwanda since 1993, was told by Prime
Minister-Designate Faustin Twagiramungu, “men of the Presidential Guard were rounding up,
kidnapping or assassinating ministers appointed to form the future Government.” Ambassador
Marlaud would later recall, “[o]ther murders were committed” as well, “affect[ing] both members
of the opposition parties and Tutsis. They were both political and ethnic killings.”
Following the assassination of many of Rwanda’s most prominent moderate politicians—
including the gruesome murder of the prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana—extremists formed
an interim government on 8 April 1994. In the Élysée, General Christian Quesnot expressed
satisfaction with the interim government, noting that “the various Rwandan political parties” were
represented “in accordance with the proportions provided for in the Arusha agreements.” He
neglected to mention, however, that representatives came from the Hutu-power wings of each
party. Quesnot’s attention was elsewhere: “Only the RPF refused to participate,” he wrote, singling
out France’s antagonist. “[The RPF] broke the cease-fire and began an offensive towards Kigali.”
Beginning in the early morning hours of 9 April 1994, the French government sent troops
to evacuate French and other foreign nationals. Known as Operation Amaryllis, the mission
increased the number of French eyewitnesses to the scenes of unspeakable horror unfolding across
Kigali. A military chaplain embedded with Amaryllis would later describe one such scene:
The driver of one of the commandos charged with the evacuation [from the French
school in Kigali] . . . took a road that bypassed the capital from the west, avoiding
the most lively axis of the city. Suddenly, a Tutsi woman, chased by a group of
Hutu armed with batons and knives, threw herself against the hood of the first
vehicle hoping, in her tragic despair, to find refuge there. The driver braked harshly.
The two occupants did not move, dazed by the event’s complexity. . . . These few
moments of hesitation were enough for the Hutu torturers to understand that the
French soldiers would not defend the woman. On the way back, the vehicle’s
passengers were able to see her corpse, stomach open, lying on the side of the road.
The assassins, with a smile and a friendly wave, kindly acknowledged them.
One of the transport planes that flew this chaplain and his comrades into Kigali reportedly
carried with it mortar ammunition for the FAR. (The French government, however, has denied
this.) The first plane to evacuate French nationals out of Rwanda also carried, on President
Mitterrand’s orders, Habyarimana’s family—including the first lady and Akazu leader, Agathe
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Kanziga Habyarimana, about whom Mitterrand would later reportedly exclaim, “She is possessed
by the devil, if she could, she would continue to call out for massacres from French radios.”
As wholesale targeted slaughter of Tutsi spread throughout Rwanda, the French
government failed to exert meaningful pressure on the FAR or the interim government to stop the
killings or the hate media broadcasts exhorting people to murder their neighbors. Senior French
officials avoided calling the Genocide by its true name for weeks. In this, they were no worse than
the rest of the international community. What did make them worse was, among other things, that
French leaders close to President Mitterrand—Gen. Quesnot, Bruno Delaye, and General JeanPierre Huchon, head of the Military Cooperation Mission, in particular—continued to portray the
RPF, the only force fighting to end the Genocide, as more of a threat to peace and stability in
Rwanda than the génocidaires themselves.
French diplomats at the UN defeated even the mildest of efforts by the international
community to hold accountable the interim government. French officials pursued a return to peace
negotiations and a cease-fire, which would have precluded the RPF from seizing control of the
country and forestalled the defeat of the genocidal interim government. For French policy in
Rwanda, the overriding issue was not a coming genocide; it was preventing the RPF from
establishing what Mitterrand referred to in June 1994 as a “Tutsiland.” That this was Mitterrand’s
perspective between October 1990 and December 1993 was misguided and destructive. That it
remained French policy during the Genocide is unfathomable.
5. When it eventually redeployed troops to Rwanda through Operation Turquoise,
the French government used this humanitarian action to stop the RPF from
controlling all of Rwanda.
In mid-May 1994, even after France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppé, referred to events in
Rwanda as a “genocide,” Mitterrand insisted that France had no duty to act. “What is this divine
decree that made France the soldier of all just causes in the world,” he wondered aloud during an
18 May 1994 meeting with French ministers. However, as May turned into June, several factors
prevailed on French officials to seek UN authorization for an intervention. The pressure came in
part from French media and the NGO community, which excoriated the French government for its
“political responsibilit[y]” in the “systematic extermination,” and from francophone African
leaders, who argued that France “needed to act if it was going to retain any credibility in the
region.” It did not go unnoticed, either, that the RPF forces were finding success on the battlefield.
This, to French officials, was a concerning development. Through three and a half years and a
genocide, France’s ultimate goal of neutralizing the RPF had not changed: “If we fail to keep our
word,” a Foreign Ministry source told a reporter, “our credibility vis-à-vis other African states
would be seriously damaged and we might see these states turn toward other support.”
In mid-June 1994, French officials resolved to deploy French troops to Rwanda in
Operation Turquoise, a mission with, according to France, no goal other than a humanitarian one
to “save lives and stop the massacres.” The UN Security Council approved the resolution drafted
by France despite skepticism amongst members about its true motives. Indeed, for Mitterrand,
another goal could be achieved. The deployment of French forces would impede the progress of
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the RPF army, thereby aiding the FAR. Even Jean-Bernard Mérimée, France’s UN Ambassador,
conceded that this was “an inevitable outcome.”
As much as any humanitarian goal, impeding the RPF army was central to President
Mitterrand’s motivation: “The Tutsis will establish a military dictatorship to impose themselves
permanently,” Mitterrand told French ministers the day Operation Turquoise began and a day after
his military advisors warned him that the RPF might take Kigali before French forces arrived. “A
dictatorship based on ten percent of the population will govern with new massacres,” he said. Once
again viewing the RPF simplistically as an ethnic, rather than a political, movement, Mitterrand
continued to oppose the RPF and to reject the possibility of its success.
French troops arrived in Rwanda “armed like aircraft carriers,” but without a clear
understanding of the conflict. “Ugandan rebels are invading the country and killing people,” one
French commander reportedly explained to a subordinate. Gen. Dallaire found that some French
officers “refused to accept the reality of the genocide and the fact that the extremist leaders, the
perpetrators and some of their old colleagues were all the same people.” Many troops believed that
Tutsi were butchering Hutu rather than the opposite. The truth, when it became gruesomely clear,
was shocking. “This is not what we were led to believe,” one French soldier said in late June, after
an encounter with Tutsi survivors of a massacre perpetrated by FAR troops and militias.
The ultimate test of France’s intention to save lives arrived at the end of June 1994, in
Bisesero, an area in western Rwanda where villagers, acting under the supervision of militia, FAR
troops, and gendarmes, had been hunting down and killing Tutsi since April. A French officer,
after learning of the danger the Tutsi in Bisesero were facing, promised to return to the region “to
get [the survivors] out of there.” His superiors, though, were distracted by other priorities: an
upcoming visit by François Léotard, the defense minister, and false intelligence that RPF soldiers
were in the area—a deception knowingly dispensed by local authorities taking advantage of the
gullibility caused by some French commanders’ pro-regime bias. Three days passed before
Turquoise troops, under pressure from Western media, returned to Bisesero. They found the
desperate survivors among a sea of corpses. The delay had cost lives.
It was the RPF forces’ advance, rather than genocide, that continued to consume Mitterrand
and senior officials’ attention. Over and over again, officials in Paris blamed the RPF for the
emerging humanitarian crisis by arguing its troops’ progress was causing Hutu to flee their homes
in panic. Delaye and Quesnot argued that, in addition to augmenting its military presence, France
should work through diplomatic channels to persuade the RPF “to stop its westward advance,”
even as they conceded that France, because of its history of backing the FAR, was “not in the best
position” to press for a cease-fire. “We cannot publicly take the initiative to achieve a cease-fire,”
wrote Ambassador Marlaud, who shared the Élysée advisors’ view, “because we would be
suspected of attempting to halt the situation under the guise of humanitarian action.”
Col. Didier Tauzin, who, in 1993, had commanded a secret French military operation in
Rwanda, during which, by his own account, he had effectively directed all FAR operations on the
front against the RPF, was still seething with undisguised hatred for the RPF when he returned to
Rwanda in June 1994 with Turquoise. Tauzin hoped that Paris would give his troops the green
light “to attack the evil at its root: the RPF!” One Turquoise officer has claimed that France did,
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indeed, authorize air strikes against the RPF troops, only to scrap the plan at the last minute. This
account is corroborated by a former senior FAR commander who has said that French officers
pressed him for intelligence on RPF troop positions for air strikes, and by contemporaneous RPF
reports about “intercepted French communications” indicating that French planes planned to bomb
RPF military installations.
When the French government assessed, in early July, that the RPF army, which was on the
verge of taking Kigali, was likely to keep chasing the FAR to Rwanda’s borders with Zaire, the
Mitterrand administration directed Turquoise troops to establish a “Safe Humanitarian Zone”
(SHZ), to, as Ambassador Marlaud put it on 1 July 1994, “deter the RPF from going too far.”
France, however, informed the UN that the purpose of the SHZ was to shelter civilians fleeing the
RPF advance. The French government established the SHZ on 4 July 1994, the same day the RPF
liberated Kigali. The SHZ covered much of the territory controlled by the interim government and
kept one-fifth of the country off limits to the RPF. (The initial French plan would have “cut the
country in two,” effectively preserving half of Rwanda for the génocidaires.) In practice, the SHZ
became a safe haven for génocidaires. There, French military neither systematically confiscated
their weapons nor detained génocidaires despite evidence of their crimes. Many of the Genocide’s
perpetrators, including the interim government’s leaders, used this cover to flee to Zaire. French
officers not only allowed them to do so, but made arrangements for their safe passage.
In Zaire, Turquoise officers met with génocidaires and offered guidance on how they could
regroup and “reconquer the country.” There is also evidence that French officials secretly funneled
weapons to the ex-FAR in Zaire, and, according to a French journalist, a confidential Élysée
document confirms that the French government ordered Turquoise officers to rearm the “Hutu who
were crossing the border [to Zaire—ed.].” Despite specific requests received on 20 December
2019, 10 July 2020, and 27 January 2021 covering this and other topics, the French government
has not released this document or any others that would illuminate these allegations.
The final weeks of Turquoise laid bare its inadequacies as a humanitarian mission. An
operation designed to project military strength proved ill-suited to the very different humanitarian
crisis that emerged in the Genocide’s wake, as disease and starvation ravaged refugee
communities. French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur’s assessment was Orwellian: “Today,” he
declared on 20 July, “we can say that Operation ‘Turquoise’ has succeeded.” A month later, French
troops finally left Rwanda.
When the last French soldiers finally departed Rwanda on 21 August, they left a land and
people destroyed and devastated. As a report written for the OAU later noted:
The consequences of French policy can hardly be overestimated. The escape of
genocidaire leaders into Zaire led, almost inevitably, to a new, more complex stage
in the Rwandan tragedy, expanding it into a conflict that soon engulfed all of central
Africa. That the entire Great Lakes Region would suffer destabilization was both
tragic and, to a significant extent, foreseeable.
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The French military’s brief foray achieved little good. Few lives were saved, relative to those lost
in the Genocide. And the area further deteriorated, as génocidaires and FAR troops were given the
opportunity to fight another day.
D. Analysis: The French Government Bears Significant Responsibility for Enabling a
Foreseeable Genocide.
On 9 September 1994, when a French news reporter asked President Mitterrand to
comment on criticism from intellectuals about France’s role in the Genocide, Mitterrand insisted,
“[O]ur responsibility is nil.” Yet, for close to four years, the French government sent guns, money,
and soldiers to help defend a repressive regime that barbarically and publicly massacred the Tutsi
minority. French troops, officials, and diplomats had witnessed and learned of the commonplace
brutalization and dehumanization of the Tutsi: in the media, at roadblocks, in arbitrary detentions,
in the torture of arrested persons, and in the massacres. And yet Paris did nothing to change its
policy. French leaders sought to maintain influence in East Africa and demonstrate to vital allies
throughout the continent that France could be trusted to defend them against military threats to
their power. But the cost would rise, precipitously. The effect of the French presence in Rwanda
and its conscious indifference to Tutsi suffering was to create a sense of impunity amongst the
perpetrators that would grow and find its fullness in the Genocide.
In 2014, as noted above, Hubert Védrine recounted hearing Mitterrand “say very early, in
1990-1991, that the situation in Rwanda was very dangerous and could only lead to a civil war and
massacres.” Védrine, however, was quick to add that “nobody imagined” a genocide “in the form
that it eventually took.” Likewise, in 1998, Ambassador Martres admitted that the Genocide was
foreseeable as early as October 1990, adding the qualification, “even if we couldn’t imagine its
magnitude and atrociousness.” The Genocide was, in fact, foreseeable, and French leaders foresaw
some horrible ethnic violence, if not in the “magnitude,” “atrociousness,” and “form” that it
eventually took. Since their knowledge of these atrocities did not dissuade French officials from
continuing their support for the Rwandan government, one can conclude that Mitterrand and his
advisors contemplated and accepted some smaller scale, more palatable, ethnic cleansing.
During a 2018 interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade, who, between 1990 and 1994,
served first as Mitterrand’s chief military advisor and then as chief of defense staff, the French
journalist Laurent Larcher referred to abuses beginning in 1959. “Yes, but,” Lanxade cut in before
Larcher could formulate a question, “that’s Africa. All of Africa was like that, at that time. And
that’s still largely true today.” During the Genocide, Mitterrand was reportedly more direct,
opining, “In such countries [as Rwanda], genocide is not too important.” It seems, for him, violence
in Rwanda was a pre-determined and unavoidable state of existence. Jacques Attali, Mitterrand’s
close advisor between 1981 and 1991, wrote in 1993 that Mitterrand, while “furiously antiHitlerian,” viewed the Holocaust as “only an act of war, not a human monstrosity.” Even in the
twilight of his life, just months after the Genocide Against the Tutsi had ended, Mitterrand would
not take responsibility for the French government’s role in it, just as he would not apologize for
Vichy France’s role in the Holocaust.
In an interview with author François Soudan, President Paul Kagame was asked: “what is
your assessment of the role of France in Rwanda from 1990-1993? . . . It appears that France did
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not play a strictly negative role.” Kagame’s answer is critical to how the French government must
acknowledge and account for its actions in terms of the Genocide Against the Tutsi:
It may not have been a purely negative role, but the real question is, should this
actually have been Mitterrand’s responsibility? Was it the role of anybody outside
Rwanda, let alone Mitterrand, to influence how things should change in Rwanda?
Why should Mitterrand have been in charge of what happened, or furthermore,
what was the justification for promoting change according to Mitterrand’s, or
France’s conception of this change?
The arrogance of Mitterrand’s neocolonial engagement in Rwanda was to pursue French
geopolitical interests with indifference to the consequences for Tutsi in Rwanda.
It is impossible to conclude with certainty what course history would have taken had France
pursued a different policy in Rwanda before, during, and after the Genocide. At the very least,
French support lengthened the civil war prior to the Genocide by propping up the Habyarimana
regime and presenting a credible deterrent to the RPF army. The effect of the French government’s
intervention in Rwanda afforded Col. Bagosora and his collaborators additional time in 1993 and
early 1994 to plan, and later execute, the Genocide.
While ultimate responsibility for the Genocide, of course, lies with génocidaires like Col.
Bagosora, the French government helped build and fortify Rwandan institutions, which, in the
hands of those genocidal leaders, became instruments of the Genocide. First and foremost, this
included the FAR’s elite corps, amongst them the Presidential Guard, the para-commando unit,
and the reconnaissance battalion, which French cooperants had been training for years before they
were activated for slaughter during the Genocide. On the first day of the Genocide, members of
the Presidential Guard and reconnaissance battalion participated in the assassination of Agathe
Uwilingiyimana, the Rwandan prime minister. Later that day, reconnaissance battalion soldiers
took part in the murder of ten Belgian peacekeepers who had been guarding the prime minister.
On 11 April 1994, para-commandos marched over 1,000 (and as many as 4,000) Tutsi men,
women, and children from where they had taken shelter at the ETO to a killing field in Nyanza
Hill, where the para-commandos led the massacre.
French officials could not have been surprised at the central role of the Presidential Guard
in the killing. In 1992, France planned to “cease [] activities in aid of the Presidential Guard” in
response to accusations of its involvement “in destabilizing the opposition” and amid rumors that
some of its members belonged to the Interahamwe. But a French instructor working with
Presidential Guard in 1992 later recalled that he was simply asked to “step back a little.” Another
French instructor subsequently acknowledged his regret for having trained the Presidential Guard,
writing, “Of course it’s a shock to think that we trained killers of this sort, and that they used for
genocide what we taught them as part of a simple military training!”
As the Presidential Guard, along with other elements of the FAR, the interim government,
and the militias, slaughtered Tutsi across Rwanda in April, May, and early June, French officials
did nothing to stop them. Instead, they held fast to the perceptions that had guided them for years.
To them, the RPF was not the force fighting to end the Genocide, but a destabilizing power whose
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belligerence inspired retribution in the form of ethnic massacres. If the RPF would only stop
fighting, they believed, the génocidaires would end the carnage. French diplomats at the United
Nations watered down resolutions meant to pressure the interim government and pushed for a
cessation of hostilities on all sides, as if the concept of sides applied to a genocide. But French
officials did not, until mid-May, acknowledge that the horror unfolding in Rwanda was a genocide.
To them, it was still a civil war. They would continue the policy they had pursued during the civil
war: stop the RPF and pressure the parties to the negotiating table.
When the French government took some responsibility to mount a humanitarian response
in the form of Operation Turquoise, it came too late to save many Tutsi. “Too little, too late,” does
not begin to capture the extent of this flawed military effort. The most critical of all of Turquoise’s
defects is that France—the Habyarimana regime’s most loyal ally and the FAR’s most generous
benefactor—was the one to spearhead it. The same officials who conceived of and executed French
efforts to stymie RPF designs on regime change between 1990 and the start of the Genocide were
still calling the shots in Paris and still viewed the RPF, contemptuously, as Anglophone invaders,
Ugandan puppets, a Tutsi minority force incapable of holding power. What followed, in the
opening weeks of Operation Turquoise, was a French-led rescue mission that, by design, doubled
as a concerted effort to prevent the RPF from overthrowing Rwanda’s interim government. While
the French operation, ultimately, did not keep the RPF from achieving its military and political
aims, it also did not stop the génocidaires from finding refuge in the French-controlled “safe
humanitarian zone,” where they were not arrested, not detained, and not systematically disarmed.
This passivity on the part of the French government allowed the génocidaires to abscond to Zaire,
where they began plotting to avenge their defeat. In the end, the 60-day mission accomplished
little in terms of saving lives and left the area more destabilized than previously.
Yet, France’s role and impact in Rwanda did not end with the disengagement of French
troops at the conclusion of Operation Turquoise in August 1994. Quickly, Mitterrand began to
frame recent history to demonize the RPF and mischaracterize France’s role as a foiled
peacemaker. At the November 1994 Franco-African summit in the French seaside resort town of
Biarritz (to which the new Rwandan government was not invited), President Mitterrand, still
reluctant to assign blame to the perpetrators, used the term “genocides,” as if the RPF had also
carried out a genocide. It did not. The misleading use of the plural would foreshadow the blameshifting to come and reflected a revisionist history to be repeated and emphasized by many of the
génocidaires themselves. French officials would continue to promote a false narrative about
France’s conduct both in the Genocide and in the years preceding it.
This revisionist approach continued with France’s 1998 parliamentary information mission
on French actions in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994, as leaders of Mitterrand’s Socialist Party pushed
back against mounting criticism of France’s role in the Rwandan tragedy. The French government
defanged the MIP as a “fact-finding” mission from the start by denying it the power to compel
testimony. During the course of the mission’s work, many of its members were content to leave
burning questions unanswered, believing, as one MIP rapporteur has said, “that national greatness
thrives best in the shadow of secret-défense.” The mission’s December 1998 report, while far from
wholly exculpatory, rationalized the Mitterrand administration’s most controversial, and even
reprehensible, decisions, and euphemized its moral failings as mere “errors of judgment.”
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“France is exonerated,” exclaimed Paul Quilès, one of Mitterrand’s former defense
ministers, who had spearheaded the MIP. This conclusion, though, was wholly unmoored from the
facts—facts that, in many cases, could be found in the MIP’s own report. The French government,
the report itself acknowledged, had spent years arming, training, and even, at one point, effectively
commanding the Rwandan military in an effort to protect President Habyarimana and his
government, in spite of indications that his government committed and facilitated rampant human
rights abuses. Its unwavering support for Habyarimana’s murderous regime disincentivized
extremists from accepting a negotiated truce with the RPF and bought them more time to hatch
their plans. The message to the extremists was, in short, “that they could get away with just about
anything.” But Quilès tried to exculpate French conduct on radio and television to control the
message. “It was intentional,” one French reporter remarked, that “everything had been done to
ensure that the press did not have time to read the report.”
The years since the Rwandan tragedy have presented myriad opportunities for France to
reexamine its links to the extremists who served in Habyarimana’s government, facilitated the
massacres, and later established and served in the interim government that presided over the
Genocide. The French government, for example, could have refused to permit génocidaires’ entry
into French territory after the Genocide. Failing that, it could have deported those (such as the
extremist and former first lady Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana) who, in applying for asylum, had
made their presence known to French authorities. The French government has not taken those
steps, and its refusal to do so has enabled numerous génocidaires to take refuge on French soil. To
date, French authorities have brought criminal charges against no more than a handful of the
génocidaires living in France.
Cases against accused génocidaires living in France languished for years, neglected and
starved of resources, as the accused have gone about their lives without having to face justice.
After living in France for years with impunity, Félicien Kabuga, the accused financier of the
Genocide, was not arrested until May 2020 near Paris, despite a 1997 ICTR indictment. While
French officials had long demonstrated a lack of interest in justice for the victims of the 1994
Genocide Against the Tutsi, Kabuga’s recent arrest, as well as recent activity by French authorities
investigating other cases, may signal a reversal of the French government’s historic pattern of noncooperation as to those who participated in the Genocide.
Recent efforts to promote transparency through the Duclert Commission are also
encouraging. Nonetheless, even with a mandate from the French president, the Commission was
denied access to some archives, which, in the Commission’s telling, “undermined the
comprehensiveness of the Commission’s work.” The Bureau of the National Assembly, for
example, “refused to allow [the Commission] to consult the archives of the 1998 Parliamentary
Information Mission (MIP).” So too, it appears that the Commission was prevented from viewing
documents from the French prime minister’s military cabinet, when archivists responded slowly
and in piecemeal fashion to Commission requests. Still other archives were missing or never
collected to begin with. President Mitterrand’s military advisors in the État-major particulier
(“EMP”)—Lanxade, Quesnot, and Huchon, among them—left few traces of their work. This is
unsurprising, because amongst the few EMP directives the Commission found in the archives of
the recipients are some that were required to be “destroyed after reading.” No doubt, other relevant
and material documentation continues to be withheld by elements within the French government.
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The Rwandan government should be rightly skeptical about suggestions of transparency.
In the past, French officials have failed to fulfill such promises, refusing public release of
documents that would help put to rest lingering questions about the Mitterrand government’s
policy and actions in Rwanda. In 2017, as part of an effort announced by French President
Hollande, the French government declassified only 83 documents, two of which it made public.
In this investigation, the Government of Rwanda has submitted three detailed requests for
documents from the Government of France. Nothing has been produced. The documents concealed
by the French government, by and large, do not seem to implicate national security. Rather,
concealing them appears to be part of an effort by the French government to protect the reputations
of some officials, despite their role in the Genocide Against the Tutsi.
France was not the only country whose government made harmful decisions regarding
Rwanda. During its colonial rule, Belgium turned Rwanda’s ethnic distinctions into ethnic
divisions. And, between 1990 and 1994, it offered civilian aid and military advisors to
Habyarimana. And many countries, notably the United States, delayed recognizing the Genocide
for what it was, for fear that doing so would commit them to intervene under international law.
However, Belgium and the United States have both apologized for their conduct and acts of
omission. France has not. More importantly, France had a special, preeminent status in Rwanda,
because of its broad and enduring military commitment in the country.
Despite its unique status and singular role, the French government—rather than accept
responsibility—has spent much of the last quarter of a century since the Genocide covering up its
failings in Rwanda, refusing to disclose its full complement of government documents, providing
safe harbor to numerous Genocide suspects, and too often failing to prosecute or cooperate with
others trying to prosecute them. This course of conduct places even the more positive advances,
such as the Duclert Commission’s report, in doubt, particularly as the French government
continues to withhold documents from the public.
The Genocide remains a visceral, daily reality for most Rwandans. Their ordeals defy
language and demonstrate that a genocide has no half-life. It will impair its survivors, and the
descendants of those survivors, for generations. That is the ultimate cost of what happened in
Rwanda, an awareness of which must condition any assessment of the role of the French.
Throughout this Report, we present the voices of the victims and survivors. These firstperson historical accounts are reminders that the role of the French government must be evaluated
in the context of the continuing consequences of its actions, and not only with respect to the events
that occurred when French officials were present in Rwanda for the four years leading up to the
Genocide and during Operation Turquoise. Only in the horrific and grotesque reality of the
Genocide can France’s responsibility and culpability be measured. The true history of French
conduct in Rwanda matters not least because, as one survivor recounted years after the Genocide,
“Even today that sadness does not end. The thought that someone came, raped you, destroyed you
and killed your child. . . . It is an extreme strain on my heart that will never end. . . . I only half
survived. I am still carrying death in me.” She was one of millions of individuals whose lives were
destroyed and devastated as a consequence of a genocide enabled by French officials—officials
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serving a country that had been one of the original signatories to the 1949 Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Ultimately, this Report cannot be the final word on the French government’s role in
Rwanda. That word will arrive after the French government makes public all of its documents and
allows all of its officials to speak freely. Releasing this information will set the French government
on the road toward a reckoning with history—its own and Rwanda’s. As then-Rwandan Foreign
Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in 2017, “What happened in the early ‘90s and even before, in
the lead-up to the genocide, is something France will have to come to terms with. Rwanda is not
going away. We’re not going anywhere.” For the victims and the survivors, the French government
should come to terms with history and accept responsibility for enabling the Genocide Against the
Tutsi.
xxvii
CHAPTER I
1959 – September 1990
A. In October 1990, When War Broke Out on His Country’s Northeastern Border, Rwanda’s
President Called on France, a Longtime Ally, to Help His Army Fend Off “the Invaders.”
France Obliged.
We are going to send him a few boys, old man Habyarimana. We are
going to bail him out.1
– Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, Son of President Mitterrand and
Chief Adviser for African Affairs at the Élysée (1986 – 1992)
The fighting that erupted in northeastern Rwanda on 1 October 1990 had been raging for
just one day when the country’s long-serving president, Juvénal Habyarimana, placed an urgent
call to the Élysée Palace in Paris.2
Habyarimana, then 53 years old and in the seventeenth year of his reign, had spent the week
attending meetings and conferences in New York, having been advised by his foreign minister to
maintain a public profile so as to “not go unnoticed” by the international media.3 His itinerary to
that point had included a 28 September 1990 speech before the General Assembly of the United
Nations,4 where French President François Mitterrand, arguably Habyarimana’s most important
Western ally, had spoken just a few days earlier.5 Both presidents, in their respective speeches,
celebrated the recent triumphs of popular movements in various corners of the world, symbolized
by the toppling of the Berlin wall the previous year.6 “In many countries, on all continents,
democracy has won out,” Mitterrand crowed in his address. “Borders can no longer contain its
radiating strength.”7
It was, in Habyarimana’s case, a crisis on his own country’s border that was now
demanding his attention. His trip to the United States had been disrupted on the morning of 1
October 1990, when soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a political-military movement
developed in neighboring countries and abroad,8 marched over the Kagitumba border crossing
from southwestern Uganda into northeastern Rwanda, launching a war against the Habyarimana
regime.9 RPF leaders were first- and second-generation refugees, amongst hundreds of thousands
driven from Rwanda, seeking the right of return to a homeland that, for decades, had refused to
permit their reentry.10 Most, but not all, were Tutsi,11 a minority ethnic group whose members
were murdered by the thousands in targeted ethnic violence in the years before Habyarimana’s
presidency, and who continued to endure systemic discrimination under his rule.12 Habyarimana
had long insisted that Rwanda was too crowded to accommodate the refugees’ return, analogizing
the country to “a glass full to the brim.”13 The RPF was demanding not only a right of return, but
“rule of law” and an end to the Habyarimana regime’s anti-Tutsi discriminatory policies.14 “The
aim of the movement is to establish democracy and harmony among the peoples of Rwanda,” one
RPF senior military officer told a reporter at the start of the war.15
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The RPF army that crossed the border on 1 October 1990 was led by officers who had cut
their teeth fighting under Yoweri Museveni in the uprisings in Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s,
and who retained high-ranking positions in Uganda’s National Resistance Army (NRA) after
Museveni became Uganda’s president in 1986. President Museveni was, like President
Habyarimana, in New York when the RPF military launched its attack, attending some of the same
functions and staying in the same hotel, one floor apart.16 Museveni would tell interviewers that
he learned of the military assault at 5 a.m. in New York on 1 October, when his Ugandan army
commander phoned his hotel room to notify him that a number of the NRA’s Rwandan officers
had deserted.17 This was true, according to Paul Kagame, who was the then-deputy chief of the
Ugandan military intelligence service and one of the leaders in Rwandan Patriotic Front, and who
today is the President of Rwanda.18 Museveni had received vague information about unspecified
planning amongst Rwandan refugees in the NRA.19 Museveni did his best to “nip it in the bud” by
enrolling Rwandan NRA leaders in military training programs around the globe—including
Kagame, who was sent to the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas (where he was on 1 October 1990).20 When Museveni learned of the 1
October operation, “he was angry,” Kagame recalls.21 Museveni said he immediately called
Habyarimana, waking him up, to advise him of the “possible danger.”22
It was not long before word of the invasion reached officials at France’s embassy in Kigali,
the Rwandan capital. Colonel René Galinié, the French defense attaché in Rwanda, sent an alert
to Paris on 1 October, reporting that, according to his sources, the rebel force consisted of “at least
a hundred men in combat gear equipped with individual weapons, including Kalashnikovs,
possibly mortars and recoilless guns.”23 His cable, which counted the French president’s office
and various ministries among its recipients, said the rebels’ “nationality is not currently known –
however, Tutsi refugees are strongly suspected.”24 Galinié reported that the entire Rwandan Armed
Forces [FAR] was “on alert,” and that it had begun to conduct aerial reconnaissance, but the order
to fire on the enemy had not yet been given, likely on account of President Habyarimana’s
absence.25
Habyarimana did not, at first, seem overly worried. The Rwandan president stayed in New
York for two more days after learning of the attack, opting to proceed with an agenda that included
a morning coffee, hosted by US President George H.W. Bush, for roughly two dozen African
leaders at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.26 Having just learned of the military conflict at the RwandanUgandan border, dignitaries and foreign affairs professionals at the Waldorf Astoria were surprised
to see both Habyarimana and Museveni at the event.27 Afterward, speaking with a US State
Department official, Habyarimana said he had talked to Museveni for an hour, and that Museveni
“kept insisting that he knew nothing about the invasion and was not in a position to do anything
about it.”28 Habyarimana did not believe him.29
Colonel Galinié, meanwhile, began to receive a clearer picture of events at the border –
and more particularly, of how Rwandan military leaders were responding to it. His sources were
particularly well placed. Having long provided military assistance to the Habyarimana
government, France had a number of military officers stationed in Rwanda, working to modernize
its Army and Gendarmerie.30 These officers reported to Galinié that the FAR’s initial response to
the RPF army’s attack had been disorganized, and that Colonel Léonidas Rusatira, a top official in
the Rwandan Ministry of Defense, “appeared very concerned.”31 In a 2 October cable, Galinié
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
informed Paris that Rusatira had announced that morning, during a meeting at the Rwandan
Ministry of Defense, “that it was possible that the President of the Republic would ask for military
assistance from France and Belgium in the form of an armed intervention.”32
This was not surprising. Belgium, Rwanda’s former colonizer, had deep ties to the
Rwandan government and its military, which only France came close to matching. The French
government had been a friend to Habyarimana since the early days of his administration.33 Among
the world’s nations, France was a leading donor of aid to Rwanda,34 having contributed roughly
$4.5 million in 1989.35 President Mitterrand had, in fact, displayed his generosity yet again only a
few months earlier, during Habyarimana’s visit to Paris in April 1990. After welcoming the
Rwandan president to the Élysée, where the two presidents talked and dined, Mitterrand agreed to
provide roughly $25.5 million to help Rwanda start a national television station.36 Mitterrand also
offered Habyarimana a gift: a new presidential plane, worth $10 million, to replace the plane
French President Georges Pompidou had presented to Habyarimana, also as a gift, in 1974.37 “I
believe, without exaggerating, that this gesture testifies to the appreciation and the high esteem
that Mr. Mitterrand has of You,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir Bizimungu wrote in a memo
to Habyarimana shortly after the April 1990 trip to France.38 (The new plane, a Falcon 50, would
take its place in history on 6 April 1994, when it was shot out of the sky, killing Habyarimana and
everyone else on board, in an attack that immediately preceded the Genocide.)
Habyarimana did, in fact, solicit France’s military assistance, just as Colonel Rusatira said
he might. The French official who took Habyarimana’s call on 2 October 1990 was not President
Mitterrand, but rather his son, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the head of the Élysée’s “Africa Cell.”
The “Africa Cell” was an organization inside the Élysée with no equivalent for other world regions,
reflecting the central place African affairs had long occupied in French foreign policy.39 Its roots
traced back to the early years of Charles de Gaulle’s presidency (Jan. 1959 – Apr. 1969), when the
redoubtable Jacques Foccart, de Gaulle’s secretary general for African and Malagasy affairs,
established himself as a key powerbroker in francophone Africa.40 Foccart, whose authority to
speak for de Gaulle was unquestioned,41 set the terms of French foreign policy for decades to
come, under which African affairs, “more than any other aspect of France’s external policy,
remain[ed] the domaine réservé of the President.”42 “[T]raditionally,” one historian wrote in 1989,
“it is in the office of the President that the most important decisions on African policy are made,
and this is a reflection of the fact that African affairs are still considered to affect the heart of
French state power.”43
Jean-Christophe Mitterrand was a former Africa correspondent for Agence France
Presse.44 He had joined the Africa Cell as deputy advisor in 1982, during his father’s first term as
president, but became his father’s top Africa advisor four years later, when the head of the cell
resigned amid accusations that he had embezzled public funds.45 Jean-Christophe was never a
kingmaker, as Foccart had been.46 “He has been manipulated more often than [he has been]
manipulative,” one journalist would later say.47 Many African leaders, though, were more than
happy to liaise with him, no doubt finding it useful to have the ear of the president’s son.48
French historian Gérard Prunier happened to be with the younger Mitterrand when
President Habyarimana phoned in from New York.49 As Prunier would recall, Habyarimana was
seeking affirmations that France would help the Rwandan Armed Forces repel the RPF Army’s
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
advance. The phone call lasted no more than 10 minutes.50 Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, responding
to Habyarimana’s plea for help, gave “a bland and reassuring answer” before turning to Prunier
and saying, “We are going to send him a few boys, old man Habyarimana. We are going to bail
him out.”51 “In any case,” he added, “the whole thing will be over in two or three months.”52
B. France Sought to Retain Its Influence in Africa after World War II, with Mitterrand Playing
a Key Role in the Effort.
Without Africa, there will be no history of France in the twenty-first
century.53
– François Mitterrand, President of France (1981 – 1995)
If French foreign policy hands like Jean-Christophe Mitterrand thought little of sending “a
few boys” to Africa to help an ally in distress, it was because France had done it many times before.
Since the late 1950s, France had repeatedly dispatched troops to suppress uprisings in its former
colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, signaling, in the words of historian John Chipman, “that when a
francophone African leader close to France needed help, France would be willing to use military
force to sustain him in power.”54 The history of interventions in Africa extended into the Mitterrand
era, during which time France sent troops to help Chadian President Hissèn Habré fend off Libyanbacked incursions,55 and also, in 1986, to help Togolese President Gnassingbé Eyadéma quell an
internal rebellion.56 “Indeed,” Chipman wrote, “despite early socialist rhetoric, the government
[under President Mitterrand] did much both to sustain and then to improve France’s capacity to
bring military power to bear on the African continent.”57
The justifications for these interventions varied, of course, but the ambitions behind them
remained a constant. “There is no hiatus in France’s African policy before May 1981 and after,”
François Mitterrand would say early in his first term, referring to the month he became president
of France. “If the method has changed, the objective has remained. It consists in preserving
France’s role and interests in Africa.”58 President Mitterrand presented himself as “the bearer of
more than a tradition,” in this regard.59 France’s history, and his own, compelled France to
maintain its influence—in Africa, broadly, and in Rwanda, specifically.
France had emerged from World War II with its borders intact and a permanent seat on the
UN Security Council, but with its self-image as a global power in tatters.60 The humiliations of the
war years—its 1940 surrender to Nazi Germany and subsequent occupation during the Vichy
regime—had battered the nation’s psyche and diminished France’s stature within the international
sphere.61 “[A] sense of fragility remained,” one French scholar would later write. “The status
which France inherited in 1945 was unexpected; henceforth it would be necessary to justify
itself.”62 Its colonies, long a source of geopolitical clout, were a vital link to the nation’s past
grandeur. At a time when some colonial powers were letting go, France redoubled efforts to keep
its prized overseas possessions.63
Mitterrand, though still young, was a key participant in those efforts. An early highlight of
his rise to power in France’s post-war government was his stint, from 1950 to 1951, as minister of
overseas territories, a position that charged him with responsibility for France’s colonies—recently
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
rebranded as “territories”—in French West and Equatorial Africa.64 In an era of surging
nationalism across the globe, the cost of preserving the old empire had grown exponentially. As
one biographer noted:
By the time Mitterrand became Minister of Overseas Territories, the country was
bogged down in a full-scale war in Indochina and had suppressed with great
brutality uprisings in Algeria in 1945, which left 20,000 dead, and in Madagascar
in 1947, where more than 80,000—2 per cent of the population—had died.65
Mitterrand, as a young minister in the 1950s, came to recognize that “the old colonialism was
dying,”66 but remained committed to a vision of “Eurafrican France,” in which France’s African
colonies would remain associated with France.67 His argument for this arrangement was that it
would not only inure to France’s benefit (“Without Africa,” he once wrote, “there will be no history
of France in the twenty-first century.”),68 but that it would serve Africa’s interests as well. “The
African world will not have a center of gravity if it confines itself to its geographical borders,” he
penned in a 1953 book.69 “Bound to France in a political, economic and spiritual entity, it will
clear four centuries in a single leap and fulfill its modern role . . . . From the Congo to the Rhine,
the third continent will be in balance around France as its center.”70
Mitterrand lamented the loss of France’s protectorates in Morocco and Tunisia in 1956—
the first breakaways from its African empire—and insisted that France must do what was necessary
to keep Algeria, its neighbor across the Mediterranean, under its yoke.71 “Algeria is part of France.
. . . The law applies everywhere [in France], and that law is French law,” he declared, as minister
of the interior, in 1954, after freedom fighters there launched a spate of attacks. “All those who
try, in one way or another, to create disorder and attempt to secede, will be struck down by every
means the law puts at our disposal.”72 Later, as minister of justice (1956-57), he condoned the
arbitrary detention and torture of Algerian rebels.73 “He already had a well-established reputation
for authoritarianism when he took up his post, and he made that felt,” said a French official who
worked with him during that era.74 “This period remains secretive with barely any archives
accessible from the functioning of the Ministry of Justice.”75
Having declined to ally himself with de Gaulle (sworn in as French president in January
1959), Mitterrand was no longer in the cabinet when the French empire in Africa finally crumbled,
with more than a dozen of its African colonies gaining independence between 1958 and 1960.76
The spirit of nationalism sweeping Africa had gained too much momentum to stop, and the cost
of preserving the empire—paid in money and, at times, in blood—had become too high for postwar France to bear.77 France, though, ensured its political and cultural ties to the continent would
survive the rupture. As the American diplomat and author Francis Terry McNamara has written,
France devised “an ingenious system of bilateral agreements” with its former African colonies,
which largely succeeded in preserving France’s interests in the newly independent nations.78 The
bilateral agreements promised “cooperation”—often in the economic, justice, and diplomatic
spheres, but also in matters of defense.79 (In a few cases, the defense agreements were kept secret.80
Other defense agreements were public, but contained “secret clauses for the intervention of French
troops, not only in the event of external aggression but also of internal crisis.”81) For France, the
terms of these cooperation agreements were often decidedly favorable; notably, many of the trade
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1959 – September 1990
agreements it signed with its former African colonies contained “special provisions” granting
France “exclusive access” to certain strategic raw materials, such as oil, natural gas, and lithium.82
Critics derided the system of bilateral agreements as “neocolonialist.”83 As one scholar
observed, the system of cooperation, while nominally “based on reciprocity, . . . was characterized
by relations of inequality. Indeed, there was a supplier and a receiver, the first [i.e., France]
providing assistance, making loans, donations, and bringing its development plans to the
second.”84 African leaders, though, permitted the system to endure for decades, allowing France
to retain its special preferences in trade and investment so long as France continued to provide
their governments with aid and, in some cases, security guarantees.85 “The cost to France is high,”
McNamara wrote in 1989, “but the return has been extraordinary. No other middle-sized power in
the world enjoys similar status and international influence.”86
C. The French Government Forged Relations with Post-Colonial Rwanda in the 1960s,
Expanding the Sphere of French Influence into East Africa.
Rwanda had not been a part of France’s colonial empire. Remote and without coastline,
Rwanda had been spared outside interference until the late 19th century, when European powers
agreed to award control of the territory to Germany.87 Rwanda remained a part of German East
Africa until 1916, when, during World War I, the Allies placed it under Belgium’s authority.88 The
Belgians ruled “Ruanda-Urundi” (today’s Rwanda and Burundi) for the next 44 years.89
The Franco-Rwandan relationship began just as the colonial era was ending, in the early
1960s. Indeed, France was a participant in the United Nations negotiation process—between 1960
and 1962—that led to Rwanda’s independence.90 The French government’s support for
decolonization in those negotiations had not been selfless. France, as one scholar has written, saw
an opportunity to expand its influence into East Africa, a part of the continent colonized by other
European powers, but not France.91
Rwanda, at that time, was a new nation confronting extraordinary challenges. Decades
under Belgian rule had stunted the development of its economy.92 The country had no paved
roads.93 Its people had poor access to quality education and were among the world’s most
malnourished populations.94
It was also a country in the throes of profound societal tumult. The old social order, in
which positions of authority were reserved for a privileged few among the country’s Tutsi
minority, to the exclusion other Tutsi, the Hutu ethnic majority, and the Twa,95 had crumbled in
the final years of colonial rule. In 1959, after Rwanda’s Belgian-backed monarch unexpectedly
announced plans for democratization, the mobilization of newly formed political parties generated
what historian Jean-Paul Kimonyo has described as “a confrontational environment bound to
explode into violence.”96 Among the activists at the center of the maelstrom was Grégoire
Kayibanda, a former teacher and newspaper editor who had built a following among Hutu peasants
by railing against the Tutsi elite.97 Kayibanda called for the restoration of Rwanda “to its real
owners, as this is the country of the Bahutu.”98 His party, the Party of the Movement and of Hutu
Emancipation [Parti du Mouvement et de l’Emancipation Hutu, or “Parmehutu”], declared itself
opposed to the “hegemony of the invading Tutsi race.”99
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Tensions boiled over on 1 November 1959, when members of the youth wing of the
Rwandan National Union (UNAR) party, a pro-independence party founded by conservative Tutsi
that favored a constitutional monarchy, attacked a Parmehutu leader.100 Hutu activists falsely
claimed that the victim, a Hutu sub-chief, had been killed in the attack, inciting deadly reprisals
against Tutsi, which in turn engendered Tutsi counterattacks against Hutu.101 The violence claimed
at least 200 lives102 and provoked a “massive exodus of Tutsi refugees who could no longer return
to their hills.”103 Belgium declared a state of emergency and deployed a Belgian military
commander, Colonel Guy Logiest, to oversee the territory.104 Logiest believed that continuing to
back the Tutsi elites, as Belgium had done for decades, would only enkindle greater frustration
among the Hutu peasantry and hasten the movement toward independence.105 He opted,
accordingly, to break ties with the Tutsi authorities and replace them with Parmehutu
sympathizers, who used their new power to persecute the Tutsi.106
France’s public position in the aftermath of the 1959 rebellion was, as a French diplomat
asserted, that it had “no interest in the issue of Ruanda-Urundi.”107 France did, however, have
reasons to support the decolonization and democratization processes, particularly after Rwandans
voted in September 1961 to abolish the country’s Tutsi-dominated monarchy and establish a
republic, handing control of the Rwandan parliament to Kayibanda’s Parmehutu party.108 French
officials were cheered by Parmehutu’s good fortune and appeared to believe, as others did, that the
Hutu were “more inclined to establish relations with France” than the Tutsi.109 After the 1961
parliamentary elections in Rwanda, France’s delegate to the UN General Assembly declared that
the results could “only be favorable to the extension of our cultural and technical influence in this
populous region of East Africa.”110
France had mixed reasons for seeking a foothold in Rwanda once the latter achieved
independence in 1962. Certainly, the relationship promised some economic benefits for France,
though these were relatively limited.111 Unlike some of France’s own former colonies in Africa,
such as Gabon and the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda did not have oil or other precious natural
resources. What made Rwanda alluring, from France’s perspective, was something else: its
distinction as one of only a handful of French-speaking countries on the frontier of Anglophone
East Africa.112
It has been said that France’s historical resentment of “Anglo-Saxons”—Britain, the United
States, and virtually all other English-speaking nations—has at times bordered on a kind of
mania.113 The French historian Gérard Prunier, a scholar on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, has
described it as a constant of French political thinking through the centuries—the conviction that
English-speaking countries’ political and cultural hegemony poses an existential threat to the
French language and the French “way of life.”114 Prunier called it “Fashoda syndrome,” named for
a storied 1898 standoff in the Upper Nile between French and British forces,115 and diagnosed it
as one of the main reasons President Mitterrand so quickly answered Rwanda’s call for
intervention in October 1990. The hallmark symptom of the Fashoda syndrome, according to
Prunier, was the belief that “the whole world is a cultural, political and economic battlefield
between France and the ‘Anglo-Saxons,’” and that “nothing less than the total victory of one of
the contending parties will bring an end to the conflict.”116
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For France in the early 1960s, Rwanda represented a potential “‘bridgehead’ of Frenchspeaking Africa in English-speaking East Africa.”117 One French Foreign Ministry official at the
time asserted that Rwanda, because of “its geographical location,” could “contribute effectively to
the development of French influence” in the region.118 He alluded to a hope that Rwandan
emigrants would bring their language and culture with them to the rest of the region, such that, for
France, Rwanda would serve as “a significant instrument of cultural penetration in the Englishspeaking neighboring countries: Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika [now a part of Tanzania—
ed.].”119
Cooperation served Rwanda’s purposes as much as France’s. Looking for economic and
technical assistance wherever he could find it, Kayibanda, now the country’s newly elected
president, entered into an October 1962 “agreement of friendship and cooperation” with de
Gaulle’s government in Paris that dangled a promise of French assistance in many sectors of the
Rwandan economy, a promise that France would soon fulfill.120
It took only two months after the signing for French and Rwandan authorities to negotiate,
sign, and ratify three new cooperation agreements: one for economic cooperation, one for “cultural
and technical cooperation,” and one to help Rwanda establish a national broadcasting agency.121
Of the three agreements, it was the latter two that, from the French government’s perspective,
offered the greatest value. “[O]ur commercial and financial interests [in Rwanda] will never be
very important,” the French ambassador to Rwanda wrote in 1964.122 He suggested that cultural
ties, based on their shared (French) language, were, by comparison, the more promising area for
cooperation.123
D. France Established Relations with the Kayibanda Regime amid a Period of Intensifying
Ethnic Strife in Rwanda.
Kayibanda, post-colonial Rwanda’s first president, spoke French well124 and named it,
along with Kinyarwanda, the official language of Rwanda.125 He was among a cohort of Hutu
leaders in the Rwandan independence movement who claimed to embrace “the ideals of the French
Revolution,” finding inspiration in the 18th-century French revolutionaries’ toppling of “an
aristocratic monarchy.”126 Kayibanda visited France three times during his nine-year reign (19621973), meeting with President de Gaulle on at least two of those occasions.127 “I do not need to
reiterate our unequivocal commitment to cooperate with France in the field of technical
cooperation and assistance and in the broader field of international action,” he wrote to the French
foreign minister in 1962.128 The French government reciprocated his interest, steadily expanding
its cooperation with Kayibanda’s government over the course of his presidency.129
From the beginning, though, it was no secret that Kayibanda was an autocrat and the leader
of a party, Parmehutu, with a virulent anti-Tutsi ideology. A UN Trusteeship Council report
described his seizure of power in Rwanda as the institution of a “‘racial’ dictatorship.”130 The
report warned, presciently, that “in the transition from one type of oppressive régime to another .
. . [e]xtremism is rewarded, and there is a danger that the minority may find itself defenceless in
the face of abuses.”131
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The first few years of the Kayibanda presidency—a period in which France, after signing
the 1962 “agreement of friendship and cooperation” with the new Rwandan government, opened
its first diplomatic post in Kigali—were marked by killings and insecurity, with thousands of Tutsi
houses burned down and tens of thousands of Tutsi, as well as a number of Hutu, seeking refuge
in neighboring countries.132 In December 1963, a force of Rwandan Tutsi exiles attempted to
invade from Burundi.133 After the Rwandan national guard turned them back, Kayibanda “took
advantage of the attack in order to unleash anti-Tutsi terror.”134 His government executed
opposition political party leaders and incited Hutu civilians to massacre 10,000 Tutsi with
machetes and spears, triggering a massive new displacement of Tutsi.135 By late 1964, two years
into Kayibanda’s presidency, 300,000 Rwandans had sought refuge in Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania,
and Congo.136
The persecution and slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda was well publicized in Europe, including
in France. On 17 January 1964, the French newspaper Le Monde described killings with clubs and
corpses thrown in the river.137 On 6 February 1964, Le Monde quoted British academic Bertrand
Russell, who said that the violence against the Tutsi was the most horrible and systemic
extermination of a people since the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews.138
Such reports, though, did not dim the maintenance or expansion of French relations with
Kayibanda’s regime. Among the subjects of interest to both governments was one the two
countries had not addressed in the existing cooperation agreements they had signed in the early
1960s—namely, military cooperation. The topic had been a sensitive one, as Rwanda, upon its
independence, had turned to Belgium, its former colonial ruler, for help establishing an army.139
Whatever concerns France may have once had, though, about encroaching on Belgium’s domain
seem to have abated a few years later, as, in the mid- and late 1960s, the French military attaché
in Kinshasa, Zaire, paid numerous visits to Kigali to “study the possibilities of French action in
this field.”140 The French ambassador in Kigali also raised the subject of possible military
cooperation, addressing his inquiries to a young minister, and future president, of Rwanda named
Juvénal Habyarimana.141 Habyarimana, then serving as minister of the national guard, police, and
security, had shown an interest in “the institutions of French military life,” indicating he wanted
to create a French-style gendarmerie out of Rwanda’s senior police officers.142 He was also
interested in buying French military equipment, and did just that. Following his 1966 visit to Paris,
the French government sold Rwanda, “on very advantageous terms,” 12 light armored vehicles
and two helicopters.143 The deal presaged an era of Franco-Rwandan military cooperation, which
would begin in earnest during the Habyarimana presidency.
Habyarimana had a “close personal friendship” with Kayibanda.144 As the author Andrew
Wallis has recounted, the up-and-coming young minister and his wife, Agathe Kanziga
Habyarimana, were frequent visitors to Kayibanda’s redbrick house outside of the central
Rwandan town of Gitarama, regularly “dropping in to play cards or to enjoy a drink.”145 The
Habyarimanas had no quarrel with Kayibanda’s treatment of the Tutsi. On the contrary,
Habyarimana “believed Rwanda was a Hutu country and that Tutsi refugees must never be allowed
to return.”146 The Habyarimanas, though, were northerners, a distinction that was increasingly
coming to be seen as a mark for disfavored treatment under Kayibanda’s rule.147 They watched as
the president, a native of central Rwanda, passed over northern Army officers for highly coveted
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promotions and reserved key government positions for loyalists from the central and southern parts
of the country.148
As northerners’ frustrations with Kayibanda’s rule mounted, the president sought, in
Wallis’ phrasing, “to move the debate away from [his administration’s] own failings and back to
one area of policy Kayibanda was certain would bring him support—ethnicity.”149 When ethnic
violence broke out in neighboring Burundi in mid-1972, Kayibanda exploited the tumult for his
own political gain.150 His government sanctioned discrimination, and even violence, at Rwandan
educational institutions, encouraging Hutu university and secondary-school students to lash out at
their Tutsi peers for supposedly “taking up far more places than their 14 per cent of the population
warranted.”151
Kayibanda’s excesses in the latter phase of his presidency had not passed without notice in
the French Foreign Ministry.152 A 1970 telegram from the French ambassador in Kigali remarked
that “the regime [had] increased its authoritarian character in the person of Kayibanda.”153 The
ambassador knew that domestic [i.e., northern] opposition to Kayibanda was stirring and even
predicted, in 1966, that “if a coup d’état occurred the author would be the current Minister of the
National Guard and the Police,” Juvénal Habyarimana.154 His insight proved accurate. On 5 July
1973, Habyarimana, along with ten other officers calling themselves the “high command,”
overthrew Kayibanda and “proclaimed Rwanda’s ‘second republic,’” with Habyarimana as its
president.155
E. France Deepened Its Diplomatic and Military Ties to Rwanda after the 1973 Coup, as
Habyarimana and a Small Group of Primarily Northern Loyalists Steadily Consolidated
Control over the Country and Perpetuated Kayibanda-Era Anti-Tutsi Policies.
While Habyarimana, in his first foreign trips as president, sought to deliver messages of
goodwill and solidarity to other African leaders, including the dictators in neighboring Zaire and
Uganda, his wife headed farther north: to France.156
Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana was the daughter of the prominent owner of a lucrative
textile import business in northern Rwanda.157 Her family had been far wealthier than the
Habyarimanas, who lived across the river in the neighboring commune.158 Her father had
nevertheless approved her 1963 marriage to Juvénal Habyarimana, whose quick rise up the ranks
of the military had earned him considerable power and respect.159 Members of Agathe’s large and
ambitious extended family saw promise in the young army captain and would later see their faith
repaid, as they reaped the spoils of his reign.160 The family would form the backbone of the close
group of corrupt leaders, commonly referred to as the “Akazu” (a term meaning “small house”),
who controlled nearly every major aspect of Rwandan society during much of President
Habyarimana’s “Second Republic.”161
Agathe’s trip to Paris in October 1973, just three months after the coup, appears to have
produced results. Two months after her visit, President Georges Pompidou made arrangements to
present her husband a Caravelle plane, a gift worth roughly 10 million French francs ($2.3
million).162 As Rwanda lacked personnel to fly or service the plane, the French government took
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the added step of supplying Habyarimana with a pilot, crew, and technicians.163 (France also paid
to build a hangar for the new plane.164)
The scholar Olivier Thimonier, who has written of France’s relations with Rwanda during
this era, has said the Caravelle “was probably a political gift in response to a request for technical
military assistance.”165 According to Thimonier, the two governments were, by December 1973,
preparing to draft a bilateral agreement for “technical military cooperation.”166 A few months later,
when the French secretary of state for foreign affairs visited Kigali, President Habyarimana
“solicited France for military aid.”167
The Akazu, by this time, had already begun to assert control over Rwandan political and
economic life, with many of Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana’s relatives and friends taking positions
in her husband’s administration and using the power of those positions for economic gain.168
Among the first, and most notorious, beneficiaries of the president’s cronyism was Agathe’s older
brother Protais Zigiranyirazo, who, at 35, was handed the title of prefect of Kibuye (in the west of
the country).169 One year later, Habyarimana elevated “Mr. Z,” as Zigiranyirazo was widely
known, to prefect of Ruhengeri, “the most important—and lucrative—of all the prefectures . . .
with its trading routes north into Uganda and Congo, and illicit trade in everything from gorillas
to gold, drugs to diamonds.”170 “Mr. Z” would become one of the most powerful, and most feared,
members of the Akazu in the course of Habyarimana’s presidency.171 As one former Rwandan
government official would allege in the early 1990s, “Mr. Z” (also known as “Mr. Zed”) had
“leveraged” his familial ties to create a “mafia type” network. This network, which the official
dubbed “the Zedist Order,” allegedly controlled and corrupted virtually all commerce in
Rwanda.172
“Mr. Z” was far from alone in profiting from his familial links to the president. When, for
example, Habyarimana named his first cabinet in August 1973, the title of Minister of Youth went
to one of Agathe’s cousins: Commander Pierre-Célestin Rwagafilita, who in time would become
the head of the Rwandan Gendarmerie.173 Rwagafilita would face allegations, in 1980, that he had
pocketed vast sums of money through illegal dealings, with one Rwandan official calling him
“barely a step above animal, . . . whose foremost goal is to overtake his equals, then his superiors,
and ultimately, to exceed even his wildest ambitions.”174
Habyarimana’s inner circle also encompassed a number of northerners who had forged
bonds with Habyarimana early in his career. This cohort included Laurent Serubuga, a native of
Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana’s hometown, Bushiru, who would soon lead the Army as the deputy
chief of staff.175 Rumors of corruption would follow Serubuga throughout his career, with one
Rwandan official, the governor of the national bank, accusing Serubuga of “insatiable greed.”176
In a 1980 open letter to President Habyarimana, the bank governor described Serubuga as “an
enemy of the public good and of individual happiness” who, through corrupt dealings, “brazenly
continues to grow a fortune out of nothing.”177
Alongside Serubuga was Théoneste Bagosora, another Bushiru native, who would take
over command of Camp Kanombe following the assassination of his predecessor (reportedly on
Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana’s orders).178 Bagosora was cold and ruthless by reputation.179
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International prosecutors would later name him as the mastermind of the Genocide Against the
Tutsi.180
It would not take long for the Akazu to show the world how it dealt with enemies. Within
a year of the 1973 coup, Habyarimana’s government had arrested and court martialed dozens of
government officials, including Kayibanda himself.181 Many were purportedly killed in prison,
either by starvation or by being bludgeoned with a hammer,182 at the behest of the Army’s deputy
chief of staff, Laurent Serubuga.183 Several were officially sentenced to death, like Kayibanda,
only to have their sentences later publicly commuted to life in prison by Habyarimana.184
Nonetheless, Kayibanda died while under house arrest on 15 December 1976.185 Officially, his
death was reported as the result of a heart attack, though allegations persist that he was killed at
the direction of Habyarimana.186
Habyarimana’s public pronouncements in the early years of his administration were replete
with calls for “unity,” and, if many Tutsi residents had harbored some hope after the coup that
Habyarimana would be more sympathetic to their circumstances than Kayibanda had been, they
were soon disappointed.187 Under Habyarimana the discrimination continued: businesses were
ordered to continue identifying Tutsi employees and demanding their resignation, and educational
and professional opportunities were denied to Tutsi students in favor of their Hutu counterparts.188
“If there is any strong continuity in the policies of the two regimes,” historian Jean-Paul
Kimonyo has written, referring to the Kayibanda and Habyarimana administrations, “it is probably
in how they handled the refugee issue.”189 Habyarimana, throughout his reign, would show himself
to be unmoved by the refugees’ plight, insisting that Rwanda was overpopulated and did not have
enough arable land or natural resources to create employment to sustain a complete return of
refugees.190 “You understand that from the numbers there is overpopulation and Rwanda is almost
full,” he would later declare, during a 1987 visit to Uganda.191 (He further asserted, during his
visit, that “no one [could] accept” the proposition that the “child and the grand-children of a
refugee” might also be considered refugees.)192
The regime made its views clear almost immediately after the coup. On 31 July 1973, mere
weeks after Habyarimana seized power, his interior minister, Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe,193 met
with newly-installed prefects and prescribed how each should dissuade the return of refugees to
their regions.194 A few months later, Kanyarengwe extended a Kayibanda-era policy, codified in a
1966 presidential decree, giving regional leaders (i.e., prefects) control over the reintegration of
refugees within their territory and legalizing the seizure of land belonging to refugees.195
Kanyarengwe applied the decree to refugees who had fled the 1973 violence, preventing those
returning from reclaiming cattle (in addition to confiscated real estate) and expanding the prefect’s
control over their movement.196
The government of neighboring Uganda—home to an estimated 70,000 registered refugees
at the time (and likely many more who were not registered)—pressed the refugee issue in mid1974, inviting a Rwandan delegation to Kampala to work out a “definitive solution” to the
problem.197 The talks at first seemed headed for success, with the two delegations reaching a
preliminary agreement on a plan for the gradual repatriation of refugees.198 The Rwandan
government, though, never implemented the repatriation plan, and the available evidence suggests
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it never intended to do so.199 As Kimonyo, the historian, would later note, an internal memo from
the delegation to President Habyarimana revealed its members had all along viewed the refugees’
requests to return as illegitimate and untenable.200 The memo referred to the refugees’ return as “a
hopeless venture,” stating: “The [Rwandan] people condemned and banished forever the monarchy
and all its supporting institutions. It would go against the will of the people to impose on them
again the burden of those whom they rejected from their hearts.”201
Kigali subsequently intensified its national initiative to restrict the return of Rwandan
refugees. Interior Minister Kanyarengwe demanded that by July 1975 all property formerly owned
by refugees not yet taken had to be sold or given away.202 In an August 1976 directive,
Habyarimana instructed his ministers to “embark on a psychological campaign to persuade
Rwandan nationals to remain in their host country.”203 He barred the readmission of “vagrants,”
which by that time encompassed nearly all Rwandan refugees, who had been systematically
stripped of their property.204
Habyarimana ruled as a strongman, abolishing all political parties except for his own, the
newly created National Revolutionary Movement for Development (Mouvement Révolutionnaire
National pour le Développement, or MRND).205 As president, he modeled himself on Zairean
President Mobutu Sese Seko, promoted an image of himself as the “father of the nation,” and, after
1975, required all Rwandans to wear a small pin displaying a picture of his smiling face.206 His
military credentials remained a source of strength; in addition to reserving for himself the title of
Minister of National Defense, he continued to showcase his Kayibanda-era military rank, major
general, alongside his name in official government documents.207 As Habyarimana consolidated
control over the country, the quality of its small but growing military could be seen as a
representation of his own power. He set out, accordingly, to expand Rwanda’s military
capabilities—in particular, by continuing to pursue efforts to establish a French-style national
gendarmerie, a branch of the military that, in accordance with the French model, would serve as a
national police force, bearing responsibility for maintaining law and order.208 In this endeavor, he
found France to be a willing and able ally.209
Habyarimana’s first state visit to Paris, in April 1974, did not go as planned. He had been
scheduled to meet President Pompidou at the Élysée on the afternoon of 2 April, but the French
president’s staff abruptly canceled the meeting, with rumors circulating that Pompidou had been
too ill to attend to his duties.210 Pompidou died that night.211 In Kigali, the Rwandan government
paid its respects, lowering flags to half-mast for three days of mourning.212
Nevertheless, over the next year, the two governments proceeded in finalizing a military
technical assistance agreement, laying the foundation for French military cooperation with
Habyarimana’s government.213 As adopted in July 1975, the agreement authorized French training
of the Rwandan Gendarmerie.214 The writer Linda Melvern has said that, after adopting the
agreement, France supplied the Rwandan Gendarmerie’s equipment, including both vehicles and
weaponry, and offered training courses in France for its recruits.215
The 1975 agreement did not authorize France to train the Rwandan Army, and, notably, it
precluded French military cooperants from assisting in war operations.216 Subsequent amendments
in the 1980s and early 1990s would eliminate those restrictions.217
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The first French technical assistants—four officers and two non-commissioned officers—
arrived in Rwanda in late 1975 and early 1976 to begin training Rwandan Gendarmes.218
Provisions of French military equipment soon followed. Olivier Thimonier, in his examination of
Franco-Rwandan relations during the first two decades of Rwandan independence, detailed those
contributions as follows:
In 1976, France provided roughly 1.3 million French francs’ ($290,000) worth of
equipment to the Rwandan Gendarmerie, including 18 armored vehicles, 150 automatic
pistols, and 1,000 grenades.
In 1977, France provided more than 1 million French francs’ ($200,000) worth of
equipment, including 12 armored vehicles and 100 automatic guns. Separately, France
delivered an Alouette III helicopter, worth 2.2 million French francs ($442,000), as a gift,
as French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had promised two years earlier.
In 1978, aid from the French Military Cooperation Mission held steady at 1 million French
francs ($213,000), which covered another 12 armored vehicles, among other items.
Separately, but more significantly, the French Ministry of Defense contributed 6.8 million
French francs’ ($1.45 million) worth of material aid to the Rwandan Gendarmerie,
including 1,000 pistols, 1,000 rifles, 965,600 cartridges, and 500 grenades.
In 1979, France provided another 16 armored vehicles.219
The French government’s willingness to help Rwanda build a gendarmerie in the image of
France’s own reflected then-President Giscard d’Estaing’s desire to showcase French military
power on the African continent.220 As one historian wrote: “For Giscard, the display of French
military power in Africa was an even more important indicator than it had been for his predecessors
of France’s position in the international system.”221 Giscard significantly boosted French military
assistance to African countries in the late 1970s,222 with an increase in assistance to Rwanda
following soon afterward. In 1980, French military aid to Habyarimana’s government soared to 15
million French francs ($3.7 million), an expense covering the costs of a new helicopter, weapons,
and ammunition, as well as financing for the construction of an auto repair shop.223 The sharp
increase, and the promise of more helicopters to follow, was notable in and of itself, but even more
so because the aid was no longer directed exclusively for the benefit of the Rwandan Gendarmerie.
France was now subsidizing the Rwandan Army as well.224
Habyarimana showed himself to be a gracious beneficiary of French largesse. In 1977, for
example, when President Giscard d’Estaing dispatched French advisers, weapons, and transport
aircraft to help Zairean dictator Mobutu repel an invasion in the southern province of Shaba,
Habyarimana spoke approvingly of France’s intervention.225 (Though Zaire, like Rwanda, had
been a Belgian colony, France had entered into a military aid agreement with Mobutu’s
government in 1974.226) Habyarimana further refrained from criticizing French military
interventions in the late 1970s in Chad and Mauritania,227 even as, in Paris, Giscard d’Estaing’s
political opponents on both the left and right found common cause in condemning his
interventionism.228 The leader of the Socialist opposition was particularly pointed in his criticisms,
accusing Giscard d’Estaing of having turned France into “NATO’s gendarme.”229 These words
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would be turned against that opposition leader—François Mitterrand—a few years later, when, as
president, he, too, found himself advocating for a French military intervention in Africa
(specifically, the 1983 intervention in Chad).230
F. Mitterrand Overruled Efforts to “Moralize” France’s Africa Policy, Opting Instead to
Placate Autocratic Rulers in Rwanda and Elsewhere.
France has already recognized in you a faithful friend, a Head of State
who knows how to lead his people, a man on whom we can establish a
lasting friendship.231
– François Mitterrand, President of France, to Juvénal Habyarimana,
President of Rwanda
Among the Rwandans taking refuge outside of their homeland’s borders, there was a small
community of expatriates who had found their way to Europe. These Rwandans, who, perhaps
more than most, were especially attuned to the state of French relations with their home country,
saw reason to cheer the outcome of the 1981 presidential election, as voters rejected President
Giscard d’Estaing’s reelection bid in favor of Mitterrand, the Socialist Party candidate.232
While Mitterrand himself had a long history as a faithful colonialist, and later
neocolonialist, his political party had pledged in its platform to revisit relations with corrupt
African governments.233 Specifically, the platform stated:
French imperialism in Africa, which doesn’t think twice about resorting to military
means (Gabon, Zaire, Sahara, Chad, Central Africa) has run its course. The
[current] President [Giscard d’Estaing] . . . has a particular fondness for playing
policeman and for supporting the most backward, if not barbaric, and consistently
most corrupt regimes . . . . All military cooperation agreements must be
renegotiated. They will expressly stipulate that it will be impossible to request and
receive military assistance except in the case of outside attacks against these
states.234
Mitterrand’s candidacy appealed to Tito Rutaremara, a Rwandan living in France who
would become one of the RPF’s highest-ranking leaders and an intellectual force in the
organization. Rutaremara had been lucky, having earned a scholarship to study in ClermontFerrand, a city west of Lyon.235 Before that, though, he had lived among the estimated 200,000
Rwandans in exile in Uganda,236 where, in the late 1960s and again in the early 1980s, many
Rwandan refugees endured persecution under President Milton Obote’s rule.237 Obote exploited
long-simmering public resentment toward refugees, Rwandans in particular, who competed with
locals for land and employment.238 Beginning in 1981, young members of Obote’s political party,
the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), massacred Rwandan refugees “by the hundreds.”239
The refugee experience was not much different in Zaire. In Kivu, near the Rwandan border,
refugees who arrived after the anti-Tutsi pogroms of the late 1950s and early 1960s were often
“harassed and intimidated, robbed and physically assaulted,” not only by locals, but by Zairean
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police officers.240 Persecution continued in the 1970s and 1980s, as did state-sponsored
discrimination, including laws barring recently arrived Rwandan refugees from obtaining Zairean
citizenship.241 (Tanzania, to the east of Rwanda, was generally more hospitable toward Rwandan
refugees,242 but even there the government enacted legislation denying refugees criminal due
process rights and authorizing the state to confiscate refugees’ vehicles and livestock.243)
As was true of many members of the diaspora, Rutaremara was pained by reports of
violence and persecution against Rwandan refugees who, unlike him, had remained in Africa.244
Most alarming of all was the news out of Uganda in October 1982, when the UPC expelled
Rwandan refugees—even evicting Rwandans who had taken Ugandan citizenship—killing scores
in the process and sending 40,000 fleeing toward Rwanda.245 Some of the refugees made it over
the border.246 Soon, though, Habyarimana’s government closed the border, trapping thousands of
refugees in a narrow strip of borderland between UPC youth militia and Rwandan soldiers.247 The
support provided by the International Red Cross was not enough, and many refugees died from
hunger, disease, and suicide.248
Those who were fortunate enough to make it to the Rwandan side of the border were
directed to crowded refugee camps.249 One such refugee, a man who later rose to prominence as
an officer in the RPF, recalled being ordered to bury the bodies of fellow refugees who had died
of cholera or other diseases.250 The man said that, after entering the camps, the refugees were
forced to have their heads shaven so that locals outside of the camps would recognize them as
refugees.251
Rutaremara, who had become politically active since arriving in France, decided after the
1982 crackdown in Uganda to appeal to the French president to help the refugees.252 Without
political connections or clout, he did what he could, writing letters to Mitterrand and other French
politicians pleading for attention to the plight of Rwandan refugees. None responded.253 Soon,
Rutaremara began to lose his optimism about what Mitterrand’s France was willing to do.
Meanwhile, a group of Rwandan refugees in Belgium and France assembled under the
name Intego (“goal”) to advocate for the Rwandan refugees in Uganda.254 Emile Rwamasirabo, an
Intego member and a doctor who had fled Rwanda amid the anti-Tutsi violence in 1973, was also
hopeful that Mitterrand, after winning the French presidency, would be receptive to a plea from
the Rwandan community. Rwamasirabo wrote a letter to Mitterrand asking him to organize a
regional meeting through Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, and to use his influence with
Habyarimana to advocate for the return of refugees to Rwanda. Rwamasirabo delivered the letter
to a local member of the French National Assembly, who appeared moved and pledged to handdeliver the letter to Mitterrand himself, with whom he said he had good relations.255
Several days later, the assemblyman’s office called Rwamasirabo to ask him to come in.
Rwamasirabo knew the news was bad from the look on the man’s face while handing over a letter
written by the French foreign minister on Mitterrand’s behalf. “Rwanda is a small country which
is trying very successfully to overcome poverty,” the letter said, in Rwamasirabo’s recollection.
“It is too small to accommodate everybody. I am sorry for you. Try to find and organize your lives
in those countries where you live.”256 The response, which used the same logic as Habyarimana’s
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deflections, was dispiriting. “This was the shock of my life,” Rwamasirabo would recall. “I was
very naïve.”257
There were signs, at first, that Mitterrand’s election would presage a shift in French
relations with Africa.258 His first minister of cooperation, Jean-Pierre Cot, sought, as one writer
put it, “to moralize Franco-African relations by breaking with certain bad habits” and “defend[ing]
human rights.”259 Cot also resolved to expand the Ministry’s portfolio beyond the “pré carré”—
i.e., francophone Africa—and to begin establishing relations and distributing aid throughout the
whole of the developing world.260 Cot’s initiatives were not well received by those African leaders,
such as Gabon’s Omar Bongo, who had long benefitted from France’s attentions.261 Nor did they
sit well with Mitterrand, who considered it foolhardy to chase after new relationships in the Third
World at the risk of weakening existing bonds in francophone Africa.262 Cot resigned under
pressure in December 1982,263 with Mitterrand declaring, a few days later, “I am the one who
determines French foreign policy, not my ministers.”264
African leaders—some of whom had longstanding friendships with Mitterrand dating to
his tenure as minister of overseas territories in the mid-1950s—recognized that France’s Africa
policy under Mitterrand ran through the Élysée.265 Those with connections simply bypassed the
Ministry of Cooperation, delivering messages instead “through the Élysée’s back door” to the
advisors in Mitterrand’s Africa Cell.266 With power centralized in the office of the presidency, the
Socialist Party’s stated ideals of a more virtuous Africa policy gave way to a more traditional brand
of realpolitik. In short order, the Élysée fell back on old habits, offering its support to francophone
regimes regardless of moral compromise. As journalist and author Philip Short wrote in his
biography of Mitterrand: “Corruption, one-party dictatorship and the murder, imprisonment and
torture of political opponents were passed over in silence.”267
French military aid to Rwanda, specifically, remained fixed in the early years of
Mitterrand’s presidency at 1 million French francs (roughly $220,000) per year.268 Between 1981
and 1983, the French government gave the Rwandan government a Nord Atlas military transport
aircraft.269 French military aid continued throughout the decade, though “at a ‘more modest’
level.”270
Mitterrand’s relationship with President Habyarimana was warm, but business-like.
“Stable country, governed for nine years by a liberal soldier who has imprinted a democratic image
onto the institutions of his country,” read the introductory note Mitterrand received about Rwanda
and Habyarimana before their first meeting, in 1982.271 In a press conference regarding this
meeting, the French president lauded his counterpart: “France has already recognized in you a
faithful friend, a Head of State who knows how to lead his people, a man on whom we can establish
a lasting friendship.”272 A few months later, during a brief visit to Kigali, Mitterrand declared after
meeting with Habyarimana: “We have forged a friendship. It will last and it will be demonstrated
in action, along the historic path that we will now walk together.”273
From their earliest conversations, the refugee situation was a major point of discussion
between the two presidents. Habyarimana raised the subject during their first meeting in Paris,
reportedly noting his concern “about the pressure at his border” and “the vulnerability of his
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residence near the [Kigali] airport.”274 Habyarimana made a point of mentioning his government’s
“need to obtain arms.”275
Mitterrand sympathized with Habyarimana’s refugee burden. In a 1984 speech, the French
president said: “I know, Mr. President, that your constant willingness to maintain good neighborly
relations cannot prevent a refugee problem, in your country or on your doorstep . . . . With an
already very large population, you now find yourself taking on burdens that should not normally
be yours.”276
Mitterrand’s view of Africa’s place, generally, in French foreign policy had changed little
since his ministerial service in the Fourth Republic, roughly a quarter-century earlier. He continued
to believe, in the words of one biographer, that “the raft of French-speaking territories which
stretched from Mauritania to Madagascar remained an essential part of France’s claim to
greatness.”277 “Mitterrand’s old dream of an empire ‘from Flanders to the Congo’ was gone,” the
biographer, Philip Short, wrote, “but ‘Françafrique,’ the vast domain south of the Sahara in which
Paris exercised special rights and responsibilities, lived on.”278 The French president’s desire to
placate African allies and preserve France’s influence on the continent likely fueled his decision,
in 1983, to send troops to Chad to help its president, Hissène Habré, quash an offensive by Libyan
forces and affiliated Chadian rebels.279 (Habré would later be sentenced to life in prison for torture,
rape, sexual slavery, and the ordering of the killing of 40,000 people.280)
General Jean Varret, a French Army Corps veteran who in October 1990 was named head
of France’s Military Cooperation Mission,281 once quipped, in hindsight, that Mitterrand’s Africa
policy in the 1980s could be summarized in just a few words: “It’s the struggle against the
Americans!”282 (Varret would be one of only a handful of officials in Mitterrand’s administration
to voice misgivings about France’s support for Habyarimana during the war in the early 1990s.)
Mitterrand mistrusted the United States’ increased influence after the Cold War and sought to
contain it.283 “Abhorrence is a bit strong, in my opinion,” Varret said. “But there was a wariness
of the Anglo-Saxon, the kind that is deft, that double-crosses. [Mitterrand] had perfectly identified
this devious policy of sidelining us.”284
In the 1980s, Mitterrand was not only opposed to a number of American proposals,285
including Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars,” but also resisted pressure
from the United States to join a trade boycott of the Soviet Bloc.286 “To go to New York in these
circumstances would be to recognize America’s imperium,” Mitterrand said during this time.287
Reflecting once on French-US relations, he commented: “We are members of the Atlantic Alliance
. . . . We are friends. But we are a bit like [a] cat and [a] dog in the same house.”288
Hubert Védrine, secretary-general of the Élysée and Mitterrand’s top adviser, has disputed
assertions that Mitterrand held anti-American views, recalling his boss’s “rather friendly relations
with Reagan, exceptional ones with George Bush.”289 Védrine claimed that anti-Americanism was
more of an issue among French military officers—including General Christian Quesnot,
Mitterrand’s top military advisor at the time of the war in Rwanda in the 1990s.290 “Quesnot,” he
said, “was very much that way, for example. Very . . . Fashoda, do you understand? Mitterrand
wasn’t. He didn’t give much of a damn.”291
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As the 1990s dawned and the Cold War came to an end, some of Mitterrand’s ministers
summoned the courage to challenge him about his “paternalistic” Africa policy, which, in their
view, “was becoming an anachronism.”292 Mitterrand chafed at the criticism, holding firm to the
belief, shared by several of his predecessors, that it was more important to maintain “stable
relations” with African leaders than to “promot[e] the welfare of their peoples.”293 When a staffer
pushed back, letting Mitterrand know he disagreed with his position, the president fumed: “You
too! . . . It’s idiotic!”294 Ultimately, though, Mitterrand relented. In June 1990, at a Franco-African
Summit at La Baule in western France, Mitterrand alluded to a new direction for French policy in
Africa, suggesting that, to continue to receive French aid, recipient nations would have to
democratize.295 “[B]y taking the road towards development, you will be committed on the road
towards democracy,” he declared in his opening remarks at the Summit.296 He chose his words so
carefully that a casual listener may well have missed their significance. It was only later, in a press
conference after the Summit, that he made the policy shift explicit: going forward, he explained,
authoritarian African regimes that resist liberalization could expect no more than “lukewarm aid”
from France, while “those who take the step with courage” could expect “enthusiastic aid.”297
Habyarimana, who had made a point of attending every one of the annual (or nearly annual)
Franco-African Summits since 1975,298 found himself, for once, out of sync with the Élysée.299
The remarks he prepared for the La Baule Summit were wholly at odds with Mitterrand’s, pressing
the contrary—and infinitely more self-serving—argument that, in Africa, economic development
must come first, democratization second.300 “For African countries to be able to continue to
advance towards their liberation, towards an ever more real, more authentic participation of all
actors in national development, there is . . . one condition that must be met,” he declared. “It is
necessary to recognize the need for our countries to have some economic stability.”301
Habyarimana seems to have intuited, though, that modest reforms—or even mere declarations of
an intent to implement reforms—would satisfy France enough to keep the aid to his government
flowing.302 In July 1990, he announced plans to establish a commission to open a “national
dialogue” about potential political reforms in Rwanda.303 Habyarimana personally appointed all of
the commission’s members.304
The policy Mitterrand announced at La Baule proved, in time, to be little more than window
dressing.305 One French Foreign Ministry official would later observe: “While maintaining the
course set by his speech in La Baule, he was not too demanding on the pace of democratization
and the quality of elections. His tolerance of electoral rigging even seemed quite high to me.”306
After La Baule, French aid to African countries transitioning to democracy actually decreased,
while debt relief measures aiding authoritarian regimes increased.307
Marcel Ruhurambuga308
Marcel was born in 1977. He was 16 years old at the time of the Genocide.
Dad was the first to be killed—at the beginning of May. First, they took all
of us, saying they were taking us to the district offices at Mukingi commune—
where they used to put people on buses and send them to Kabgayi. But then they
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took my Dad and Mum, my young brother, Serubibi Guido, and my sister,
Marcelline Mukakimenyi. Somewhere on the way, they let Mum go; and one of the
militia helped Serubibi Guido escape through the millet plantation because he
knew what would happen to them. The other attackers looked for him, but they
never found him. I found out later that they killed Marcelline at Karambo.
So they carried on with only my father. Then Dad was handed over to
another gang of killers on Mwendo hill. When he saw the perpetrators with
machetes and clubs, he decided to run away. The group that had taken him there
acted as if they didn’t want to kill him, but the other group ran after him and
grabbed him. He couldn’t run very fast—he was tired, and a lot of people were
chasing him. They led him towards Kiryango River, and when they got there, they
tied him up—his arms and legs were tied tightly. Then they threw him in the river
and drowned him. It was raining heavily, and the flowing water carried him along.
His executioners threw stones at his head, saying, “He can swim. He might get out
of the water.” So they did that until he died.
About a week after my father’s death, a soldier called Shyaka came. He
asked, “How could you kill Nicolas and leave his children? Why didn’t you
eliminate them all?” Then the killers added, “Especially that son who goes to
school. (I was in secondary school then.) He knows all the lnkotanyis’ secrets. He’s
part of them so he must be killed!”
My older brother, Gabriel Burabyo, was hiding at Rusizana’s house. One
night, Rusizana gave my brother some beer. Gabriel took it and got drunk. Then
Rusizana made him talk loudly. The gang of perpetrators that worked with Shyaka
climbed the fence and got inside. The last word I heard Gabriel say was, “Rusizana,
why did you betray me? We fed on the same breast, how could you do this to me?”
When they were babies, my mother had breastfed Rusizana and Gabriel at the same
time, like twins.
Gabriel was about 27. He fought the killers, but they stabbed him. I heard
him screaming. It was moonlight, so I followed them quietly to see how they would
kill him. I didn’t see clearly, but when we exhumed him and re‐buried his remains,
I realized they had stoned him to death.
The following day, around three o’clock in the afternoon, I was attacked in
my hiding place at Munyawera’s home. Then I hid in a shed, in a cow’s manger and
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used manure to cover myself. Maybe someone saw me. I don’t know what
happened. I just saw people searching the house and they later came to find me.
There was Shyaka and his brother, a female Interahamwe . . . and many
others whose names I didn’t know. They made me get out of the manger and took
my clothes off—except for my trousers and shirt. They took me to a place called
Kabuga, whipping my legs all the way, and I was subjected to the worst torture you
can imagine. They beat me up, spat in my face and forced me to move on my knees
and elbows.
…
They made us sit there and they hit us. They tied our arms behind our backs.
Then they took us to Mr. Silas’s ruined house and made us sit there near the septic
tank. That’s where they were throwing the people fleeing from Kibuye after they’d
been killed.
…
The worst times for me? When they took me to that latrine hole, I thought
my life was over. I’d just seen and heard what they did to my brother. All I could
think of was what heaven looked like. I wondered why it took them so long to kill
me. When the killer snatched a hammer, I thought he was going to smash my head
and finish me off. Fortunately—I guess it was by God’s will—he hit my neck instead
of my head. That’s how I survived.
When I pass by that pit now, I change a bit and behave differently. I feel
strange. It’s as though I lose my humanity. But I don’t have a cruel heart, the heart
to kill. I don’t feel like talking to anyone. I just say a prayer, no matter how short.
Just a word of thanksgiving to the Lord. But if I see someone related to the militias
at that time, I become aggressive. Sometimes I think of doing something horrible,
but because it isn’t in my nature, I just get over it.
…
I know there are some people who deny that genocide took place. I would
take them to memorial sites like Ntarama, Bisesero, Nyamata and other places like
Gikongoro. And I would ask them a single question, “Why do you think those
people died? Was it a thunder or floods? Did they commit suicide?”
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…
I know it’s very important to give my testimony so that the whole world,
and especially foreigners, will see it. People have to know about the genocide in
Rwanda and give it its significance. What I want to be remembered is the massive
number of innocent people who were killed. Those people would have been
helping the country to develop now. If you forget the genocide, it’s as if you don’t
value human rights.
G. Stateless and Persecuted in the Countries Where They Sought Refuge, Rwandan Refugees
Were Told They Could Not Return Home Because There Was No Room. War Ensued.
Habyarimana, to that point, had faced little pressure from Western countries to soften his
position on the refugee community’s demands to return to Rwanda. In a 1986 statement, his
political party’s central committee issued a statement flatly rejecting the refugees’ call for
collective repatriation.309 The committee maintained that the solution to the refugee problem was
to facilitate their integration, by way of naturalization or permanent settlement, in the countries
where they lived as refugees.310 The message was crafted in such a way as to appease the
international community, stressing the government’s concern for the refugees’ plight.311 To the
Rwandan diaspora, it was a watershed moment—enshrining in the platform of Rwanda’s only
political party that they would not be welcomed home. The Rwandese Alliance for National Unity
(RANU), a group formed in 1979 by young Rwandan intellectuals who had grown up in exile,
called out the statement as “shameless hypocrisy at its worst,” asserting the government was
effectively condemning refugees to “permanent exile, frustration and hardship.”312
The young men who founded RANU sought more than the mere return of refugees. The
group’s leaders, based in Nairobi and Kampala, articulated a broader goal of bringing about a
“political and social transformation” of Rwanda, defined not by ethnic factionalism, but by
“national unity” and “true democratic and socialist republicanism.”313 RANU’s growth was slow,
and its strategy of lobbying foreign embassies and international organizations to champion the
refugees’ cause gained little traction.314 At a time when President Habyarimana and his party, the
MRND, “still exerted confident control over [Rwanda] and benefitted from broad international
support,” RANU and other refugee organizations were all but “powerless,” as Kimonyo put it,
“because they only had their appeals to the international community.”315
Unable to transform Rwanda, RANU decided to transform itself. In 1986, the year the
MRND formally declared its opposition to repatriation, RANU’s leaders threw their support
behind a proposal to redefine the group’s mission and attract new members, particularly among
younger refugees.316 Dispensing with the more radical, socialist rhetoric of its earlier years, the
group chose, in December 1987, to adopt a minimalist, yet decidedly progressive, political
platform that would, it was hoped, appeal to all Rwandans.317 Its new eight-point political program
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stressed, above all, the organization’s desire to unite Rwandans of all ethnicities and endow the
country with strong democratic institutions, social services, and security for property and
persons.318 RANU leaders viewed these structural issues as critical.319 Refugees, they argued,
would only face new problems were they to return to a country that refused to treat people equally
under the law, that encouraged violence against civilians because of their ethnic background, and
that allowed only certain Rwandans to participate in civil society.320
The political program became the guiding document of a new organization born out of
RANU: the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).321 The RPF was the political wing, and the RPA—the
Rwandan Patriotic Army—its military. (Throughout this document, for ease of discussion, we will
use RPF to stand for both, unless there is an important distinction to be made between their
actions.) The new, two-part structure was a reflection of recent changes in RANU’s membership,
no less than of its increasing frustration with the inefficacy of RANU’s campaign to win the
support of the international community. An increasing number of RANU’s members in the late
1980s came from the ranks of Uganda’s National Resistance Army (NRA), the force that, in 1986,
toppled the Ugandan government and installed Yoweri Museveni as the country’s new
president.322 The NRA recruits were not the first to advocate for a military solution to the refugee
crisis; RANU had previously asserted the right to wage war, if necessary, to achieve its aims.323
Their presence, though, and their increasing influence within RANU (and later the RPF), helped
solidify the turn toward “warfare as the main means of action.”324 “Going home to Rwanda was
not possible without military struggle,” said Richard Sezibera, who would join the RPA as one of
its first medical officers. “We all listened to the radio. The government told us that Rwanda was
not for us—it was full.”325
The RPF’s military leaders were Fred Rwigema, who had risen to become second in
command of the Ugandan army, and Paul Kagame, who was deputy chief of the Ugandan military
intelligence service.326 Rwigema and Kagame would use their positions in the Ugandan military
to train recruits.327 Recruitment needed to be clandestine in order to evade Ugandan intelligence,
which became increasingly concerned about a Rwandan movement inside Uganda.328 Kagame’s
position in the intelligence service was especially valuable in this regard, providing him with cover
to operate in secret and move more freely than most.329
The core preparations took place in Uganda, where stealth training occurred within the
Ugandan Army under the cover of Ugandan military operations.330 Occasionally, this required
guile and swift coordination. For example, at one point, a Ugandan commandant informed
Museveni that the Rwandans in the Ugandan military were training foreigners—Somalis, he said—
at a facility west of Kampala, where, in fact, a Rwandan colonel was training Rwandan refugees
from Burundi.331 Museveni instructed Kagame to travel there and detain the Somalis.332 Kagame
tipped off the local NRA commanders (who were fellow RPF members), and “the Somalis”
promptly disappeared from camp; when Kagame arrived, he found only Ugandan nationals.333
Kagame ordered the commandant to write a letter of apology for lying to President Museveni.334
The case for regime change, by force or other means, only grew stronger as a series of
crises gripped Rwanda at the tail end of the 1980s.335 The economy had been hard hit, mid-way
through the decade, by the collapse of the international market for coffee and tea, the country’s
chief exports.336 A 1989 drought worsened matters, with chronic food shortages in much of the
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country causing more than 1,000 people to die of hunger.337 As unemployment grew, so did violent
crime.338 These crises eroded public support for Habyarimana and the MRND to such an extent
that, in 1990, more than one well-connected Rwandan told RPF leaders in Uganda that the regime
“was on the verge of collapse and any strong push from outside would complete the process.”339
By mid-1990, rumors of an attack from the RPF military were commonplace.340 France’s
new ambassador in Kigali, Georges Martres, had in fact heard the rumors as early as March 1990
and had advised President Mitterrand that Habyarimana would likely highlight his country’s
security concerns at the two presidents’ next meeting in Paris that April.341 Martres seemed to view
Habyarimana’s fears as overblown. “[T]he Tutsi emigrant opposition would only constitute a real
danger [to Habyarimana] if it were able to provoke an armed strike with support from abroad,”
Martres wrote in a March 1990 cable, appearing to suggest he did not view this as likely.342
Mitterrand’s advisors knew enough to prepare the French president to expect Habyarimana
to present a wide range of requests at their 2 April 1990 meeting, including not only a new
presidential plane to replace the one President Pompidou had gifted Habyarimana in the mid1970s, but an anti-aircraft defense system to protect Kigali.343 The view in the Élysée was that
Rwanda had no need for an anti-aircraft defense system.344 Mitterrand, as previously noted, chose
to grant the request for a new plane (and a crew to fly and maintain it).345 It was hoped, according
to Mitterrand’s staff, that this would appease Habyarimana enough to excuse France’s reluctance
to grant some of his other requests—in particular, for “military equipment whose necessity does
not seem obvious to us.”346
The Rwandan government did not cease to press France for military equipment, including
the requested anti-aircraft defense system, after the two presidents’ meeting in April 1990.347 At
the same time, though, other problems, beyond the perceived security threat from Tutsi refugees,
were becoming more and more pressing for Habyarimana and his administration. In August, a
group of 33 intellectuals issued a highly publicized manifesto demanding political pluralism in
Rwanda.348 It was understood that the drafters of this document were planning to form opposition
parties there.349
Habyarimana, according to the historian Gérard Prunier, was “jockeying for survival.”350
From the president’s perspective, a military attack on Rwandan government forces may have
appeared to offer an opportunity to galvanize domestic support.351 As Prunier would later
speculate:
In trying to use the external threat to quell the internal one, Habyarimana held a
major trump-card—the French fear of an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ erosion of their position
on the French continent—and it was this which probably made him decide to
embark on the risky course of not trying to deflect the invasion through serious
negotiation . . . . Habyarimana calculated that Paris would back him in any event,
and he was right.352
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Notes to Chapter I
1
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100-01 (1995).
2
See GERARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 100 (1995); JEAN-FRANÇOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES, MILITAIRES ET
MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS [FRENCH POLITICS, SOLDIERS AND MERCENARIES IN RWANDA] 62 (2014). The Élysée Palace
is the official residence and office of the President of the French Republic.
3
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (15 Sept. 1990) (Subject: “Participation aux
cérémonies de remise du Prix ‘Leadership Afrique de lutte contre la faim’”); see Fax from Rwandan Embassy in
Washington (13 Sept. 1990) (describing President Habyarimana’s travel plans).
4
U.N. GAOR, 45th Sess., 13th mtg., U.N. Doc. A/45/PV.13 (4 Oct. 1990). Habyarimana’s statements were made on
28 Sept. 1990 before the General Assembly.
5
U.N. GAOR, 45th Sess., 4th mtg., U.N. Doc. A/45/PV.4 (27 Sept. 1990). Mitterrand’s statements were made on 24
Sept. 1990 before the General Assembly.
6
UN GAOR, 45th Sess., 13th mtg. at 6-7, 16, UN Doc. A/45/PV.13 (4 Oct. 1990); UN GAOR, 45th Sess., 4th mtg. at
31-32, UN Doc. A/45/PV.4 (27 Sept. 1990).
7
UN GAOR, 45th Sess., 4th mtg. at 31, UN Doc. A/45/PV.4 (27 Sept. 1990).
8
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 80 (2016) (“The movement [i.e., the RPF] was made up
of Rwandan refugees living in Uganda as well as those scattered in neighboring countries and elsewhere around the
world. The RPF demanded the rule of law, the abolition of ethnic and regional discrimination policies, and the right
of return for refugees.”).
9
Cable from American Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Invaders Consolidate
Hold on Rwandan Territories; GOR Prepares for Second Offensive”).
10
See Sam Mukalazi, Refugees No More?, AFRICA EVENTS 22 (Nov. 1990); STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS
50 (2008); MIP Tome I 67 (stating that the latest estimates of political refugees from Rwanda by the early 1990s were
600,000 to 700,000 refugees).
11
See US Central Intelligence Agency, Africa Review, Rwanda: Tutsi Exiles Challenge Rwandan Stability (12 Oct.
1990).
12
See ANTOINE MUGESERA, IMIBEREHO Y’ABATUTSI MU RWANDA 1959-1990 [THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF THE TUTSI
IN RWANDA 1959-1990] 279-81 (2nd ed. 2015).
13
Sam Mukalazi, Refugees No More?, AFRICA EVENTS 22 (Nov. 1990).
14
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 80 (2016).
15
Sam Mukalazi, Refugees No More?, AFRICA EVENTS 22 (Nov. 1990).
16
See MONIQUE MAS, PARIS-KIGALI 1990-1994 40 (1999); Memorandum from the Rwandan Embassy in Kampala
(26 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Traduction d’une dépêche d’une journaliste de New Vision: Résume de l’interview du
Président Museveni sur invasion du Rwanda par refugies rwandais de la NRA et quelques éléments Ugandais”).
17
See Ogenga Otunnu, An Historical Analysis of the Invasion by the Rwanda Patriotic Army, in THE PATH OF A
GENOCIDE 44 (Howard Adelman & Astri Suhrke eds. 1999) (citing NEW VISION, 11 Oct. 1990); Memorandum from
the Rwandan Embassy in Kampala (26 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Traduction d’une dépêche d’une journaliste de New
Vision: Résume de l’interview du Président Museveni sur invasion du Rwanda par refugies rwandais de la NRA et
quelques éléments Ugandais”). Five a.m. Eastern Daylight Time in New York would have been 1 p.m. in Kampala,
Uganda and 12 p.m. in Kigali, Rwanda.
18
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
19
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame. According to Kagame, RPF leaders were aware that Museveni’s government
“had mounted intelligence against us.” “[T]here were a lot of rumors around, some of them true,” Kagame has said.
“Increasingly, the government of Uganda was getting jittery about the level of preparations. They were getting
suspicious.” STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 63 (2008). Rwandan intelligence had, in the months before the
invasion, received reports about the creation of a “military branch” of the RPF; however, the head of the Ugandan
external security service assured his Rwandan counterpart that the Ugandan government was committed to ensuring
Page | 25
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
that “no refugee will attack Rwanda from Uganda.” See Memorandum from Augustin Nduwayezu to Juvénal
Habyarimana (approximately 10 Sept. 1990) (Subject: “sur la reunion tripartite de sécurité Rwanda-Uganda-Zaïre”).
President Museveni had his own reputation to protect. As chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), he
could expect that an attack emanating from his country would “reflect[]very badly” on him and his government.
WILLIAM PIKE, COMBATANTS: A MEMOIR OF THE BUSH WAR AND THE PRESS IN UGANDA 203 (2019). Museveni, for
his own part, has been less than consistent in his responses to questions about his relationship with RPF leaders in the
lead-up to the war. In a call with a journalist on the evening of 2 October 1990, the day after the attack, Museveni
said, “This took us by surprise. We had been getting intelligence reports which we shared with the Rwanda authorities
but they were not confirmed. . . . We got some information that people were deserting but what surprised us was the
scale and rapidity of the desertions.” WILLIAM PIKE, COMBATANTS: A MEMOIR OF THE BUSH WAR AND THE PRESS IN
UGANDA 203 (2019). Years later, Museveni told a documentary film team a different story: “I kept telling Rwigema .
. . please we have fought here in Uganda and won. But we fought because we had the support of the population in
Rwanda [to] continue to do political work. I will support you because I don’t want you to be defeated and come back
here.” INKOTANYI (2017) (documentary directed by Christophe Cotteret) (at approximately 14:40-15:10).
20
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame. President Kagame explained that President Museveni first tapped Fred
Rwigema—second in command of the Ugandan army and, surreptitiously, the leader of the RPF’s army—for the
training at Fort Leavenworth. When Rwigema claimed personal problems would prevent his attendance, President
Museveni decided Kagame would go instead.
21
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame. The officers’ desertions were not without consequence. Soon after learning
of the invasion, the NRA contacted Rwigema over radio and informed him that “he and his forces are considered
deserters and will be arrested if they attempt to retreat back to Uganda.” The day after the invasion, the NRA had
arrested more than 100 Rwandans who had abandoned their NRA units and were caught on the way to join Rwigema.
Cable from Robert Gribbin to US Secretary of State (3 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “NRA General leads Tutsi invasion”).
Fourteen NRA roadblocks went up from Kampala to Mbarara to prevent more Rwandans from reaching the border.
FRANÇOIS MISSER, VERS UN NOUVEAU RWANDA? [TOWARD A NEW RWANDA?] 21 (1995). To avoid being detected at
the roadblocks, Richard Sezibera, a medical doctor, had to travel through Uganda on the floor of a lorry bed, concealed
by coffee sacks, along with 14 other Rwandans who did not receive a bathroom break for the 11-hour duration of the
ride. Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera.
22
Ogenga Otunnu, An Historical Analysis of the Invasion by the Rwanda Patriotic Army, in THE PATH OF A GENOCIDE
44 (Howard Adelman & Astri Suhrke eds. 1999).
23
LA COMMISSION DE RECHERCHE SUR LES ARCHIVES FRANÇAISES RELATIVES AU RWANDA ET AU GENOCIDE DES
TUTSI, LA FRANCE, LE RWANDA ET LE GENOCIDE DES TUTSI (1990-1994) [FRANCE, RWANDA AND THE TUTSI
GENOCIDE (1990-1994)] (26 Mar. 2021) [hereinafter Duclert Commission Report] 42 (quoting ADIPLO,
20200018AC/3. TD Kigali 487, 1 Oct. 1990).
24
Duclert Commission Report 42 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3. TD Kigali 487, 1 Oct. 1990).
25
Duclert Commission Report 42-43 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3. TD Kigali 487, 1 Oct. 1990).
26
See HERMAN J. COHEN, INTERVENING IN AFRICA 163-64 (2000); see also Letter from Aloys Uwimana to Rwandan
Minister of Foreign Affairs (27 Sept. 1990) (Subject: “Visite Presidentielle”).
27
HERMAN J. COHEN, INTERVENING IN AFRICA 163-64 (2000).
28
HERMAN J. COHEN, INTERVENING IN AFRICA 164 (2000).
29
HERMAN J. COHEN, INTERVENING IN AFRICA 164 (2000) (describing Habyarimana as “incredulous”).
30
Memorandum de Cooperation Militaire Franco-Rwandaise (31 May 1990) (unsigned Rwandan memorandum
prepared in anticipation of an upcoming meeting with the French Military Cooperation Mission and summarizing
French technical assistance, training, and material assistance).
31
Duclert Commission Report 43 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3. TD Kigali 490, 2 Oct. 1990. Situation as of
October 2, 1990 at 11:00 a.m.).
32
Duclert Commission Report 43 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3. TD Kigali 490, 2 Oct. 1990. Situation as of
October 2, 1990 at 11:00 a.m.).
33
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 110, 112 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
Page | 26
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
34
Le President Habyarimana commence lundi une visite officielle en France [President Habyarimana begins official
visit to France on Monday], AFP, 31 Mar. 1990.
35
Memorandum from Claude Arnaud to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du president du Rwanda
(lundi 2 avril)”); see MIP Tome I 21-23 (providing details about French cooperation in Rwanda before the war).
France’s support, both moral and financial, mattered greatly to the Habyarimana regime in the years before the war.
World coffee prices had collapsed in the mid-1980s, as did prices for tin, which put an end to mining in Rwanda. By
the late 1980s, Rwanda was more than ever reliant on foreign aid, even as it was forced to compete for an ever-smaller
share of international assistance. See GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 84 (1995).
36
See Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (26 May 1990) (Subject: “Rapport de mission
consécutif à Vos visites officielle et privée en France du 2 au 9 avril 1990”); Memorandum from Alphonse
Mpatswenumugabo to Juvénal Habyarimana (1 Apr. 1990) (Subject: “Programme detaille de sejour en France du
president de la republique Rwandaise”). Monetary figures in this report are provided in French francs and US dollars.
As necessary, amounts have been converted to US dollars using the online historical currency converter at
https://fxtop.com/en/historical-currency-converter.php. Amounts have not been adjusted for inflation.
37
See Memorandum from Claude Arnaud to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du president du
Rwanda (lundi 2 avril)”). Habyarimana had been agitating for a plane to replace his old Caravelle jet aircraft, naming
it as his “main request” when he met with Mitterrand in Dakar. Id.; see also Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu
to Juvénal Habyarimana (2 June 1989). Bizimungu attached a draft letter for Habyarimana to send to Mitterrand “as
a follow-up to the tête-à-tête you had on 25 May 1989 in Dakar, on the sidelines of the Third Summit of the
Francophonie.” Bizimungu drafted the letter to “stress[] the excellence and solidity of the friendly relations maintained
by our two peoples, and tactfully leads to the promises made by the French Head of State during the aforementioned
meeting, particularly with regard to the replacement of the Impala Caravelle by a new aircraft.”
38
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (23 May 1990) (Subject: “Votre entretien en têteà-tête avec le Président François Mitterrand au Palais de l’Élysée le 2 avril 1990”). In his memorandum, Bizimungu
continued to flatter Habyarimana, writing: “And, indeed, and [this is] rare, the French President made a point of telling
You, during the discussion, that he was aware of the seriousness with which Rwanda manages public affairs and that
he personally appreciates You very much as a politician. A statement of this nature from the mouth of Mitterrand
testifies unequivocally that he had been briefed on Rwanda and its President and that he had not allowed himself to
be intoxicated by the negative literature about our country concocted by certain Ministry of Cooperation officials.”
39
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100-01 n.15 (1995) (“The Africa Unit (Cellule
Africaine) is part of the French presidential office which benefits from a high degree of independence where decisionmaking in Africa is concerned. It is under the direct control of the President himself. Its existence, an oddity in
administrative terms, is a reflection of the very peculiar status Africa enjoys in the French political landscape.”).
40
See FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 186-94 (1989); Jean-Pierre Bat, Les Diamants (de
Bokassa) sont éternels. Pré carré et guerre fraîche: la fabrique de la Françafrique [Diamonds (from Bokassa) Are
Forever. Pré Carré and the Guerre Fraîche: The Fabric of Françafrique], in AFRIQUE CONTEMPORAINE 142 (2013).
41
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 188 (1989).
42
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 155 (1989); see JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ
[WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 159 (2001) (noting that when Admiral Jacques Lanxade, Mitterrand’s
chief military advisor at the start of the war in Rwanda in 1990, “was first assigned to the Élysée in 1989, the Africa
Cell was the one in charge of [Africa] policy”). The Ministry of Cooperation did not play the significant role it was
supposed to: it was a “technical ministry,” as “the African policy was done at the Élysée.” François Garnier, Entretien
avec l’Amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], in LA NUIT RWANDAISE 81, 92 (Nov.
2015).
43
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 155 (1989).
44
See JEAN-CHRISTOPHE MITTERRAND, MÉMOIRE MEURTRIE [BITTER MEMORIES] 23, 52, 56 (2001).
45
See L.V., Jean-Christophe, un conseiller sulfureux [Jean-Christophe, a Nefarious Advisor], LE PARISIEN, 2 Dec.
2000; Guy Penne, le ‘Foccart de Gauche,’ [Guy Penne, The ‘Foccart of the Left’], AFRIQUE CONTEMPORAINE (last
visited 25 Feb. 2021).
Page | 27
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
46
See Karl Laske, ‘Papamadit’, VRP Africain du président [‘Daddy Told Me,’ the President’s Traveling Salesman in
Africa], LIBÉRATION, 23 Dec. 2000; FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 188 (1989) (describing
Foccart as a “kingmaker”).
47
Karl Laske, ‘Papamadit’, VRP Africain du président [‘Daddy Told Me,’ the President’s Traveling Salesman in
Africa], LIBÉRATION, 23 Dec. 2000.
48
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 203 (1989).
49
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100 (1995). Prunier was in Jean-Christophe
Mitterrand’s office that day to offer advice on international affairs. The two men were discussing Sudanese affairs
when Habyarimana called. See JEAN-FRANÇOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES, MILITAIRES ET MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS
[FRENCH POLITICS, SOLDIERS AND MERCENARIES IN RWANDA] 62 (2014).
50
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100 (1995).
51
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 100-01 (1995).
52
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 101 (1995).
53
François Mitterrand, Présence française et abandon, in POLITIQUE ÉTRANGÈRE 706-09 (1957); see also Tony
Chafer, French African Policy: Towards Change, in AFRICAN AFFAIRS 40 (Jan. 1992).
54
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 123-24 (1989) (including chart detailing French military interventions
in 13 different African countries between 1959 and 1986).
55
Le Dispositif français de “dissuasion” se met en place rapidement Jaguar et Mirage F-1 ont atterri à N'Djamena
[The French Deterrence Strategy is Rapidly Put in Place, Jaguar and Mirage F-1 Landed in N’Djamena], LE MONDE,
19 Feb. 1986; PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 491 (2013).
56
Jean De La Guérivière, 200 paras français au Togo à la demande de M. Eyadema [200 French Paras in Togo,
Answering a Request from Mr. Eyadema], LE MONDE, 27 Sept. 1986; JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 136
(1989).
57
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 136 (1989).
58
Christian Hoche, Le Testament africain de François Mitterrand [African Testimony of François Mitterrand],
L’EXPRESS, 10 Nov. 1994; see also PIERRE FAVIER & MICHEL MARTIN-ROLAND, LA DÉCENNIE MITTERRAND: LES
RUPTURES (1981-1984) [THE MITTERRAND DECADE. THE BREAKS (1981-1984] 426-27 (1990); Philippe Marchesin,
Mitterrand l’africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE 5, 9 (June 1995).
59
Philippe Marchesin, Mitterrand l’africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE 5, 9 (June 1995).
60
Daniel Bourmaud, France in Africa Politics and French Foreign Policy, in A JOURNAL OF OPINION 58, 60 (1995).
61
Daniel Bourmaud, France in Africa Politics and French Foreign Policy, in A JOURNAL OF OPINION 58, 60 (1995).
Daniel Bourmaud, France in Africa Politics and French Foreign Policy, in A JOURNAL OF OPINION 58, 60 (1995).
62
63
Daniel Bourmaud, France in Africa Politics and French Foreign Policy, in A JOURNAL OF OPINION 58, 60-61 (1995)
(noting that “because it allowed France to preserve the appearance of a great power, Africa assured the very survival
of France”); see also Tony Chafer, French African Policy: Towards Change, in AFRICAN AFFAIRS 40 n.10 (Jan. 1992)
(citing Michel Aurillac, the French minister of cooperation from 1986-88).
64
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 149 (2013). Mitterrand
would describe his tenure as the head of this Ministry as “the major experience of his political life, which has
determined its evolution.” 1946-1957: Le Plus jeune des ministres de la IVe Republique [1946-1957: The Youngest
Minister of the Fifth Republic], INSTITUT FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND (last visited on 24 Nov. 2020).
65
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 150 (2013).
66
See RONALD TIERSKY, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND: A VERY FRENCH PRESIDENT 91-92 (2000).
67
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 151 (2013).
68
François Mitterrand, Présence française et abandon [French Presence and Abandonment] in POLITIQUE ÉTRANGÈRE
706-09 (1957); see also Tony Chafer, French African Policy: Towards Change, in AFRICAN AFFAIRS 40 (Jan. 1992).
69
FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, AUX FRONTIÈRES DE L’UNION FRANÇAISE [AT THE BOUNDARIES OF THE FRENCH UNION]
39 (1953).
Page | 28
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
70
FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, AUX FRONTIÈRES DE L’UNION FRANÇAISE [AT THE BOUNDARIES OF THE FRENCH UNION]
39 (1953).
71
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 170-75 (2013).
72
François Mitterrand, Allocution sur la Toussaint sanglante [Commentary on the Toussaint Sanglante] (7 Nov.
1954); PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 174-75 (2013).
73
Deux Articles de Mm. F. Mauriac et C. Bourdet sur les méthodes policières en Algérie [Two Articles of F. Mauriac
and C. Bourdet on Police Methods in Algeria], LE MONDE, 15 Jan. 1955.
74
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 183-84 (2013).
75
Emmanuel Berretta, François Mitterrand, un guillotineur en Algérie [François Mitterrand, a Guillotiner in
Algeria], LE POINT, 4 Nov. 2010. President Emmanuel Macron recently announced that the declassification of secret
archives more than 50 years old would be accelerated, a move that will facilitate access to documents related to the
Algerian War. Constant Méheut, France Eases Access, a Little, to Its Secrets, N.Y. TIMES, 9 March 2021.
76
See JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 105-07 (1989); PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE
MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 197-98 (2013).
FOR INTRIGUE:
THE
77
See Tony Chafer, French African Policy: Towards Change, in AFRICAN AFFAIRS 44 (Jan. 1992). See also FRANCIS
TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 95 (1989) (explaining that France “wished to avoid at all costs a
repetition of the dreadful colonial wars [it] had experienced in Indochina and [was] experiencing in Algeria”).
78
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 96-98 (1989); see also Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de
la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981] 12 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université
Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
79
See FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 96 (1989); BRUNO CHARBONNEAU, FRANCE AND THE
NEW IMPERIALISM 53 (2008). As discussed in the next section, France signed a series of cooperation agreements with
Rwanda in the early 1960s. Those agreements were followed by a technical military assistance agreement in 1975.
80
See David Servenay, Les Accords secrets avec l’Afrique: encore d'époque? [Secret Agreements with Africa: Another
Era?], L’OBSERVATEUR, 2 Nov. 2016; Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981
[France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981] 12 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
81
ANTOINE GLASER & SMITH STEPHEN, L’AFRIQUE SANS AFRICAINS [AFRICA WITHOUT AFRICANS] 117 (1994); see
also David Servenay, Les Accords secrets avec l'Afrique: encore d'époque? [Secret Agreements with Africa: Another
Era?], L’OBSERVATEUR, 2 Nov. 2016.
82
Guy Martin, Continuity and Change in Franco-African Relations, in JOURNAL OF MODERN AFRICAN STUDIES 10
(Mar. 1995). In 1991, 20 percent of French imports from Africa were agricultural and 45 percent were raw energy and
fuel products. France’s heavy reliance on raw materials rather than finished goods deprived erstwhile African
manufacturers of opportunities to develop. This imbalance created an unhealthy reliance on France for such goods.
83
Yves Lacoste, La Question postcoloniale [The Postcolonial Question], in HERODOTE 10 (2006); Jean-Pierre Bat,
Le Rôle de la France après les indépendances: Jacques Foccart et la pax gallica [Role of France After the
Independences: Jacques Foccart and the Pax Gallica], in AFRIQUE CONTEMPORAINE 43 (2010); Elise Lambert,
Pourquoi la France a-t-elle du mal à regarder son histoire coloniale en face? [Why Does France Struggle to Face its
Colonial Past?], FRANCEINFO, 13 Oct. 2020 (interview with Christelle Taraud); FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA,
FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 97 (1989).
84
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981]
13 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
85
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 98 (1989).
86
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 98 (1989).
87
STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 24 (2008).
88
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 17 (2016); STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 24
(2008).
89
Rwanda: A Brief History of the Country, UNITED NATIONS (last visited 25 Feb. 2021).
Page | 29
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
90
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981]
5, 26-27 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) (citing French cable dated 24 Nov. 1961).
91
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981]
21, 27 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
92
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981]
20 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
93
ANTOINE-THEOPHILE NYETERA, THE RWANDA CONFLICT FROM 1990 TO 1994 165-66 (2000).
94
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 37 (2016); Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France
au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981] 20 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I
Panthéon-Sorbonne).
95
See GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 26-27 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 21-23 (2016). While the distinctions among Rwanda’s three main identity groups—
Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa—long predate the colonial era, the resentments that would come to define ethnic relations in
Rwanda in the 20th century were not always so pernicious. As historian Jean-Paul Kimonyo has explained, the three
groups were, at one time, a single cultural entity with a common language and religion, living intermingled within the
same territory overseen by a single monarch, which at the time was of Tutsi lineage. Relations among the groups could
be tense. Id. at 9, 13. However, as Prunier, the French historian, observed, “there is no trace in [Rwanda’s] precolonial
history of systematic violence between Tutsi and Hutu as such.” GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY
OF A GENOCIDE 39 (1995). Even with Tutsi holding the principal positions of power, most Tutsi lived under similar
conditions as Hutu. See LAURIEN UWIZEYIMANA, OCTOBRE ET NOVEMBRE 1990 LE FRONT PATRIOTIQUE RWANDAIS À
L’ASSAUT DU MUTARA [OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER 1990, THE RWANDAN PATRIOTIC FRONT] 7 (Sept. 1992); GÉRARD
PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 39 (1995) (explaining that average family income was
similar between Tutsi and Hutu, but that Twa families, on the other hand, earned roughly a third of the average Tutsi
or Hutu family). Rwanda’s German rulers, after first setting foot in Rwanda in the early 1890s, encouraged the
monarchy to centralize its authority, thereby simplifying Germany’s control over Rwanda’s complex local governance
system and ethnic makeup. Id. at 2, 9, 25. Their justification had an unequivocally racist component. As Kimonyo
summarized, “the colonialists identified Tutsis as the superior race, born to rule over the Hutu, who in turn were
destined to be servants, whereas the Twa were relegated to the less than human.” JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S
POPULAR GENOCIDE 19 (2016). Belgium, in turn, deepened colonial reliance on the Tutsi elite to exert control. See
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 25-26 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S
POPULAR GENOCIDE 33 (2016). Anthropologist and international development scholar Lyndsay McLean Hilker has
written, “[T]he history of ethnic identification in Rwanda is complex and contested. While the labels ‘Hutu,’ ‘Tutsi’
and ‘Twa’ existed prior to the colonial period… it is broadly agreed that the differences between these groups were
racialised, accentuated and institutionalised under Belgian colonial rule.” LYNDSAY MCLEAN HILKER, THE ROLE OF
EDUCATION IN DRIVING CONFLICT AND BUILDING PEACE: BACKGROUND PAPER PREPARED FOR UNESCO FOR THE
EFA GLOBAL MONITORING REPORT 2011 4-5 (2010) (emphasis in original) (internal citations omitted). In 1933—nine
years before the Nazis required Jews in Belgium to affix yellow stars to their clothing to mark them for future
deportation and extermination—Belgium introduced ethnic identity cards to Rwanda. The cards officially and
permanently characterized individual Rwandans according to how the Belgians perceived their ethnicity. STEPHEN
KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 26 (2008).
96
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 25-30 (2016).
97
See ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 21-22 (2019); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 29
(2016).
98
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 29 (2016).
99
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 29 (2016).
100
See FIDH Report 5-6 (1993); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 30 (2016); GÉRARD PRUNIER,
THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 47 (1995).
101
See GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY
RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 31 (2016).
OF A
GENOCIDE 48-49 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
102
U.N. Trusteeship Council, Visiting Mission to Trust Territories in East Africa, 1960, REPORT ON RUANDA-URUNDI,
T/1538, 82 (3 June 1960) (“According to the information received, there are about 200 dead. The actual figure is
surely much higher, for the people, when they can, prefer to carry off their dead and burry them silently.”).
103
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 31 (2016).
104
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 31 (2016); LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 17
(2nd ed. 2009).
105
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 17 (2nd ed. 2009).
106
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 31 (2016).
107
UN GAOR, 15th Sess., 1137th mgt., UN Doc. A/C.4/SR.1137, 265 (11 Apr. 1961) (“Mr. Koscziusko-Morizet
(France) said that his delegation had no direct or indirect interest in the question of Ruanda-Urundi…. France, which
itself followed a policy of decolonization, hoped that a like policy, bringing with it peace, prosperity and reconciliation,
would prevail in Ruanda-Urundi.”)
108
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 19, 26-27 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); see JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 32-33 (2016).
109
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 27 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
110
Olivier Thimonier, Aux sources de la coopération franco-rwandaise, in GOLIAS MAGAZINE no. 101, 14, 16
(Mar./Apr. 2005) (citing French cable from Oct. 1961).
111
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 48 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
112
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 32-34 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
113
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 104-05 (1995).
114
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 104-05 (1995).
115
Lieutenant Winston Spencer-Churchill, The Fashoda Incident, in THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 736-43 (Dec.
1898).
116
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 105 (1995). The confrontation in Fashoda
occurred amid the “scramble for Africa,” in which both countries were vying for control of disputed territories in
Africa. Decades after the standoff, the French force’s unconditional withdrawal from Fashoda, in the face of Britain’s
vastly larger military expedition, remained a bitter memory, emblematic of “British brutality and injustice.” P. M. H.
BELL, FRANCE AND BRITAIN 1900-1940: ENTENTE AND ESTRANGEMENT 3, 9-10 (1996).
117
Olivier Thimonier, Aux sources de la coopération franco-rwandaise [The Origins of Franco-Rwandan
cooperation], in GOLIAS MAGAZINE no. 101, 14, 16 (Mar./Apr. 2005) (citing French cable from Oct. 1961).
118
Olivier Thimonier, Aux sources de la coopération franco-rwandaise [The Origins of Franco-Rwandan
cooperation], in GOLIAS MAGAZINE no. 101, 14, 16 (Mar./Apr. 2005) (citing French cable from Oct. 1961).
119
Olivier Thimonier, Aux sources de la coopération franco-rwandaise [The Origins of Franco-Rwandan
cooperation], in GOLIAS MAGAZINE no. 101, 14, 16 (Mar./Apr. 2005) (citing French cable from Oct. 1961).
120
Friendship and Cooperation Agreement, Fr. – Rw., 20 Oct. 1962.
121
Friendship and Cooperation Agreement, Fr. – Rw., 20 Oct. 1962; Agreement on cultural and technical cooperation
between the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Republic of France, Rw. – Fr., 20 Oct. 1962; Radio
Cooperation Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Rwanda and the Government of the French
Republic, Fr. – Rw., 20 Oct. 1962.
122
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 48 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
123
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 48 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
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Chapter I
124
BAUDOUIN PATERNOSTRE DE LA MAIRIEU, VIE DE KAYIBANDA
KAYIBANDA, FIRST PRESIDENT OF RWANDA], 44, 54, 63, 74-75 (1994).
1959 – September 1990
PREMIER PRESIDENT DU
RWANDA [LIFE
OF
125
Const. of the Rwandese Republic art. 5 (24 Nov. 1962); Mel McNulty, France’s Role in Rwanda and External
Military Intervention: A Double Discrediting in INTERNATIONAL PEACEKEEPING 43 n.10 (1997) (noting that French
“has been an official language of Rwanda since independence”).
126
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 32 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
127
NICOLE EVEN, ARCHIVES DE CHARLES DE GAULLE, PRESIDENT DE LA REPUBLIQUE (1959-1969) 104, 148, 340, 408,
(2012) (containing entries of President Kayiibanda visits in France, including, for example, at 104, “Déjeuner en
l’honneur de Grégoire Kayibanda, président du Rwanda, 17 octobre 1962”); see also Olivier Thimonier, La Politique
de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981] 29, 73 (2001) (Master’s thesis,
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne). Kayibanda was quoted as saying, after meeting President de Gaulle in 1962:
“I knew of General de Gaulle’s desire to see the countries he led to independence fully enjoy it by helping them
develop their natural resources. I can now see that this concern also extends to countries which were not under French
guardianship.” MIP Tome I 18-19.
128
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 73 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
129
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 123 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
130
Question on the Future of Ruanda-Urundi: Interim Report of the United Nations Commission for Ruanda-Urundi,
A/4706 (8 Mar. 1961).
131
Question on the Future of Ruanda-Urundi: Interim Report of the United Nations Commission for Ruanda-Urundi,
A/4706 (8 Mar. 1961).
132
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 34 (2016); GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS:
HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 51-53 (1995); Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981
[France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to 1981] (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) 45 (2001); see
also MIP Tome I 19 (stating that the Rwandan government accredited the first French ambassador to Kigali in May
1964).
133
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 56 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S
POPULAR GENOCIDE 34 (2016).
134
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 34 (2016).
135
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 56 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S
POPULAR GENOCIDE 34-35 (2016); DAVID RAWSON, PRELUDE TO GENOCIDE 9 (2018); US Central Intelligence
Agency, Current Intelligence Weekly Summary 10 (14 Feb. 1964) (“President Kayibanda . . . threatens to exterminate
the 250,000 or so [Tutsi] who remain in Rwanda if the attacks continue.”).
136
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 34 (2016).
137
A.J., De sanglants incidents auraient lieu au Ruanda [Bloody Incidents Taking Place in Rwanda], LE MONDE, 17
Jan. 1964.
138
Trois mille Tutsis au Congo-Léopoldville lanceraient une attaque suicide contre le Ruanda [Three Thousand Tutsi
Refugees in Congo-Leopoldville Said to Have Launched a “Suicide Attack” Against Rwanda], LE MONDE, 6 Feb.
1964.
139
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 38, 43 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) (noting that Belgium had been
“responsible for setting up a Rwandan army by training officers and non-commissioned officers”).
140
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 74 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) (citing French cables dated 13 Sept. 1965
and 12 Feb. 1966).
141
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 74 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) (citing French cables dated 13 Sept. 1965
and 12 Feb. 1966).
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
142
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 74 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne). A challenge in understanding what
Habyarimana was looking for is that there is not a universally accepted definition or description of “gendarmerie.”
Usually, however, when contrasting gendarmerie to a police force, the focus is on the gendarmerie’s military
characteristics and reporting structure as opposed to a civilian police force. See DEREK LUTTERBECK, THE PARADOX
OF GENDARMERIES: BETWEEN EXPANSION, DEMILITARIZATION AND DISSOLUTION 7 (2013) (SSR Paper 8, Center for
the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces).
143
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 75 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
144
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 46 (2019).
145
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 43-44 (2019).
146
STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 37 (2008).
147
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 18, 28, 44 (2019). Habyarimana hailed from Rambura Parish, outside the
northwest town of Gisenyi, which sits atop Lake Kivu on the border with Goma in what was then Zaire. His wife,
Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana, was from the neighboring commune of Giciye in a region called Bushiru.
148
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 44-46 (2019).
149
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 47-48 (2019).
150
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 44-48 (2019).
151
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 48 (2019); see also JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE
38-39 (2016).
152
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 91-92 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
153
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 91 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
154
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 92 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
155
Juvénal Habyarimana, Message Addressed to the Nation by the High Command of the National Guard (5 July
1973) (read on Radio Rwanda by Commander Théoneste Lizinde) in JAMES K. GASANA, RWANDA: DU PARTI-ETAT À
L’ETAT-GARNISON 24-25 (2002).
156
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 6263 (2019).
157
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 28 (2019); GABRIEL PÉRIÈS & DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE:
ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS [A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN
GENOCIDE] 235 (2007) (noting “Agathe Kanziga originating from an important family of Bushiru”).
158
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 28 (2019); Belgian Senate Report 143 (1997) (“President Habyarimana was
born in the commune of Karago, but he . . . did not come from a [well respected] lineage.”).
159
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 28 (2019).
160
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 15-16, 28-29 (2019).
161
Faustin Twagiramungu (former president of the opposition MDR political party and prime minister of Rwanda
from July 1994 to August 1995) has claimed to have coined the term Akazu, meaning “‘small hut,’ which in our
tradition comprises members of three nuclear families.” Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-9841-T, Witness Statement of Faustin Twagiramungu 7 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 13 Apr. 2000). The term “Akazu”
has generated some small amount of controversy. For example, Christophe Mfizi has objected to its use as
underinclusive, since the so-called Akazu included more than just the Habyarimanas’ family members and, instead,
extended to close non-familial associates. CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RESEAU ZERO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DEMOCRATIE ET
DE LA REPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (1975-1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE
REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 76 (Mar. 2006). Mfizi opted for the term “Zero Network,” which he introduced
Page | 33
Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
in his 1992 open letter on the corruption surrounding Habyarimana. Letter from Christophe Mfizi to Juvénal
Habyarimana (15 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “‘Le Reseau Zero’: Lettre Ouverte a Monsieur le President du Mouvement
Republicain National Pour la Democratie et le Developpement (M.R.N.D.)”). This Report uses the term Akazu
primarily because it is more commonly used than “Zero Network,” but it is used in the same sense as Mfizi’s Zero
Network, that is, to denote “a hard core of people who have methodically pervaded the entire national life at the
political, military, financial, agricultural, scientific, scholarly, family and even religious levels.” Letter from
Christophe Mfizi to Juvénal Habyarimana (15 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “‘Le Reseau Zero’: Lettre Ouverte a Monsieur le
President du Mouvement Republicain National Pour la Democratie et le Developpement (M.R.N.D.)”).
162
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112, 117 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD
62 (2019).
163
See Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112, 117 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD
62 (2019) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
164
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 102 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
165
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
166
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
167
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 112 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
168
ANDRE GUICHAOUA, RWANDA, DE LA GUERRE AU GENOCIDE: LES POLITIQUES CRIMINELLES AU RWANDA (19901994) [FROM WAR TO GENOCIDE: CRIMINAL POLITICS IN RWANDA, 1990-1994] (2010) 49 (2010); ANDREW WALLIS,
STEPP’D IN BLOOD 60, 63 (2019).
169
Prosecutor v. Protais Zigiranyirazo, Case No. ICTR-01-73-T, Judgement, ¶ 5 (Int’l crim. Trib. For Rwanda 18 Dec.
2008); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 63 (2019).
170
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 63 (2019).
171
Prosecutor v. Protais Zigiranyirazo, Case No. ICTR-01-73-T, Judgement, ¶¶ 97, 99-100, 103 (Int’l crim. Trib. For
Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008); See Prosecutor v. Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Statement of Omar Serushago
(Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 25 June 2003) (statement made on 16, 17, 19 June 2001; admitted into evidence on 25
June 1993); Letter from Christophe Mfizi to Juvénal Habyarimana (15 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “‘Le Reseau Zero’: Lettre
Ouverte a Monsieur le President du Mouvement Republicain National Pour la Democratie et le Developpement
(M.R.N.D.)”).
172
CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RESEAU ZERO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DEMOCRATIE ET DE LA REPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (19751994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 4 (Mar.
2006).
173
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 64, 88 (2019).
174
SHYIRAMBERE J. BARAHINYURA, 1973-1988 LE GÉNÉRAL-MAJOR HABYARIMANA: QUINZE ANS DE TYRANNIE ET DE
TARTUFERIE AU RWANDA [1973-1988 MAJOR-GENERAL HABYARIMANA: FIFTEEN YEARS OF TYRANNY AND
HYPOCRISY IN RWANDA] 84-85 (1988) (reproducing Birara’s letter). Other relatives of Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana
who received positions in her husband’s government included Elie Sagatwa, who became Habyarimana’s private
secretary, controlling “the [regime’s] intelligence network and access to Habyarimana”; and Seraphin Rwabukumba,
who was placed in charge of foreign currency transactions at the National Bank of Rwanda. See ANDREW WALLIS,
STEPP’D IN BLOOD 29, 104-05 (2019); HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 40 (1999) (referring
to Sagatwa as the President’s private secretary); LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 43 (2000).
175
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 53, 87 (2019).
176
See SHYIRAMBERE J. BARAHINYURA, 1973-1988 LE GÉNÉRAL-MAJOR HABYARIMANA: QUINZE ANS DE TYRANNIE
ET DE TARTUFERIE AU RWANDA [1973-1988 MAJOR-GENERAL HABYARIMANA: FIFTEEN YEARS OF TYRANNY AND
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
HYPOCRISY IN RWANDA] 84-85 (1988) (reproducing Birara’s letter); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 105, 137
(2019).
177
SHYIRAMBERE J. BARAHINYURA, 1973-1988 LE GÉNÉRAL-MAJOR HABYARIMANA: QUINZE ANS DE TYRANNIE ET DE
TARTUFERIE AU RWANDA [1973-1988 MAJOR-GENERAL HABYARIMANA: FIFTEEN YEARS OF TYRANNY AND
HYPOCRISY IN RWANDA] 84-85 (1988) (reproducing Birara’s letter).
178
See ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 29, 149-50 (2019); see also LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 62
(2000).
179
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 29-30 (2019).
180
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 68 (2nd ed. 2009).
181
GABRIEL PÉRIÈS & DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS
[A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE] 146 (2007); LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE
BETRAYED 27 (2nd ed. 2009).
182
See THÉONESTE LIZINDE, DES MASSACRES CYCLIQUES AU RWANDA ET DE LA POLITIQUE DU BOUC ÉMISSAIRE
[CYCLICAL MASSACRES IN RWANDA AND THE POLICY OF SCAPEGOATING] 37-39 (23 May 1991); GABRIEL PÉRIÈS &
DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS [A DARK WAR:
INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE] 146 (2007); see also LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE
BETRAYED 27 (2nd ed. 2009) (noting that “a secret purge took place of some fifty-five members of the former
government, including ministers, deputies, Army officers and state functionaries, all of them imprisoned in the
notorious Ruhengeri prison and starved to death”); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 46 (2016).
183
Memorandum from Théoneste Lizinde to François Mitterrand et al. (8 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwandaise,
Rwandais”). Lizinde wrote this a few weeks after being freed during an RPA raid on the Ruhengeri prison where he
had been held as a political prisoner for more than 10 years. Lizinde, who was writing to various world leaders claiming
to reveal secrets about the Rwandan leaders, wrote that Serubuga had admitted to him that he had ordered the
“liquidation” of prisoners.
184
GABRIEL PERIES & DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUETE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GENOCIDE RWANDAIS
[A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE] 146 (2007).
185
SHYIRAMBERE JEAN BARAHINYURA, 1973-1988 LE MAJOR-GENERAL HABYARIMANA: QUINZE ANS DE TYRANNIE ET
DE TARTUFERIE AU RWANDA [1973-1988 MAJOR-GENERAL HABYARIMANA: FIFTEEN YEARS OF TYRANNY AND
HYPOCRISY IN RWANDA] 151 (1988); THEONESTE LIZINDE, LA DECOUVERTE DE KALINGA OU LA FIN D’UN MYTHE [THE
DISCOVERY OF KALINGA OR THE END OF A MYTH] 194 (1979).
186
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 27 (2nd ed. 2009) (“Kayibanda . . . and his wife were put under house
arrest and were also starved to death.”); SHYIRAMBERE JEAN BARAHINYURA, 1973-1988 LE MAJOR-GENERAL
HABYARIMANA: QUINZE ANS DE TYRANNIE ET DE TARTUFERIE AU RWANDA [1973-1988 MAJOR-GENERAL
HABYARIMANA: FIFTEEN YEARS OF TYRANNY AND HYPOCRISY IN RWANDA] 153-55 (1988) (quoting Lizinde as
stating, “General Habyarimana gave me the order to go and kill him . . . . Kayibanda did not die a natural death, it was
on the orders of Habyarimana that he was assassinated”) (“Kayibanda was hammered to death by Colonel Sagatwa”
after being poisoned); CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RESEAU ZERO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DÉMOCRATIE ET DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE AU
RWANDA (1975-1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (19751994)] 26 (Mar. 2006) (noting Kayibanda’s “suspicious death”).
187
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 46 (2016).
188
See ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 74-75 (2019) (citing interview with Antoine Mugesera in February 2013);
Interview by LFM with Emile Rwamasirabo.
189
190
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 46 (2016).
THE GOVERNMENT OF RWANDA, RWANDA, FACE
REFUGEES] 4 (26 Aug. 1986).
AU PROBLÈME DES RÉFUGIÉS
[THE PROBLEM
OF
RWANDAN
191
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech in Semuto, Uganda (approximately 1987). He said essentially the same when in
Canada between 3 and 5 September 1987. See Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech to Rwandans Living in Canada
(Sept.1987).
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192
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech in Semuto, Uganda (approximately 1987). He said essentially the same when in
Canada between 3 and 5 September 1987. See Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech to Rwandans Living in Canada
(Sept.1987).
193
Kanyarengwe is one of two figures involved in the 1973 coup d’état (the other is Théoneste Lizinde) who by 1980
were accused of denouncing the Habyarimana regime’s “politico-financial ‘shenanigans.’” Kanyarengwe fled to
Tanzania, and Linzinde was thrown into prison in Ruhengeri. The RPF and history caught up with both of them:
Kanyarengwe was appointed chairman of the RPF in December 1990, and Lizinde was freed from prison by RPF
troops in January 1991 and joined their ranks. MONIQUE MAS, PARIS-KIGALI 1990-1994: LUNETTES COLONIALES,
POLITIQUES DU SABRE ET ONCTION HUMANITAIRE POUR UN GENOCIDE EN AFRIQUE [PARIS-KIGALI 1990-1994:
COLONIAL LENSES, POLITICS OF THE SWORD AND HUMANITARIAN UNCTION FOR A GENOCIDE IN AFRICA] 21, 46
(1999). Kanyarengwe and Lizinde are discussed further in Chapter 3.
194
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 46 (2016).
195
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 17 (2019);
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 47-50, 277-78 (2016).
196
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 47-50 (2016).
197
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 47-48 (2016); see Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades
in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES 261 (1996).
198
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 48 (2016).
199
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 48 (2016).
200
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 48-50 (2016).
201
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 48-50 (2016).
202
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 125 (2016).
203
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 51 (2016).
204
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 51 (2016).
205
Jean-Pierre Chrétien, Un “nazisme tropical” au Rwanda? Image ou logique d’un genocide [A “Tropical Nazism”
in Rwanda? Image or Reason of a Genocide] in VINGTIÈME SIÈCLE, 132 (Oct.-Dec. 1995) (noting that under the
Rwandan constitution enacted in 1978, Rwandans by birth were members of the MRND); Rwanda Juvénal
Habyarimana, “l'homme viril” [Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana, “The Strong Man”], LE MONDE, 8 Apr. 1994
(explaining that the MRND was the only political party authorized in the country until 1991); NATIONAL CONGRESS
OF MRND, STATUTES OF THE MOUVEMENT REVOLUTIONNAIRE NATIONAL POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT [STATUTES OF
THE NATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT FOR DEVELOPMENT] 2 (29 June 1983).
206
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 78-79 (2019).
207
See Presentation of President Habyarimana’s Candidature to the “Africa Prize for Leadership 1990” 16 (1 Jan.
1990); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 53 (2019) (noting Habyarimana’s promotion to Major-General in April
1973); see, also, e.g., Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (18
Mar. 1982).
208
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 27-28 (2nd ed. 2009).
209
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 27-28 (2nd ed. 2009).
210
Les Derniers moments [The Final Moments], LE MONDE, 4 Apr. 1974.
211
Les Derniers moments [The Final Moments], LE MONDE, 4 Apr. 1974.
212
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 62 (2019).
213
Accord particulier d’assistance militaire du 18 juillet 1975 [Military Technical Assistance Agreement of 18 July
1975], Fr. – Rw., 18 July 1975.
214
Accord particulier d’assistance militaire du 18 juillet 1975 [Military Technical Assistance Agreement of 18 July
1975], Fr. – Rw., 18 July 1975 (“The Government of the French Republic shall place at the disposal of the Government
of the Republic of Rwanda French military personnel whose assistance is necessary for the organization and training
of the Rwandan Gendarmerie.”). “Technical cooperation” is one aspect of development aid supplied by one country
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
to another that refers to building skills and abilities aimed at strengthening the capacities of the local population (as
opposed to supplying physical infrastructure); OCDE, COOPÉRATION POUR LE DÉVELOPPEMENT: RAPPORT 2005
[DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION: 2005 REPORT] 121-144 (2006).
215
LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED 27-28 (2nd ed. 2009).
216
Special Agreement of Military Assistance, Fr. – Rw., 18 July 1975.
217
See MIP Tome I 29; BRUNO CHARBONNEAU, FRANCE AND THE NEW IMPERIALISM 126-27 (2008). For a discussion
of these amendments, see Chapters 3 and 5 of this report.
218
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 116 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
219
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 117 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
220
See JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 130 (1989).
221
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 130 (1989).
222
JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 130 (1989).
223
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 119-20 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
224
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 119-20 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne).
225
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 114 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); see JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN
AFRICA 133 (1989); TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 167 (1989).
226
FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 150, 167 (1989).
227
Olivier Thimonier, La Politique de la France au Rwanda de 1960 à 1981 [France’s Policy in Rwanda: 1960 to
1981] 114 (2001) (Master’s thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne); see also FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA,
FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 165 (1989).
228
see FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 169 (1989).
229
see FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 169 (1989).
230
see FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 169 (1989).
231
François Mitterrand, Speech during the lunch offered by Juvénal Habyarimana in Kigali (7 Oct. 1982).
232
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara; see also RONALD TIERSKY, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND: A VERY FRENCH
PRESIDENT 118-20 (2000).
233
234
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
PARTI SOCIALISTE, PROJET SOCIALISTE: POUR
FRANCE] 357-59 (1980).
235
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
LA
FRANCE
DES
ANNEES 80 [SOCIALIST PROJECT: FOR 1980S
236
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara; see also Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan
Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES 261 (1996).
237
See Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE
STUDIES 261 (1996); Ogenga Otunnu, Rwandese Refugees and Immigrants in Uganda, in THE PATH OF A GENOCIDE
13-14, 17 (Howard Adelman & Astri Suhrke eds. 1999).
238
See Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE
STUDIES 261 (1996); Ogenga Otunnu, Rwandese Refugees and Immigrants in Uganda, in THE PATH OF A GENOCIDE
17-19 (Howard Adelman & Astri Suhrke eds. 1999); see also AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, RWANDA: PROTECTING
THEIR RIGHTS: RWANDESE REFUGEES IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION 8 (2004).
239
Cable from Yannick Gérard (10 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “La cammunaute rwandaise en ouganda”).
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240
Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES
262-63 (1996).
241
Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES
262-63 (1996).
242
Rachel Van Der Meeren, Three Decades in Exile: Rwandan Refugees 1960-1990, in JOURNAL OF REFUGEE STUDIES
259, 265 (1996).
243
See Chris Maina Peter, Rights and Duties of Refugees under Municipal Law in Tanzania: Examining a Proposed
New Legislation, in JOURNAL OF AFRICAN LAW 86-87 (1997); AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, RWANDA: PROTECTING
THEIR RIGHTS: RWANDESE REFUGEES IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION 8, 171, 175 (2004).
244
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
245
Alan Cowell, Uganda is Evicting Thousands of Rwandans, N.Y. TIMES, 12 Oct. 1982; JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 52 (2016).
246
Roger Winter, Uganda—Creating a Refugee Crisis, in CULTURAL SURVIVAL (June 1983).
247
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 52 (2016); GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS:
HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 70 (1995); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO
RECONSTRUCTION 45 (2019).
248
PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 52 (2016).
249
See Roger Winter, Uganda—Creating a Refugee Crisis, in CULTURAL SURVIVAL (June 1983); Interview by LFM
with James Kabarebe.
250
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
251
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
252
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
253
Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
254
Interview by LFM with Emile Rwamasirabo. Intego included Kayitesi Rusera and Immacule Nyirinkwaya, who
currently sit on the Rwandan Supreme Court, as well as Jose Kagabo, Kabatsi Bagirishya, Louis Bagirishya, and
Ignace Beraho, among others.
255
Interview by LFM with Emile Rwamasirabo.
256
Interview by LFM with Emile Rwamasirabo.
257
Interview by LFM with Emile Rwamasirabo.
258
See Frank Petiteville, Quatre décennias de “coopération franco-africaine”: usages et usure d’un clientélisme
[Four Decades of French African Policy: An Obsolete Clientelist Relationship], in ÉTUDES INTERNATIONALES 58485 (Nov. 1996).
259
Philippe Marchesin, Mitterrand l’Africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE 17 (June 1995).
260
See Frank Petiteville, Quatre décennias de “coopération franco-africaine”: usages et usure d’un clientélisme
[Four Decades of French African Policy: An Obsolete Clientelist Relationship], in ÉTUDES INTERNATIONALES 584586 (Nov. 1996); JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 202 (1989); see also GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA
CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 103 (1995) (defining “le pré carré” as “our own backyard”).
261
See Frank Petiteville, Quatre décennias de “coopération franco-africaine”: usages et usure d’un clientélisme
[Four Decades of French African Policy: An Obsolete Clientelist Relationship], in ÉTUDES INTERNATIONALES 584586 (Nov. 1996).
262
See Frank Petiteville, Quatre décennias de “coopération franco-africaine”: usages et usure d’un clientélisme
[Four Decades of French African Policy: An Obsolete Clientelist Relationship], in ÉTUDES INTERNATIONALES 586
(Nov. 1996); FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 200-01 (1989).
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Chapter I
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263
See JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 202-03 (1989) (referring to Cot’s “forced resignation”). Cot’s
resignation was on the evening of 7 December 1982. Julien Meimon, Se Découvrir Militant: le cabinet Cot à l'épreuve
de la Coopération (1981-1983) [Becoming an Activist: the Cot cabinet in the Face of Cooperation (1981-1983)], in
POLITIX 130 (2005); Frank Petiteville, Quatre décennias de “coopération franco-africaine”: usages et usure d’un
clientélisme [Four Decades of French African Policy: An Obsolete Clientelist Relationship], in ÉTUDES
INTERNATIONALES 585 (Nov. 1996); Philippe Marchesin, Mitterrand l’africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE
AFRICAINE 18 (June 1995).
264
Philippe Marchesin, Mitterrand l’africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE 18 (June 1995).
265
See FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 200-01 (1989).
266
See FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 201 (1989).
267
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 491 (2013).
268
Duclert Commission Report 81.
269
See Duclert Commission Report 81-82; Mémorandum sur la coopération militaire franco-rwandaise 4 (March
1982).
270
Duclert Commission Report 83 (quoting ADIPLO, 184COOP/7. Note by Lieutenant General Gastaldi on military
cooperation, September 1989).
271
Memorandum from Guy Penne to François Mitterrand (11 June 1982) (Subject: “Entretien du President de la
Republique avec le President Habyarimana”).
272
François Mitterrand, Speech during the lunch offered by Juvénal Habyarimana in Kigali (7 Oct. 1982).
273
Déclaration de Monsieur François Mitterrand à l’aéroport de Kigali, 7 Oct. 1982.
274
Duclert Commission Report 84.
275
Duclert Commission Report 84.
276
François Mitterrand, Speech given following a luncheon hosted by Juvénal Habyarimana in Kigali (10 Dec. 1984).
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 491 (2013).
277
278
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 491 (2013).
279
See FRANCIS TERRY MCNAMARA, FRANCE IN BLACK AFRICA 206 (1989); PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE:
THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 491 (2013) (stating that Mitterrand’s support for Habré was intended
“to show France’s African allies that Paris could protect them”).
280
Tchad: l’ancien dictateur Hissène Habré condamné à la prison à vie [Chad: Former dictator Hissène Habré
sentenced to life in prison], LE PARISIEN, 30 May 2016.
281
MIP Audition of Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 217.
282
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 511 (2019).
283
Philippe Marchesin, Mitterrand l’africain [Mitterrand the African], in POLITIQUE AFRICAINE 10-11 (June 1995);
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 512 (2013).
284
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 512 (2019).
285
François Mitterrand, Speech in François Mitterrand, Réflexions sur la politique extérieure de la France,
Introduction à vingt-cinq discours (1981-1985) [Thoughts on the Foreign Policy of France, Introduction to TwentyFive Speeches (1981-1985) (1986); Paul Chaput, François Mitterrand et l’Initiative de Défense Stratégique [François
Mitterrand and the Strategic Defense Initiative], INSTITUT FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, 5 Dec. 2011; PHILIP SHORT, A
TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 402 (2013).
286
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 396 (2013).
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 403 (2013) (emphasis
original).
288
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 400 (2013).
289
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 708-09 (2019).
287
290
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 708-09 (2019).
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Chapter I
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291
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 709 (2019). Védrine, it bears noting, has
been said to have held similarly negative views of the United States. He once remarked, during his tenure as
Mitterrand’s diplomatic advisor, that when the Americans are after something, “they’re terrifying, they behave like
door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen,” caring “as little about the effects their actions have on us as we would care
about the fallout our policies might have on Luxembourg.” PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE
LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 337 (2013).
292
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 492 (2013).
293
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 492 (2013).
294
PHILIP SHORT, A TASTE FOR INTRIGUE: THE MULTIPLE LIVES OF FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND 492 (2013).
295
See François Mitterrand, Opening Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (June 1990).
296
See François Mitterrand, Opening Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (June 1990);
French President Georges Pompidou hosted the first Franco-African Summit at the Élysée in 1973. His successor,
President Giscard d’Estaing, regularized the gatherings. See JOHN CHIPMAN, FRENCH POWER IN AFRICA 130 (1989);
Les 24 sommets France-Afrique (1973-1981) [The 24 France-Africa summits (1973-1981)], RFI, 28 May 2010.
297
MIP Tome I 35.
298
Memorandum from Claude Arnaud to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du President du
Rwanda (lundi 2 avril)”).
299
See Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (20 June 1990).
300
See Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (20 June 1990).
301
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (20 June 1990).
302
MIP Tome I 36 (“Faced with procrastination by Rwandan authorities and concerned about the stability of states
and regional security, France never made the decision to suspend all cooperation, or even to decrease the level of its
civil and military aid. Thus, President Juvénal Habyarimana was able to convince himself that ‘France . . . would be
behind him regardless of the situation, and he could do anything military and politically’ as Mr. Herman Cohen
assessed during his [MIP] hearing.”).
303
OLIVIER LANOTTE, LA FRANCE AU RWANDA (1990-1994) [FRANCE IN RWANDA (1990-1994)] 70-71 (2007).
304
OLIVIER LANOTTE, LA FRANCE AU RWANDA (1990-1994) [FRANCE IN RWANDA (1990-1994)] 71 (2007).
305
See Tony Chafer, French African Policy: Towards Change, in AFRICAN AFFAIRS 50 (Jan. 1992) (assessing, two
years after Mitterrand’s speech, that “[s]o far . . . it seems that little more than lip-service is being paid to the idea”
that democratic reforms would be a prerequisite for aid).
306
JEAN-MARC DE LA SABLIERE, DANS LES COULISSES DU MONDE [BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE WORLD STAGE] 78
(2013).
307
Guy Martin, Continuity and Change in Franco-African Relations, in JOURNAL OF MODERN AFRICAN STUDIES 15
(Mar. 1995).
308
Account taken from WENDY WHITWORTH, WE SURVIVED: GENOCIDE IN RWANDA 176 – 185 (2006).
309
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 51-52 (2016).
310
Note sur l’évolution du problème des réfugiés rwandais, depuis la publication de la position du Comité Central du
MRND sur cette question [Note on the evolution of the Rwandan refugee problem since the publication of the position
of the MRND Central Committee on this issue] (undated) (summarizing the MRND’s position).
311
RANU, THE RESPONSE OF THE RWANDESE ALLIANCE FOR NATIONAL UNITY (R.A.N.U.) TO THE RECENT
STATEMENT OF THE COMITE CENTRAL DU MOUVEMENT REVOLUTIONNAIRE NATIONAL POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT
(M.R.N.D.) ON THE QUESTION OF REFUGEES 1 (1986) (summarizing the MRND’s position).
312
RANU, THE RESPONSE OF THE RWANDESE ALLIANCE FOR NATIONAL UNITY (R.A.N.U.) TO THE RECENT
STATEMENT OF THE COMITE CENTRAL DU MOUVEMENT REVOLUTIONNAIRE NATIONAL POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT
(M.R.N.D.) ON THE QUESTION OF REFUGEES 1, 9 (1986) (signed Alexis Mutsinzi, RANU Chairman); see also JEANPAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 71 (2019).
313
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 78-80 (2019).
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314
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 79-80 (2019).
315
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 79-80 (2019).
316
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 80-81 (2019).
317
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 82 (2019).
318
RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES
ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 82 (2019).
ON THE
319
ON THE
RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987); JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES
ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 82 (2019).
320
See RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987).
321
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 82 (2019).
322
See Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni; JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON
ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 45 (2019); US Central Intelligence Agency, Uganda Under a Museveni Regime
[redacted] (Feb. 1986).
THE
323
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 79-80 (2019).
324
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 81 (2019).
325
Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera.
326
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 45 (2019).
327
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni.
328
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
329
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
330
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
331
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
333
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
332
334
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
335
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 90 (1995).
336
See JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 37, 63, 69 (2016); BRUNO CHARBONNEAU, FRANCE
AND THE NEW IMPERIALISM 125 (2008); see also DALEEP SINGH, FRANCOPHONE AFRICA 1905-2005: A CENTURY OF
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE 97 (2008) (noting that arabica coffee “has been Rwanda’s main export crop since its
enforced plantation during the colonial period,” and that tea, the country’s second-most important crop, “accounts for
another 24 percent of export income”).
337
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 69 (2016).
338
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 69-71 (2016).
339
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY
RWANDA’S POPULAR GENOCIDE 72 (2016).
340
OF A
GENOCIDE 90 (1995). See also JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 97 (1995).
341
Cable from Georges Martres (12 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “visite officielle du President Habyarimana à Paris (2, 3 et
4 Avril 1990) – (2/2)”); see also Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject:
“Visite du President du Rwanda (lundi 2 avril)”); Martres became ambassador to Rwanda in September 1989. He
arrived with nearly two decades of prior experience working in France’s foreign colonies in West Africa, having
previously headed the French cooperation missions in Mali (1974), Niger (1978), and Senegal (1982-1985). See M.
Georges Martres nommé ambassadeur de France au Rwanda [Georges Martres Appointed French Ambassador to
Rwanda], AFP, 9 Sept. 1989.
342
Cable from Georges Martres (12 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “visite officielle du President Habyarimana à Paris (2, 3 et
4 Avril 1990) – (2/2)”).
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Chapter I
1959 – September 1990
343
See Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du President du
Rwanda (lundi 2 avril)”); Cable from Georges Martres (12 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “visite officielle du President
Habyarimana à Paris (2, 3 et 4 Avril 1990) – (2/2)”).
344
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du President du Rwanda
(lundi 2 avril)”).
345
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du President du Rwanda
(lundi 2 avril)”).
346
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (30 Mar. 1990) (Subject: “Visite du President du Rwanda
(lundi 2 avril)”).
347
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (23 May 1990) (Subject: “Votre entretien en têteà-tête avec le Président François Mitterrand au Palais de l’Élysée le 2 avril 1990”).
348
ANDRÉ GUICHAOUA, REPORT TO THE HAUT COMMISSARIAT DES NATIONS UNIES POUR LES RÉFUGIÉS: LE PROBLÈME
DES RÉFUGIÉS RWANDAIS ET DES POPULATIONS BANYARWANDA DANS LA RÉGION DES GRANDS LACS AFRICAINS
[REPORT TO THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES: THE PROBLEM OF RWANDAN REFUGEES AND
BANYARWANDA POPULATIONS IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA] 13 (May 1992) (“In August, a Manifesto
signed by 33 intellectuals demanded rapid democratization, and in September the Synthesis Commission was set up
to draw up a preliminary draft of the National Political Charter.”).
349
See GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 91 (1995).
350
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 99 (1995).
351
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 87, 99 (1995); see also JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 77 (2019).
352
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 99 (1995); see also JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO,
TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 77 (2019) (“President Habyarimana was
aware of the RPF preparations for an invasion. He counted on French military support and opted for military
confrontation as a diversion from the intense domestic opposition that he was facing.”).
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CHAPTER II
October 1990
A. The RPF Launched Its Military Offensive into Rwanda on 1 October 1990. French Soldiers
Arrived Days Later.
A telegram arrived from Paris indicating that President Habyarimana was
asking for France’s military intervention: he feared he would be
overwhelmed by the RPF forces. Immediately, the [French] President asked
me to deploy a company in Rwanda.1
– Jacques Lanxade, Chief Military Advisor to the President
(1989 –1991), Chief of Defense Staff (1991 – 1995)
In late September 1990, Charles Kayonga, then a junior officer in Uganda’s National
Resistance Army (NRA), received a message from an RPF comrade: “Stay close, don’t go far.”2
Several days later, James Kabarebe, a 2nd lieutenant in the NRA, received one of his own: “Tonight,
we move.”3 Until the last days of September, only a handful of people—Fred Rwigema, Paul
Kagame, and a few other commanders—knew that the RPF military would cross into Rwanda on
1 October.4
Fred Rwigema led a convoy that departed Kampala on the night of 30 September.5 Five
hours later, it reached Mbarara, an hour and a half north of the border crossing with Rwanda at
Kagitumba.6 As the convoy approached the border, “there was excitement,” Kayonga recalled.7
“All those who had money were throwing it to people on the road because they would not need
Ugandan shilling—there was no return.”8 It was also the first time that the RPF’s army was going
to come together as a fighting force on the battlefield.
At the border, around mid-morning on 1 October, a “vanguard” consisting of 30 to 60 RPF
troops engaged and scattered a detachment of Rwandan government forces stationed on the
Rwandan side.9 The remainder of the convoy crossed into their homeland without resistance—for
now.10
The RPF battalions split up, taking different routes to a meeting point six miles into
Rwanda. Two battalions took a slightly longer but less-traveled gravel road, pushing past an
ambush and capturing weapons and vehicles in the process.11 The two battalions that took the
more-traveled direct route to Matimba encountered serious resistance, which claimed a
consequential casualty: Fred Rwigema.12 When the battalions converged at Matimba, the meeting
point, the commanders13—not wanting to destroy morale—said nothing about Rwigema’s death,
but also issued no new orders, as Rwigema’s “death deprived the RPA of a unified command, and
units fought on their own.”14 Even to the troops who would not learn of Rwigema’s death until
several weeks later, the disorientation was palpable.15
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Chapter II
October 1990
The Rwandan Armed Forces [FAR] ground troops were reinforced by “two French-built
Gazelle helicopters equipped with rockets.”16 A US cable, citing “French pilots,” reported that the
Gazelles were “perform[ing] well[,] firing 8 rockets against enemy positions.”17 A US Defense
Intelligence Brief would later note the “considerable effectiveness” of the Gazelle’s rocket attacks
on 3 October.”18 By the following morning, the FAR’s helicopters had destroyed, “a column of
ten trucks, including two carrying fuel” as well as the RPF army’s “main headquarters” near the
Ugandan border, according to a cable from Colonel René Galinié, the defense attaché in the French
embassy in Kigali.19
Col. Galinié’s cable that day, 3 October, predicted that President Habyarimana would “[i]n
all likelihood . . . address the French government today in order to obtain immediate aid in the
form of ammunition and equipment, as well as an intervention by French forces.”20 Mitterrand,
then aboard a French frigate in the Persian Gulf,21 would seem to have received the Rwandan
president’s message. As Mitterrand’s chief military advisor, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, later
recalled in his memoir, a telegram arrived from Paris on 3 October “indicating that President
Habyarimana was asking for France’s military intervention: he feared he would be overwhelmed
by the RPF forces.”22 Mitterrand did not hesitate. “Immediately,” Lanxade wrote, “the [French]
President asked me to deploy a company in Rwanda.”23
Lanxade has said that French Minister of Defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement—who would
soon resign in opposition to France’s participation in the Gulf War—“tried in vain to present some
objections” to the planned intervention in Rwanda and cautioned against measures that could be
viewed as “neocolonial.”24 However, Chevènement has said that, although he was also on the
frigate that day, the Élysée had not sought his opinion on whether to intervene in Rwanda—a
remarkable assertion, considering he was the French government’s defense minister at the time.25
Whether over Chevènement’s dissent or not, Lanxade on 4 October delivered the order to
the French Army état-major to launch Operation Noroît (“Northwest Wind”), resulting in the
immediate deployment of a company of 150 soldiers from the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment,26
stationed in the Central African Republic, to Kigali.27 French officials did not publicly
acknowledge that the Noroît deployment was a direct response to Habyarimana’s plea for military
assistance. Rather, they insisted—falsely—that Noroît’s sole mission was to protect the French
embassy and French nationals in Rwanda.28 It was an assertion that French officials would repeat
for more than three years, until the last Noroît troops were finally withdrawn in December 1993.
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Chapter II
October 1990
B. French Geopolitical Interests in Africa Motivated Mitterrand’s Military Support of the
Habyarimana Government. To Justify Pursuing Those Interests, French Officials Sought
to Delegitimize the RPF by Casting It As a Foreign Aggressor.
I think that Noroît was absolutely geopolitical.29
– Jacques Lanxade, Chief Military Advisor to the President
(1989 –1991), Chief of Defense Staff (1991 – 1995)
France will be in a better position to help Rwanda if it’s clearly
demonstrated to the international community that this is not a civil war.30
– George Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
Mitterrand had his reasons for wanting to defend the Habyarimana regime, of which one,
to be sure, was reassuring French allies in Africa. “If France hadn’t responded, it would have lost
the confidence of most African countries,” one French official—the minister for cooperation and
development at the time of the invasion—later explained to a French parliamentary mission that
was examining the French government’s conduct in Rwanda.31 There could be no doubt that other
African leaders—close allies of France, in many cases—would be eyeing developments in
Rwanda, perhaps fearing that an RPF victory would start a “chain reaction in the region.”32 A
demonstration of support for Habyarimana was a way for France to reassure those allies.
There was also the regional picture in East Africa to consider. Mitterrand had no desire to
see a reliable ally toppled—most especially by a rebel army formed in English-speaking Uganda.33
According to Admiral Jacques Lanxade, the French president’s chief military advisor, Mitterrand
“suspected that [East African destabilization] was secretly led by the Anglo-Americans. And so,
to [Mitterrand], we were in a situation in which France had to hold on to its position.”34
Mitterrand was fixated on Uganda in the early days of the war. According to his closest
advisor, Élysée Secretary-General Hubert Védrine, Mitterrand “would often talk about ‘the
Ugandans’” at meetings in Paris, in October 1990.35 A US cable that month observed, “The
Rwandans and the French are both virtually convinced of the complicity of the Ugandan
government in the incursion.”36 French cables and internal government memos in October 1990
often referred to the RPF army as the “Ugandan-Tutsi” forces, a phrasing that both painted the
government’s opponents, inaccurately, as foreign and defined them, crudely, by their assumed
ethnic identity.37
The RPF was never “Ugandan,” even after it convinced Uganda’s President, Yoweri
Museveni, to back its cause. Although the RPF incursion into Rwanda on 1 October 1990 had
surprised and angered Museveni, he soon came to offer his assistance, gradually increasing his
support over time.38 After learning of Fred Rwigema’s death, Paul Kagame raced to the front from
the United States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.39 He
found RPF forces in “chaos” and set about reorganizing the army he now led.40 This effort required
Museveni’s cooperation to allow his troops to cross back and forth across the border between
Rwanda and Uganda and to permit RPF supporters in Uganda to bring food and other supplies to
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Chapter II
October 1990
soldiers at the front.41 “Museveni was angry with me,” Kagame recalled.42 “He told me that we
had done this [operation] without his knowledge and now he was being blamed by the whole
world.”43 Kagame apologized “for the mess,” but, he implored the Ugandan President, “I need
your help.”44 Museveni agreed not to interfere with RPF activities but this did not mean he would
furnish material support, at least, not at first.45
Kagame returned to Museveni, however, “more than a dozen times” between 1990 and
1994.46 “Sometimes we would ask for something, and he would refuse and would say we had
caused him problems. I took every insult and said, ‘thank you,’ but can you please help; we need
this or that.”47 Over time, Museveni agreed to provide weapons and ammunition.48 RPF troops had
left Uganda on 1 October 1990 with arms taken from the NRA without Museveni’s knowledge or
approval, but this did not mean they relied on Ugandan arms exclusively.49 RPF soldiers also
captured equipment on the battlefield and purchased arms and equipment in other countries that
Museveni allowed to be routed through Uganda.50 “It was a hybrid,” Kagame explained.51 “Partly
we relied on ourselves for arms and other things necessary, and then also some supplies from
Uganda.”52 Sometimes individual NRA commanders approved arms and equipment transfers with
clearance from higher authorities, and sometimes without clearance.53
“But for fighting,” Kagame clarified, “we fought our own war.”54 By this he meant that the
RPF’s army was made up of Rwandan refugees, not only from Uganda, but from Burundi, Zaire,
and countries further afield. Between October 1990 and the Genocide, French officials may not
have known the extent, nature, and level of RPF support from allies within Uganda, but there was
never any compelling reason to doubt that it was the RPF military, and the RPF military alone,
that planned the war effort and saw it through. The RPF was what it claimed to be: a movement of
Rwandan refugees, resorting to war to force the end of Habyarimana’s autocratic reign. Indeed,
the French National Assembly’s 1998 information mission (Mission d’information parlemantaire,
or MIP), which conducted hearings on France’s involvement in Rwanda and issued a voluminous
report on the subject, would later acknowledge: “[I]t appears that the return of the armed refugees
of October 1 was in fact an incident in the Rwandan civil war rather than in a two-state conflict.”55
To be sure, French officials knew exactly what the RPF was and why it had resorted to
war.56 In a 10 October 1990 diplomatic cable, for example, France’s ambassador in Kampala
provided historical context for the conflict.57 Noting the influx of Tutsi refugees to Uganda fleeing
Rwanda since 1959, he explained, “Rwandan refugees . . . believe that their country - they often
say their homeland - is Rwanda and not Uganda.”58 And, in a cable the next day detailing his
deputy’s meeting with RPF representatives, the same ambassador relayed that the RPF’s objective
was not merely to secure a right of return for their fellow refugees, but “to liberate the country
from the dictatorship of Habyarimana.”59 The RPF representatives had explained that, while they
were open to participating in international talks, those talks “should not only deal with the question
of refugees. [They] should also address all the political problems of today’s Rwanda,” including
“widespread corruption, embezzlement of international aid, [and] political assassinations.”60
(Notably, the RPF representatives said the RPF would find it acceptable—at that time—for France
to keep a limited number of troops in Rwanda “for purely humanitarian reasons.” They cautioned,
though, that RPF leaders “would not understand” if France—“the homeland of human rights”—
retained a large military contingent in the country, “thus allowing Habyarimana to emulate
Pinochet by locking up his opponents in a stadium and by ordering summary executions.”61)
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Chapter II
October 1990
Yet in spite of everything they knew about the RPF, French officials preferred to conflate
the RPF with the country (Uganda) from which the organization’s military leaders had launched
their attack.62 It was only a few months earlier, at the June 1990 Franco-African Summit in La
Baule, that Mitterrand had pledged to uphold certain restrictions on French involvement in African
conflicts.63 “I repeat the principle of French policy: every time a foreign menace appears that could
undermine your independence, France will be by your side,” he told the assembled African leaders
at the summit. But, he said: “[O]ur own role, as a foreign country, even though we are friends, is
not to intervene in domestic conflicts. In these cases, France, with the country’s leaders, will ensure
the protection of its citizens, its nationals, but does not intend to arbitrate conflicts.”64 What was
critical, he was saying, was whether the threat was external (in which case, French intervention
would be permissible) or internal (in which case, it would not be). The 1 October 1990 attack, as
Mitterrand would later acknowledge (albeit privately), did not fit neatly into either category: it had
been planned abroad, but by Rwandan refugees with grievances against Habyarimana’s anti-Tutsi
policies.65 Publicly acknowledging these complexities, however, could invite only criticism.
Mitterrand could more easily justify French intervention on the regime’s behalf—while projecting
the appearance of a consistent Africa intervention policy—if the French public perceived the threat
as foreign.
Senior Rwandan officials, viewing the support of France and other allies as critical to the
regime’s prospects for victory, had similarly strong incentives to mischaracterize the RPF attack
as a foreign invasion and were determined to ensure that the West would perceive it as such. On 9
October 1990, just over a week into the war, two advisors warned President Habyarimana that the
use of the term “rebel forces” for the RPF was allowing certain international media to portray the
conflict as an internal “rebellion” instead of, in their words, an “external aggression.”66 They
alerted Habyarimana to the “terrible danger” such a portrayal presented by threatening to “alienate
us from international public opinion.”67
The weeks that followed would see a concerted effort by French and Rwandan officials
alike to reframe public perceptions of the RPF and the war. Newly uncovered evidence, disclosed
in the March 2021 Duclert Commission Report, shows the Élysée played a significant role in this
campaign, with Mitterrand’s deputy military advisor, Colonel Jean-Pierre Huchon, emerging as a
key operator. Huchon, the Commission found, regularly sent confidential handwritten faxes to
Colonel Galinié, the French defense attaché in Kigali, often marking his communications “to be
destroyed after reading.”68 In one such fax, on 24 October 1990, Huchon called on the French
embassy to help repair the Rwandan government’s public image by, among other things,
persuading the French-speaking media in Rwanda “that this is not a home-grown rebellion, it is
foreign aggression.”69 “Make a real effort to show evidence of the Ugandan origin of the attack,”
Huchon urged.70 Huchon later wrote in a follow-up: “We absolutely need to explain to
international opinion that this is indeed an offensive by the Ugandan army (deserters or not) and
not a domestic rebellion. Otherwise we will . . . be forced, politically speaking, to align ourselves
with the Belgians.”71 (By this, Huchon presumably meant that France would be compelled to
withdraw its troops from Rwanda, as Belgium was preparing to do.)
France’s ambassador in Kigali, Georges Martres, voiced similar concerns in a 24 October
1990 cable, remarking with some frustration that Radio France International, in particular, and
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Chapter II
October 1990
Western media generally, “continue[d] to be manipulated by a Rwandan diaspora dominated by
Tutsi.”72 The same day, in a meeting with Habyarimana, Martres advised the Rwandan president
to “highlight in the media”73 the RPF’s military attack as an external aggression, explaining that
“France will be in a better position to help Rwanda if it’s clearly demonstrated to the international
community that this is not a civil war.”74
Portraying a link between Uganda and the RPF would remain an ongoing concern between
French and Rwandan officials in the first months of the war. When, in December 1990, two French
officers visited Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva, the FAR’s military intelligence chief, they
reiterated the stronger position Rwanda would enjoy with the international community if it could
provide “irrefutable proof” of Uganda’s involvement.75 Nsengiyumva, a hardliner who would later
serve 15 years in prison for his role in the slaughter of civilians at the outset of the Genocide,76
turned to FAR commanders in Byumba (central Rwanda) and Mutara (northeast Rwanda) with
instructions to send captured RPF soldiers to Kigali for interrogation “on the role of the Ugandan
government and of its armed forces.”77
The Rwandan government proceeded with its planned “media offensive,” an effort to offset
what a senior French advisor would later credit as an “obvious advantage” that the RPF held at the
start of hostilities.78 Nsengiyumva recommended that the media offensive involve Ferdinand
Nahimana, the newly appointed head of ORINFOR, the Rwandan government’s media and
propaganda ministry, whose “dynamism” Nsengiyumva praised.79 An international tribunal would
later convict and sentence Nahimana to life in prison (reduced on appeal to 30 years) for inciting
violence during the Genocide through his stewardship of the infamous hate media radio station
Radio-Television Milles Collines (RTLM).80
C. In Support of Its Desire to Intervene, the French Government Also Mischaracterized the
RPF As a Tutsi Movement Intent on Dominating the Hutu Majority, Though the RPF Was
a Pluralistic Group with Broad Political Aims.
In 1990, when Kagame planned his invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, we
saw it as an excluded minority trying to seize power. It’s not French
diplomatic logic to accept these sorts of methods, regardless of their
arguments’ merits.81
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
French leaders starting with President Mitterrand also sought to justify French intervention
by demonizing the RPF as representatives of an ethnic minority trying to re-establish a Tutsi
monarchy over the Hutu majority—a highly inflammatory notion in Rwanda, and a highly
erroneous one.
As discussed in Chapter 1 of this Report, the RPF had gone to pains not only to minimize
the importance of ethnicity within its ranks, but to promulgate a pluralist platform.82 Democracy
figured prominently in the RPF platform, second in its list of principles only to “Consolidation of
National Unity” (meaning the rejection of ethnic politics and divisionism).83 Democracy for the
RPF meant the following:
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Chapter II
October 1990
- “popular democracy where the population is organized in small cells . . . where national
affairs will be discussed.”
- a democratically elected national assembly, “free of prejudice by the government or any
other political tendency, manipulated or riggings as is now done in Rwanda.”
- a democracy “within the broader context of liberation of our people from all forms of
social, economic and political oppression.”84
Charles Kayonga, the RPF battalion commander, explained:
The RPF/RPA never saw itself as a Tutsi movement or a Tutsi army. That mindset
was the biggest problem in Rwanda, which is why the RPF was focused on
principles of unity and togetherness. In refugee camps, there were Hutu who had
fled in the 1950’s, and when the RPF started, there were Hutu who joined. The RPF
did not identify people based on ethnicity. The RPF went out of its way to recruit
people from different walks of life. There were Hutu in the RPF, and there were
Hutus in the RPA [the RPF’s army].85
RPF representatives, as noted above, had explained much of this to staff at the French
embassy in Kampala, in mid-October 1990.86 An “open letter” that same month from the Rwandan
community in Switzerland, addressed to Mitterrand and other world leaders, said much the same:
We would like to point out that the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which is fighting the
bloodthirsty regime in Kigali, has no objective other than the restoration of human
rights and democracy in Rwanda. It aims only to establish political pluralism [that]
excludes any reference to ethnic and regional character, which are the pillars of the
Habyarimana system.87
Western news outlets depicted the RPF in similar terms.88 French officials, though, seemed
uninterested in exploring, even with skepticism, the possibility that the RPF meant what it said.
President Mitterrand mischaracterized the conflict using reductive ethnic terms that
rationalized his desire to reassure African partners by supporting Habyarimana: in his false logic,
the RPF represented the minority Tutsi; Habyarimana represented the majority Hutu; all Rwandans
would vote according to their ethnicity; the minority Tutsi, who were in pursuit of full political
control, could not offer stable democratic rule over the Hutu; and, therefore, France should support
Habyarimana against the RPF. As Ambassador Martres would recall in a 2014 interview with the
French newspaper L’Indépendant: “In 1990, when Kagame planned his invasion of Rwanda from
Uganda, we saw it as an excluded minority trying to seize power. It’s not French diplomatic logic
to accept these sorts of methods, regardless of their arguments’ merits.”89
The Habyarimana regime encouraged the effort. Védrine would recall in 2014, “On the
government side, they kept on telling us that they represented the immense majority, so why should
there be a political compromise with a small minority?”90 On 10 October 1990, Le Monde reported
on the Rwandan foreign minister’s claim that the RPF had included in its ranks “a Hutu opponent,
Pasteur Bizimungu” only “to show that it was not an ethnic party,” not because it stood for
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Chapter II
October 1990
pluralism.91 The foreign minister went on to accuse the RPF of “wanting to establish a feudal-like
‘minority-rule’ regime.”92 Le Monde remarked skeptically that the minister “could not have
alluded more clearly to the Tutsi monarchy, which reigned until 1959, the year of the Hutu revolt,”
but President Mitterrand internalized the idea that the RPF was after Tutsi political domination,
when remarking at a 17 October 1990 meeting with French ministers that “there is no value to a
revolt by a small Tutsi minority that prevails over the majority of the Hutu population.”93
Mitterrand would cling to this rationale for years, even repeating it as his primary motivation for
sending troops to Rwanda during the Genocide in Operation Turquoise.94
Freddy Mutanguha95
Freddy was 18 years old at the time of the Genocide. He lived with his parents and four
sisters in Kibuye.
My strongest memory of the Genocide, the one that hurts me most, is the
night of 13 April 1994. That was the day they came to kill my family. I was away
from the house, in hiding, but Mum came to find me. She knew I was very hungry
because by then nobody could cook any food. There was practically nothing left in
the house. By then people had been bribing the hungry Interahamwe . . . with
food—to let them live a few days longer. At home the only thing we had left was
beans. Mum knew I didnʹt like beans and so she brought me some vegetables and
passion fruit. She told me, “I couldnʹt find anything for you to eat . . . The people I
told you about—the ones who don’t like us—took everything away from me. I don’t
even have anything to give my child.” Then she added, “Try and eat this, it will be
OK. Be strong.” Today, passion fruit still reminds me of that last meal my Mum
gave me.
I also remember that before she was killed, Mum told me I had to be strong.
She said that if my sister and I survived, I had to be a man. Those are the two things
still on my heart to this day.
I was there when the perpetrators came to kill my family. They came saying,
“We’re tired, we’ll take these two fat kids [Freddy and his sister] later.” So they took
the younger ones; my sister Rosette and I were left behind. We saw them being
taken with our own eyes, and they were killed not far away. We couldn’t see it
happening, but we could hear them screaming . . . . They took Mum far away to kill
her. Later at night, I went with another boy to find her body. We rushed there and
buried her. We simply covered her with soil. So I saw my Mum’s body, but not the
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Chapter II
October 1990
rest of the family. I just heard my sisters being killed. I didn’t see my father killed—
people told me about it later.
I know some of the killers very well. One of them wanted to rape my sister,
but he didnʹt succeed. I know the people who took them away. They were our
neighbours, among them a man called Benoit who had been our neighbour for years
and owned a shop nearby. He was Mumʹs friend, and he even used to lend her
money for me to go to school. They got on very well. He was one of the leaders of
the group that took them. And there was another young man called Kanani—Mum
had been his teacher in primary school. Some people inside the compound tried to
fight off the killers, but it was Kanani who held on to Mum when they took her out
of the house. Later, he let go of Mumʹs hand, and she ran away. But they found her
again, and she was beaten to death with clubs.
...
It’s hard to describe how I felt during the Genocide. I was so afraid. I used
to imagine a machete cutting my neck all the time—or my neck on the ground. All
the time I was hiding in the roof of someone’s house, my heart was full of fear. They
sometimes used to let me sit near the fire because I was freezing in the cold. I used
to hide behind a big sieve (used for sorghum) so that whoever was making the fire
couldn’t see me. I was so afraid and lost all hope of survival. But then I reached a
point where I wasn’t scared any more. I was no longer afraid of death. Death or life,
it meant nothing anymore.
Sometimes my sister and I would walk along the road. We walked a lot but
we weren’t afraid of passing the roadblocks. There was only once we were
frightened. That was in a place called Mwendo in Kibuye. They took us up to the
roadblock and asked us if we were Tutsis. We told them we werenʹt, but they looked
at us and said we must be Tutsis because of our soft hair. They told us to stop lying
to them. They asked me to dig my own grave and I refused. They said the
burgomaster would judge our case and took us to the commune. We ended up
spending a night in a cell because the burgomaster was drunk. But I wasn’t afraid.
I had lost my fear after my parents were murdered and after all the terrible things
I had experienced. Only my sister Rosette and I survived.
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D. French Cooperants Had Been Training the Rwandan Army Units That Stopped the RPF’s
Military Progress at the Start of the War and the French Government Sent More Troops
Immediately Thereafter.
[T]hese units, backed by France, gave Rwanda the October victory.96
– Laurent Serubuga, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army
(1973 – 1992, 1994)
The “small force of armed helicopters” whose “rocket attacks against rebel
concentrations”97 helped stop the RPF’s army at Gabiro was reinforcing the Rwandan Army’s
para-commando battalion, one of three elite FAR units that had been receiving French training and
support prior to the war.98 The other two elite FAR units were an aviation squadron (escadrille de
l’aviation)99 and the reconnaissance (“recce”) battalion.100 Both deployed against the RPF troops
in the first days of the war.101
On 1 October 1990, there were 17 French military cooperants training the Rwandan
military under the auspices of the French Military Assistance Mission (MAM).102 For instance,
five French soldiers trained the aviation squadron’s flight engineers and ground mechanics, and
shared their expertise in the Nord 2501, a military transport aircraft.103 The FAR needed a lot of
training. “[T]he chief challenges encountered this year,” a French officer had written in a January
1990 report, “result from a lack of motivation and taking care, from a lack of interest, from
secretiveness and from Rwandan soldiers’ outsized pride, and the economic crisis is making their
behavior even worse.”104
The outbreak of war did little to disrupt the MAM cooperants’ efforts to professionalize
Rwanda’s military. A report by Col. Galinié, the French defense attaché in Rwanda, explained that
even after he ordered the cooperants to temporarily withdraw from the Rwandan military camps
where some of them had been living, French cooperation with the FAR “never ceased.”105 If
anything, he said, the withdrawal only strengthened France’s assistance, as French cooperants
devoted themselves to gathering intelligence.106 This, Galinié wrote, “allowed us to advise the
[Rwandan] officers in a discreet manner without ill-intentioned observers being able to claim that
we were participating in military actions.”107
Galinié delivered much of this advice personally. According to the Duclert Commission
Report, Galinié was “[the] de facto military and political advisor to the Rwandan President,” with
whom he met four times in October 1990, “and was also the main contact for the Rwandan Minister
of Defense and the various staffs.”108 In addition to advising Habyarimana, Galinié provided both
advice and, as he put it, “encouragement” to FAR operational commanders.109 He did this while,
at the same time, pressing French military and Ministry of Cooperation officials to supply the FAR
with needed ammunition.110
Other French military cooperants maintained contacts with their Rwandan colleagues
throughout the opening weeks of the war, even after France temporarily called its officers back to
the embassy to help prepare plans to evacuate French nationals.111 During this time, armed
helicopters from the FAR’s aviation squadron, which continued to receive advice from French
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October 1990
military cooperants,112 made six “shooting passes” per day over enemy positions—a “very high
rate,” in the estimation of one French officer who worked with the unit.113 The helicopters fired
640 rockets in the three weeks after the invasion.114
In his MIP testimony, the head of the French Military Cooperation Mission, General Jean
Varret, confirmed that there were times, during the early phase of the war, when French instructorpilots were on board the Gazelle helicopters alongside their Rwandan pupils.115 French officials
have maintained that the French instructors “were not at the controls of the helicopter to fire”116—
they were onboard only “to provide training in flying and shooting.”117
Efforts to improve the reconnaissance battalion and para-commando battalion continued as
well,118 to considerable effect on the war effort. The impact was such that, in December 1990, Col.
Laurent Serubuga, the FAR deputy chief of staff, declared to the head of the French Military
Cooperation Mission that “these units, backed by France, gave Rwanda the October victory.”119
Serubuga’s plea for French support of these units to continue was successful. In fact, in the three
and a half years leading up to the Genocide, the French government expanded its support.120
The 4 October launch of Operation Noroît, in which approximately 150 French troops from
a French base in the Central African Republic landed in Kigali, joining the French advisers already
in Rwanda, was followed the next day by the arrival of approximately 500 Belgian paratroopers.121
Both Belgium and France characterized their missions as the protection of their nationals in
Rwanda.122 As Admiral Lanxade wrote in a 2001 memoir, however, “This increase in our forces
was also a clear signal sent to the RPF and, indirectly, to Uganda.”123 In other words, these troops
also served as a deterrent of the RPF military advance.
Zaire’s President Mobutu Sese Seko sent an entire battalion plus his personal protection
force, the French-trained and well-equipped Division Speciale Presidentielle (“DSP”), which
helped drive the RPF troops from Gabiro.124 Reports placed the number of Zairean forces in
Rwanda variously at 1,000, 1,200, and 1,500,125 some of which reportedly participated in
“wantonly killing, looting, and raping,” including a massacre of 200 civilians in Gabiro.126
Habyarimana soon asked Zaire to remove its troops from Rwanda.127
France’s involvement had other consequences. When, for example, French and Belgian
soldiers secured the Kigali airport, ostensibly to facilitate the evacuation of their nationals, their
actions doubled as a favor to the Rwandan government; as the RPF’s James Kabarebe explained,
the decision “freed up the FAR to go to the front. The French action said, ‘we are securing Kigali
for you; you can go to the front.’”128 Col. Galinié—France’s military attaché, the head of the
Military Assistance Mission to Rwanda, and the commander of Noroît—confirmed as much in an
11 October telegram: “If the French and Belgian forces had not relieved [the FAR] by taking over
missions and terrain (protecting the airport and the roads leading to it) and if the Zairean forces
had not participated directly in the conflict, they would have, at best, shuttered themselves in Kigali
in conditions and with a less-than-effective plan.”129
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October 1990
E. In the Early Months of the Conflict, the Élysée Extended Military Support to the
Habyarimana Regime Despite Human Rights Abuses, Anti-Tutsi Massacres, and
Reservations among French Officials.
Of course, we fear it could get worse and turn into an ethnic disaster.130
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
Shortly after the 1 October RPF military attack, the international press began to report that
the Rwandan government was sponsoring massacres of civilians. On 10 October 1990, Reuters
reported that approximately 400 Rwandan civilians fled to Uganda after Rwandan troops and antiTutsi militias attacked peasants accused of supporting the RPF outside the northeast Rwandan
town of Nyakatale in the Mutara region near the border with Uganda: “Soldiers shot peasants and
burned down huts while Hutus hacked women and children with machetes Monday in attacks on
at least nine settlements inhabited mainly by the minority Tutsi tribe in northeast Rwanda, the
villagers said.”131 One witness recounted the kind of scene that would become all too familiar
four years later: “One woman died after Hutus hacked off her arms and forced them into her
mouth…. Her two small children, aged one and five were then slaughtered.”132 Another witness
said, “The whole place was littered with bodies, it seems more people died than escaped.”133 The
fleeing villagers said that hundreds of villagers had been killed.134
Around the same time, other massacres took place around Nyagatare, also in the Mutara
region. As one surviving farmer said, “They began shooting our cattle, then they ordered us
outside. We thought we were going to be released, but they formed us in a line and then began
shooting people.”135 The farmer “displayed festering gunshot wounds on his leg and back,”
Reuters reported at the time. “He said he had fallen behind a bush where he remained for three
days, too scared to move.”136
The violence was not limited to the northeastern border region. On the other side of the
country, in and around Kibilira, roughly 175 miles southwest of where the RPF troops had
attacked, local authorities directed the massacre of more than 300 mostly Tutsi civilians, and the
burning of more than 400 mostly Tutsi homes.137
Kigali issued feeble denials. Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir Bizimungu said the
murdered civilians were actually rebels in civilian clothing “because ‘that’s their guerilla
tactics.’”138 A public report issued in March 1993 by an independent consortium of human rights
groups led by the Paris-based Federation Internationale des Droits de L’Homme (International
Federation of Human Rights) (“FIDH”), would set the historical record straight:
According to [a FAR] officer…and verified by testimony of displaced persons in
camps in the region of Ngarama and others who had fled to Kigali, several
companies of the Rwandan army were ordered to clear the zone between Nyagatare
and Kagitumba [both in the northeast] of all humans and animals. The massacre
was carried out on October 8, 1990 by helicopters and soldiers on the ground. . . .
Between 500 and 1,000 persons were killed. The Rwandan Red Cross buried the
dead.139
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Chapter II
October 1990
The FIDH also concluded that beginning on 10 October, local Rwandan officials led
massacres in Kibilira and Satinsyi in western Rwanda, killing over 300 (mainly Tutsi), burning
over 400 homes, and destroying and pillaging “nearly all the farm animals, food reserves and
household furnishings” in 48 hours, confirming the broad outlines of the contemporaneous
Reuters report.140
French officials knew about the violence, and, what is more, they knew that President
Habyarimana’s party, the MRND, had, in some cases at least, played a role in it. A 13 October
1990 cable by Col. Galinié reported: “Organized by the MRND, Hutu farmers have intensified
their search for suspicious Tutsis in the foothills; massacres are reported in the region of Kibilira,
20 kilometers northwest of Gitarama. As previously indicated, the risk that this conflict will
spread seems to be becoming a reality.”141
Ambassador Martres was equally aware of the massacres and mass arrests.142 Martres, who
had been on vacation when the war began,143 returning to Kigali on 5 October, was on good terms
with Habyarimana and was a regular lunch guest at the president’s home.144 The two men were
close enough, in fact, that members of the diplomatic corps liked to joke that Martres acted less
like France’s ambassador to Rwanda than like Habyarimana’s ambassador to France.145 “Without
questioning the diplomatic talents of my colleague,” Belgian Ambassador Johan Swinnen would
later say, “I found it somewhat shameful, a bit humiliating and even dangerous for Martres to be
the object of the perception that he was a tool of the other country.”146
On 7 October, Martres told Reuters that the situation outside the capital was very confused,
and conceded that “there had been what he termed slip-ups because the troops were nervous. ‘Of
course, we fear it could get worse and turn into an ethnic disaster,’ [Martres] said.”147 By 15
October 1990, Martres acknowledged that the Tutsi population in Rwanda feared a genocide.
“[The Tutsi population] is still counting on a military victory,” Martres wrote in a memo titled
“analysis of the situation by the Tutsi population.” “A military victory,” he continued, “even a
partial one, would allow them to escape genocide.”148 Martres did not dismiss the possibility of
genocide. Indeed, he would later tell the French Parliamentary Information Mission (MIP) that as
early as October 1990, it was possible to see the calamity ahead:
The genocide was foreseeable as early as then [October 1990], even if we couldn’t
imagine its magnitude and atrociousness. Some Hutus had in fact had the audacity
to refer to it. Colonel Laurent Serubuga, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Rwandan
army, was pleased with the RPF attack, which would serve to justify the massacre
of Tutsis.149
The massacres took place in rural areas, where they were harder to see for the media and
the international community. In Kigali itself, late in the night of 4 October, the Rwandan
government staged a fake attack, supposedly by RPF troops, on the capital, and used it as a pretext
to arrest “several thousand people as suspected rebels or sympathizers;” many were tortured.150
While most were Tutsi or Habyarimana’s political opponents,151 the regime’s indiscriminate sweep
even took in Ambassador Martres’ driver Jean Rwabahizi, who had worked at the embassy for
more than two decades. Rwabahizi was arrested ostensibly for being out after curfew. He said he
was first taken to Kanombe Military Camp and beaten so severely that when the responsible
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Chapter II
October 1990
officers transferred him to Nyamirambo stadium with numerous other arrestees, the authorities
there did not want to accept Rwabahizi because they did not take “corpses.”152 Ambassador
Martres’ wife was ultimately able to get him released.153 To this day, Rwabahizi does not know
how she learned of his arrest.154 According to Rwabahizi, he told Ambassador Martres what
happened to him and also about the plight of the abuse of others who were held at Nyamirambo
stadium.155 It took Rwabahizi two months to recover from his injuries and return to driving
Ambassador Martres.156
The mass arrests made news in Europe. On 9 October 1990, Le Monde reported that the
Rwandan government’s “hunt for arms and rebels in the working-class Nyamirambo neighborhood
is reportedly brutal. In the stadium next door, the army has rounded up several hundred
‘suspects.’”157 Within days, Le Monde revised its estimate of the number arrested from “a few
hundred” to 3,000, as did publications in the United States.158 A 12 October cable signed by Col.
Galinié and sent by Ambassador Martres put the number at 10,000, noting also that “the
interrogations are violent,” and “people are held for several days without food or drink.”159
On 8 October, Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens spoke to Rwandan Ambassador to
Belgium Francois Ngarukiyintwali about the arrests.160 On 10 October, the Quai d’Orsay issued a
statement declaring its hope that the Rwandan government would avoid “excess” and called on
local authorities to “engage in dialogue.”161 Belgium’s ambassador to Rwanda, Johan Swinnen,
was far more forceful, personally urging President Juvénal Habyarimana “to respect the rights of
people detained in an anti-rebel mopping up operation.”162 A formal demarche from Swinnen to
the Habyarimana government on 11 October laid out the full range of Belgium’s concerns,
decrying the reported massacres, other human rights abuses, and Rwanda’s denial of Red Cross
access to detainees.163
Habyarimana eventually released many of the detainees, and Martres would later claim
credit by attributing the decision to apply “international pressure, mainly that of France because
of its significant military presence. Therefore, it was with the sole purpose of avoiding the worst
outbursts of violence that French military presence was maintained [in Rwanda].”164
Lost in Martres’ attempt to assign credit to the French government for Habyarimana’s
concessions was the hard truth that France was backing the Rwandan government despite French
officials’ knowledge of the Habyarimana’s regime’s “worst excesses.”165 The warnings would
only grow louder. A 19 October 1990 cable by Col. Galinié cautioned that “hardliners of the
current regime” might encourage Rwandans to commit more “serious abuses against the inland
Tutsi populations” if the RPF succeeded in seizing more territory.166 Galinié assessed that
Rwanda’s Hutu majority was primed to fear that an RPF military victory would mark a return to
Tutsi rule.167 Rwandans, he argued in a 24 October note, would never accept the reestablishment
in northeast Rwanda of what he called “the despised regime of the first Tutsi kingdom.”168 His
prediction—chilling, in light of what was come—was that “this overt or covert reestablishment
would lead: in all likelihood, to the physical elimination of the Tutsi within the country, 500,000
to 700,000 people, by the Hutu, 7,000,000 individuals.”169
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October 1990
F. As Belgium Withdrew, the French Government Increased Its Support.
Belgium has its conscience, and we have ours.170
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
On 11 October, Col. Galinié delivered a grimly blunt assessment of the FAR’s capabilities:
“[T]he Rwandan army is unable to handle the situation.”171 According to the MIP, Galinié
“recommend[ed] that France send advisers on the ground in the northeast in the combat zone and
in Kigali” to, in Galiné’s words, “educate, organize and motivate a troop that had languished for
thirty years and that had forgotten the basic rules of combat.”172 This recommendation would
become reality in March 1991, when France sent a detachment of 30 officers to instruct Rwandan
troops in Ruhengeri, in the northwest. Those troops would supplement the high-level
reinforcement France sent in fall 1990: the appointment of a special advisor to Col. Serubuga to
“improve [the Rwandan] army’s operational abilities in order to get it quickly capable of opposing
the increasing number of raids by RPF troops.”173
The man selected for this assignment, Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Canovas, was, in the
words of French authors Gabriel Périès and David Servenay, “un homme de terrain”—roughly, a
man with hands-on experience in the field.174 He came from the 1st Marine Infantry Paratrooper
Regiment,175 an arm of the French Army Special Forces Command, where, according to JeanFrançois Dupaquier, a French investigative journalist who served as an expert at the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”), Canovas had a “brilliant career” as a paratrooper.176
Dupaquier wrote darkly of Canovas, describing him as “a specialist in total warfare and in
disinformation as a weapon of war,”177 while Périès and Servenay have described Canovas as an
experienced soldier who could offer Rwanda the benefit of “French know-how in defense
matters.”178
Officially, Canovas served under Galinié both as deputy defense attaché and as deputy of
operations for the Military Assistance Mission.179 It appears, though, that Canovas operated
outside of the usual reporting channels, with the Duclert Commission deducing that his mission
was likely “closely managed” by President Mitterrand’s staff at the Élysée.180
Canovas testified before the MIP in 1998. While that testimony has not been made public,
the MIP report itself stated that Canovas insisted his mission was “official and avowed”—just one
component of France’s emergency response “in the context of a major crisis, which the Rwandan
Armed Forces—few in number and largely inexperienced—had trouble handling.”181
Canovas’ presence at Col. Serubuga’s side during the first nine months of the war, from
October 1990 to June 1991, was never publicized. (In his 2004 book on France’s role in Rwanda,
the journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry quoted an unnamed French officer as saying that Canovas’
charge was to advise the Rwandan command on the sly.182) The secrecy suggests that French
officials were concerned about the controversy it might create, in both France and Rwanda, as
would happen in February 1992, when opposition political parties decried reports that Lieutenant
Colonel Gilles Chollet, the head of the detachment sent in March 1991, was advising both
President Habyarimana and Col. Serubuga on military operations.183 The Quai d’Orsay denied
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October 1990
those reports,184 and it never mentioned that Canovas had been advising Serubuga long before
Chollet.
From the beginning, Canovas enjoyed what the historian Daniela Kroslak would describe
as “privileged access to information about troop deployment and other military activities of the
FAR.”185 The MIP report reflects that at his hearing, Canovas acknowledged his role in helping
the FAR develop a defense plan for the city of Kigali, as well as plans to strengthen the FAR’s
fighting capabilities “in the border regions facing the greatest threat,” including Gisenyi and
Ruhengeri in the northwest, Byumba in the center, and the Mutara Lake region in the northeast.186
The MIP offers no further specifics on the advice he provided. Documents show, however, that he
had a voice in high-level strategic military discussions.187 Canovas spoke freely in meetings with
FAR leaders, such as a 2 November 1990 meeting with Col. Serubuga, during which Canovas
recommended having Rwandan reconnaissance planes fly at low enough altitude to evade enemy
fire and also “to create enemy panic.”188
Other French officers had their own opportunities to advise the FAR. Beginning in late
October 1990, Rwandan Army and Gendarmerie leaders began holding daily, or near-daily,
briefings for French and Belgian military officers in Kigali.189 Typically, two Noroît officers and
a French advisor to the para-commando battalion attended.190 The mid-afternoon briefings
invariably began with an overview of the security situation in the country, followed by a review
of the latest skirmishes in the combat zone, and finally a question-and-answer session, during
which the Rwandan military leaders shared highly sensitive information—for instance,
intelligence gleaned from the FAR’s aerial reconnaissance missions.191 Colonel Anatole
Nsengiyumva, the FAR’s chief of military intelligence, would continue for a time to provide
briefings to the Noroît officers after Belgium withdrew its troops from the country on 1
November.192
The MIP suggested that France did not at first envision keeping Canovas in Rwanda for
more than a few weeks.193 President Habyarimana hoped otherwise, telling French officials in
November 1990 that Canovas and Galinié had “played a decisive role as advisers that were
effective and had the ear of Rwandan military authorities of all ranks.”194 In December 1990,
during a visit to Rwanda by General Jean Varret, the head of the Military Cooperation Mission in
Paris, Habyarimana, Serubuga, and Colonel Léonidas Rusatira (the Secretary General of the
Defense Ministry) all pleaded with Varret to extend Canovas’ tour (as well as the tours of French
advisers working with the aviation squadron and para-commando battalion).195 Varret obliged,
assuring Habyarimana that France would extend Canovas’ term for six months, until June 1991.196
French support for the FAR extended beyond strategic advice to material support. On 8
October, Admiral Lanxade reported to President Mitterrand that France had sent munitions to
Habyarimana in the “first days of the crisis” and recommended adding a small shipment of
helicopter rockets, which President Mitterrand authorized in a handwritten note.197 (Belgium
provided two planeloads of munitions to resupply the Rwandan Army.198) The following week, on
16 October, Lanxade’s deputy, Colonel Huchon, warned Mitterrand that President Habyarimana
remained in a “very difficult” situation:
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October 1990
The Hutu peasantry, even though it has an 85% majority in Rwanda, will not be
able to single-handedly oppose an offensive by Tutsi forces, whose supply of arms
and ammunition appears to be abnormally sustained. President Habyarimana’s
future depends more and more on the diplomatic and material aid that we can give
him.199
Rwandan officials persisted in “asking France for direct military intervention and for help
with their ammunition and weapons supply,” as Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the head of the Africa
Cell at the Élysée, reported to President Mitterrand on 16 October.200 Dismissing the possibility of
intervening directly, the president’s son proposed two options: (1) “minimum deliveries [to] allow
the army to maintain a status quo on the ground[,]” such as “heavy equipment—helicopters, light
armored vehicles, AML [a type of light armored vehicle],” or (2) “a reliable logistics flow [that
would] allow Habyarimana to score decisive military points in order to negotiate from a
comfortable position.”201 He noted the latter option would “allow France to forcefully demand
respect for human rights and a speedy move towards democracy once calm has returned.”202 He
concluded by pointing out the urgency of decision: “A plane must leave for Kigali Wednesday
morning [17 October]. Depending on the decision, it will be almost empty . . . or full, which will
allow regular [that is, Rwandan—ed.] troops to resume the offensive or at least to contain one.”203
While it is unclear whether the plane left empty or full, an 18 October memo by an advisor reported
to President Mitterrand, “We . . . responded positively to the requests made by the Rwandan
authorities for the supply of ammunition and that we have in particular sent rockets for ‘Gazelle’
helicopters. A plane carrying new rockets left this morning for Kigali.”204
In total, during October 1990, the French Ministry of Cooperation granted to Rwanda in
the form of direct aid (i.e. for free): 130,000 9mm cartridges for sidearms, 2,040 20mm shells,
2,000 60mm mortar shells, and 100 68mm rockets, for use on Gazelle helicopters.205 In addition,
during 1990, France sold 3.3 million French francs (about $600,000) in equipment from its own
military stocks to the Rwandan government, likely consisting primarily of 90mm explosive
artillery shell rounds, 120mm explosive mortar shells, spare parts for Alouette II helicopters, as
well as nonlethal supplies.206 In the course of 1990, the French government also authorized 191
million French francs (about $34.7 million) in arms sales by French companies to Rwanda.207
At least one French official, President Mitterrand’s top military advisor, Admiral Lanxade,
questioned whether France should reduce its support for Habyarimana in light of the allegations
of the regime’s human rights abuses. Lanxade was “very close” to Mitterrand.208 The two had met
in 1987, when Mitterrand visited a French aircraft carrier under Lanxade’s authority as the head
of French naval operations in the Indian Ocean.209 According to Lanxade’s memoir, it was a
meeting of like minds: “From the outset, with Mitterrand, we were on the same page on
international affairs. . . . He must have said to himself: ‘Here is a soldier with whom we can talk
about strategy.’”210 On 11 October 1990, Lanxade recommended that France partially withdraw
its forces so as “not to appear too implicated in supporting Rwandan forces should serious acts of
violence against the population be brought to light in current operations.”211 Mitterrand,
apparently, did not share his concern. The admiral’s recommendation for a partial withdrawal went
unheeded, causing no discernible change in France’s policy in Rwanda.
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October 1990
Belgium, by contrast, was reconsidering its commitment. According to the Belgian
Senate’s Commission of Parliamentary Inquiry Concerning Events in Rwanda, Belgium decided
to withdraw its forces in response to broad domestic opposition to “news of arrests of many people
from the opposition and on the militarization of the Rwandan regime.”212 The Belgian Senate urged
the government, as an alternative, to focus on helping Rwanda achieve “democratization and a
negotiated peace.”213
Rwandan officials hoped that some other Western country—the United States, perhaps—
would come in to fill the void left by Belgium.214 But France was also willing to take on an
additional load. In a 29 October meeting, Col. Serubuga asked Col. Galinié, Lt. Col. Canovas, and
other French officers for help in assessing the needs of the FAR’s most elite units in light of the
Belgian troops’ upcoming departure, then just a few days away.215 (Belgian military advisors
remained even after Belgian troops departed.216) Serubuga’s Rwandan colleagues rattled off a list
of supplies France might provide, including 400 rockets and 1,000 cannon shells for the aviation
squadron and radio equipment for the transmission company.217 Galinié signaled his agreement
and said he would forward the requests for approval.218
President Mitterrand welcomed the opportunity to spotlight France’s support for
Habyarimana. “We maintain friendly relations with the Government of Rwanda, which has come
closer to France after noticing Belgium’s relative indifference towards its former colony,” he
reportedly said on 17 October, according to notes from a meeting he held with French ministers.219
Ambassador Martres, meanwhile, accused Belgium of more than mere indifference. “On a
diplomatic level,” he wrote in a 24 October cable to Paris, “the rush of the Belgian side to give
away Rwanda as it did the Congo in 1960, and for analogous domestic political reasons, poses a
grave threat to the future of the Rwandan people.”220 On 29 July 1991, as France’s involvement
in Rwanda continued to increase, Martres would tell a Rwandan newspaper: “Belgium has its
conscience, and we have ours.”221
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Notes to Chapter II
1
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
2
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
3
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
4
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
5
Interview by LFM with Eric Murokore; Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
6
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
7
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
8
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
9
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe; Interview by LFM with Eric Murokore. According to Gen. Murokore, an
accurate count of RPF soldiers on 1 October 1990 is difficult. Prior to that day, he said, these troops had never been
together as a singular force. Some Rwandans who had been in the NRA were delayed in making it to the front—those
who were on leave when the call came to mobilize, those who got the information late, or those who were delayed
because of the roadblocks set up by the NRA soldiers. It took some of the Rwandan NRA soldiers one or two months
to get to the border. There were also Rwandan exiles from all over central and east Africa who were making their way
to the front, not only from Uganda, but from 30 years of living in exile in Burundi, Zaire, Tanzania, and Kenya. See
also Memorandum from Celestin Rwagafilita (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Compte rendu de la réunion d’EM Gd N tenue
en date du 01 Octobre 1990 de 1145 A 1220 B”) (placing the RPF initial attack at 10:00 a.m.).
10
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
11
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
12
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe; interview by LFM with Eric Murokore.
13
RPF officers were addressed as “commander.” Interview by LFM with Eric Murokore.
14
JEAN-PAUL KIMONYO, TRANSFORMING RWANDA: CHALLENGES ON THE ROAD TO RECONSTRUCTION 85 (2019).
15
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga; Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemera.
16
Cable from American Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Invaders consolidate
hold on Rwandan territories: GOR prepares for second offensive”) (reporting on a meeting with French, Belgian, and
German military attachés).
17
Cable from American Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Invaders consolidate
hold on Rwandan territories: GOR prepares for second offensive”).
18
US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the Region”).
19
Duclert Commission Report 46 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3, TD Kigali 499, October 4, 1990).
20
Duclert Commission Report 44 n.18 (quoting ADIPLO, 20200018AC/3, TD Kigali 495, 3 Oct. 1990).
21
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 163-64 (2001).
22
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
23
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
24
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
25
MIP Audition of Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Tome III, Vol. 2, 85-86. Chevènement once said, “A minister shuts
their trap. If they want to open it, then they resign.” Auberie Perreaut, Chevènement, un ancien ministre aux démissions
fracassantes, LE FIGARO, 29 Aug. 2016.
26
See GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 101
MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
27
(1995); JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE
MIP Tome I 129-30.
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Chapter II
October 1990
28
See Press Conference by François Mitterrand, Conférence de presse de M. François Mitterrand, Président de la
République, notamment sur les récents événements au Liban, le conflit dans le Golfe et la proposition d'une conférence
internationale pour régler les conflits au Proche et Moyen-Orient, Paris [Press Conference by Mr. François Mitterrand,
President of the Republic, Notably on the Recent Events in Lebanon, the Conflict in the Golf and the Proposition of
an International Conference to Resolve the Conflicts in the Middle East, Paris] (15 Oct. 1990); Cable from American
Embassy in Paris to US Secretary of State (4 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Rwanda: France Will Send Ammunition”).
29
François Graner, Entretien avec l’amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], LA NUIT
10, 8 Apr. 2016.
RWANDAISE, NO.
30
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
31
MIP Audition of Jacques Pelletier, Tome III, Vol. 2, 88 (quoting Jacques Pelletier Audition summary) (Pelletier’s
testimony, like all witnesses heard by the MIP, is a summary and not a verbatim transcript); see also THE NATIONAL
SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE: RWANDA 1990-1994,
Annotated Transcript 1-64 (2 June 2014). While discussing Mitterrand’s reasons for military opposition to the RPF,
his advisor Hubert Védrine recalled hearing the President “talk frequently about France’s commitment to stability and
security in Africa, from Senegal to Djibouti.”
32
MIP Audition of Jacques Pelletier, Tome III, Vol. 2, 88 (quoting Jacques Pelletier Audition summary); see also THE
NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE: RWANDA 19901994, Annotated Transcript 1-64 (2 June 2014). A January 1991 French military intelligence report took note of this
concern, stating: “President Habyarimana considers that a European military presence is likely to provide him with
stabilizing support. It is possible that this view is shared by several other heads of state in francophone Africa.” Duclert
Commission Report 834 (quoting SHD, GR 1999 Z 117/93, Fiche n° 4009 /DEF/EMA/CERM/2 “Rwanda-situation
and French presence,” 3 Jan. 1991).
33
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 104 (1995) (referring to Ugandan President
Museveni as, from the French government’s perspective, “an incarnation of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ menace in its truest
form”).
34
François Graner, Entretien avec l’amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], in LA NUIT
100 (2016).
RWANDAISE
35
Védrine was a mainstay of Mitterrand’s 14-year presidency, beginning with his tenure as Mitterrand’s personal
diplomatic counsel from 1981 to 1986. He went on to serve as Élysée spokesman (1988 – 1991) and as secretary
general to the president (1991 – 1995). See Biographie, HUBERT VÉDRINE, https://www.hubertvedrine.net/biographie/
(last visited 17 Nov. 2020). Although the powers of the secretary general have never been legally defined and have
varied greatly between presidencies, Védrine received and reviewed all incoming information for Mitterrand,
selecting, prioritizing, and following up on requests by adding handwritten comments characterizing and highlighting
information for the president. See Jacques Morel & Georges Kapler, Hubert Védrine, gardien de l’Inavouable [Hubert
Védrine, Guardian of the Unmentionable], in LA NUIT RWANDAISE 2-3 (2008); see generally Xavier Magnon,
L’organisation particulière du secrétariat général de l’Elysée et du cabinet du Premier ministre: considérations
générales et regard particulier sur l’organisation actuelle [The Special Organization of the General Secretariat of
the Élysée Palace and the Prime Minister’s Office: General Considerations and a Special Look into the Current
Organization], TOULOUSE CAPITOLE PUBLICATIONS (2015).
Védrine has acknowledged having had some influence on President Mitterrand’s decision-making through
one-on-one discussions of various foreign-policy issues. He has long claimed, though, that he did not play any role in
decision-making over Africa, and Rwanda more specifically, citing his comparative lack of expertise on Africa
matters, the existence of the Africa Cell within the Élysée, and the dominant part the president’s top military advisor
would play in Africa matters. See LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 718, 763-64
(2019). Since the end of the Rwanda conflict, Védrine has been one of the most vocal defenders of Mitterrand’s legacy
(and of his Rwanda policy), as the director, since 2003, of the late president’s archive in the Institut François
Mitterrand. See Hubert Védrine – Président de l’Institut Francois Mitterrand, INSTITUT FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND (last
visited 24 Feb. 2021).
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Chapter II
October 1990
36
Cable from American Embassy Paris to US Secretary of State (19 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Rwanda: October 18
Meeting of Presidents Mitterrand and Habyarimana”).
37
See Duclert Commission Report 50-51. On 8 Nov. 1990, the DGSE noted that, while Rwandan authorities
persistently accused President Museveni of orchestrating a “deliberate attack” against Rwanda, “there is no evidence
that the rebels actually received significant aid from” Uganda. See Duclert Commission Report 110-11 (quoting
AN/PR-PIN, AG/5(4)/DP/34, Second sub-file. 1989-1990-1991 Rwanda. Policy. File (DGSE blue) no. 18974/N, 8
Nov. 1990. Rwanda. Involvement of Uganda and Libya).
38
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
39
STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 70-77 (2008).
40
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
41
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
42
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
43
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
44
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
45
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
46
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
47
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
48
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
49
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
50
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
51
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
52
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
53
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
54
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
55
MIP Tome I 126. For a detailed discussion of the MIP and its shortcomings, see the Epilogue.
56
See, e.g., Cable from Yannick Gérard (10 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “La communauté rwandaise en ouganda”)
(identifying the insurgents as “Rwandan refugees” who “believe that their country—they often say their homeland—
is Rwanda and not Uganda”); Cable from Yannick Gérard (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec des représentants
du front patriotique rwandais”) (“The objective of the RPF is to liberate the country from the dictatorship of
Habyarimana.”).
57
Cable from Yannick Gérard (10 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “La communauté rwandaise en ouganda”).
58
Cable from Yannick Gérard (10 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “La communauté rwandaise en ouganda”).
59
Cable from Yannick Gérard (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec des représentants du front patriotique
rwandais”).
60
Cable from Yannick Gérard (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec des représentants du front patriotique
rwandais”).
61
Cable from Yannick Gérard (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec des représentants du front patriotique
rwandais”).
62
See, e.g., Notes of Meeting at the Élysée (23 Jan. 1991) (“Uganda cannot allow itself to do just anything and
everything. We must tell President Museveni: it’s not normal that the Tutsi minority wants to impose its rule over the
[Hutu] majority . . . .”); Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (asserting that the
RPF army benefitted from “Uganda’s military support”); Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François
Mitterrand (23 July 1992) (referring to a “Ugandan-RPF offensive”).
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Chapter II
October 1990
63
See François Mitterrand, Opening Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (June 1990).
64
See François Mitterrand, Opening Speech to the 16th Franco-African Summit in La Baule, France (June 1990).
65
Restricted Council Meeting Notes (2 Apr. 1993). Mitterrand remarked that, ordinarily, France would not intervene
in a conflict “unless there is a foreign aggression, and not in cases of tribal conflict,” but that “in this case, it’s an
amalgamation [of the two] because of the Tutsi problem.”
66
Memorandum from Boniface Ngulinzira and Juvénal Habimana to Juvénal Habyarimana (9 Oct. 1990) (Subject:
“Mobilisation de la presse internationale”).
67
Memorandum from Boniface Ngulinzira and Juvénal Habimana to Juvénal Habyarimana (9 Oct. 1990) (Subject:
“Mobilisation de la presse internationale”).
68
Duclert Commission Report 74, 752. A note on one fax said, “To be destroyed after reading like all my handwritten
messages.” Id. at 75.
69
Duclert Commission Report 752 (quoting SHD, versement tardif n°1. Avec une mention « Personnel –
Confidentiel »).
70
Duclert Commission Report 752 (quoting SHD, versement tardif n°1. Avec une mention « Personnel –
Confidentiel »).
71
Duclert Commission Report 75 (quoting SHD, versement tardif numéro 1, Fax du général Huchon au colonel
Galinié, sans date).
72
Cable from Georges Martres (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
73
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
74
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
75
Memorandum from Anatole Nsengiyumva (15 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Exploitation d’un rapport”). The day before,
Nsengiyumva received a letter from one of the French officer’s primary points of contact in the Rwandan army: the
commander of the para-commando battalion, Commandant Aloys Ntabakuze. Ntabakuze’s 14 December 1990 letter
gave rise to Nsengiyumva’s argument that Rwandan officials “must exploit the fact that the aggression against our
country is supported by Museveni’s Uganda and Kaddafi’s Libya,” as “[c]ertain countries could be sensitive to this
and resolutely come to our aid, or at least put pressure on Museveni so that he puts an end to this deliberate and
unjustified aggression.” Nsengiyumva praised Ntabakuze: “If only all of the unit [commanders], if not all of the
officers, could be animated by the same spirit,” he wrote in his 15 December letter to Habyarimana. Prosecutor v.
Aloys Ntabakuze, Case No. ICTR-98-41A-A, Appeal Judgement (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 8 Nov. 2012).
Ntabakuze is presently serving a 35-year sentence following his convictions for genocide, extermination, and crimes
against humanity, among other offenses.
76
Théoneste Bagosora and Anatole Nsengiyumva v. Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-98-41-A, Appeal Judgement, ¶¶ 111,
400, 428-430 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 14 Dec. 2011).
77
Memorandum from Anatole Nsengiyumva (15 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Exploitation d’un rapport”).
78
MIP Tome I 138-39.
79
Memorandum from Anatole Nsengiyumva (15 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Exploitation d’un rapport”).
80
See Ferdinand Nahimana et al. v. Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, Appeal Judgement (Int’l Crim. Trib. for
Rwanda 28 Nov. 2007).
81
Prisca Borrel, Narbonne: ‘la France doit des excuses au peuple rwandais’, témoigne l’ex-ambassadeur [Narbonne:
“France Owes an Apology to the Rwandan People” States the Former Ambassador], L’INDEPENDANT, 10 Apr. 2014
(interview with Georges Martres).
82
RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987).
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Chapter II
October 1990
83
RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987); see also Cable to US Defense Intelligence Agency et al. (18 Oct. 1990)
(Subject: “[Redacted] Rwanda Patriotic Front Political Program”) (including the RPF’s Political Programme as an
enclosure).
84
RPF, POLITICAL PROGRAMME (1987); see also Cable to US Defense Intelligence Agency et al. (18 Oct. 1990)
(Subject: “[Redacted] Rwanda Patriotic Front Political Program”) (including the RPF’s Political Programme as an
enclosure).
85
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
86
Cable from Yannick Gérard (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec des représentants du front patriotique
rwandais”).
87
Letter from Pierre Karemera to François Mitterrand et al. (10 Oct. 1990) (on behalf of the Communuté rwandaise
de Suisse).
88
See, e.g., Belgium and France Send Troops to Rwanda as Army Holds Rebels, REUTERS, 4 Oct. 1990 (“In Kampala,
the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) said it was behind the attack to oust Habyarimana but denied that it was an
ethnically-based organization. ‘It is neither a Hutu-Tutsi conflict, nor a refugee problem. We are opposing a system
which is under a small clique that is undemocratic, corrupt and abuses human rights,’ an RPF spokesman said.”);
Aidan Hartley, Rwandan Rebellion Draws Exiles Back Home from Uganda, REUTERS, 9 Oct. 1990 (reporting that the
rebels’ “aims, they say, are to topple the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana, end government corruption
and repression, institute democracy, and solve the refugee problem created when thousands fled tribal massacres three
decades ago”).
89
Prisca Borrel, Narbonne: ‘la France doit des excuses au peuple rwandais’, témoigne l’ex-ambassadeur [Narbonne:
“France Owes an Apology to the Rwandan People” States the Former Ambassador], L’INDEPENDANT, 10 Apr. 2014
(interview with Georges Martres).
90
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript 1-77 (2 June 2014).
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
91
Jean Hélène, Rwanda: retour au calme dans la capitale [Rwanda: Return to Calm in the Capital], LE MONDE, 10
Oct. 1990.
92
Jean Hélène, Rwanda: retour au calme dans la capitale [Rwanda: Return to Calm in the Capital], LE MONDE, 10
Oct. 1990.
93
French ministerial meeting notes (17 Oct. 1990).
94
Restricted Council meeting notes (22 June 1994) (“If this country were to come under the domination of the Tutsi,
a small ethnic minority based in Uganda where some favor the creation of a ‘Tutsiland’ encompassing not only that
country but also Rwanda and Burundi, it is certain that the democratization process will be interrupted.”); see also
Notes of Meeting at the Élysée (23 Jan. 1991) (quoting Mitterrand as declaring, “[w]e must tell President Museveni:
it’s not normal that the Tutsi minority wants to impose its rule over the Hutu majority”).
95
WENDY WHITWORTH, WE SURVIVED: GENOCIDE IN RWANDA 114 - 119 (2006).
96
Letter from Athanase Gasake to Juvénal Habyarimana (31 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien du Général Varret, Chef
de la Mission Militaire de Coopération Française”).
97
US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the Region”).
98
US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the Region”).
99
Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (17 Aug. 1989) (dossier regarding the issuance of a technical assistance card
to French officer Daniel Leroyer).
100
Memorandum from Celestin Rwagafilita (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Compte rendu de la réunion d’EM Gd N tenue
en date du 01 Octobre 1990 de 1145 A 1220 B”).
101
Memorandum from Celestin Rwagafilita (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Compte rendu de la réunion d’EM Gd N tenue
en date du 01 Octobre 1990 de 1145 A 1220 B”).
102
Memorandum de Coopération Militaire Franco-Rwandaise (31 May 1990).
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Chapter II
October 1990
103
Tri-monthly DMAT report from Bruno Ducoin (10 Jan. 1991) (describing mission of the mécaniciens d’équipage);
Proposition d’affectation au titre de l’assistance technique [Proposal for Assignment under Technical Assistance] (24
Jan. 1989) (noting Leroyer’s expertise with regard to the “N 2501”).
104
Report from Marc Sagniez, Compte-rendu du capitaine Marc Sagniez chef du détachement militaire d’assistance
technique “air” (15 Jan. 1990).
105
Duclert Commission Report 60 (quoting SHD, versement tardif I, Rapport du colonel Galinié n°33/4/AD/RWA).
106
Duclert Commission Report 60-61 (citing SHD, versement tardif I, Rapport du colonel Galinié n°33/4/AD/RWA).
107
Duclert Commission Report 60-61 (quoting SHD, versement tardif I, Rapport du colonel Galinié
n°33/4/AD/RWA).
108
Duclert Commission Report 59.
109
Duclert Commission Report 59 (quoting SHD, versement tardif I, Rapport n°33/4/AD/RWA du colonel Galinié,
20 Nov. 1990).
110
Duclert Commission Report 63.
111
Tri-montly DMAT report from Bruno Ducoin (10 Jan. 1991).
112
Tri-montly DMAT report from Bruno Ducoin (10 Jan. 1991).
113
Report from Marliac, emploi de l’escadrille d’aviation des Forces Armées Rwandaises pendant les évènements du
mois d’octobre (6 Nov. 1990).
114
Report from Marliac, emploi de l’escadrille d’aviation des Forces Armées Rwandaises pendant les évènements du
mois d’octobre (6 Nov. 1990).
115
MIP Audition of Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 8.
116
MIP Audition of Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 8 (“President Paul Quilès asked whether the instructors were at the
controls of the helicopter to fire. General Jean Varret said that although the training missions were extended in the
field in October 1990, our technical assistants did not carry out firing operations because the Rwandan soldiers were
at the controls.”).
117
MIP Tome I 169-70.
118
See, e.g., Memorandum from Bernard Cussac (14 May 1992) (Subject: “Activités de la Mission d’Assistance
Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990”). In late October 1990, Col. Galinié agreed to send two French technicians to
Rwanda to help the reconnaissance battalion repair its light armored vehicles. See Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990)
(signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza). The technicians, specialists in turrets and armament, helped bring the battalion’s
weaponry into “acceptable” working condition. See Memorandum from Bernard Cussac (14 May 1992) (Subject:
“Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990”).
119
Memorandum from Athanase Gasake to Juvénal Habyarimana (31 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien du Général
Varret, Chef de la Mission Militaire de Coopération Française”).
120
See generally Compte rendu semestriel de fonctionnement (8 Oct. 1991); Memorandum from Bernard Cussac (14
May 1992) (Subject: “Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990”); Compte rendu
semestriel de fonctionnement (21 Oct. 1992).
121
Redistribution politique dans le conflit rwandais [Political Redistribution in the Rwandan Conflict], AFP, 15 Oct.
1990; US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the
Region”); Cable from American Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State (5 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Invasions of
Rwanda: Update of October 5: SITREP 10”) (“Foreign military assets on hand: as of 1300 hrs., approximately 300
French forces, 150 French legionnaires, are on the ground. The French also say 400 Zairian troops . . . are in Kigali. .
. . The first plane load of what will total 5 to 600 Belgium paratroopers landed this morning. French and Belgian forces
protect the airport which continues to function. Belgian forces have also as their mission and the protection of access
road to the airport. According to the Belgian ambassador Furnneu, they would be prepared to assist evacuation of
Belgians and other foreign national should it become necessary.”).
122
See, e.g., US Department of State, Rwanda: Tutsi Exiles Challenge Rwandan Stability (12 Oct. 1990) (“Paris and
Brussels have insisted, however, that their forces are in Rwanda solely to evacuate and protect French and Belgian
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Chapter II
October 1990
nationals and will not intervene in the fighting.”). See also US Department of State, Africa Trends (25 Oct. 1990)
(France’s agenda was “to protect its nationals and assist Belgian troops in securing Kigali airport.”).
123
JACQUES LANXADE, QUAND LE MONDE A BASCULÉ [WHEN THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN] 164 (2001).
124
Frances Kerry, Foreign Minister Says 10,000 Rebel Force Could Double or Triple, REUTERS, 8 Oct. 1990; France,
Belgium, Zaire Send Troops to Rebel-Hit Rwanda, REUTERS, 5 Oct. 1990; Cable to US Defense Intelligence Agency
(Oct. 11, 1990) (Subject: “IIR [redacted]/Tutsi Patriotic Rwandan Front in Zaire Produces Leaflet Explaining Reasons
Behind the Rwandan Invasion”); US Department of State, Rwanda: Tutsi Exiles Challenge Rwandan Stability (12
Oct. 1990); US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the
Region”).
125
Frances Kerry, Kigali Reported Quiet, Belgium and France Send in More Planes, REUTERS, 7 Oct. 1990 (“A senior
French official, who asked not to be named, said there were now about 1,000 troops from Zaire in the country.”);
Cable to US Defense Intelligence Agency (Oct. 11, 1990) (Subject: “IIR [redacted]/Tutsi Patriotic Rwandan Front in
Zaire Produces Leaflet Explaining Reasons Behind the Rwandan Invasion”); Aidan Hartley, Rebels Say 1,500 Zairean
Troops in Rwanda, Belgians Involved, REUTERS, 12 Oct. 1990; US Department of State, Rwanda: Tutsi Exiles
Challenge Rwandan Stability (12 Oct. 1990) (estimating the number at 1200).
126
Cable to US Defense Intelligence Agency (Oct. 11, 1990) (Subject: “IIR [redacted]/Tutsi Patriotic Rwandan Front
in Zaire Produces Leaflet Explaining Reasons Behind the Rwandan Invasion”); Zaire’s Troops Loot in Rwanda, 100
Killed, Newspaper Says, REUTERS, 18 Oct. 1990 (“At least 100 Zairean troops sent to Rwanda to help quell a rebellion
have been killed and others have disgraced themselves by raping and robbing Rwandans, a Zairean newspaper said
on Thursday.”).
127
Habyarimana gave the implausible explanation that the Zairean forces had been withdrawn to “allow fresh
[Rwandan] troops to take their place.” Nicholas Doughty, Belgium Says Troops Will Stay in Rwanda Until Ceasefire,
REUTERS, 20 Oct. 1990. A 13 October 1990 cable from Ambassador Martres, however, reported:
The behavior of Zairian troops is a subject of concern for the Rwandan population and for
settlements of expatriates. In fact, traders, automobile drivers, and simple pedestrians are held for
ransom daily at the Zairian control posts. Certain reports indicate numerous lootings (in particular
in Gabiro, where the hotel was entirely stripped bare). Rapes have also been reported. Conscious of
the significance of these abuses, the country’s highest authorities have decided to take measures
within 24 hours (information provided at the A.D. by Colonel Rusatira), among which the most
probable is the withdrawal of the Zairians from urban zones.
Cable from Georges Martres (13 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation générale le 13 octobre 1990 à 12 heures locales”).
128
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe; Cable from Leonard Spearman to US Secretary of State (8 Oct. 1990)
(Subject: “SITREP 13: Zairians Mobilize in Mutara, Rwandans Lose Observation Plane, French Arrange Convoy for
Expats from Gisenyi and Ruhengeri”) (“Airport access road and Kigali airport remain well defended by French and
Belgian troops.”); see also MIP Tome I 129 (noting the ostensible purpose of controlling the airport).
129
MIP Tome I 137 (The quoted diplomatic telegram from René Galinié is excerpted in the MIP report, but the full
document was not made public.) Col. Galinié of the French Gendarmerie had been on the ground in Rwanda since
August 1988, serving as the Defense Attaché and Head of the Military Assistance Mission in Rwanda (August 1988July 1991) and as Commanding Officer, Operation Noroît (October 1990-July 1991, except November 1990). See
MIP Tome II, Annex 1.1.
130
Frances Kerry, Kigali Reported Quiet, Belgium and France Send in More Planes, REUTERS, 7 Oct. 1990.
131
Aidan Hartley, Fleeing Peasants Report Massacres by Rwandan Army, REUTERS, 10 Oct. 1990; see also Cable
from John Burroughs to US Secretary of State (19 Oct. 1990) (confirming press reports that the number of civilians,
mostly Tutsi but some Hutu, seeking refuge in Kizinga, Uganda, had swelled to over 2200, and noting that the refugees
recounted stories of “indiscriminate killings by GOR and Zairois troops and civilian vigilantes”).
132
Aidan Hartley, Fleeing Peasants Report Massacres by Rwandan Army, REUTERS, 10 Oct. 1990.
133
Aidan Hartley, Fleeing Peasants Report Massacres by Rwandan Army, REUTERS, 10 Oct. 1990.
134
Frances Kerry, Rwanda Denies Civilian Massacre, Says Up to 500 Rebels Killed, REUTERS, 11 Oct. 1990.
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Chapter II
October 1990
135
Adain Hartley, Rwanda Rebels, Farmers Say Government Troops Killed Civilians, REUTERS, 22 Oct. 1990.
136
Adain Hartley, Rwanda Rebels, Farmers Say Government Troops Killed Civilians, REUTERS, 22 Oct. 1990.
137
Cable from SRS Ngororero to SCR (19 Nov. 1990) (regarding Kibilira massacres, 352 civilians killed, including
345 Tutsi and seven Hutus, 45 Tutsi injured, and 423 homes burned in Kibilira; and 20 Tutsi killed and eight injured
in nearby Satinsyi commune); see also Francis Kerry, Priests say 335 killed in Rwanda Ethnic Clashes, REUTERS, 18
Oct. 1990. The government reported only 50 killings, but a local priest said that “335 people had died in the Kibilira
sub-district of Ngorolero, most of them Tutsis.”
138
Frances Kerry, Rwanda Denies Civilian Massacre, Says up to 500 Rebels Killed, REUTERS, 11 Oct. 1990. See
Rwanda: Plusieurs centaines de “rebelles en civil” tués par l’armée. Bruxelles et Washington prennent leurs distances
vis-a-vis de Kigali [Rwanda: Several Hundreds of “Plainclothes Rebels” Killed by the Army. Brussels and Washington
Distance Themselves from Kigali], LE MONDE, 13 Oct. 1990 (reporting that Brussels and Washington were keeping
their distance from Kigali despite Bizimungu’s denials); see also Cable from Leonard Spearman to US Secretary of
State (8 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “SITREP 13: Zairians Mobilize in Mutara, Rwandans Lose Observation Plane, French
Arrange Convoy for Expats from Gisenyi and Ruhengeri”) (“Rwandan military officer informed EMBOFF that
Rwandans are having great difficulty dealing with invaders’ guerrilla tactics—changing into civilian clothes and
hiding in local population.”).
139
FIDH Report 34 (1993).
140
FIDH Report 13 (1993). The FIDH report did not identify the ethnicity of those killed, however, several
contemporaneous reports establish that those massacred were mainly Tutsi. See Cable from SRS Ngororero to SCR
(19 Nov. 1990); see also Francis Kerry, Priests Say 335 Killed in Rwanda Ethnic Clashes, REUTERS, 18 Oct. 1990.
141
Cable from Georges Martres (13 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation générale le 13 octobre 1990 à 12 heures locales”).
142
MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 118.
143
Duclert Commission Report 41.
144
OLIVIER LANOTTE, LA FRANCE AU
AMBIVALENT [FRANCE IN RWANDA
COMMITMENT] 234 (2007).
RWANDA (1990-1994): ENTRE ABSTENTION IMPOSSIBLE ET ENGAGEMENT
(1990-1994): BETWEEN IMPOSSIBLE ABSTENTION AND AMBIVALENT
145
ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY, RWANDA: THE PREVENTABLE GENOCIDE, ¶ 9.3 (July 2000); see also JOHAN
SWINNEN, RWANDA MIJN VERHAAL [RWANDA: MY STORY] 347 (2017). Martres was reportedly the only foreigner
invited to Habyarimana’s son’s wedding. See OLIVIER LANOTTE, LA FRANCE AU RWANDA (1990-1994): ENTRE
ABSTENTION IMPOSSIBLE ET ENGAGEMENT AMBIVALENT [FRANCE IN RWANDA (1990-1994): BETWEEN IMPOSSIBLE
ABSTENTION AND AMBIVALENT COMMITMENT] 234 n.384 (2007).
146
JOHAN SWINNEN, RWANDA MIJN VERHAAL [RWANDA: MY STORY] 347 (2017).
147
Kigali Reported Quiet, Belgium and France Send in More Planes, REUTERS, 7 Oct. 1990.
148
Cable from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Analyse de la situation par la population d’origine Tutsi”).
149
MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 119. In its report, the MIP interpreted Martres’ remarks as
indicating that a genocide was “foreseeable starting in October 1993.” MIP Tome I 297 (emphasis added). This can
only have been a misunderstanding of Martres’ testimony, or perhaps a typo. Martres’ tenure as ambassador to Rwanda
ended in April 1993. See MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 121. He would have little reason to
comment on circumstances in Rwanda in October 1993, several months after his departure from the country. Indeed,
the context of his remarks leaves little doubt that he was referring to October 1990.
150
MIP Tome I 127; US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications
for the Region”).
151
MIP Tome I 127; see also Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
152
Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
153
Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
154
Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
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Chapter II
155
Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
156
Interview by LFM with Jean Rwabahizi.
October 1990
157
Jean Hélène, Rwanda une semaine après le début de la rebellion, arrestations et limogeages se multiplient
[Rwanda, One Week After the Beginning of the Rebellion, Arrests and Dismissals Multiply], LE MONDE, 9 Oct. 1990.
158
Jean Hélène, Trois mille “suspects” arrêtés Paris presse le gouvernement de Kigali “d’engager le dialogue” avec
l’opposition [Three Thousand “Suspects” Arrested, Paris Urges the Kigali Government to “Engage in Dialogue”
with the Opposition], LE MONDE, 12 Oct. 1990; see Bettina Gaus, Rwanda Civil War: Concern Over Fate of Detainees,
UPI, 10 Oct. 1990; Rwandan Government Denies Massacre Reports, REUTERS, 11 Oct. 1990.
159
Cable from Georges Martres (12 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Analyse de la Situation Politique”).
160
Belgium Concerned at Human Rights in Rwandan Rebel Clampdown, REUTERS, 8 Oct. 1990; see also Bettina Gaus,
Rwanda Civil War: Concern Over Fate of Detainees, UPI, 10 Oct. 1990 (“A Belgian Foreign Ministry Spokesman
said Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens had twice expressed concern to Rwanda over reports of possible human rights
violations and had received assurances that no such violations were taking place.”).
161
Jean Hélène, Trois mille “suspects” arrêtés Paris presse le gouvernement de Kigali “d’engager le dialogue” avec
l’opposition [Three Thousand “Suspects” Arrested, Paris Urges the Kigali Government to “Engage in Dialogue”
with the Opposition], LE MONDE, 12 Oct. 1990.
162
Rwandan Government Denies Massacre Reports, REUTERS, 11 Oct. 1990.
163
See Memorandum from François Ngarukiyintwali to Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (11 Oct. 1990); see also
Rwanda: Plusieurs centaines de ‘rebelles en civil’ tués par l’armée. Bruxelles et Washington prennent leurs distances
vis-à-vis de Kigali [Rwanda: Several Hundreds of “Plainclothes Rebels” Killed by the Army. Brussels and Washington
Distance Themselves from Kigali], LE MONDE, 13 Oct. 1990; Cable from Maynard Glitman to US Secretary of State
(11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Rwanda Incursion: Belgium Says No to Rwandan Request—Cabinet Discusses Military,
Diplomatic Options”).
164
MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 119.
165
MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 119.
166
Duclert Commission Report 343-44 (quoting SHD, Versement tardif n°1, TD Kigali 686/2/MAM/RWA/19 Oct.
1990).
167
See Duclert Commission Report 76, 343-44.
168
Duclert Commission Report 76 (quoting SHD, versement tardif numéro 1, Msg n° 703/2/MAM/RWA, 24 Oct.
1994).
169
Duclert Commission Report 76 (quoting SHD, versement tardif numéro 1, Msg n° 703/2/MAM/RWA, 24 Oct.
1994).
170
André Kamyea, Interview avec l’ambassadeur de France au Rwanda [Interview with the French Ambassador to
Rwanda], in RWANDA RUSHYA (1991) (interview conducted on 29 July 1991).
171
MIP Tome I 137.
172
MIP Tome I 137-38.
173
MIP Tome I 138.
174
GABRIEL PÉRIÈS AND DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE
RWANDAIS (1959-1994) [A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1959-1994)]
186 (2007).
175
GABRIEL PÉRIÈS AND DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS
(1959-1994) [A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1959-1994)] 186 (2007).
176
JEAN-FRANÇOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES, MILITAIRES ET MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS AU RWANDA [FRENCH POLITICS,
SOLDIERS AND MERCENARIES IN RWANDA] 94 (2014).
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Chapter II
October 1990
177
JEAN-FRANÇOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES, MILITAIRES ET MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS AU RWANDA [FRENCH POLITICS,
SOLDIERS AND MERCENARIES IN RWANDA] 94 (2014).
178
GABRIEL PERIES AND DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUETE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GENOCIDE RWANDAIS
(1959-1994) [A DARK WAR: INVESTIGATING THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1959-1994)] 186 (2007).
179
See MIP Tome I 137-38; Memorandum from Jean Varret to the French Ministry of Cooperation and Development
(27 May 1992) (Subject: “Compte rendu de mission au Rwanda et au Burundi”) (enclosing document titled
“Principales actions de la MMC au profit des FAR depuis octobre 1990”).
180
Duclert Commission Report 779.
181
MIP Tome I 138. The MIP has not made Canovas’ testimony public.
182
PATRICK DE SAINT-EXUPERY, L’INAVOUABLE: LA FRANCE
RWANDA] 244 (2004).
AU
RWANDA [THE UNMENTIONABLE: FRANCE
IN
183
See Press Release, UPR, Communiqué du parti Union du Peuple Rwandais (UPR) sur la nomination du LieutenantColonel Chollet comme conseiller du président rwandais et de son chef d’état-major [Communiqué from the Rwandan
People’s Union Party (UPR) on the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel Chollet as adviser to the Rwandan president
and his chief of staff] (24 Feb. 1992); Press Release, MDR, Communiqué no. 9 (14 Feb. 1992).
184
Pas de fonctions de conseiller auprès du président rwandais pour le chef de la mission d’assistance militaire
française [No Advisory Functions to the Rwandan President for the Head of the French Military Assistance Mission],
AFP, 28 Feb. 1992.
185
DANIELA KROSLAK, THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EXTERNAL BYSTANDERS IN CASES OF GENOCIDE: THE FRENCH IN
RWANDA, 1990-1994 258 (2002).
186
MIP Tome I 138.
187
See, e.g., Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza); Meeting Notes (2 Nov. 1990) (signed
Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
188
Meeting Notes (2 Nov. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
189
See Meeting Notes (24 Oct. 1990) (signed Emmanuel Kanyadekwe); Meeting Notes (29 Oct. 1990) (signed JeanBosco Ruhorahoza); Meeting Notes (31 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
190
See Meeting Notes (16 Oct. 1990) (signed Augustin Balihenda); Meeting Notes (31 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco
Ruhorahoza); Meeting Notes (6 Nov. 1990) (signed Grégoire Rutakamize); Meeting Notes (7 Nov. 1990) (signed
Pierre Célestin Kabatsi); Meeting Notes (8 Nov.1990) (signed Xavier F. Nzuwonemeye); Meeting Notes (9 Nov.
1990) (signed Xavier Nzuwonemeye). Lieutenant Colonel Patrice Caille and Captain Pedro Rodriguez were the Noroît
officers, and Captain Christian Refalo the para-commando advisor.
191
See Meeting Notes (29 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza); Meeting Notes (6 Nov. 1990) (signed Grégoire
Rutakamize); Meeting Notes (8 Nov. 1990) (signed Xavier F. Nzuwonemeye).
192
See Meeting Notes (2 Nov. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza); Meeting Notes (6 Nov. 1990) (signed Grégoire
Rutakamize); Meeting Notes (7 Nov. 1990) (signed Pierre Célestin Kabatsi); Meeting Notes (8 Nov. 1990) (signed
Xavier F. Nzuwonemeye); Meeting Notes (9 Nov. 1990) (signed Xavier F. Nzuwonemeye).
193
MIP Tome I 139. The MIP explains that, because of his effectiveness, Canovas’ tour was extended to the end of
November 1990.
194
Memorandum from Léonidas Rusatira (17 Nov. 1990) (Subject: “Note d’appréciation de l’Assistance Militaire
française au Rwanda”).
195
Memorandum from Athanase Gasake to Juvénal Habyarimana (31 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien du General
Varret”).
196
Memorandum from Athanase Gasake to Juvénal Habyarimana (31 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien du General
Varret”).
197
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (8 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
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October 1990
198
Cable from American Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State (2 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Invaders Consolidate
Hold on Rwandan Territories: GOR Prepares for Second Offensive”). The cable states that “Belgium has pledged
assistance in the form of munitions which should arrive in the next 24 hours.” US Defense Intelligence Brief (24 Oct.
1990) (Subject: “War in Rwanda: Troubling Implications for the Region”) (“By 4 October the rebel attack had bogged
down in the northeast, and the Rwandan government pulled its para-commando and one infantry battalion, now low
on munitions, back to the capital of Kigali. In addition, the FAR was bolstered by the arrival of two plane loads of
Belgian munitions.”).
199
Duclert Commission Report 51 (quoting AN/PR-EMP, AG/5(4)/12456, Note from Colonel Huchon to the President
of the Republic under cover of the Secretary General, 16 October 1990. Rwanda. Update on the situation).
200
Memorandum from Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to François Mitterrand (16 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au
Rwanda”).
201
Memorandum from Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to François Mitterrand (16 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au
Rwanda”).
202
Memorandum from Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to François Mitterrand (16 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au
Rwanda”).
203
Memorandum from Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to François Mitterrand (16 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au
Rwanda”).
204
Memorandum from Claude Arnaud to François Mitterrand (18 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec le Président
Habyarimana Jeudi 18 Octobre 1990 à 18h30”).
205
Memorandum from French Ministry of Cooperation (22 Sept. 1994) (Subject: “Rwanda: Aide logistique –
historique”); Memorandum from Jean Varret to the French Ministry of Cooperation and Development (27 May 1992)
(Subject: “Compte rendu de mission au Rwanda et au Burundi”) (enclosing document titled “Principales actions de la
MMC au profit des FAR depuis octobre 1990”) (noting that direct aid, which had been set at 4 MF “for many years,
reached 8.34 MF in 1991” and that “[t]he effort made is continued in the current financial year”).
206
MIP Tome I 180-81.
207
MIP Tome I 179.
208
François Graner, Entretien avec l’amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], in LA NUIT
100 (2016). Mitterrand named Lanxade his chief military advisor in 1989. The president would later
elevate him to chief of defense staff.
RWANDAISE
209
François Graner, Entretien avec l’amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], in LA NUIT
100 (2016).
RWANDAISE
210
François Graner, Entretien avec l’amiral Jacques Lanxade [Interview with Admiral Jacques Lanxade], in LA NUIT
100 (2016).
RWANDAISE
211
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Rwanda – Situation”).
212
Belgian Senate Report 83 (1997).
213
Belgian Senate Report 83 (1997).
214
Memorandum from Anatole Nsengiyumva (15 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Exploitation d’un rapport”).
215
Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
216
Belgian Senate Report 698 (1997) (citing Audition of Colonel Vincent, Head of the Coopération Technique
Militaire (CTM) in Rwanda). Colonel Vincent stated, “[I]n October 1990, the war broke out and relations chilled.
Belgian technical and military cooperation was relegated to a figurative role.” The Belgian Report continued, saying
that “Colonel Vincent even [went] so far as to specify that the officers and non-commissioned officers were doing
‘little or nothing’ and that they hoped that ‘the peace process would break the situation’s deadlock.’ In light of all of
the above, the [Belgian] commission question[ed] the appropriateness of maintaining the CTM.”
217
Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
218
Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
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Chapter II
219
October 1990
Meeting Notes (17 Oct. 1990).
220
Cable from Georges Martres (24 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”). The year 1960 was when Congo
achieved independence from Belgium and then descended into civil war. See, e.g., The Congo, Decolonization, and
the
Cold
War,
1960-1965, US DEPARTMENT OF STATE OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN,
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/congo-decolonization (last visited 18 Nov. 2020).
221
André Kamyea, Interview avec l’ambassadeur de France au Rwanda [Interview with the French Ambassador to
Rwanda], in RWANDA RUSHYA (1991).
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CHAPTER III
November 1990 - June 1991
A. Noroît Troops Remained to Deter the RPF Military, Despite Mitterrand’s Claims That
French Troops Were in Rwanda Solely to Evacuate French Citizens.
The presence of our troops, even reduced, no longer only appears as a
guarantee of security for the expatriate population, but also as an indirect
reassuring factor for the entire country. Many believe that [Noroît’s]
presence reassures Rwandans as much as foreigners. The Noroît operation
thus increasingly tends to be placed in a new light.1
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
When the troops of Operation Noroît touched down in Kigali on 4 October 1990, there
were an estimated 750 French nationals in Rwanda.2 By 12 October, Noroît had evacuated 313 of
them,3 presumably all those who wished to leave, as the French government’s evacuation order
was not mandatory.4 But the Noroît troops showed no sign of leaving.
At a 15 October press conference, a journalist pressed President Mitterrand for an
explanation: “All the French nationals who were in danger [in Rwanda] have been evacuated. What
still justifies today the mission of the French troops on the ground?”5 Mitterrand answered without
answering: “France sent two companies that permitted the evacuation of the French and of a
number of foreigners who placed themselves under our protection. . . . These troops had no other
mission but that one, and once this mission is completed, of course, they will return to France.”6
As noted in Chapter 2, Admiral Lanxade had already, by that point, recommended that
President Mitterrand withdraw one of the two Noroît companies, expressing concern in an 11
October memorandum that allegations of “serious acts of violence against the population,” at the
hands of the regime that France was supporting, might surface in the media.7 His recommendation
was not heeded. Both Noroît companies stayed in Rwanda. By 20 October, the operation’s 314
soldiers and tactical staff exceeded the estimated number of French nationals remaining in the
country.8
Pleas from President Habyarimana, who “called President Mitterrand every week asking
him especially not to, above all, withdraw French forces,”9 found a sympathetic ear. After
Mitterrand and Habyarimana spoke on 18 October, Habyarimana followed up with a letter of
gratitude: “I was pleased with your reassurances regarding the friendship and support that France
grants and will continue to grant Rwanda.”10 A week after he met with Mitterrand, Habyarimana
lobbied Ambassador Martres, who reported that Habyarimana’s “main concern” at the meeting
was to know what France would do after the Belgians departed.11 “President Mitterrand . . .
promised me he would not abandon Rwanda,”12 Habyarimana told Martres. The ambassador
wrote, “[I] confirmed to him that we were doing everything in our power to help him,” referring
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Chapter III
November 1990 – June 1991
in particular to a delivery of artillery shells and spare parts for armored vehicles to the Rwandan
Army.13
The RPF took France to task for continuing to intervene on behalf of a regime that had
committed “massacres and unbearable cruelty,” asserting in a 6 November press release:
The Rwandan Patriotic Front is entitled to ask the French authorities not to play a
double game. . . . Why do the declared defenders of “human rights,” the “free
world” and “democracy” feel the need to trample on all of these values [just] to
lend a strong hand to a dictatorial, racist and bloodthirsty regime?14
Admiral Lanxade continued, in late October 1990, to recommend a phased withdrawal of
the Noroît contingent.15 Other French officials made similar recommendations. On 30 October, a
researcher at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ analysis center (the Centre d’analyse et de prévision,
or CAP) argued that France’s policy of backing the current Rwandan authorities was
unsustainable, as it would, among other things, “support the arrests, executions and massacres that
the government of Juvénal Habyarimana will carry out in order to break not only the Rwandan
Patriotic Front but also its potential sociological base (the Tutsi minority) and Hutu opposition.”16
Predicting more trouble ahead if French forces remain, the researcher recommended that Noroît
be withdrawn “as soon as circumstances allow.”17
Soon afterward, on 9 November, Colonel Jean-Claude Thomann, who briefly took over
command of Noroît forces from Col. René Galinié, from mid-October into December 1990,
advocated a phased withdrawal of the entire Noroît force over the following month.18 Thomann’s
assessment was that the FAR, despite some “tactical blunders,” was in a position of strength.19
“Unless there is a new development or a major element that has escaped analysis . . . we can assume
that there is no longer a large-scale military threat,” he wrote.20
The French government proceeded with a partial withdrawal in November 1990,
repatriating half of its forces.21 Preparations were soon under way to withdraw the rest of the
contingent,22 though not without some pushback. Ambassador Martres, who was well aware of the
Rwandan government’s human rights abuses,23 wrote to Paris at the end of November, “The
presence of our troops, even reduced, no longer only appears as a guarantee of security for the
expatriate population, but also as an indirect reassuring factor for the entire country.”24 He added,
“Many believe that this presence reassures Rwandans as much as foreigners. The Noroît operation
thus increasingly tends to be placed in a new light.”25
In the end, events outside Rwanda caused France to withdraw some Noroît troops—
namely, France’s armed forces were stretched thin due to its military involvement in the Persian
Gulf, where France was part of a coalition challenging Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.26
Once he learned of the intended withdrawal, Habyarimana did not mince words, calling it an
“abandonment.”27 It is unclear whether Habyarimana’s objection was the impetus, but on 15
December, only one of the two Noroît companies withdrew, on orders from France’s highest
office: “By decision of President of the Republic François Mitterrand,” the second company would
remain in Rwanda “beyond the term originally planned.”28
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Chapter III
November 1990 – June 1991
B. Early Warnings by a Senior French Official That Rwandan Leaders Had Genocidal Aims
Did Not Alter French Policy and May Have Caused the Élysée to Marginalize the French
Official.
My reports and diplomatic telegrams were for nearly three months
unambiguous: I stressed the risks of a massacre of the Tutsis. I became
aware, gradually, that my messages embarrassed a military “lobby” for
whom the enemy to be fought was the Tutsis’ RPF.29
– Jean Varret, Head of the Military Cooperation Mission
(1990 –1993)
While Habyarimana fretted about a possible “abandonment,” he could take comfort in
knowing that one Noroît company still remained, and that a smaller contingent of French troops—
the Military Assistance Mission (MAM) officers advising the Rwandan Gendarmerie (i.e., the
national police) and several elite FAR units—had actually taken on additional duties since the start
of the war. A French captain named Christian Refalo was now working not only with the paracommando battalion, but the reconnaissance battalion as well,30 retraining the latter on the use of
MILAN anti-tank guided missiles.31 In December 1990, Refalo and a French colleague worked
with FAR officials to create an intelligence unit within the para-commando battalion.32 Refalo
vowed to “do everything they could, unconditionally to ensure thorough and effective training.”33
This intelligence unit would soon function as a “front line observer of RPF movements into
Rwandan territory” and would direct mortar fire on enemy troops.34 (Soldiers in both the
reconnaissance and para-commando battalions would go on to commit atrocities in the early days
of the Genocide.35)
The network of French military assistance missions in Africa (including the mission in
Kigali) was under new leadership that fall. General Jean Varret, a veteran of multiple military
operations in Africa, had volunteered to take over as head of the Military Cooperation Mission
(MCM)—the office within the Ministry of Cooperation that supervised France’s military
partnerships with its African allies—just as the war in Rwanda was starting, in October 1990.36
Two months later, in mid-December 1990, Varret paid a visit to Kigali to inspect the French
assistance mission there.37
Newsstands in the Rwandan capital that month bore startling evidence of the anti-Tutsi
animus that had been increasingly pervading local public discourse since the war began. The
December 1990 issue of Kangura, a bimonthly newspaper whose name, in Kinyarwanda, meant
“Wake Them Up,” featured a noxious and soon-to-be-notorious manifesto under the heading, “Ten
Commandments of the Bahutu.”38 Published in French, the “Ten Commandments” admonished
Hutu, on threat of being “deemed a traitor,” to avoid consorting with Tutsi women; to know that
“all Tutsis are dishonest in their business dealings” and “are only seeking ethnic supremacy”; and
to reserve Armed Forces membership, and dominance in politics and education, for Hutu. This
“ideology must be taught to Hutus at all levels,” the commandments concluded. “Hutus must cease
having any pity for the Tutsi.”39
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Chapter III
November 1990 – June 1991
Founded in May 1990, Kangura was privately run—it was the brainchild of journalist
Hassan Ngeze (later convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, for,
among other things, inciting the Genocide through Kangura)—but it also benefited from close ties
to some of the Habyarimana era’s most powerful state officials.40 Its early backers were rumored
to include Augustin Nduwayezu, the “charming but deadly” former chief of Rwanda’s national
intelligence services.41 Though ICTR prosecutors were unable, ultimately, to conclusively
establish that the government had bankrolled Kangura, they presented evidence “suggesting that
financial support for Kangura came from the government, and more specifically from” one of
Nduwayezu’s successors as chief of the intelligence services,42 Col. Anatole Nsengiyumva, as well
as Robert Kajuga, the president of the Interahamwe, and Joseph Nzirorera, the minister for public
works and trade and the executive secretary of the MRND. (Habyarimana called Nzirorera—who
was notoriously corrupt, a lavish spender, and often drunk in public—his “rogue minister.”43) All
three of those men would go on to play a central role in the Genocide.
The publication of the “Ten Commandments” caught Ambassador Martres’ attention. A
few weeks after the Kangura issue appeared on newsstands, the ambassador wrote a letter to the
French foreign minister in which he “feebly denounce[d] the ‘excessive nature [of these] ‘ten
commandments,’ none of which leaves room for dialogue with the opposing clan, in any area
whatsoever.”44 Martres noted in a separate report that the article’s “racist language, reminiscent of
the worst anathemas of Nazi anti-Semitism, is finding an increasingly sympathetic audience” in
Rwanda, particularly among the ranks of the Rwandan army, where, he said, it received “almost
unanimous approval.”45
The depravity within the upper ranks of the Rwandan military would reveal itself during
General Varret’s December 1990 visit to Kigali. Among the Rwandan government officials Varret
met during his brief stay, one was shockingly blunt: Colonel Pierre-Célestin Rwagafilita, the
deputy chief of staff of the Gendarmerie (the national police) and a cousin of Agathe Kanziga
Habyarimana, the president’s wife and a central figure in the Akazu. First, Rwagafilita asked
Varret for heavy weapons. Varret demurred, “[T]he Gendarmerie’s mission is to maintain order
within the country and . . . this type of weaponry is reserved for the Army.”46
Rwagafilita then asked if he could speak to Varret in private. When they were one-on-one,
Rwagafilita said:
We’re between soldiers and I will speak to you more clearly than in diplomatic
terms. The Gendarmerie needs these weapons because it will participate in solving
our problem with the Tutsis: they are very few, we will liquidate them and that will
go very quickly.47
It is striking that a Rwandan military official felt secure enough in his sense of French backing to
confide such inflammatory intentions to his French counterpart. Varret was horrified by
Rwagafilita’s statement and relayed it the next day in a meeting with President Habyarimana at
which Ambassador Martres and Col. Galinié, the French defense attaché, were also present.48 On
hearing what Rwagafilita had said, Habyarimana grew angry and promised to dismiss him.49 But
Rwagafilita remained in his job.50
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It was not only Rwagafilita who caused Varret concern. As Varret wrote in a 2018 memoir,
“Colonel Serubuga, whom I met at each of my missions in his country, was more diplomatic in his
remarks, but I could read between the lines that genocide was one of the solutions being
considered.”51 Varret’s unease was confirmed by strong local intelligence from Col. René Galinié,
who, in Varret’s words, “used the [investigative] methods of the Gendarmerie,” that is, of a good
policeman.52 “To be well informed,” Varret told a French journalist, “[Galinié] had interlocutors
everywhere, including members of religious communities,”53 which offered particularly reliable
insight into what people were really thinking. Varret explained that Galinié “told [him,] in essence,
‘There is a danger… in Rwanda, of politico-ethnic violence and massacres. And this time, the risk
is very high.’ We both quickly used the phrase ‘danger of genocide.’” 54
Galinié told the MIP that he had warned of the threat of ethnic violence as early as January
1990. And more than one of his cables, which Ambassador Martres co-signed, reflect as much.56
In his memoir, Varret elaborated on the alarm he sounded:
55
My reports and diplomatic telegrams were for nearly three months unambiguous: I
stressed the risks of a massacre of the Tutsis. I became aware, gradually, that my
messages embarrassed a military “lobby” for whom the enemy to be fought was the
Tutsis’ RPF.57
As the French journalist Jean-François Dupaquier has noted, “successive French governments and
presidents since 1990 have so far refused to declassify two notes written by [Varret]”: one sent on
14 December 1990, the day after Varret met with Rwagafilita, and another on 17 December,
following the conclusion of his trip.58
Varret also recalled having raised his concerns about Rwanda in meetings to discuss French
military-cooperation missions that brought together representatives of the chief of staff of French
Armed Forces, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the President’s special chief of staff (the top
military adviser in the Élysée—Admiral Jacques Lanxade, and then, in mid-1991, after Lanxade
was named chief of defense staff, General Christian Quesnot).59 When Rwanda came up, Varret
says, the others present regularly urged Varret to “send more cooperants, more money.”60 In
response, Varret recalled, “I stalled every time. . . . [E]very time I said no!”61 Varret tried to limit
France’s military entanglement; for instance, he kept French judicial police training of Rwandan
gendarmes to a minimum.62 Varret told his colleagues that he opposed French support because he
feared it would lead to massacres.63 As a result, he says that he became “a nuisance for some
people.”64 In 1993, Varret was dismissed from his position and replaced by an anti-RPF hardliner,
Gen. Jean-Pierre Huchon.
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C. After the Habyarimana Regime Retaliated against an RPF Military Attack by Massacring
Tutsi Civilians, French Officials Increased French Military Support for the Regime.
We are at the edge of the English-speaking front. Uganda cannot allow itself
to do just anything and everything. We must tell President Museveni: it’s
not normal that the Tutsi minority wants to impose its rule over the [Hutu]
majority.65
– François Mitterrand, President of France (1981 – 1995)
By January 1991, French officials believed the RPF’s threat had dwindled sufficiently for
the French government to reduce its military footprint. On 2 January 1991, the chief of staff of the
French army, General Maurice Schmitt, recommended the withdrawal of the one remaining Noroît
company.66 Admiral Lanxade, Mitterrand’s top military adviser, was of the same mind. In a 2
January note to the president, Lanxade acknowledged “President Habyarimana’s concerns,” but
noted that the “situation is calm in the interior.”67 As reassurance, he added that France could
“maintain a company on a twelve-hour alert in Bangui [in the Central African Republic, where
France kept troops poised for rapid reaction to conflicts in Africa].”68 President Mitterrand rejected
the recommendation. “Yes,” he wrote by hand, “but I would favorably consider delaying the
departure of the company stationed in Kigali. At least for one month.”69
Emboldened by continuing French military support, the Rwandan government resisted
diplomatic and political engagement with the RPF. For example, when Rwandan government
officials met with regional leaders at a conference held in Zaire to discuss how to address the
Rwandan refugee problem, the RPF was denied a seat at the table at the request of President
Habyarimana.70 Without political recourse, the RPF resolved to take its case back to the only forum
that demanded the regime’s attention: the battlefield. In the preceding several months, the RPF
military had evolved from a fledgling force whose commanders were disoriented by Fred
Rwigema’s death71 to a disciplined guerrilla army under the leadership of Paul Kagame,72 who had
spent years in the NRA and the RPF Military with Rwigema.73 On 23 January, RPF troops attacked
Ruhengeri, a government stronghold and one of the key cities in President Habyarimana’s region
of influence.74 As Kagame would explain to author Steven Kinzer, the RPF intended the Ruhengeri
offensive to free political prisoners, seize FAR weapons, and
to bring to the world and the government news of our continued existence, not only
our existence but also that we had the capability carry out such a significant raid on
the forces of Rwanda. . . . And of course, that would also result in some significant
establishment of ourselves in that particular area, a totally new sector, and that would
help us in fighting the war.”75
France knew of the RPF’s attack on Ruhengeri the day it happened.76 President Mitterrand
immediately authorized French action to protect expatriates,77 and over the next 24 hours Noroît
troops evacuated 185 people from Ruhengeri to Kigali.78 Admiral Lanxade again tried to keep
France’s military operations limited by proposing that France leave it to the Rwandan government
to “try to get the rebels to leave,” while France would focus, instead, on “getting our nationals
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back.”79 He failed to convince President Mitterrand, who proceeded to neatly summarize France’s
interest in the Rwandan conflict, as he perceived it:
We cannot limit our presence.
We are at the edge of the English-speaking front. Uganda cannot allow itself to do
just anything and everything. We must tell President Museveni: it’s not normal that
the Tutsi minority wants to impose its rule over the [Hutu] majority. 80
Habyarimana promptly used the Ruhengeri attack to pressure the French government to
return a second Noroît company to Kigali.81 Mitterrand withheld his assent to redeploy a second
company but, in a 30 January letter to President Habyarimana, committed to maintaining the one
company that remained in Rwanda “provisionally, and for a length of time bound to the situation’s
development.”82 Mitterrand used the opportunity to push Habyarimana for reforms, specifying that
French troops would remain “during this period while the policy of openness you announced is
being put into place, and while the conference on the refugees is being prepared for.”83
Habyarimana was proving, though, that his “policy of openness” was no more than a
façade. On 25 January, two days after the RPF attack on Ruhengeri, his regime resorted to the
same retaliatory tactic it had deployed in October: slaughter of Tutsi civilians. Local authorities in
the Ruhengeri region organized attacks against the Bagogwe, a pastoral Tutsi subgroup that made
its home in the area.84 In the three weeks that followed, “five hundred to a thousand people
belonging to the Bagogwe ethnic group . . . were massacred by the [FAR] and Hutu civilians.”85
Government representatives, from the bourgmestre (mayor) of a local commune to Army soldiers,
directed and committed the atrocities.86
Béatrice Nikuze87
Béatrice was born in 1967. She lived in Kucikiro.
Then people started having meetings, but peasants like us didn’t know that
they were dangerous. We never thought anything bad would come out of the Hutus
or the Tutsis. Although I’d seen some of the Hutu’s deeds in the 1970’s, by then I’d
forgotten everything. I couldn’t differentiate between the Hutus and the Tutsis
because they used to be very sociable and intermarry. Later on, I knew all about the
political parties, and some parties joined together and started fighting against
others. It was all very confusing, especially for the peasants.
...
We’d been there [in Kicukiro—ed.] for two months when President
Habyarimana died in the plane crash [on 6 April 1994—ed.]. After his death, a priest
called Patrice told us to go to ETO school [Ecole Technique Officielle]. When we got
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there, a group of people—including Mr. John from Nyakabanda—came and took
my husband, seemingly to collect some property he had left at home. Nevertheless,
I knew they were going to kill him because these were the people who had hunted
him in the past. Later, a lady called Bibi came crying to me and said, “Your husband
Masabo was murdered along with a boy called Ndohera. John killed them.”
We remained at ETO under the protection of United Nations forces, but after
a short time the police came and told the UN soldiers there was no need for them
to continue guarding us. The police said they would ensure our safety themselves.
The UN forces packed up and left us at the mercy of the mob.
As soon as they left, the policemen took us to Sonatubes [Société Nationale des
Tubes, a factory and the surrounding area] where we stayed a short time. A man
called Rusatira came and said, “Take the garbage to Nyanza” [where there was a
waste tip on the outskirts of Kigali]. By ‘garbage,’ he meant us. Many people started
showing their identity cards claiming that they were Hutus, and the police started
sorting out the Hutus and letting them go. The rest of us were taken to Nyanza.
When we were taken to Sonatubes, my brothers and some other boys had
been kept behind at the parish. Whilst we were in the factory, my older brother
came running and told me that the rest of them had all been killed. They had hacked
him as well, but he was still able to run away although he was bleeding. The others
had been thrown into a pit.
So we were taken to Nyanza. I was still with my Mum then, but my husband
had already been taken. There were so many people going to Nyanza. On the way
there, we were stopped at Kicukiro centre because there was a traffic jam. In front,
there were military tanks surrounded by lnterahamwe . . . with machetes and clubs.
Some of them suggested we should be killed there at the centre, but it was later
agreed that we would be taken to Nyanza for execution. In fact, many people were
killed on the way; others were kidnapped and taken to an unknown destination.
When we reached Nyanza, they gathered us in one place and started
throwing grenades at us. After many people had been killed and others injured,
their leader said there was no need to waste their ammunition. He said machetes
and clubs would easily execute us because we were wounded and very weak.
But before killing us, they first sorted out the young, energetic boys and men,
and killed them right away. Then, instead of killing us in small groups, they finally
decided to do it all at once. They started hacking us. But around 2:30 in the
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afternoon, they got tired. They had taken us there at around eight or nine in the
morning. That was when I managed to crawl towards a nearby bush with my child.
My mother hadn’t been injured, but she had passed out when Nyiramutangwa was
killed on top of her.
I crawled slowly and finally reached the bush, although I had already been
hacked on the head and back. But after the lnterahamwe had killed all people on
the field, they surrounded the bush, looking for those who were in hiding. They
shouted, “Come out and join the others.” Then we were put on the field with the
corpses, and they started killing. People were screaming in agony; babies being
hacked to death; young women being raped and murdered . . . . I remember Oliva
who was murdered so maliciously. She was raped first, then tortured to death. It
was a horrible scene. And Cécile, who was accused of going to visit the RPF. A
soldier called John told Cécile, “I’ll kill you myself.” And he did horrible things to
her. I could hear her crying for help from where I was.
After reports of ethnic violence in the area,88 on 4 February, President Habyarimana,
without acknowledging the massacres, let alone his government’s role in them, disingenuously
announced in a speech before the Rwandan parliament that he would not tolerate ethnic killings.89
US cables noted the violence and the President’s speech.90 Although the French government has
not made public any documents reflecting contemporaneous knowledge of the Bagogwe
massacres, given Col. Galinié’s intelligence network,91 it is difficult to believe that the United
States, but not France, would have known of them at the time. (If they did not know
contemporaneously, French officials knew by the summer, when media reports, primarily out of
Belgium, insinuated that the Habyarimana government and the Rwandan Armed Forces were
accomplices to the killings.92 French military support would proceed unaffected by these
accounts.)
The RPF military staged a follow-up attack on Ruhengeri on 2 February,93 effectively
snuffing out any remaining illusions that the FAR were headed for a quick victory. After that,
Admiral Lanxade changed his position on continuing the French military presence in Rwanda and
conceded in a note to President Mitterrand that removing the final Noroît company was “hardly
conceivable.”94 Instead, Lanxade recommended replacing the company with 30 fresh military
trainers who would travel to the Ruhengeri-Gisenyi area to “toughen” the Rwandan military
apparatus.95 Lanxade also recommended that French combat aircraft fly in a “visible” way over
“sensitive Rwandan regions.”96 With a handwritten “yes,” Mitterrand approved.97
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D. Mitterrand Escalated French Military Support by Sending Military Trainers to Ruhengeri
and, against Counsel from His Military Advisors, by Keeping the Last Noroît Company in
Kigali.
These decisions would provide some assistance to President Habyarimana
and would remove any ambiguity towards President Museveni. However,
they carry the risk of being interpreted by the Rwandan authorities as
unconditional support for their policy.98
– Jacques Lanxade, Chief Military Advisor (1989 – 1991),
Chief of Defense Staff (1991 – 1995)
France acted quickly on Lanxade’s recommendation to send a new detachment of military
advisors (the French acronym is DAMI, short for Détachement d’assistance militaire d’instruction
or Military Instruction Assistance Detachment, in English), who arrived in Rwanda on 22 March
1991.99 One stated reason for this deployment was the security of French nationals in the Ruhengeri
area. Many of those French nationals who had been evacuated to Kigali after the RPF Army’s
attacks occupied key positions in non-governmental organizations and other civil society groups,
and French officials viewed their presence in the Ruhengeri area as “vital for getting the country’s
economy back on track.”100 If France did not want them to abandon their development missions in
the area,101 as Admiral Lanxade wrote President Mitterrand in early February, the deployment of
the DAMI unit to train the FAR units at the front could make a difference for security. (Noroît
troops were based in Kigali and ventured into the war zone only—or at least, primarily—for
evacuation operations.)
But as with Noroît, the concern for French expatriates was hardly the only motivation. As
the MIP reported, the decision was related to France’s refusal to accede to President
Habyarimana’s “constantly asking for France’s direct military engagement.”102 As an alternative,
a 1 February 1991 memo from the Directorate for African Affairs in the French Foreign Ministry
“indicated that France could help [Habyarimana] deal with any threat in the northern area of the
country by sending a detachment of fifteen men of the 1st RPIMA [a French special forces unit] to
Ruhengeri on a cooperation mission to train the Rwandan battalion stationed in this city.”103
Lanxade, however, was concerned that deploying the DAMI while keeping the remaining
Noroît company in place could be “interpreted by the Rwandan authorities as unconditional
support for their policy.”104 He urged Mitterrand to advise Habyarimana that France was extending
this support “in order to facilitate [Habyarimana’s] policy of openness towards the internal
opposition and [his] attention to the refugee issue.”105 Lanxade, like several other French officials,
suggested that to end the conflict, it was necessary both to strengthen the Habyarimana regime and
resolve the refugee crisis.106 Lanxade did not consider the imperative of reforming the governing
system that had produced the refugee issue in the first place.
It is easy to understand why the idea of sending the DAMI appealed to French
policymakers: secrecy and efficiency. The DAMI had a smaller footprint than Operation Noroît
(30 vs. 160 troops, respectively),107 and, unlike the Noroît troops, which were generally confined
to the capital,108 the DAMI would work directly with FAR troops nearer the combat zone, advising
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high-ranking officers on tactical matters, helping battalion commanders reorganize their units, and
training soldiers to use heavy weapons and explosives.109 (A “proposed directive” from General
Schmitt, the chief of staff of France’s army, called for DAMI officers to also “provide information
on the local situation [in Ruhengeri], limited to the passive collection of information.”110)
One potential complication, as Ambassador Martres conceded to the MIP, was that, much
like Noroît, the DAMI deployment “lacked a legal basis.”111 The 1975 military assistance
agreement between France and Rwanda had authorized France to provide military assistance as
“necessary for the organization and the training of the Rwandan Gendarmerie.”112 The agreement
had not authorized assistance to Rwanda’s army, and though the French government had quickly
proceeded, regardless, to provide technical assistance to the entire Rwandan Armed Forces,113 it
had, on at least one occasion in the early 1980s, declined the Rwandan authorities’ entreaties to
legitimate this practice through a formal amendment.114 This state of affairs left both Noroît and
the DAMI on shaky ground, as a legal matter (a lapse that French officials would not attempt to
rectify until mid-1992, after a cease-fire agreement between the Rwandan government and the RPF
threatened to force France to withdraw its forces).115
For all these reasons, the rollout of the DAMI Panda, as it was known, was purposefully
low-key. French officials had no intention of announcing it publicly116 and alerted Habyarimana
of the deployment less than a week before the DAMI arrived in Kigali.117 Martres was directed to
ask Habyarimana to show the same discretion.118
On 29 March 1991, the day after the DAMI arrived outside Ruhengeri, the Rwandan
government and the RPF reached a cease-fire in N’Sele, Zaire.119 The cease-fire was a milestone
for two reasons other than the cessation of hostilities: 1) Rwanda agreed to the withdrawal of
foreign troops (with the exception of military cooperants such as the ones who were present in
Rwanda when the conflict began) as soon as a neutral military observer group was in place,120 and
2) Rwanda conferred an unprecedented level of recognition on the RPF. None of the declarations
or communiqués that had emerged from previous summits had even mentioned the RPF by name.
Here, though, was a document on official Republic of Zaire letterhead bearing the RPF’s name
and, further down, the signature of Paul Kagame, right alongside that of Habyarimana’s Foreign
Minister Bizimungu.121 To RPF leaders, it was as though the Rwandan government had conceded
that it was at war with fellow Rwandans rather than with Uganda.122
While the N’Sele cease-fire would fall apart “almost immediately,”123 Col. Galinié, who
as head of the Military Assistance Mission (MAM) in Kigali had supervisory authority over the
detachment,124 nonetheless urged Paris to confine the DAMI to a four-month deployment and to
end Operation Noroît.125 In a 4 April report, Galinié relayed his concern that maintaining the
increase in French military assistance beyond the pre-October 1990 level would empower
opponents of reform in Habyarimana’s regime, in particular the deputy chief of staff of the
Gendarmerie, Col. Pierre-Celestin Rwagafilita (who had shocked Gen. Varret with his plan to
liquidate Tutsi126) and the deputy chief of staff of the Army, Col. Laurent Serubuga.127 “It is
important, in this very unstable context,” Galinié wrote, “to evaluate our presence, especially with
the État-Major of the Rwandan Army, [the institution] where a good number of conservative
officers are grouped around Serubuga.”128 Galinié advocated a phased withdrawal in which the
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Noroît troops would leave first, followed by the DAMI in July 1991, allowing France to “gradually
return to the type of cooperation” it had provided Rwanda before the war.129
Galinié’s advice would be ignored. Both the DAMI and Noroît troops would remain in
Rwanda for two and a half more years, and the position of the senior FAR opponents of reform—
as Galinié foresaw—would strengthen.
In the meantime, DAMI personnel took a central role in the reinvention and guidance of
an often-ineffective military force. A massive wartime recruitment drive—the FAR now
outnumbered the RPF Army 10-1, according to estimates130—had bloated the FAR’s ranks with,
in the words of one author, “[a] vast pool of unemployed, uneducated young men [who] were
easily attracted to a job that gave them regular pay, clothing, food and two bottles of beer a day.”131
Once enlisted, they received barely any training.132 Some committed war crimes.133 In one
especially egregious case, French technical advisers working with the Rwandan Gendarmerie
learned that a recruit had killed three civilians with his service weapon and disappeared.134
The DAMI’s assessment of its first trainees—the FAR battalion based in Gitarama, in
central Rwanda—was bleak.135 Lieutenant Colonel Gilles Chollet, the DAMI commander,
reported that the officers “are not very good, nor very motivated, and above all do not lead by
example.”136 The soldiers were no better. Many did not know how to use their weapons and, in
fact, were too afraid of hurting themselves to be effective in close combat.137 They also disregarded
safety instructions during training exercises, nearly shooting three French instructors.138 Col.
Galinié, summarizing the findings in Lt. Col. Chollet’s report, described the general level of the
troops in that unit as “poor in all areas and at all levels.”139
French advisors were pivotal to FAR offensives in the spring of 1991. That April, Lt. Col.
Gilbert Canovas, the French officer advising the senior leadership of the FAR, and Captain
Christian Refalo, a MAM officer advising the FAR’s para-commando battalion, accompanied
Major Ephrem Rwabalinda, the FAR’s chief of operations, on a trip to Ruhengeri.140 (Rwabalinda
would meet with Gen. Jean-Pierre Huchon, Gen. Varret’s replacement as the head of France’s
Military Cooperation Mission with African allies, in Paris during the Genocide.141) The FAR, at
this point, had reportedly surrounded RPF military elements in the mountains that form the border
between northwestern Rwanda, Zaire, and Uganda.142 Rwabalinda’s field commanders told him
that the para-commando battalion would have to take up the mission, as FAR units closer to the
zone had been “traumatized” by past RPF Army’s ambushes.143 Rwabablinda urged Canovas and
Refalo to be on hand for the operation’s launch the next day.144 Whether or not they appeared, one
former FAR captain told French writers Benoît Collombat and David Servenay that in 1991 he
received training from DAMI soldiers that was “coupled with an ‘advice’ component, directly on
the front line” in the volcanos region (meaning the same area where Rwabalinda carried out his
mission) to instruct the FAR on troop placement: “This company, put yourself here rather than
there.”145 Such tactical advice had the potential to boost FAR performance and morale enormously,
offering yet another example of the ways in which France became a co-belligerent. The offensive
proved successful, with news outlets reporting that government forces drove the rebels “back into
Uganda” after several hours of fighting.146
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By late April, Admiral Lanxade reported to President Mitterrand, “The situation is calm
throughout the country except at the northwest border, where the zone near Uganda remains
subjected to harassment from Ugandan-Tutsi rebels.”147 Lanxade credited French “technical
assistance in training the Rwandan forces,” which he claimed was “starting to yield noticeable
results,” in particular near Ruhengeri, where, he said, it was “difficult to foresee another rebel
raid.”148 He also considered Kigali to be “out of danger,” and advised that “the maintenance of the
French [Noroît] company is no longer militarily justified. This maintenance could even appear
contrary to the provisions of the ceasefire, which stipulate the withdrawal of foreign troops.”149
Presidential adviser Gilles Vidal, briefing Mitterrand in advance of a 23 April 1991
meeting with President Habyarimana in Paris, made a similar point, noting that Noroît would have
to withdraw as soon as a neutral group of military observers was in place to monitor the ceasefire.150 The neutral observer group was still not operational, but Vidal suggested that Mitterrand
could prepare Habyarimana for Noroît’s withdrawal.151
Mitterrand, it seems, did not deliver this message to Habyarimana at their meeting in Paris.
A summary drafted by Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir Bizimungu contains no direct reference
to a Noroît withdrawal.152 (It does mention, without elaboration, that Mitterrand wanted to know
from Habyarimana to which ethnic group Ugandan President Museveni and Zaire’s Mobutu
belonged.153) Instead, Mitterrand pledged to provide additional support to the Rwandan
military,154 acceding to virtually all of the requests Rwandan Army officials had put forward in a
meeting the previous week with Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert Canovas, the French adviser to the
Rwandan Army état-major (general staff).155 Most notably, the French president assured
Habyarimana he would make the DAMI “permanent.”156 He also promised that France would
continue to provide an adviser to the Army état-major even after Canovas’ tour concluded.157
The Noroît troops did not leave Rwanda, as Col. Galinié and Admiral Lanxade had advised.
In a 20 June 1991 note to President Mitterrand, General Christian Quesnot—who replaced
Lanxade as Mitterrand’s top military adviser in April,158 after Lanxade was promoted to chief of
defense staff159—praised the DAMI, which, he said, was providing French nationals with “much
sought-after security,” and recommended keeping it in Rwanda “for some time to come.”160 But
General Quesnot’s view of Operation Noroît was similar to his predecessor’s. With the odds of a
successful RPF military offensive in the capital looking increasingly remote, “the permanent
presence of the French company in Kigali is no longer militarily justified,” he wrote.161 This was
not only his view, he said, but the view of the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the
president’s Africa advisors.162 President Mitterrand’s position, however, remained the same. “No,”
he wrote. “Do not withdraw our troops yet. Discuss this with me.”163
A month later, when Ambassador Martres was asked whether the continued presence of
Operation Noroît troops was in violation of the N’Sele agreement, Martres did not cite ongoing
hostilities or difficulties in standing up the neutral military observer group as the reason French
troops were still in Rwanda. Rather, the ambassador said, “We did not sign the N’Sele Agreement,
and we cannot, therefore, go against it.”164 Martres may have been correct in a narrow literal sense,
but in terms of policy and ethics, the comment reflected a disregard for a peace agreement reached
by the conflict’s actual parties.
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Notes to Chapter III
1
MIP Tome I 135.
2
Duclert Commission Report 49 (quoting AN/PR-EMP, AG/5(4)/12456. Note from Admiral Lanxade to the President
of the Republic, 2 October 1990. Rwanda - Offensives by foreign armed forces); but see MIP Tome I 132-33
(indicating that French troops evacuated 313 French nationals between 5 and 12 October 1990, leaving 290 French
nationals in Rwanda).
3
MIP Tome I 133.
4
Envoi d’un deuxième détachement militaire français au Rwanda [Dispatch of a Second French Military Detachment
to Rwanda], AFP, 5 Oct. 1990 (“The spokesperson, Mr. Daniel Bernard, specified that no evacuation order of French
citizens had been given but that everything was done to allow the departure of those who wished it.”).
5
See Press Conference, François Mitterrand, Conférence de presse de M. François Mitterrand, Président de la
République, notamment sur les récents événements au Liban, le conflit dans le Golfe et la proposition d’une conférence
internationale pour régler les conflits au Proche et Moyen-Orient, Paris [Press Conference by Mr. François
Mitterrand, President of the Republic, Notably on the Recent Events in Lebanon, the Conflict in the Gulf and the
Proposition of an International Conference to Resolve the Conflicts in the Middle East, Paris] (15 Oct. 1990).
6
See Press Conference, François Mitterrand, Conférence de presse de M. François Mitterrand, Président de la
République, notamment sur les récents événements au Liban, le conflit dans le Golfe et la proposition d’une conférence
internationale pour régler les conflits au Proche et Moyen-Orient, Paris [Press Conference by Mr. François
Mitterrand, President of the Republic, Notably on the Recent Events in Lebanon, the Conflict in the Gulf and the
Proposition of an International Conference to Resolve the Conflicts in the Middle East, Paris] (15 Oct. 1990).
7
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (11 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Rwanda – Situation”).
8
See MIP Tome I 130, 133. The mission included the two companies of the 8th RPIMa, consisting of 137 soldiers
each, in addition to 40 tactical staff charged with facilitating the transmission of the commander’s orders.
9
MIP Audition of Jacques Pelletier, Tome III, Vol. 2, 94.
10
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (22 Oct. 1990); see also Memorandum from Claude
Arnaud to François Mitterrand (18 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entretien avec le Président Habyarimana Jeudi 18 Octobre
1990 à 18H30”). This memorandum by presidential advisor Claude Arnaud ends, “P.S.: One of our two companies
could be withdrawn after the acceptance of the cease-fire by both parties. The other would be withdrawn once the
situation is stabilized.”
11
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
12
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
13
Cable from Georges Martres to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand et al. (25 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le
Président Habyarimana”).
14
Press Release, RPF, Rwanda – Pourquoi la France prend-t-elle la place de la Belgique dans le “Bourbier” rwandais
(6 Nov. 1990).
15
See Duclert Commission Report 102.
16
Duclert Commission Report 104-05 (quoting ADIPLO 3711TOPO/239, Note by Jean-François Bayart, Centre
d’analyse et de prévision, 26 Oct. 1990, « Le détonateur rwandais »).
17
Duclert Commission Report 104-05 (quoting ADIPLO 3711TOPO/239, Note by Jean-François Bayart, Centre
d’analyse et de prévision, 26 Oct. 1990, « Le détonateur rwandais »).
18
Duclert Commission Report 72.
19
Duclert Commission Report 72 (quoting GR 1997 Z 1813 21, Msg n°78/DEF/CEMA/CAB/910 of 13 November
1990).
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November 1990 – June 1991
20
Duclert Commission Report 72 (quoting GR 1997 Z 1813 21, Msg n°78/DEF/CEMA/CAB/910 of 13 November
1990). By the time he wrote this cable, Col. Thomann had been in Rwanda long enough to recognize the risk of a
major “inter-ethnic conflagration.” Id. at 782 (quoting GR 1997 Z 1813 21, Fax for EMA-Armées Paris, 9 Nov. 1990.
“Orientations pour le devenir de Noroît”). He warned: “[T]he population is strongly encouraged to be ‘vigilant’ in
order to counter the rebellion and detect suspects. This vigilance is demonstrated in fairly aggressive reflexes in the
villages (roadblocks, local controls) which can degenerate into settling of scores under the guise of security, the main
victims being of course the minority Tutsis or the Hutus who are allegedly affiliated with them. It would probably not
take much to spark things off.” Id.
21
See Duclert Commission Report 74, 833-34.
22
See Duclert Commission Report 116.
23
MIP Audition of Ambassador Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1 140-41; see also Chapter 2, supra (referencing
Ambassador Martres’ acknowledgement to the MIP that he was aware of Rwandan government’s “worst excesses”
and that the Genocide was foreseeable as of October 1990).
24
MIP Tome I 134-35.
25
MIP Tome I 134-35.
26
Report from Jean Varret, Compte rendu de mission au Burundi et au Rwanda (19 Dec. 1990).
27
MIP Tome I 135.
28
MIP Tome I 135.
29
JEAN VARRET, GENERAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 157 (2018).
30
See Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza); Memorandum from the Rwandan Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to the French Embassy in Rwanda (23 Nov. 1990).
31
Meeting Notes (30 Oct. 1990) (signed Jean-Bosco Ruhorahoza).
32
Meeting Notes (28 Dec. 1990) (signed G. Rutakamize and Ephrem Rwabalinda).
33
Meeting Notes (28 Dec. 1990) (signed G. Rutakamize and Ephrem Rwabalinda).
34
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (9 Apr. 1990) (Subject: “French Deploy 30 Military Trainers in
Ruhengeri”).
35
See Augustin Ndindiliyimana et al. v. Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-00-56-A, Appeal Judgement, ¶¶ 248-50 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 11 Feb. 2014) (linking reconnaissance battalion soldiers to the killing of UN peacekeepers on
7 April 1994); Aloys Ntabakuze v. Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-98-41A-A, Appeal Judgement, ¶¶ 165, 189, 218 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 8 May 2012) (holding that an international tribunal did not err in finding that soldiers in the
para-commando battalion killed Tutsi civilians in Kabeza, Nyanza, and the Remera area during the first week of the
Genocide).
36
Décret du 15 octobre 1990 portant admission par anticipation dans la 2e section, conférant les rang et appellation
de général de corps d’armée et affectation d’officiers généraux de l’armée de terre [Decree of 15 October 1990
granting early admission to the 2nd section, conferring the rank and designation of lieutenant general and assignment
of general officers of the army] (15 Oct. 1990); MIP Audition of Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 2-3. With regard to his
appointment as head of the MCM, Varret explained that in the event of a crisis, he had to reconcile the directives of
his superior, the minister of cooperation, and that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the
Africa Cell of the Élysée. He recognized that the volume of interlocutors posed a challenge.
37
Report from Jean Varret, Compte rendu de mission au Burundi et au Rwanda (19 Dec. 1990).
38
See Marcel Kabanda, Kangura: The Triumph of Propaganda Refined, in THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA GENOCIDE
79 (Allan Thompson ed. 2007); Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Bayaragwiza, Hassan Ngeze, Case
No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 124 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003). Notably, this same
issue also included a full-page picture of François Mitterrand above the inscription, “His Excellence Mr. François
Mitterrand, President of the Republic of France. A true friend of Rwanda.” KANGURA 20 (Dec. 1990) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
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Chapter III
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39
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Bayaragwiza, Hassan Ngeze, Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement
and Sentence, ¶¶ 138-39 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003); Appel à la Conscience des Bahutu [Call to the
Bahutu Conscience], in KANGURA (Dec. 1990).
40
See Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Bayaragwiza, Hassan Ngeze, Case No. ICTR-99-52-T,
Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 122-25 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003); ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD
260 (2019) (“[Ngeze] had come to the notice of Z [Hutu-power ideologue Protais Zigiranyirazo—ed.], whose car
could often be seen parked up in front of the shop when the Akazu chief [Zigiranyirazo] dropped by for talks with the
ambitious proprietor. [Head of intelligence Col.] Anatole Nsengiyumva, [deputy chief of staff of the Army, Col.
Laurent] Serubuga and [Habyarimana’s personal secretary Col. Elie] Sagatwa approached Ngeze with a proposal to
launch his own journal that would fully support the Akazu political line . . . . [Kangura was funded] by, among others,
Ngeze’s close friends [state broadcasting agency director] Ferdinand Nahimana and Nsengiyumva.”); US Information
Service, Media Situation in Rwanda (17 July 1992).
41
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 155 (2019); see also US Information Service, Media Situation in Rwanda (17
July 1992) (noting that the sponsor of Kangura was “[r]umored to be Mr. Augustin Nduwayezu, ex-Secretary General
of Service Central des Renseignements”).
42
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Bayaragwiza, Hassan Ngeze, Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement
and Sentence, ¶¶ 126-28, 134 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
43
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 210, 260 (2019).
44
Duclert Commission Report 317 (quoting ADIPLO, 3711TOPO/326, Letter from Georges Martres to Roland
Dumas, 17 Jan. 1991) (brackets in the original).
45
Duclert Commission Report 121-22 (quoting ADIPLO, 3711 TOPO/239, Report of Ambassador Georges Martres
n°30/ DAM, 8 Jan. 1991, p. 35).
46
JEAN VARRET, GENERAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018).
47
JEAN VARRET, GENERAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018). In April 2019, “speaking
out for the first time on camera” about this, Varret added, “Whether [Rwagafilita] meant the RPF or the whole Tutsi
ethnic group I don’t know, but very often the Tutsi were assimilated with the RPF as being the enemy.” Rwanda, Story
of a Genocide Foretold, FRANCE 24, 5 Apr. 2019.
48
JEAN VARRET, GÉNÉRAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018); see also Cable from
Georges Martres (14 Dec. 1990) (Subject: “Rencontre du President Habyarimana avec le Général Varret”). Martres’
cable does not reflect Varret relaying his concern about Rwagafilita’s comments, nor do any of the documents the
French government has thus far declassified and made public on its involvement in Rwanda.
49
JEAN VARRET, GÉNÉRAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018); Genocide des Tutsi du
Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military Lobby at Work at the Elysée”],
AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
50
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
51
JEAN VARRET, GENERAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018).
52
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
53
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
54
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
55
MIP Audition of René Galinié, Tome III, Vol. 1, 10 (“[Galinié] stated that he had already mentioned in January
1990, in his defense attaché’s report, this risk of physical elimination and massacres, which he was all the more aware
of since, as soon as he arrived in the country on 23 August 1988, he had been brought by helicopter to the border and
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had been personally very disturbed by seeing for himself the massacres perpetrated in Burundi. This episode had given
him a clear understanding of a daily reality marked by violence.”).
56
Cable from Georges Martres (12 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Extrait du message de l’attaché de défense à Kigali, 12
octobre 1990, analyse de la situation politique”) (warning that “this conflict will deteriorate into an ethnic war”
(emphasis omitted)); Cable from Georges Martres (13 Oct. 1990) (Subject: “Situation générale le 13 octobre 1990 à
12 heures locales”) (“[M]assacres are reported in the region of Kibilira, 20 kilometers northwest of Gitarama. The risk
of generalization of this confrontation, already reported, seems to be becoming concrete.”).
57
JEAN VARRET, GENERAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 157 (2018).
58
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret).
Dupaquier explained that even if these documents are someday declassified by the French government, that does not
meant they will be made public: “Effectively declassification does not necessarily mean opening to the public. They
could corroborate the alerts you’re talking about. Between one thousand and two thousand French diplomatic or
military documents, some classified as confidential or Defense secret are precisely known over the period 1990-1994,
including part of the ‘Mitterrand archives.’ It is surprising to note that after December 1990, in the French documents
revealed, there is only rarely any mention of the risk of genocide of the Tutsis.”
59
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 514-15 (2019).
60
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 514 (2019).
61
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 521 (2019); but see Report from Jean Varret,
Compte rendu de mission au Rwanda et au Burundi (27 May 1992). In this report, Varret states, “Military assistance
to RWANDA, under its ‘PERSONNEL’ and ‘DIRECT AID IN MATERIAL’ components, has almost tripled since
the start of the conflict on October 1, 1990. Indeed, its annual cost in 1991 reached 28.35 MF [$5.15M] against 11.5
MF [$2.09M], on average, in previous years.”
62
In his MIP hearing, Varret said that he only sent two gendarmes for the judicial police training. MIP Audition of
Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 7. However, a November 1992 report by his deputy, Col. Philippe Capodanno, indicates
that four gendarmes were sent. Report from Philippe Capodanno, Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa Mission au
Rwanda 7 (10 Nov. 1992).
63
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 521 (2019).
(“– And in this dozen or so meetings where you spoke of Rwanda, you said: there is going be a massacre.
...
– I don’t know if I said it, this is no verbatim. But I am well aware that I stalled every time that they said: we
need to send more guys, more weapons, every time, I said no!
– And did you say why?
– Of course. But I don’t remember going on a diatribe about the risk of genocide. I was reluctant to respond
to requests for reinforcing the Hutu Army. I remember the mood, and the mood was, it was Varret who was
reluctant.”).
64
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 514 (2019).
65
Meeting Notes (23 Jan. 1991).
66
Duclert Commission Report 129 (citing SHD, GR 1997 Z 1813/21, Msg n°3000, DEF/EMA/emp3, 2 Jan. 1991).
67
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (2 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de situation”).
68
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (2 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de situation”).
69
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (2 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de situation”).
70
Press Release, RPF (19 Jan. 1991) (listing the representatives from Zaire, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, the OAU,
the UNHCR, and Rwanda who participated in the conference on refugees; noting that no representatives from the RPF
were included). A Rwandan Government representative at the conference noted in a report to President Habyarimana
about the conference that the RPF sought political recognition as a precondition for cease-fire and expressed the
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November 1990 – June 1991
difficulty of marginalizing the RPF while opening Rwandan politics to opposition parties. See Memorandum from
Joseph Nsengiyumva to Juvénal Habyarimana (23 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Conférence régionale sur le problème des
réfugiés rwandais”). The same government representative revealed his true feelings in the same report: “Wherever
Tutsis are, they consider themselves superior to other races, they monopolize the best command positions to the
detriment of nationals and provoke rejection. It will obviously not be easy to dislodge them without international
condemnation or even war. In other words, the return of refugees will not have put an end to our suffering.” See
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana 1 (23 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Conférence Régionale
sur les Réfugiés, niveaux Experts et Ministériel) (“It should be recognized, however, that it is thanks to your
approaches to President Mobutu that the representatives of the Rwandan Patriotic Front were not invited to the
meeting.”).
71
Interview by LFM with Joseph Karemara; see also Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga; Interview by LFM
with James Kabarebe.
72
Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera.
73
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
74
Liberation Diary: The Attack on Ruhengeri and Release of Political and Other Prisoners, THE NEW TIMES, 27 Aug.
2015. See also Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake; Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
75
STEPHEN KINZER, A THOUSAND HILLS 87-88 (2008).
76
Cable from Georges Martres (23 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
77
Meeting Notes (23 Jan. 1991) (“[Mitterrand]: We are authorized to intervene to liberate them.”).
78
Cable from Georges Martres (24 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
79
Meeting Notes (23 Jan. 1991).
80
Meeting Notes (23 Jan. 1991).
81
Cable from Georges Martres (24 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “Entrevue avec le President Habyarimana”).
82
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (30 Jan. 1991).
83
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (30 Jan. 1991).
84
FIDH Report 19-20 (1993).
85
Des centaines de civils massacrés [Hundreds of Civilians Massacred], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 21 June 1991.
86
Letter from Amnesty International to Sylvestre Nsanzimana (28 May 1991); FIDH Report 19.
87
WENDY WHITWORTH, WE SURVIVED: GENOCIDE IN RWANDA 138-145 (2006).
88
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “War or peace in Rwanda”).
89
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech before the CND (4 Feb. 1991).
90
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Jan. 1991) (Subject: “War or peace in Rwanda”); Cable from
Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (6 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Habyarimana Accuses Uganda of Complicity in RPF
Attack, Calls for an End to Ethnic Violence”).
91
Genocide des Tutsi du Rwanda: “un lobby militaire a l’oeuvre a l’Élysée” [Genocide of the Tutsi: “A Military
Lobby at Work at the Elysée”], AFRIKARABIA, 5 Nov. 2018 (interview by Jean-François Dupaquier with Jean Varret)
(“[Galinié] had interlocutors everywhere, including members of religious communities.”).
92
Agnes Gorissen, Le Front patriotique rwandais accuse: des Tutsis massacrés par Kigali? [The Rwandan Patriotic
Front Accuses: Tutsis Massacred by Kigali?], LE SOIR, 14 Aug. 1991 (“Between 500 and 1,000 people were allegedly
killed by armed winged militias, formed by local authorities at the request of the region’s military command and local
politicians in retaliation for the 22 January attack on the town of Ruhengeri by the RPF.”); L’Ambassadeur rwandais
en Belgique reconnait le massacre de civils Tutsi [The Rwandan Ambassador in Belgium Acknowledges the Massacre
of Tutsi Civilians], AFP, 14 Aug. 1991; Natacha David, Massacre de Tutsis occulté au Rwanda? [Occult Massacre of
Tutsis in Rwanda?], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 16 Aug. 1991; Version de l’ambassadeur du Rwanda [The Rwandan
Ambassador’s Version], LE SOIR, 16 Aug. 1991; Rwanda eerbiedigt bestand [Rwanda Respects the Truce], DE
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STANDAARD, 16 Aug. 1991; Rwanda wil toezicht neutrale waarnemers [Rwanda Wants Neutral Observers], GAZET
VAN ANTWERPEN, 16 Aug. 1991; RFI broadcast (27 June 1991).
93
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”) (reporting a “new Ugandan-Tutsi offensive attempted on 2 February to conquer the city of
Ruhengeri” that was repelled by FAR counterattacks and stating the planned 15 February withdrawal of the Noroît
company in Kigali was “difficult to envision”).
94
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
95
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
96
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
97
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
98
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
99
MIP Tome I 152.
100
Memorandum from French Ministry of Defense (19 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “PV de réunion DAO Rwanda du 18
février 1991”).
101
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
102
MIP Tome I 144.
103
MIP Tome I 144. The memorandum was quoted in the MIP Report but not made public by the MIP. See also Cable
from Jean-Paul Taix (15 Mar. 1991) (Subject: “Mise en place d’un détachement d’assistance militaire et d’instruction
(DAMI) au Rwanda”) (directing Martres to notify Habyarimana that the decision to deploy the DAMI was a response
to Habyarimana’s and the Rwandan foreign minister’s pleas for assistance).
104
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
105
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
106
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (3 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nouvelle offensive
ougando-tutsie”).
107
MIP Tome I 147; Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (20 June 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda
– Point de situation”).
108
Cable from Maurice Schmitt (26 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “Operation Noroît”).
109
MIP Tome I 146-47. Directive 3146 of 20 March 1991 is referred to in the MIP Report, but the document is not
made public by MIP.
110
Duclert Commission Report 146-47 (quoting SDH, GR 2004 Z 169/1, Fiche n°3145/DEF/EMA/EMP3, Paris 20
Mar. 1991).
111
MIP Tome I 29. Martres “noticed in 1992 that the military cooperation intended for the Rwandan Army lacked a
legal basis since the agreement effective at that time only mentioned cooperation with the Gendarmerie.”
112
Special Agreement of Military Assistance, Fr.-Rw, 18 July 1975 (emphasis added). A 1983 amendment removed
a provision that expressly prohibited French cooperants from participating “in the preparation and execution of war
operations, of maintenance or reestablishment of order or the law.” Id.; see also Signed letter from François Breton to
the Rwandan minister of foreign affairs (27 Apr. 1983) (“I have the honor of informing you that the proposals made
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November 1990 – June 1991
in your letter meet the approval of the government of the French Republic and constitute an agreement between our
two governments as of today’s date.”).
113
See, e.g., Memorandum Relatif au Programme de Cooperation Militaire Franco-Rwandaise 1989/1990
[Memorandum Concerning the French-Rwandan Military Cooperation Program 1989/1990].
114
President Habyarimana pressed the French government in 1983 to agree to expand the agreement to authorize
cooperation with the armed forces more broadly. France did not agree to the change. See Memorandum from Léonidas
Rusatira (22 Nov. 1983) (Subject: “Accord particulier d’Assistance Militaire entre le Rwanda et la France”).
115
See MIP Tome I 29; Memorandum from François Nicoullaud to Roland Dumas (6 Aug. 1992) (Subject:
“Application de l’accord de cessez-le-feu au Rwanda”).
116
Cable from Jean-Paul Taix (15 Mar. 1991) (Subject: “Mise en place d’un détachement d’assistance militaire et
d’instruction (DAMI) au Rwanda”).
117
MIP Tome I 152.
118
Cable from Jean-Paul Taix (15 Mar. 1991) (Subject: “Mise en place d’un détachement d’assistance militaire et
d’instruction (DAMI) au Rwanda”).
119
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, Rw. – RPF, 29 Mar. 1991.
120
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, Rw. – RPF, 29 Mar. 1991. The neutral military observer group became
operational later in the spring of 1991. See Cable from Georges Martres (21 May 1991) (Subject: “Situation Militaire
et Renseignements Divers”). Led by General Hashim M’Bita, the group proved satisfactory to no one. RPF leaders
accused the Rwandan government of impeding the group’s work, see, e.g., Press Release, RPF (5 Aug. 1991) (signed
Shaban Ruta), while the government complained that the group had a pro-RPF bias, see Memorandum from Casimir
Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Recontre tripartite à Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
Foreign Minister Bizimungu would argue, in August 1991, that the group’s continued ineffectiveness was among the
reasons why France should not withdraw the remaining Noroît troops. See id.
121
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, Rw. – RPF, 29 Mar. 1991.
122
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni.
123
US Department of State, Chronology of Significant Events: Rwandan Conflict 1990-1992.
124
The DAMI was ostensibly under the authority of the Ministry of Cooperation, which provided its funding. See MIP
Audition of Jean Varret, Tome III, Vol. 1, 217. A 19 February 1991 planning document specified that the DAMI
would be “separate from Operation Noroît” and would take orders from the head of the MAM, an agency within the
Ministry of Cooperation. See Meeting Notes (19 Feb. 1991) (Subject: “PV de réunion DAO Rwanda du 18 février
1991). As a practical matter, though, the line that purported to separate Noroît from the DAMI was not all that stark.
One reason this was so was that the chains of command for both entities shared a common link: Col. Galinié—who,
as head of the MAM, had supervisory authority over the DAMI, and, as a seasoned military officer, held command
over Noroît. See MIP Audition of René Galinié, Tome III, Vol. 1, 227. The line would become even blurrier with
time, as the Ministry of Defense gradually usurped operational control of the DAMI from the Ministry of Cooperation.
See Jacques Isnard, La France a mené une opération secrète, avant 1994, auprès des Forces armées rwandaises
[France Led a Secret Operation, Before 1994, with the Rwandan Armed Forces], LE MONDE, 21 May 1998.
125
Report from René Galinié, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement (4 Apr. 1991).
126
See JEAN VARRET, GÉNÉRAL, J’EN AI PRIS POUR MON GRADE [MY WAR STORIES] 156 (2018).
127
Report from René Galinié, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement (4 Apr. 1991). In an 18 November 1990
cable, Col. Galinié wrote, “Thus, the FAR whose cohesion is more asserted today than ever, thanks to the ties created
by the offensives carried out against the adversary, see their political and popular influence considerably increased, to
the point that their leaders like Colonel Serubuga appear threatening.” MIP Tome I 139. It is unclear what Galinié
meant by his comments that “leaders like Colonel Serubuga appear threatening” without more context—although the
MIP included excerpts from the cable in its report, it did not make the full cable public.
128
Report from René Galinié, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement (4 Apr. 1991).
129
Report from René Galinié, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement (4 Apr. 1991).
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November 1990 – June 1991
130
The MIP states that, by January 1991, the FAR had doubled in size to 20,000. MIP, Tome I 138. In contrast, Prunier
estimates that the FAR had swelled to 15,000 by mid-1991. GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 113 (1995).
Prunier also estimates that, by early 1991, the RPF consisted of approximately 5,000. Id. at 117.
131
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 250 (2019).
132
Meeting Notes (31 May 1991) (signed G. Rutakamize and G. Hategekimana).
133
Memorandum from Ruelle to Rwandan Gendarmerie (6 May 1991) (Subject: “Visite du groupement de Butare”).
134
Memorandum from Ruelle to Rwandan Gendarmerie (6 May 1991) (Subject: “Visite du groupement de Butare”).
135
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du bataillon Gitarama (15 Apr. 1991).
136
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du bataillon Gitarama (15 Apr. 1991).
137
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du bataillon Gitarama (15 Apr. 1991).
138
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du bataillon Gitarama (15 Apr. 1991).
139
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du bataillon Gitarama (15 Apr. 1991). Units that followed
generally fared better, in Lt. Col. Chollet’s estimation. See Report from Ruelle, Evaluation et propositions concernant
la Gendarmerie Rwandaise (11 June 1991) (assessing a large FAR battalion following its training in May 1991);
Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du 64 bataillon (2 July 1991) (assessing the 64th battalion following
its training in June 1991); Report from Giles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du 32 bataillon (22 July 1991) (assessing
the 32nd battalion following its training in July 1991).
140
Meeting Notes (12 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
141
See, e.g., Memorandum from Ephrem Rwabalinda to Augustin Bizimana (16 May 1994) (Subject: “Rapport de
mission”). This meeting is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 9 of this Report.
142
Rwanda Says 50 Rebels Killed in Fighting in Northwest, REUTERS, 10 May 1991; Rwanda Troops Clash
with Rebels Days Ahead of Peace Talks, REUTERS, 14 Apr. 1991; Logan Ndahiro, Recalling the Fierce Battles of
Ruhengeri, THE NEW TIMES, 8 Jan. 2016. Ndahiro describes the encirclement and Kagame’s operation to escape from
the mountains.
143
Meeting Notes (12 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
144
Meeting Notes (12 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
145
BENOÎT COLLOMBAT AND DAVID SERVENAY, AU NOM DE LA FRANCE: GUERRES SECRETES AU RWANDA [IN THE
NAME OF FRANCE: SECRET WARS IN RWANDA] 219 (2014) (citing the authors’ interview with Martin Ndamage).
146
Rwanda Troops Clash with Rebels Days Ahead of Peace Talks, REUTERS, 14 Apr. 1991.
147
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (22 Apr. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Point de
situation”).
148
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (22 Apr. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Point de
situation”).
149
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to François Mitterrand (22 Apr. 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda. Point de
situation”).
150
Memorandum from Gilles Vidal to François Mitterrand (22 Apr. 1991) (Subject: “Entretien avec M. Juvénal
Habyarimana, Président de la République du Rwanda”).
151
Memorandum from Gilles Vidal to François Mitterrand (22 Apr. 1991) (Subject: “Entretien avec M. Juvénal
Habyarimana, Président de la République du Rwanda”).
152
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
153
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
154
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
155
Meeting Notes (18 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
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Chapter III
156
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
157
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
November 1990 – June 1991
158
Arrêté du 16 avril 1991 portant nomination du chef de l’état-major particulier du Président de la République (16
Apr. 1991).
159
Décret du 8 avril 1991 portant élévation dans la 1re section, promotion et nomination dans la 1re section et dans la
2e section et affectation d’officiers généraux (10 Apr. 1991).
160
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (20 June 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de
situation”).
161
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (20 June 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de
situation”).
162
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (20 June 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de
situation”).
163
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (20 June 1991) (Subject: “Rwanda – Point de
situation”).
164
French Ambassador’s Interview, in RWANDA RUSHYA (Aug. 1991) (interview by Andereya Kameya with Georges
Martres).
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CHAPTER IV
July – December 1991
A. The French Government Claimed Neutrality at the Negotiating Table As It Worked to Keep
Habyarimana in Power and Attempted to Intimidate RPF Representatives into Surrendering
Their Demands.
The French approach is unbiased and aims only to help bring peace to the
Rwandan-Ugandan border. 1
– Paul Dijoud, Director of African and Malagasy Affairs in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991 – 1992)
On military matters, the authorities in Kigali should know that they can
continue to count on the support of France. . . . As for the diplomatic support
of France, … President Habyarimana knows that we have persistently acted
as his country’s advocate, in international bodies and with its immediate
neighbors. 2
– Gilles Vidal, Presidential Advisor to President Mitterrand, Élysée
Africa Advisor (1989 – 1993)
France kept up its assistance to the Rwandan Armed Forces throughout the latter half of
1991. When the new school year started in the fall, the DAMI Panda instructors decamped from
the University of Nyakinama campus, their home since March 1991, and took up residence a few
miles away at Camp Mukamira, where they would share space with a FAR unit.3 The DAMI
continued to train the FAR.4 Looking back on the DAMI’s first six months in Rwanda, Colonel
Bernard Cussac—who in July 1991 had taken over for Col. René Galinié as the French defense
attaché, head of the Military Assistance Mission (MAM), and commander of Operation Noroît5—
did not hesitate to assign it a measure of credit for the FAR’s battlefield successes (without
pinpointing any successes in particular).6 “The partners readily acknowledge this and would like
the MAM to intervene more and more widely and massively,” he wrote in October 1991.7 Not
long afterward, the DAMI spent a month helping the FAR select a team of elite snipers and trained
them to join the battalions fighting in Ruhengeri, Byumba, and Mutara.8
There was no mistaking where France stood: in mid-to-late 1991, and throughout the war,
France was a partisan, working to improve the FAR’s fighting capabilities and to deter the RPF
military’s advance. And yet, at the same time that French military cooperants were training the
FAR, and French Noroît troops were working to deter the RPF Army, France was representing
itself as a neutral mediator of the conflict.9 Between August 1991 and January 1992, France
mediated three sets of talks meant to resolve the Rwandan civil war. Paul Dijoud, the new Director
of African Affairs at the French Foreign Ministry,10 was France’s chief “mediator” at the summits.
Opening the August 1991 plenary meeting in the presence of the three delegations, Dijoud declared
that “the French approach is unbiased and aims only to help bring peace to the Rwandan-Ugandan
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border.”11 If President Mitterrand’s military support for the Rwandan government were not enough
to discredit this claim, Dijoud made sure to tell the participants—which included only the Rwandan
and Ugandan governments, and not the RPF—that French officials had met separately with the
RPF and tried to impress upon them that France’s “military presence in Rwanda prohibit[ed] [an
RPF] military victory.”12 “It has been made clear to [the RPF],” Dijoud continued, according to
Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir Bizimungu’s report to President Habyarimana summarizing
the August talks, “that [the RPF’s] military adventure is doomed to failure. . . . That is why France
has asked them to follow the path of democracy and national reconciliation.”13
But Dijoud did not expect the RPF to gain any more from the democratic process than from
the battlefield, since—as dictated by the narrow, essentialist logic so many French officials had
adopted, from President Mitterrand down—the RPF represented only the Tutsi minority, and Tutsi
voters would always be overwhelmed at the polls. “France [had] made [the RPF] understand,”
Bizimungu continued in his report, “that they cannot, of course, win the elections since they
constitute a small minority.”14
“For [Dijoud], Africans were the most unintelligent human beings,” senior RPF official
Protais Musoni recalled.15 “This perspective was typical of France at the time. For the French, it
was not about political ideas, but ethnicity. It is true that, historically, the resistance started with
refugees, who happened to be mostly Tutsi. But the RPF [welcomed] Hutu.”16 Indeed, as RPF
soldiers sat around campfires in Virunga listening to Radio Rwanda—and later RTLM—
mischaracterize the RPF as a “Tutsi” organization and the RPA as a “Tutsi” army, they would ask
themselves, “What am I? What are you?”17 “The RPA had people who didn’t know if they were
Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa,” in the words of Richard Sezibera, then an RPF medical officer. “It was
genuinely difficult to grasp how a political movement could be built around tribalism or
ethnicity.”18 The main identity these soldiers had in common was that they were Rwandans.
But where the RPF envisioned an ethnically integrated Rwanda, French officials were
committed to the status quo. Dijoud had made clear that France wanted Habyarimana to triumph
over both the RPF and the political opposition that had been forming since the previous year, when
Habyarimana, spurred by Mitterrand’s speech at La Baule, put into motion political reforms meant
to transition Rwanda away from single party rule by his party, the MRND.19 “Mr. Dijoud,” Casimir
Bizimungu recounted to Habyarimana, “insisted on the need to anticipate the events in order for
you to be the real pilot of the democratic process in Rwanda. You should not let yourself be
overtaken by the opposition parties.”20
Dijoud and Bizimungu also discussed ways to rationalize the presence of French troops in
Rwanda—which both Habyarimana and Mitterrand wanted “to remain on the spot”21—in case of
a cease-fire requiring foreign troops to withdraw. They could, for example, bestow “military
cooperant” status on all French soldiers in Rwanda, including the Noroît forces that comprised the
majority of French troops in Rwanda.22 As Bizimungu summed up, “Mr. Dijoud wanted to meet
me after the departure of the Ugandan delegation to reiterate France’s unconditional support of
Rwanda,” adding that the diplomatic talks in Paris had “greatly enlightened us as
to France’s determination, which sees itself as a friend and an ally.”23 And he believed Dijoud’s
sincerity, understanding the geopolitics behind French support:
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The Paris meeting finally convinced me of France’s sympathy for us. This
sympathy, which is not linked to any economic, financial or other interest, could
perhaps be explained by France’s concern to protect the French-speaking area
stretching from Senegal to Rwanda and Burundi to other countries of Frenchspeaking Central Africa. Although we are not a former colony of France, we have
belonged . . . to its sphere of influence.24
Soon after the August 1991 summit, Paul Kagame, the RPF’s military commander, traveled
to Paris to meet with Dijoud.25 Dijoud’s objective, as he reported at the time, was similar to those
he had claimed to have expressed in his meetings with the RPF in early August: to “demonstrate
that we are the friends of all Rwandans without exception,” to “involve [Kagame] in our
reconciliatory approach” by showing him the downsides of a military solution, and to “dissipate
any potential misunderstanding about the mandate of French soldiers currently stationed in
Rwanda.”26 What actually transpired, however, made clear that France was “reconciliatory”
toward only one side of the Rwandan conflict.
After his meeting with Kagame, Dijoud reported to Ambassador Martres that he was happy
with the outcome, describing Kagame as “pleased” to have been received at the Ministry. Due to
Kagame’s “feeling that the French policy in Rwanda had been, until [then], characterized by a
certain imbalance,” Dijoud wrote that Kagame “welcomed this opportunity to give us a different
perspective on the Rwandan crisis.”27 According to Dijoud, Kagame declared himself favorable to
any French initiative to facilitate a negotiated resolution to the conflict.28
Kagame had a very different recollection:
[Dijoud] insisted we must stop fighting. I took time and explained that there’s a
reason why the fighting was happening, which we needed to address . . . . There
was a back and forth. . . . It was a heated discussion but before we finished the
meeting, he got upset. And by the answers I was giving, he perceived me as an
arrogant person and someone not treating with importance what he was instructing
me to do. “We hear you are good fighters, I hear you think you will march to Kigali
but even if you are to reach there, you will not find your people.” He repeated and
clarified, “All these relatives of yours, you won’t find them.”29
Other members of the RPF delegation confirmed Kagame’s account.30 Dijoud’s comment has a
familiar ring: For the duration of the conflict, French officials would refer to ethnic massacres
conducted and condoned by the Habyarimana regime as regrettable, but perhaps understandable
retaliations by a citizenry affronted by the RPF’s attack.
But this was the lesser part of the ordeal Paul Kagame would go on to experience during
his visit to Paris. Early one morning during Kagame’s visit,31 plainclothes police roused him, along
with members of his delegation, from their beds in the Hilton Hotel, on Avenue Suffren, in the
shadow of the Eiffel Tower.32 According to Kagame, “They had guns pointed at me and were
shouting, “get up! get up!”33 Kagame explained that they were in Paris by official invitation and
named his host, but the officers accused the RPF representatives of being a “group of terrorists,”
placed Kagame and an RPF representative named Emmanuel Ndahiro under arrest, and took them
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to a prison located, according to one account, at the headquarters for the Direction de la
Surveillance du Territoire (DST),34 the French domestic intelligence unit responsible for
counterterrorism and counterespionage.35 Dijoud later testified to the MIP that the RPF delegation
had been spotted with suitcases full of cash and arrested without advance warning of the Quai
d’Orsay.36 The police kept the RPF delegates behind bars until around 8 o’clock in the evening,
when they were freed without explanation or apology.37 Neither Dijoud nor Jean-Christophe
Mitterrand ever discussed the incident with Kagame. When asked by Le Figaro if perhaps his
French hosts had not been informed, Kagame responded, “They were informed.”38
B. Habyarimana’s Feigned Embrace of Democratic Reforms Succeeded in Placating His
Benefactors in the French Government, Who Worked behind the Scenes to Keep
Habyarimana in Power.
The current regime in Rwanda has firmly laid the country on the path to
democracy!39
– Paul Dijoud, Director of African and Malagasy Affairs in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1991 – 1992)
As has been demonstrated, there is no democratic process in Rwanda. The
regime which is at the moment assassinating even innocent civilians in
Bigogwe, Kibilira, etc. . . . cannot claim to be democratic.40
– RPF
Paul Dijoud would describe the next set of negotiations, which took place at the Quai
d’Orsay in Paris, between 23 and 25 October 1991, as “three days of tempestuous and brutal
debates” with both sides “hating and manipulating one another.”41 He did not reflect on how he
may have contributed to that outcome. Dijoud announced during the proceedings that he
considered France “a disinterested friend.”42 The RPF, which now had a seat at the negotiating
table, heard something else in his opening statement, which began by pressuring the RPF to accept
a junior role:
A movement like the RPF can carry on negotiations with the state, but remember
that you are not on an equal footing, since the Rwandan government exists, it is
legal; recognized internationally and carries out all the responsibilities of a State.
You are not a State.
Using the same neo-colonial electoral logic he had in August—i.e., because Rwandans
would only vote their ethnicity, the RPF had little clout—Dijoud reiterated that the RPF had no
place in an interim government because “your resolutions would never be adopted.”43
For the RPF, Dijoud had “simply restated the Rwandan government’s point of view.”44 The
RPF delegation sought to respond to Dijoud’s remarks, but “he refused, saying he already knew
the RPF’s point of view[],” and that he did not appreciate having his objectivity questioned.45
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July – December 1991
During the talks, Dijoud had made clear that his faith was with Habyarimana. “The current
regime in Rwanda has firmly laid the country on the path to democracy!” Dijoud reportedly told
the participants.46 He then admonished the RPF to appreciate the regime’s magnanimity in dealing
with the RPF at all.47
The RPF urged Dijoud to recognize that “democracy” in Habyarimana’s Rwanda was a
thin veneer laid over an authoritarian ethno-state.48 Dijoud’s position was representative of the
French government’s: Habyarimana’s superficial democratization was enough, both because
something more substantive would threaten his hold on power, and because French officials
expected no more in this African nation. When asked in 2018 by French journalist Laurent Larcher
if he believed that Mitterrand was truly committed to promoting democracy in Africa, Admiral
Lanxade replied: “Absolutely. He knew Africa very well, and he knew very well the limits of what
we could and could not do.”49 When asked to clarify these limits, Lanxade answered
uncomfortably: “What I mean to say is that he knew very well. . . . You can’t change things all of
a sudden. You can’t promote democratic leaders. . . . In Africa, it is still not possible today. . . .
You have to look at . . . the lesser of two evils.”50
Mitterrand’s neocolonial approach to democracy—requiring only so much as he thought,
paternalistically, a lesser developed African nation could offer—translated into a push for
multipartyism alone, without the mechanisms necessary to ensure a free and fair society (such as
free and fair elections, free speech, and respect for human rights). For the RPF, any authorization
of nominal political competition without a consideration of the structural ills of the Habyarimana
regime—the inequality and disrespect for human rights that had produced the refugee crisis—was
window dressing. In a submission to the March 1991 Conference on Human Rights in Africa, the
RPF had pointed out the hypocrisy of claiming democratic progress while ethnic demonization
continued on state media:
As anyone who listens to Radio Rwanda will know, incitement to ethnic hatred has
gathered pace since the civil war. . . . The state radio and most of the country’s
media continue to lead the population into believing that the RPF is either a Uganda
force or [Tutsi] coming to reclaim the land and the position they lost.51
The document went on to describe the consequences of the radio’s incitement, which would
continue to play a tragically effective role all the way through the Genocide: “Hundreds have been
murdered,” including teachers and students.52 “It is clear to the least casual observer,” the
document summed up, “that these so-called changes have been no more than a misguided attempt
to pull the wool over the International Community’s eyes.”53
Indeed, Habyarimana’s reforms often coincided with President Mitterrand’s authorizations
of Rwandan requests for military support. For instance, Lt. Col. Gilbert Canovas, the French
advisor to the FAR’s general staff, held an 18 April 1991 meeting with the FAR’s representatives,
which included Col. Laurent Serubuga (the anti-Tutsi extremist who headed the Army).54 During
that meeting, the FAR representatives submitted a series of requests: (a) two helicopters, requiring
the training of six pilots for two years, (b) the permanent presence of the DAMI, and (c) personnel
and material for the supervision of a battalion of para-commandos.55 Three days later, on 21 April
1991, President Habyarimana announced the deadline for opposition parties to “register,” a
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precondition for official party recognition.56 A few days after that, when the Rwandan and French
presidents met in Paris, President Mitterrand agreed to most of the requests that the FAR
representatives had drawn up during their 18 April meeting with Canovas.57 In a press conference
following the meeting, Habyarimana confirmed that “multipartyism would be instituted in
Rwanda.”58 (He also claimed that he had made no requests of Mitterrand for material assistance.59)
“If [Habyarimana] didn’t do a certain number of things, we [would have] left” Rwanda, as
Admiral Jacques Lanxade told the French journalist Laurent Larcher in 2019.60 In speaking of
“lessons that… we gave to Habyarimana,”61 Lanxade did not reflect on how sincerely one could
have expected Habyarimana to hew to those lessons, if he was “learning” them only because he
feared losing military support.
The MRND soon showed that it had no intention of forfeiting its monopoly on power:62 At
local meetings, bourgmestres and prefects threatened residents to support the MRND. The MRND
had other advantages it could exploit. It enjoyed unique access to state-run Radio Rwanda, the
country’s most wide-reaching and influential medium, and exemption from the restrictions on
freedom of movement that prevailed in the country (most Rwandans were required to obtain
written authorization to travel from one commune to another), ostensibly for security reasons in
view of the war.63 In the opposition’s estimation, the MRND was playing a “rigged game” to
ensure its victory in any elections.64
US diplomatic correspondence shared the RPF’s and the opposition’s concerns, with the
US ambassador to Rwanda, Robert Flaten, writing frankly to the US State Department’s director
of Central African affairs, Robert Pringle, in August 1991: “While we are trying to promote
democracy as an answer to both the domestic ethnic problem and the RPF violence, those close to
the President appear to be promoting a Hutu supremacy game.”65 Flaten named some of the
extremists “close to the President,” including Col. Laurent Serubuga and Col. Elie Sagatwa,
Habyarimana’s personal secretary, relative of Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana,66 and Serubuga’s
equal in corruption and abuse of power.
Flaten referred to “[t]he almost daily exposure of the evils of Serubuga, Sagatwa, and
others in the tight little circle.”67 Habyarimana was caught between his extremist inner circle and
pressure to make peace with the RPF and democratize:
[T]he President talks a good game of democracy[,] and many take him seriously. .
. . Under normal circumstances I would say that the [democratic process] is
essentially irreversible, that the cost of reversing it would be too high for any
politician to pay. But these are not normal circumstances, and it is because of that
that the opposition fears that the government is manipulating the continuation of
the war in order to have an excuse to stomp on the opposition if it looks like a real
threat to the President and [his] family. . . . The problem is that the things that he
must do internally in order to have a chance of negotiating the end of the war, are
being undercut by his loyal followers with a Hutu supremacy vision. And he either
can’t or won’t bring them under control.68
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While French officials, several of whom had voiced internal concerns about Rwandan extremism
and how continued French aid could enable it (see discussion in Chapter 3), were undoubtedly
aware of this dynamic, they did not precondition French military support on a rejection of
extremism. “It was clear that the French were solidly on the side of the Rwandans and their Hutu
dictator, Habyarimana,” Pringle would tell an oral-history project in 2015.69 “They saw the
invading Tutsi rebels, coming out of Uganda and speaking English, as a threat to their Frenchlanguage hegemony.”70
Now, at the October 1991 negotiations, the RPF once again invoked the reality of statesponsored killings in Rwanda: “As has been demonstrated, there is no democratic process in
Rwanda. The regime which is at the moment assassinating even innocent civilians in Bigogwe,
Kibilira, etc. . . cannot claim to be democratic.”71 The RPF military would “not lay down its arms
for two main reasons”: the MRND government would not lay down its arms, and the “RPF [was]
fighting for political change in Rwanda, namely that social injustices cease. . . . [I]t is well known
that being suspected of being an RPF sympathizer is reason enough to be arrested or killed. This
is the excuse given out . . . for the killings in Kibilira and those of Bagogwe.”72
The Rwandan government responded that “the raids and the killings belonged to the past,”
and that “today democracy has changed everything.”73 One did not have to wait long for evidence
of the contrary.
At 6:30 a.m. on 25 October,74 the last day of the proceedings, in the outskirts of Kigali, a
Rwandan soldier and three accomplices carrying hand grenades entered the home of David Gatera,
whose brother Justin Mugenzi headed the Liberal Party (PL),75 a party that the MRND regularly
singled out for opprobrium and attacks because of the PL’s large Tutsi following. The soldier shot
Gatera point-blank and fled with the others.76 In reporting the murder to Paris in a cable also signed
by Ambassador Martres, Col. Cussac—the new French defense attaché, MAM chief, and
commander of Operation Noroît—relayed the official explanation of the Rwandan authorities
(“personal vengeance”) without commenting on the likelihood that this was an act of government
retaliation against its political opponents.77 (Cussac and Martres did find it relevant to point out
that the opposition might exploit the murder.78) Many put no stock in this explanation. As a
Rwandan human-rights organization reported, “Many observers saw in this assassination . . . a
concrete expression of intimidation attempts of well-known opposition parties.”79
On 27 October 1991, Jacques Bihozagara, one of the RPF representatives at the recent Paris
talks, wrote a letter to Paul Dijoud bringing the murder to his attention as “an illustration of the
Rwandan government’s present practices.”80 Dijoud’s deputy, Catherine Boivineau, however,
assured Rwanda’s ambassador to France that “France knew the true version of the facts,” likely
meaning that France accepted the official explanation that the murder had been motivated by
personal vengeance.81 Nonetheless, Boivineau told the ambassador that France “considered this
assassination to be troublesome.”82
Gatera’s murder was not an isolated incident. The following week, the RPF sent Dijoud
another letter naming 18 people, ten of whom had been tortured and eight of whom had been
reported missing after arrest, all between 20 and 30 October 1991 in the Bugesera region, in the
south.83 Details of these killings would reach the world in 1993, with the “Report of the
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International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda Since October
1, 1990” (“FIDH Report”) (The FIDH Report set the total number of victims at 28, exceeding the
eighteen victims that the RPF had named a year and a half earlier in its letter to Dijoud.):
In October 1991, Burgomaster of Kanzenze [a settlement in the Bugesera region,
about a half-hour’s drive south of Kigali] Fidele Rwambuka ordered the arrests of
a number of Tutsi youths, who were accused of planning to join the RPF and of
having recruited others for that purpose. Twenty-eight were seized over a period of
two weeks, and, after a brief detention at the communal offices, they were
transferred to the Gako military camp, where they were all severely beaten. Eight
were killed or disappeared.84
We have uncovered no evidence that Dijoud replied to the RPF, or that the French government
urged Habyarimana to address these allegations. Exactly five months after the RPF’s letter to
Dijoud, anti-Tutsi massacres in Bugesera, facilitated by the same Bourgmestre Rwambuka, would
kill nearly 300 by gruesome means.85
The RPF was not alone in sounding the alarm. In November 1991, frustrated by the slow
pace of political change, the main opposition parties—the MDR (the restored Hutu party of the
center and south, with both moderate and extremist elements), the PL (Liberal Party; center-right,
urban, business-oriented), and the PSD (Social Democratic Party; center-left, middle-class
professionals)—petitioned Habyarimana with a long list of areas in urgent need of reform.86
Prominent among them, according to Col. Cussac, who summed up the letter’s contents for Paris,
was “a major overhaul of the administrative apparatus currently controlled by a single party and
the militancy of whose public officials forbids the organization of free and democratic elections.”87
The letter condemned “the monopolization of the National Radio by the . . . MRND for use
in propaganda” and “the persecution of members of parties other than MRND.”88 It went on:
-
The regional authorities “behave as propagandists for MRND and hamper the campaigning
activities of other parties . . . [,]” for example, by “preventing the local population from
attending the meetings organised by the opposition parties . . . .”89
-
“The militants of the . . . MRND with the support of the local administrative authorities,
carry out acts o[f] intimidation and practice physical violence on members of the
opposition.”90
-
“On 20th October 1991 . . . a band of MRND militants . . . attacked some MDR members
who were returning from a meeting. About ten members of them were wounded, one of
whom had his hand chopped off.”91
-
“ . . . [T]he explosion of new political parties. . . has completely upset the Rwandese
political scene to a point whereby the former single party no longer boasts the highest
number of members in the country.”92
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“. . . [T]he [o]fficial image of the country, as represented by the current regime, no longer
corresponds to the true picture of Rwanda which [is] today turning toward the opposition
parties.”93
The petition’s summation was blunt: “[T]he country is running a serious risk of falling
apart.” It concluded by re-iterating the coalition’s earlier calls for a national conference, the
organized repatriation of refugees, liberalization of the press, a “complete reshuffle” of
administrative and diplomatic bodies, and the reorganization of the security services.95
94
Ernestine Mudahogora96
Ernestine was born in Bugesera, in Ntarama district. She was the only one in her family of
seven who survived. She was 18 at the time of the Genocide.
In Nyamata, things were getting worse as the days went by. There were
horrible shootings and killings in the church. The survivors fled back to where they
had come from. All the Tutsis in Nyamata and other areas had been killed. That
was when they started attacking the remaining areas.
My uncles and aunts were living across the valley, so they came and lived in
the neighbouring houses. Sometimes it was OK for one or two days, then things got
bad again. One day, after about two weeks, the Interahamwe . . . had killed all the
people in Nyamata—all those in Kayumba forest and everyone in the church. They
had killed everywhere else, and the next place was my home village. I remember
some people saying, “The attackers have come through the coffee plantation.” That
was just below our home and I wondered what was going to happen. I couldn’t
imagine what killings were like. I thought they were impossible. People were
screaming, “They’ve come.” And then they fled through the forest to Ntarama
church. Those who could still defend themselves with bows and spears fought off
the attackers, but they started to lose courage when they saw about ten or twenty
of their number being killed. They started to scatter. The strong fighters fled
towards Gitarama and Kabwayi; a few helpless people were left behind.
My brother was among those who managed to flee. He came home and told
us, “We can’t defend ourselves; they’ve killed most of us. They’ve killed the
strongest men we had. We should all find our own way now.” “Where are you
going?” I asked him. He told me, “We’re going to look for a safer place to take
refuge.” “Won’t you be killed there?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied. “But
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goodbye for now. If I survive, we shall meet again.” Those were the last words we
heard from him, as he walked away and left us.
...
We ran away and reached a small forest just below our home. We heard the
perpetrators amongst the cattle we had left behind. They hacked the cattle and then
killed the elderly people who had stayed in their homes. We hid in a bush near our
house because the attackers were coming close.
Then we ran to the sector offices at Ntarama church. Even as we were
running, we could hear some Interahamwe behind us saying, “They went through
here. There they are.” Others came into the bushes searching for us, but luckily they
found property—suitcases, bags and so on—that people had hidden there. We
heard them saying, “Hey! I’ve found some treasures here.” So while they
concentrated on what they had found, we fled. That’s how we managed to survive
that day. We ran to Ntarama church.
...
Just after we left [from Ntarama church], they threw grenades at Ntarama
church. They killed almost everybody—there are just a few handicapped survivors.
Anyway, we continued and went to the school. It was the only safe hiding place
then for those who had managed to survive Nyamata or the other massacres
throughout Bugesera. We spent the nights in the school and during the day we
would loiter in the swamps. We never slept in the swamps because the
Interahamwe went home around four o’clock. Then we could go back to the school.
...
It was 15 April 1994. They came in many buses. They had come to kill us.
The buses came straight to the school building where we were hiding. The attackers
killed many people and only a few were left. We were near the swamp at the time
and that’s where they found us. Some old people committed suicide. They said they
had survived the machetes of 1959, and the machetes of 1994 would not kill them.
They dived into the water and were carried away.
I ran away and hid in the bush near the swamp. The Interahamwe
immediately ran after me. It hadn’t rained that day. It was around midday, and the
sun was shining brightly. That’s when the Interahamwe came and killed many
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people—including my cousin who was slightly older than me. Later I discovered
that they had hacked me. I didn’t know when it happened, but I guess it was around
midday. I touched myself and saw blood. I wondered if it was possible that they
had cut me, and I was still alive. I always used to imagine how one day they would
bring a machete and hack me. I didn’t know how I would react. I wasn’t sure then
whether I should hide in a sorghum plantation, but I just kept on running.
At some point, I penetrated another area of bush where the perpetrators
found me and started hacking me again. I collapsed. I finally managed to leave that
place around six o’clock in the evening when the killers left to go home. Perhaps it
was the wind that brought me back to consciousness. I heard people moving
around and started calling. But maybe those people thought I was with the
perpetrators. Instead of coming close to see, they ran away. And then someone
came and said, “Oh no, Mudahogora has been hacked. Look how badly she’s hurt!”
You can imagine what I looked like, considering the scars I have now. I
looked like a dead body with blood all over my face. I heard someone say, “She’s
taking her last breath; there’s no life in her.” I was with my sister’s three‐year‐old
boy; we had hidden together in the bush. When I opened my eyes, I saw him seated
beside me; he wasn’t hurt at all then. He died later. I was the only one left with him,
but I couldn’t help him get food and later he developed anemia and died. He was
sitting there with his eyes wide open just beside me. By chance, a kind woman who
lived nearby came and carried him away on her back.
I was left alone there; everyone had gone. No one bothered to carry me away
from there. I tried both my legs and found I had a little strength left in them even
though I was injured. I knew that when the wounds are still fresh, it’s still possible
to move around. The risk was that I might suddenly fall over because of losing too
much blood. So I tried walking, and I managed it. The pain hadn’t started by then,
so I started running after the people. I didn’t want to be left in the Bush alone.
Everybody was running, and I was left behind. I remember that when the
Interahamwe came back and found you still alive, they had to finish you off. I
survived that day. I pulled myself up to the school buildings, but by then all my
brothers had fled to Gitarama. I was left with my sister, the second eldest in our
family; the rest had been killed, including my third brother. There were still some
survivors at the school. They had seen that the killing had become very intense and
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said we should start sleeping in the swamp. Otherwise, the Interahamwe would
find us and kill us at the school.
In advance of the fourth biennial summit of Francophone states at Chaillot Palace, in Paris,
on 19-21 November 1991, Jean Carbonare, the President of the French Committee for the Defense
of Human Rights and Democracy in Rwanda, made an impassioned plea directly to President
Mitterrand to stop supporting a regime that committed the abuses itemized by the RPF and the
opposition:
Numerous testimonies from international organizations . . . have . . . reported
serious and multiple violations of human rights in Rwanda (arbitrary arrests,
massacres of civilians and disappearances, torture, prolonged preventive detention
under inhumane conditions, trials and convictions without any legal procedure,
racist propaganda [, etc.]).
These violations increased considerably with the start of the civil war. . . . Since
that date, France is present militarily in Rwanda, officially to protect our nationals.
Several testimonies have brought to light the active participation of French military
. . . particularly with regard to the control of strategic points and the interrogation
of prisoners.97
In the name of the human rights with which France has always wanted to identify
itself, in the name of the democracy to which you yourself have called countries at
. . . La Baule . . . our committee can only reiterate its indignation—its shame—and
vigorously protest against France’s political and military support to a dictatorship
with no respect for human beings or their rights. Withdrawing French troops in
Rwanda would be, in our view[,] a first step in bringing our values in line with our
actions.
In a 14 November 1991 memo to President Mitterrand meant to prepare him for a meeting
with President Habyarimana on the sidelines of the summit, Dijoud’s deputy Catherine Boivineau
mentioned none of these concerns. Her focus was on the “many important developments” in
Rwandan democratization that President Habyarimana had steered since he last met with President
Habyarimana.98 She noted that Habyarimana would expect Mitterrand to reassure him that “Kigali
authorities could continue to count on French [military] support.”99
It is unclear whether the two presidents met during the Chaillot summit. At the summit
itself, President Habyarimana gave a speech touting his country’s so-called democratic progress.100
Its main obstacle, he said in a speech to the assembled, was “partisans nostalgic for the monarchy
in the interior [meaning Tutsi in Rwanda—ed.] with aid from their allies on the exterior [meaning
Uganda—ed.]” intent on “smothering this nascent democracy.”101
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The signals of uncritical support sent by France had consequences, namely that
Habyarimana’s administration felt emboldened to resist the opposition’s demands. When, on 30
December 1991, the MRND Justice Minister Sylvestre Nsanzimana, who had been appointed
prime minister by Habyarimana in October,102 was finally sworn in after two and a half months of
stalled negotiations to form a coalition, he named a cabinet that included only one non-MRND
official.103 Otherwise, the MRND continued to dominate, with the top ministries in the same hands
that they had been in February. The opposition was livid. An opposition march in Kigali on 8
January 1992 drew 50,000, with thousands more marching in the center and south of the country.104
Another march was planned for a week later but was stifled by the authorities.105
Despite Habaryimana’s political violence and repressive tactics, France’s principal
mediator did not change his approach. Paul Dijoud began a second round of negotiations between
the RPF and the Rwandan government, on 14 and 15 January 1992, in Paris,106 by lecturing the
Rwandans: “The difference between dictatorship and democracy is that the first is based on force
while the second is based on consensus. . . . It is democracy that will solve your problems.”107
Then Dijoud advised both parties to “preserve the established order” and “gradually learn to govern
together.”108 After suggesting once more that the RPF represented Ugandan interests,109 Dijoud
insisted that the Noroît troops were part of the military cooperation between France and Rwanda—
an inaccurate spin developed in conjunction with the Rwandan delegation to the August
negotiations110—and therefore not subject to the March 1991 N’Sele cease-fire agreement’s
requirement that foreign troops depart Rwanda.111 Then he reiterated that the main problem was
refugees rather than the wholesale rot of the Habyarimana regime.112 None of the arguments the
RPF had repeatedly made in response to these points had found an interested audience in Dijoud,
and none of Dijoud’s arguments inspired confidence in the RPF that France was serious about
modifying either its approach to peace talks or the authoritarian system in Rwanda.113
According to the Rwandan government’s delegate, on 20 January 1992, Paul Dijoud left
the negotiations displeased and “disheartened by the RPF’s delaying tactics and its negativistic
and unconstructive attitude.”114 Dijoud seems to not have countenanced that the intransigence
might be France’s, and that its effect would be to encourage Habyarimana to make merely
superficial reforms. France did not expect more. Paul Dijoud had said it himself: it was not the
goal to “transform Rwanda into an advanced democracy.”115 President Habyarimana was the
“lesser evil,”116 and that was good enough.
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Notes to Chapter IV
1
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
2
Note from Gilles Vidal, Chargé de mission for African and Malagasy Affairs at the Élysée, to President François
Mitterrand 6 (22 Apr. 1991).
3
Memorandum from Jean Varret (20 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Nouvelle implantation du DAMI”).
4
See, e.g., Report from Gilles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction du 63 bataillon (12 Nov. 1991); Report from Gilles
Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction des tireurs d’élite (26 Dec. 1991).
5
MIP Tome II, Annex 1.1 (“Liste des Personnalités Entendues par la Mission d’Information”).
6
Report from Bernard Cussac, Compte rendu semestriel de fonctionnement (8 Oct. 1991).
7
Report from Bernard Cussac, Compte rendu semestriel de fonctionnement (8 Oct. 1991).
8
Report from Gilles Chollet, Bilan de l’instruction des tireurs d’élite (26 Dec. 1991).
9
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
10
Dijoud took over the position in March 1991. See Paul Dijoud, POLITIQUEMANIA; MIP Audition of Paul Dijoud,
Tome III, Vol. 1, 146.
11
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
12
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
13
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
14
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
15
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni.
16
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni; see also Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake; Interview by
LFM with Charles Karamba.
17
Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera; see also Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.
18
Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera; see also Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake; Interview
by LFM with Charles Karamba.
19
RAPPORT DE LA COMMISSION NATIONALE DE SYNTHÈSE SUR LES REFORMES POLITIQUES AU RWANDA [REPORT OF
THE NATIONAL SYNTHESIS COMMISSION ON POLITICAL REFORMS IN RWANDA] 8-9 (Mar. 1991); see also Frances
Kerry, Rwanda Sets Date for Multi-Party Politics, REUTERS, 22 Apr. 1991 (“Rwandan embassy officials in Nairobi
said on Monday that parties have been allowed to organise themselves since last November, but until now have not
been registered.”).
20
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
21
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
22
The term “cooperant” applied to the AMTs serving under the French Ministry of Cooperation. At the time of this
meeting in the summer of 1991, there were less than 50 cooperants in Rwanda. See MIP Tome I 151 (Évolution des
effectifs de l’assistance militaire technique française au Rwanda de 1990 a 1994 [Evolution of French Military
Technical Assistance to Rwanda from 1990 to 1994]). Bestowing the status of “military cooperant” to the hundreds
of French soldiers who cycled through Rwanda as DAMI or in the Noroît operation would have been well over a
tenfold increase in the number of military cooperants.
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23
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
24
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
25
Cable from Paul Dijoud (27 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Visite à Paris du Major Kagame”); MIP Audition of Edwige
Avice, Tome III, Vol. 2, 47 (According to Avice, “On 21 September 1991 a meeting was held in Paris between Major
Kagame and Mr. Paul Dijoud, Director of African and Malagasy Affairs.”); JEAN-FRANCOIS DUPAQUIER, POLITIQUES,
MILITAIRES ET MERCENAIRES FRANÇAIS AU RWANDA [FRENCH POLITICS, SOLDIERS AND MERCENARIES IN RWANDA]
160 (2014); Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France Threw Kagame into Prison
. . .], LE FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997.
26
Cable from Paul Dijoud (27 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Visite à Paris du Major Kagame”).
27
Cable from Paul Dijoud (27 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Visite à Paris du Major Kagame”). The recipient is not explicitly
mentioned. It can be inferred from Dijoud’s request that the recipient met with Rwandan Foreign Minister Casimir
Bizimungu, while the French Embassy in Kampala met with representatives of the other side.
28
Cable from Paul Dijoud (27 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Visite à Paris du Major Kagame”).
29
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
30
Mucyo Report Section 8.2 (2008); see also Cable from US Secretary of State to American Embassy in Dar Es
Salaam (10 July 1992) (Subject: “Preliminary ceasefire talks with the RPF”) (reporting on a meeting between RPF,
US, French, and Belgian officials during which the RPF delegation recounted being “particularly bothered” by what
they perceived as a clear statement by Dijoud during the September 1991 meeting that French troops were in Rwanda
to protect the regime).
31
Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France Threw Kagame into Prison . . .], LE
FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997; Mucyo Report Section 8.2 (2008). The Mucyo Report, however, said that the arrest preceded
the meeting.
32
Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France Threw Kagame into Prison . . .], LE
FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997. The author of this article placed the timing of Kagame’s arrest in January 1992, which may
then have been adopted by the Mucyo Report as fact. See Mucyo Report Section 8.2 (2008). However, Kagame told
the reporter that this was his first trip to Paris, and it is known that he was in Paris in September 1991. In addition,
evidence suggests that the delegation to the January 1992 talks in Paris with Paul Dijoud did not include Paul Kagame.
See Memorandum from Claver Kanyarushoki to Juvénal Habyarimana (20 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “Pourparlers avec le
FPR”) (naming the delegates to the January 1992 talks and stating that Kagame was not at the talks).
33
FRANÇOIS SOUDAN, KAGAME: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT OF RWANDA 51 (2015).
34
Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France Threw Kagame into Prison . . .], LE
FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997; Mucyo Report Section 8.2 (2008). The Mucyo report states that only Kagame and Emmanuel
Ndahiro were arrested and detained in prison.
35
PAUL BARRIL, PAROLES D’HONNEUR [WORDS OF HONOR] 38 (2014).
36
MIP Audition of Paul Dijoud, Tome III, Vol. 1, 146 (20 May 1998).
37
Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France threw Kagame into Prison . . .], LE
FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997; Mucyo Report Section 8.2 (2008). The Mucyo report states that the French delegation
apologized, but it does not cite a source for that statement.
38
Renaud Girard, Quand la France jetait Kagamé en prison . . . [When France threw Kagame into Prison . . .], LE
FIGARO, 23 Nov. 1997.
39
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 3 (25 Oct.
1991).
40
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 9 (25 Oct.
1991).
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41
July – December 1991
MIP Audition of Paul Dijoud, Tome III, Vol. 1, 146.
42
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (5 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Pourparlers avec la
delegation du FPR du 23 au 25 octobre 1991”).
43
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 3-4 (25 Oct.
1991).
44
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 3-4 (25 Oct.
1991).
45
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 4 (25 Oct.
1991).
46
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 3 (25 Oct.
1991).
47
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 3, 8 (25 Oct.
1991).
48
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 8 (25 Oct.
1991). “What had just been dubbed a democratic process,” the RPF delegation warned, “was the very denial of
democracy. There is just one person who calls the shots—today just as in 1973—Mr. Habyarimana. He authorized the
amendments of the Constitution, the formation of parties, etc. . . . He installed in reality a democracy made to
measure.”
49
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 178 (2019).
50
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 178 (2019).
51
RPF, A CONTRIBUTION BY THE RWANDESE PATRIOTIC FRONT (RPF) TO THE CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN
AFRICA IN MARCH 1991 (Mar. 1991).
52
RPF, A CONTRIBUTION BY THE RWANDESE PATRIOTIC FRONT (RPF) TO THE CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN
AFRICA IN MARCH 1991 (Mar. 1991).
53
RPF, A CONTRIBUTION BY THE RWANDESE PATRIOTIC FRONT (RPF) TO THE CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN
AFRICA IN MARCH 1991 (Mar. 1991).
54
Meeting Notes (18 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
55
Meeting Notes (18 Apr. 1991) (signed F. Xavier Nzuwonemeye).
56
Frances Kerry, Rwanda Sets Date for Multi-Party Politics, REUTERS, 22 Apr. 1991.
57
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr. 1991).
58
Report from Boniface Karani Kalinijabo, Compte rendu de la conference du Président de la République Rwandaise
à Paris 13 (7 May 1991).
59
Report from Boniface Karani Kalinijabo, Compte rendu de la conference du Président de la République Rwandaise
à Paris 13 (7 May 1991).
60
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 210 (2019).
61
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 210 (2019).
62
Memorandum to Juvénal Habyarimana (13 June 1991) (Subject: “Note à Son Excellence Monsieur le Président de
la République Rwandaise”).
63
Actualités Nationales: Première conférence de presse tenue par les fondateurs des partis [National News: First
Press Conference Held by Party Founders], AGENCE RWANDAISE DE PRESSE, 11 June 1991.
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Chapter IV
July – December 1991
64
Memorandum to Juvénal Habyarimana (13 June 1991) (Subject: “Note à Son Excellence Monsieur le Président de
la République Rwandaise”) (summarizing the criticism levied by opposition parties).
65
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (9 Aug. 1991).
66
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 54 (2019).
67
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (9 Aug. 1991).
68
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (9 Aug. 1991).
69
Interview by Kenneth L. Brown with Robert Pringle (10 Mar. 2015) in Association for Diplomatic Studies and
Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project 70.
70
Interview by Kenneth L. Brown with Robert Pringle (10 Mar. 2015) in Association for Diplomatic Studies and
Training, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project 70.
71
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 9 (25 Oct.
1991).
72
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 9 (25 Oct.
1991).
73
Report from Pasteur Bizimungu, Negotiations between the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and the Rwandese
Government (GR) under the auspices of the French Government (France) from 23rd to 25th October 1991 9 (25 Oct.
1991).
74
Cable from Georges Martres (25 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “Situation militaire et renseignements divers”); Letter from
Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR prévue A Paris
début novembre 1991”).
75
Cable from Georges Martres (25 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “Situation militaire et renseignements divers”); Letter from
Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR prévue A Paris
début novembre 1991”).
76
Press Release, the Comité Pour le Respect des Droits de l’Homme et la Démocratie au Rwanda, Rwanda: Nouveaux
massacres, attentats politiques, disparitions, et menaces de morts contre des opposants (18 Nov. 1991).
77
Cable from Georges Martres (25 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “Situation militaire et renseignements divers”); Letter from
Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR prévue A Paris
début novembre 1991”).
78
Cable from Georges Martres (25 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “Situation militaire et renseignements divers”); Letter from
Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR prévue A Paris
début novembre 1991”).
79
Press Release, the Comité Pour le Respect des Droits de l’Homme et la Démocratie au Rwanda, Rwanda: Nouveaux
massacres, attentats politiques, disparitions, et menaces de morts contre des opposants (18 Nov. 1991).
80
Letter from Jacques Bihozagara to Paul Dijoud (27 Oct. 1991).
81
Letter from Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR
prévue A Paris début novembre 1991”).
82
Letter from Jean-Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to Casimir Bizimungu (30 Oct. 1991) (Subject: “rencontreavec FPR
prévue A Paris début novembre 1991”).
83
Letter from RPF to Paul Dijoud (4 Nov. 1991); see also Letter from Jacques Bihozagara to Paul Dijoud (16 Dec.
1991) (Subject: “Répression de la presse libre au Rwanda”). The 16 December 1991 letter informed Dijoud of the
arrest of three journalists and the harassment of two others by Rwandan soldiers, forcing the reporters to flee.
Bihozagara noted that Reporters Without Borders had confirmed these events and stated, “The Rwandan Patriotic
Front would like to draw your attention to the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional behavior of the Kigali regime,
which does nothing but hinder the process of a genuine democratic change to which the Rwandan people aspire.”
84
FIDH Report 26 (1993).
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Chapter IV
85
July – December 1991
MIP Audition of Edwige Avice, Tome III, Vol. 2, 47.
86
Cable from Georges Martres (15 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Lettre adressée au Président de la République Rwandaise
par les partis d’opposition”).
87
Cable from Georges Martres (15 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Lettre adressée au Président de la République Rwandaise
par les partis d’opposition”). The letter also called for the following:
- the redress of injustices and the restoration of respect for human rights and public Freedoms…
- introduction of a deposit to limit pre-trial detention . . .
- a tax reform abolishing ‘extra-legal collections by the municipal authorities’ . . .
- a national and sovereign conference… to ‘turn the page of this part of history . . . , to analyze
without . . . spirit of revenge the cause of the important events and to do somehow (his) selfcriticism.’
- the return of refugees.
88
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
89
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
90
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
91
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
92
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
93
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
94
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
95
Letter from Faustin Twagiramungu et al. to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Petition to His
Excellency the President of the Republic by the M.D.R, P.L., and P.S.D. Political Parties to Protest Against the Serious
Attempts to Oppose the Process of Democratization Currently Taking Place in Rwanda”).
96
This account is taken from WENDY WHITWORTH, WE SURVIVED: GENOCIDE IN RWANDA 74 – 80 (2006).
97
Letter from Jean Carbonare to François Mitterrand (16 Nov. 1991).
98
Memorandum from Catherine Boivineau (14 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Entretien du Président de la République avec
le President Habyarimana en marge du Sommet de Chaillot (19-21 novembre 1991)”).
99
Memorandum from Catherine Boivineau (14 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Entretien du Président de la République avec
le President Habyarimana en marge du Sommet de Chaillot (19-21 novembre 1991)”).
100
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech at the Francophone Summit at Chaillot, France (20 Nov. 1991).
101
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech at the Francophone Summit at Chaillot, France (20 Nov. 1991).
102
Memorandum from Catherine Boivineau (14 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Entretien du Président de la République avec
le President Habyarimana en marge du Sommet de Chaillot (19-21 novembre 1991)”).
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Chapter IV
July – December 1991
103
US Department of State, Chronology of Significant Events: Rwandan Conflict 1990-1992.
104
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 135 (1995).
105
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 135 (1995).
106
Memorandum from Claver Kanyarushoki to Juvénal Habyarimana (20 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “Pourparlers avec le
FPR”).
107
Report from RPF, Rencontre entre le FPR et le G.R (Paris 14-15 Janvier 1992): Mot d’ouverture par M. Dijoud.
108
Report from RPF, Rencontre entre le FPR et le G.R (Paris 14-15 Janvier 1992): Mot d’ouverture par M. Dijoud.
109
Report from RPF, Mot de clôture de la réunion entre le FPR et le G.R par M. Dijoud (14-15/janvier 1992).
110
Memorandum from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (19 Aug. 1991) (Subject: “Rencontre tripartite a
Paris: France-Rwanda-Uganda”).
111
Report from RPF, Mot de clôture de la réunion entre le FPR et le G.R par M. Dijoud (14-15/janvier 1992).
112
Report from RPF, Mot de clôture de la réunion entre le FPR et le G.R par M. Dijoud (14-15/janvier 1992).
113
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni; Interview by LFM with Tito Rutaremara.
114
Memorandum from Claver Kanyarushoki to Juvénal Habyarimana (20 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “Pourparlers avec le
FPR”).
115
MIP Audition of Paul Dijoud, Tome III, Vol. 1, 368.
116
MIP Audition of Paul Dijoud, Tome III, Vol. 1, 386.
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CHAPTER V
1992
A. French Officials Watched As Akazu-Backed Militias Perpetuated Rwanda’s Ethnic
Divisions.
Before 6 April 1994, political parties in concert with the Rwanda Armed
Forces organized and began the military training of the youth wings of the
MRND and CDR political parties (Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi,
respectively) with the intent to use them in the massacres that ensued.1
– Jean Kambanda, Prime Minister of the Interim Rwanda
Government (9 April – 17 July 1994)
On 22 January 1992, Col. Bernard Cussac, France’s defense attaché in Rwanda, sent a
cable to Paris, signed by French Ambassador George Martres.2 In it, Cussac reported that “after
the most recent massacres of civilians,” the Rwandan minister of the interior “decided to arm the
population of the border area.”3 Nearly 400 arms, mainly French MAS-36 military rifles, would
be distributed in the Ruhengeri, Byumba, and Mutara regions near Rwanda’s border with Uganda.4
FAR personnel would recommend the civilians who would make up these armed groups—termed
“self-defense militias,” in Cussac’s report—and local leaders would designate which militia
members would carry the weapons.5 The rifles would be “distributed in the evening and returned
in the morning,” a rate of “one weapon per three people.”6
Col. Cussac showed concern. He contacted Colonel Pierre-Célestin Rwagafilita, the chief
of staff of the Gendarmerie and one of the corrupt, unaccountable authorities who made up the
Akazu, to “emphasiz[e] that this mission… should have been incumbent upon the Gendarmerie”
and not the FAR.7 Unsurprisingly, Rwagafilita demurred: “If he agreed,” Cussac wrote, he “hid
behind the argument of insufficient numbers of personnel and their lack of training.”8
Col. Cussac wrote in his cable, “Will the weapons only be used against the R.P.F.? Aren’t
they in danger of being used to execute personal, ethnic, or political vengeances?”9 He also
questioned whether “the local leaders who will designate the weapon bearers, and who all come
from the administration set up by the M.R.N.D. (the former single party),” would distribute the
weapons primarily to “members of this party.”10
Cussac’s concerns were well placed. With the war now stretching into its second year, there
were growing indications that hardliners in the Rwandan government were waging an effort to
militarize civil society and stoke ethnic hatred. It was not just the arming of civilian “self-defense
militias” in the north. As French officials would discover,11 major political parties, including
Habyarimana’s party, the MRND, had begun, in the second half of 1991, to create their own youth
militias.12 The Akazu and accomplice figures, in and outside government, were pivotal in the
development of the MRND’s militia, known as the Interahamwe, which would play a primary role
in the mounting anti-Tutsi violence of the years to come.
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As lead patron of the Habyarimana regime, the French government had ample opportunity
to discredit and disenfranchise the extremists behind these initiatives. It never did. There has been
no evidence that any senior French officials did anything to forestall the distribution of arms to
civilians or to pressure the government or political parties to disband the militias. Rather, as will
soon be discussed in greater detail, first-hand accounts indicate that, as the MRND and Akazu
professionalized the Interahamwe into a paramilitary organization trained by the FAR, French
military personnel participated in the training.13
The Interahamwe (meaning “those who come together,” in Kinyarwanda14) was among the
youth militias that sprung into being in the months after Rwanda’s June 1991 constitutional
amendments, which formalized Rwanda’s transition from single-party rule to (nominal)
multipartyism.15 As the historian and human rights activist Alison Des Forges would later write,
the newly created parties instituted the militias “to provide security at their meetings and, in some
areas, to attack members of rival parties.”16 James Gasana, the MRND defense minister from April
1992 to July 1993, who analyzed the Interahamwe for the 1998 French parliamentary inquiry into
the Genocide (MIP), said the MRND’s aims for the Interahamwe were both to counter aggression
from the youth militias of rival parties, such as the Inkuba, the militia of the Democratic
Republican Movement party (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain, or MDR), and to frustrate
opposition parties—for example, by blocking roads to keep opposition party members from
gathering in Kigali.17
According to Des Forges, the Interahamwe’s function evolved over time, becoming, in
1992, “a real paramilitary force, trained and sometimes armed by the [Rwandan] military.”18
Anastase Gasana (no known relation to James Gasana), a former member of the MRND who left
to join the MDR, wrote in a May 1992 analysis of the Interahamwe that, in addition to “carry[ing]
out criminal and terrorist acts against opposition political parties,”19 its mission was:
‐
‐
‐
‐
To carry out criminal acts, commit crimes and assassinations in order to terrorize
the people and divert them from their democratic ideal by making them helpless
and confused;
To create a general and widespread sense of insecurity in the country in order to
psychologically prepare the Rwandan public opinion for the acts of murder planned
for the future;
To cut bridges, sever the roots of the nascent democratic ideas;
To unconditionally protect the MRND regime.20
As 1992 progressed, the Interahamwe would murder its opponents and “create[] a climate of terror
by looting and destroying the homes of adherents of other parties,”21 according to a report released
by a consortium of human rights groups in early 1993.
The Interahamwe benefited from the support of the Akazu,22 who not only financed the
militia but played a role in recruiting its members.23 In his May 1992 analysis, Anastase Gasana
wrote that some of the militia’s earliest recruiters, who selected civilians to join its ranks,24
included President Habyarimana’s notorious brother-in-law Protais Zigiranyirazo, as well as such
other prominent figures as MRND Secretary General Mathieu Ngirumpatse and the head of the
state broadcasting agency, Ferdinand Nahimana.25 Gasana cited several other Akazu members and
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1992
high-ranking regime officials—including Habyarimana’s private secretary, Colonel Elie Sagatwa;
Colonel Laurent Serubuga, the deputy chief of staff of the FAR; Lieutenant Colonel Anatole
Nsengiyumva, Rwanda’s head of military intelligence; and Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, who
would serve as director of the Cabinet for the Ministry of Defense from June 1992 to July 1994
and would go on to play a leading role in orchestrating the Genocide.26 By May 1992, Gasana said,
Interahamwe members included former soldiers and gendarmes, plainclothes Presidential Guard
members, and members of the Service Central de Renseignements (SCR), the Rwandan
intelligence service.27
The rise of the Interahamwe coincided with the formation of another powerful force for
anti-Tutsi extremism. Formed by Hutu hardliners in early 1992,28 the Coalition for the Defense of
the Republic (la Coalition pour la Défense de la République, or CDR) sought, as Des Forges would
later put it, to “rally all Hutu in a common front against the Tutsi.”29 At the CDR’s inaugural
meeting, the party’s most influential figure, Jean Bosco Barayagwiza—a Rwandan Foreign
Ministry official who, as it happens, had participated in the negotiations with the RPF in Paris in
October 1991—argued that the Tutsi had created political parties to address their grievances, so it
was only right for the Hutu to do likewise.30 The extremist newspaper Kangura (discussed in
Chapter 3) would soon devote an issue to celebrating the CDR’s formation, calling on its readers
to join the party.31 “The island is none other than the CDR,” Kangura proclaimed in the May 1992
issue, equating the CDR party to a refuge of safety. “So now grab your oars, Hutus.”32 Kangura
went on to denigrate the Tutsi, “who,” it said, “has a desiccated heart where the Nazi worm nibbles
in tranquility.”33
The CDR had its own youth militia: the Impuzamugambi (Kinyarwanda for “those with a
single purpose”).34 The Impuzamugambi’s purpose almost always aligned with the Interahamwe’s.
As Jean Kambanda, the prime minister of the genocidal interim Rwandan government (8 April to
17 July 1994),35 would admit in 1998 upon pleading guilty to genocide, conspiracy to commit
genocide, and other crimes: “Before 6 April 1994, political parties in concert with the Rwanda
Armed Forces organized and began the military training of the youth wings of the MRND and
CDR political parties (Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, respectively) with the intent to use them
in the massacres that ensued.”36 The two militias would become all but indistinguishable during
the Genocide.37
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1992
B. French Officials Reacted to Rwandan State-Led Terrorism against Tutsi Civilians and
Political Opponents in Bugesera by Refusing to Protect Victims and Increasing Support to
the Perpetrators.
MONIQUE MAS (RFI Journalist): French troops are present in Rwanda,
and you yourself, I met you recently, had put forward the humanitarian
argument to justify the presence of these French troops. How is it that they
do not intervene, how is it that this massacre can unfold before the eyes of
France?
GEORGES MARTRES (French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)):
Indeed, French troops are present in Rwanda. . . . Their mission has not
changed for over a year. It is the protection of French nationals. To assign
them another objective, to make them perform a humanitarian task for the
benefit of the entire Rwandan population, and in particular with regard to
the events that are taking place at this time, they would have to receive
further instructions, which they do not have for the moment.38
On 3 March 1992, a warning came over the airwaves of Radio Rwanda, the national radio
station of the Rwandan government. “There are reports of foreign terrorists recruited to destabilize
the country,” Jean-Baptiste Bamwanga, the announcer, declared, citing a missive from a
“committee of sympathizers of nonviolence.”39 This “committee” claimed to have discovered a
letter detailing a joint plot by the RPF and its political allies in the Parti Libéral to murder 22
prominent Hutus.40 “These murders would call for revenge on both sides,” Bamwanga announced
ominously. “We ask everyone to remain vigilant.”41
In case the intended message was not clear, the station’s announcers read out an
explanatory editorial that carried the headline, “Rwandan aggressors are reported to be prepared
to engage in acts of terrorism and destabilization,” and opined, “We cannot as a public press remain
inactive. We need to inform you of the information in our possession. You will then be able to
adopt the necessary attitudes to annihilate these Machiavellian plans of the enemy.”42
The letter that included details of this alleged assassination plot was a fake.43 Lower-level
Radio Rwanda editorial employees, fearing the public was being tricked, had urged Ferdinand
Nahimana—the head of Rwanda’s government broadcasting agency,44 and, as such, the editorial
director of the station—not to run it.45 Nahimana ignored them.46 He later admitted—while on trial
for inciting genocide as the principal force behind Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines
(RTLM), the hate radio station created in 1993 in the face of a coming peace agreement that
exhorted its listeners to eliminate the Tutsi during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda—that he had
made no effort to establish the provenance of the letter.47 Radio Rwanda broadcast inflammatory
reports about the letter four more times over the next two days.48
The broadcasts instigated terrible violence in Bugesera, a region stretching from south of
Kigali to the Burundi border. When the broadcasts aired, the Bugesera region was already ripe for
upheaval, on account of its history and ethnic makeup. Following anti-Tutsi violence during the
transition to majority rule after independence from Belgium in 1962, the Rwandan government, in
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1992
conjunction with Belgian officials, had forced Tutsi from their homes around the country to the
arid, less desirable land in Bugesera.49 Three decades later, the region retained a sizeable Tutsi
population.50
Government planners had begun laying the groundwork for the massacres there as early as
October 1991, when Fidèle Rwambuka, the bourgmestre (mayor) of Kanzenze, a Bugesera
settlement a half-hour’s drive south of Kigali, ordered the arrest of 28 Tutsi youths he claimed
were planning to steal across the Burundi border to join the RPF, which was then steadily gaining
territory after having crossed into Rwanda a year before.51 During the ensuing months, Rwandan
government officials engaged in repeated extra-legal provocations in response to the appearance
of a majority-Tutsi Rwandan political party, the Parti Liberal, in the region.52 (On 12 February
1992, the MDR warned its members that the Interahamwe had seriously injured three people in
the Remera neighborhood of Kigali, while carrying swords and wearing ropes around their
waists.53 Two weeks later, the MDR updated that notice, notifying its members that the
Interahamwe was now armed with grenades.54) Bourgmestre Rwambuka—who, in May 1992,
would be named among a number of Rwandan government officials on a list of “MRND regime
hardliners” affiliated with the Interahamwe55—did not temper his words. On 1 March 1992, two
days before the fateful radio broadcasts, Rwambuka or one of his supporters issued a pamphlet
that called for violence against local Tutsi in the strongest terms since tensions had started rising
the previous fall: “THEY MUST NOT ESCAPE US!”56
The riots began on 4 March 1992, less than 24 hours after the first broadcast on Radio
Rwanda.57 “They came in a great crowd, shouting like crazy people,” a survivor said, “They killed
four of my children and my wife.”58 “They threw my wife’s body into the latrine. It was a man
from the north who is my friend who told me that. He was among the attackers.”59
The assailants moved systematically from one neighborhood to the next, another witness
reported.60 “They said they were supposed to kill the Tutsi,” she said. One old man said attackers
had burned both of his houses, that he had been so badly struck on the ears that he could no longer
hear, and that he had been nearly blinded by a beating that also left him with a massive scar on his
chest from a spear wound.61 His child only managed to survive with the help of a Hutu neighbor
to whom he had loaned a field for cultivation.62
In a week, there were nearly 300 killings63 and as many as 13,000 displaced persons.64 The
killings would come to be seen as a milestone in the lead-up to the Genocide: the first time
Habyarimana’s allies and authorities used the Interahamwe to slaughter Tutsi. “The militia knew
how to take the lead, making it possible for government officials to play a less public part in the
slaughter,” a 1999 Human Rights Watch report would observe.65 This gruesome collaboration
would become a regular feature of ethnic killings that followed.66 Indeed, Emmanuel Karenzi
Karake, an officer in the RPF’s Army at the time, has called the Bugesera massacres “a test run
for the Genocide.”67 (Others have described them, similarly, as a “dress rehearsal” for the
Genocide.68)
The French ambassador, Georges Martres, knew within days of the inciting broadcasts
what the government-run radio station had done.69 “The Rwandan broadcast ignited the fire,” he
wrote in a 9 March 1992 cable, “when it broadcast this letter with no critical analysis and leaving
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1992
no doubt about its authenticity and the soundness of its allegations.”70 Martres spoke with
Rwandan Minister of the Interior Faustin Munyazesa on 7 March 1992 about the station’s actions,
shortly after reports of the slaughter first reached the community of Western diplomats in Kigali.71
“The minister,” he wrote afterward, “did not hide his embarrassment concerning this act of
misinformation by the official services.”72 In an interview on RFI two days later, Martres would
call the manner in which the fateful letter was broadcast “unfortunate.”73
Minister Munyazesa assured Martres on 7 March 1992 that the situation was “under
control.”74 News reports in the Western press on 8 March suggested otherwise.75 AFP and Reuters
highlighted the barbarity of the slayings—how the killers had set homes ablaze and burned people
alive.76 Rwandan security forces, they said, had responded too slowly to stop the killing and, in
some cases, had encouraged those fleeing the violence to return home.77 Martres’ own reporting
on 9 March noted that Rwandan soldiers “appear to have made little effort to disarm the
population.”78 Clashes, he noted, continued throughout the day on 8 March,79 leading more and
more local Tutsi—women and children, mostly—to seek shelter at the Catholic parish in Nyamata,
home of the Belgian White Fathers.80
Labeling the killings in Bugesera a “pogrom,”81 a French cable on 9 March appeared to
recognize both that the massacres were organized, and that the victims were targeted because of
their ethnicity. The cable asserted, unequivocally, that local authorities—namely, the sub-prefect
and the bourgmestre—bore responsibility for inciting the massacres.82
RFI reporter Monique Mas put Martres on the spot in a 9 March 1992 interview, asking
him why the Noroît forces in Kigali, just an hour’s drive from Nyamata at that time, had done
nothing to stop the bloodshed.83 “How is it that this massacre can unfold before the eyes of
France?” she asked.84 Martres insisted that the Noroît troops had one and only one mission: “the
protection of French nationals.”85 “To assign them another objective, to make them perform a
humanitarian task for the benefit of the entire Rwandan population . . . , they would have to receive
further instructions, which they do not have for the moment,” he said.86
One French military cooperant would later claim, more than a decade after his service in
Rwanda, that he took it upon himself to go to Bugesera to verify if the reports coming out of the
region were true. Lieutenant Colonel Michel Robardey, who, since October 1990, had been
working to reorganize Rwanda’s Gendarmerie (i.e., national police), said he and his wife drove
out from Kigali to Bugesera on 8 March, “as soon as he had heard the news of this ethnic violence
on the radio.”87 As the author Pierre Péan recounted in a 2005 book, Robardey—after passing,
with difficulty, through FAR-manned roadblocks—arrived to find that “everything was
burning.”88 An Italian missionary told Robardey she had been making calls all day, pleading to
anyone and everyone “to do something to stop the violence.”89 Robardey, according to Péan’s
book, promised her he would come back.90 He returned to Kigali, where he briefed the French
ambassador and defense attaché on what he had seen.91
A French cable indicates that, on 10 March 1992, France’s embassy in Kigali sent two
diplomats to scout out the situation in Bugesera.92 In Ngenda, where the violence uprooted as many
as 1,500 locals, among the poorest in Rwanda, the burnt remains of the villagers’ homes were still
smoking.93 Parish priests had counted 10 dead over the preceding two days.94 The priests, one of
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whom was French, told the diplomats that “the Parti Libéral maintains an anti-French propaganda
that is starting to spread among the refugees: [that] France supports the Habyarimana regime held
responsible for the massacres and the passiveness of the French Army allows these massacres to
continue.”95 In a cable the next day, the French embassy requested that the Quai d’Orsay consider
sending an aid package—however small—of food, medicine, and blankets for the Noroît soldiers
to distribute.96 “In these conditions,” wrote “W.B.” (likely William Bunel, an embassy counselor
to Martres) in this cable, “a humanitarian gesture, even if symbolic, toward displaced persons
would certainly be well perceived.”97 The French embassy wanted, first and foremost, to burnish
France’s image. Helping refugees was a secondary concern. (A few days after this cable, Rwandan
authorities issued an appeal for foreign donations in response to several ongoing crises, including
the displacement of Bugesera residents.98 According to a US Department of State cable, France
promptly pledged to donate “90 tons of flour mixed with powdered milk” to Bugesera, a
contribution valued at 3.3 million Rwandan francs, or roughly $23,000)99
Martres’ Belgian counterpart, Ambassador Johan Swinnen, was by all appearances far
more alarmed by the massacres in Bugesera. Swinnen spoke to Col. Serubuga, the Rwandan Army
chief of staff, no less than four times on the evening of 6 March, urging him to send soldiers to
stop the carnage.100 (To that point, he wrote, Rwandan gendarmes in Nyamata had done nothing
other than steer fleeing Tutsi back to their homes, effectively driving them back “into the arms of
raging Hutus.”101) Swinnen personally raced down to Nyamata on 7 March,102 counting corpses
along the roadside as he traveled to meet with refugees.103 Most of the dead he saw were old men
who had been unable to flee.104 He saw, as well, the bodies of two women and a child who looked
to be about eight years old.105 Swinnen guessed there were probably dozens more out there,
scattered in the hills.106 It was a full three days before two members of the French diplomatic staff
travelled to the northeast to investigate the situation.107
Swinnen kept up a furious pace over next 24 hours, beginning with a call he placed to the
Rwandan prime minister,108 and concluding with a meeting with Justin Mugenzi, the president of
the Parti Liberal, who characterized the violence as an “obvious destabilization scenario” cooked
up in Kigali and executed by Interahamwe youths affiliated with the MRND.109 In between those
discussions, Swinnen convened an emergency meeting of Western diplomats (including
Ambassador Martres), who, at Swinnen’s urging, agreed to sign onto a joint demarche prodding
the Rwandan government to take necessary measures to stop the slaughter.110 The demarche, which
also counted representatives from the US, Canadian, German, and Swiss embassies among its
signatories, further demanded “an impartial investigation to determine who is responsible for the
outbreak of violence” and called on the national radio and other media to “exercise moderation
and avoid the use of language which could be considered to incite violence.”111 It closed with what
the US ambassador characterized as a “hint” that further inaction “could jeopardize the future of
cooperative programs.”112 Similarly, a Belgian Foreign Ministry official, meeting with the
Rwandan ambassador in Brussels, suggested that if conditions in Rwanda continued to worsen,
Belgium would have no choice but to “freeze foreign relations” with Rwanda.113
Swinnen, Martres, and the other Western embassy officials delivered the demarche to
President Habyarimana on 11 March 1992.114 The Rwandan president offered rote assurances
during the nearly two-hour meeting by insisting he “understood how grave the problem is” and
vowing “to do everything possible to bring peace to the country.”115 He also promised to “punish
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those found responsible for stimulating the violence.”116 There was a sense, though, that
Habyarimana was not as distressed about the goings-on in Bugesera as his guests felt he ought to
have been. When, for example, the diplomats pressed him to “discipline” Radio Rwanda for its
role in the killings,117 he defended the station by claiming “not to understand the nefarious intent”
behind the inciting broadcasts, US Ambassador Robert Flaten wrote in a cable.118 The president
went on to say that he had heard that Parti Liberal President Mugenzi, during a rally a few days
before the broadcasts, had called for the assassination of the local bourgmestre.119 The Rwandan
interior minister, who was present for the 11 March meeting with the diplomats, gently “corrected”
the president, explaining that Mugenzi’s words had been misconstrued.120
French diplomats in Kigali were inclined to credit Habyarimana’s claims that his
government was operating in good faith; an 11 March cable informed Paris that Rwandan
authorities wanted to regain control in Bugesera, but that local government officials were simply
“overwhelmed.”121 The embassy’s own reporting, though, had already established that elements
of Habyarimana’s government had been complicit in the killings, and the regime’s responsibility
was, if anything, only becoming clearer. A 13 March report by France’s military intelligence
agency, the DRM, suggested the decision to air the inflammatory radio broadcasts might have been
politically motivated, the goal being, in all likelihood, to delay the formation of a new coalition
government,122 in which opposition parties would wield greater power. The DRM reasoned that,
in pursuing this aim, Radio Rwanda had probably not acted alone: “If the government authorities
seem embarrassed by the role of the national radio, the broadcasting of the notice can only have
been authorized by one of them.”123
Others in the Western diplomatic community soon began to receive reports affirming the
Rwandan government’s complicity in the massacres. One such report came from Prime Minister
Sylvestre Nsanzimana, who told US Ambassador Flaten in a 13 March meeting that he was
“convinced that people close to the President were responsible for helping to incite the violence”
in Bugesera.124 Swinnen, the Belgian ambassador, had other sources. On 12 March, the day after
the meeting with Habyarimana, Ambassador Swinnen alerted officials in Brussels that he had
received a note from Jean Birara,125 director of Rwandex (a company responsible for the sale of
Rwandan coffee126), and former governor of the National Bank of Rwanda who had sounded the
alarm about the Akazu in an open letter in 1979.127 Birara’s note alleged that Habyarimana had put
together a team of eight high-ranking Rwandan military officers or members of his inner circle to
“organize terror and massacres in the country.”128 The team purportedly included two powerful
members of the Akazu: the president’s brother-in-law, Protais Zigiranyirazo; and his personal
secretary, a relative by marriage, Elie Sagatwa.129 The other members were as follows: Captain
Pascal Simbikangwa of the Central Intelligence Service; François Karera, sub-prefect of Kigali
(whose son had married a niece of Zigiranyirazo); Commandant Jean Pierre Karangwa, the head
of intelligence in the Ministry of National Defense; Captain Justin Gacinya, head of the communal
police in Kigali; Lieutenant-Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva, the head of intelligence in the Army
état-major; and Lieutenant-Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, prefect of Kigali.130
Swinnen received an all-but-identical list from a second source, one he described as
“reliable,” a few weeks later.131 These men, Swinnen wrote in a cable marked, “very important,”
were said to be “members of [a] secret état-major charged with the extermination of Tutsi in
Rwanda in order to definitively resolve . . . the ethnic problem in Rwanda and to crush the internal
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Hutu opposition.”132 The “group [was] directly linked to the President of the Republic, who often
preside[d] over the group either at the Office of the President or at the headquarters of the MRND
political party.”133 The source also asserted that two government entities played a role in the
Bugesera massacres: the Interahamwe militia and “commando recruited from among the pupils”
of the training academy of the Gendarmerie.134 (Reports would emerge later in the course of the
war that the perpetrators of the massacre in Bugesera had included soldiers from the Presidential
Guard,135 the arm of the military responsible for protecting the president and his family, guarding
certain government buildings, and providing escorts for VIPs.136 This, as it happens, was a part of
the military France knew well, as French military cooperants had been laboring to improve the
Presidential Guard’s capabilities since mid-1991.137)
Whether the US and Belgian embassies shared what they were hearing with their French
colleagues, or whether the same sources also approached the French, is unclear. In any event, the
French government’s commitment to supporting Habyarimana and the FAR remained unshaken.
Indeed, the killings in Bugesera were still ongoing when, on 10 March 1992, Paul Dijoud, the Quai
d’Orsay’s director of African affairs, wrote a note expounding on the “[n]eed to reaffirm and
clarify French policy” in Rwanda.138 The note began by calling for “[a] reinforcement of French
support to the Rwandan Army” to help it counter the RPF’s growing “intransigence.”139 “It
would,” he wrote, “be useful, in particular, to give the Rwandan Army the ability to operate at
night.”140 Thus, a self-proclaimed neutral French diplomat requested specific military equipment
for one side of the conflict. Less than two months later, the French electronics and defense
contractor, Thomson-CSF, fulfilled its contract (signed in September 1991) with the Government
of Rwanda delivering “equipment for encrypted communications . . . hundreds of transceivers . . .
and four high-security digital telephone sets.”141 The French government also committed to
sending another 1.7 million French francs’ ($304,898) worth of military equipment in the back
half of 1992, including an Alouette II helicopter engine, radar units, paratrooper equipment, and
three Peugeot sedans.142
The increased assistance to the FAR would, Dijoud wrote, be “discreet but significant.”143
In exchange, France would expect the administration in Kigali “to encourage . . . all Rwandan
political parties to support the efforts of President Habyarimana to broaden his government and
find a prime minister in agreement with the opposition.”144
Dijoud’s note made no mention of Bugesera,145 though the violence, at that point, had been
going on for close to a week.146 That day, as it happens, the news services reported that Italian
missionary Antonia Locatelli—the same missionary Lt. Col. Robardey, the French cooperant
working with the Rwandan Gendarmerie, has said he encountered during his visit to Bugesera on
8 March—had been shot dead overnight at a mission near Nyamata.147 Locatelli, a resident of the
area for more than two decades, had given interviews to RFI contradicting Rwandan authorities’
claims that the killings in Bugesera were unplanned—that they represented nothing other than the
convulsions of angry locals.148 Locatelli asserted in these interviews that the killers were strangers
to the area who arrived by government vehicles intending to commit political crimes.149 Locatelli’s
killer was a Rwandan gendarme.150 A “diplomatic source” told AFP that she “was shot at close
range, making it unlikely it was a mistake.”151
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Monique Mas, in her 9 March 1992 interview with Ambassador Martres, asked whether
France’s attitude would change after the slaughter in Bugesera.152 Martres’ answer was elliptical.
There was still hope, he said, that Rwanda would soon have a transitional government, and France,
among other Western countries, “intends to continue its pressure on the Rwandan government” to
see that process through.153 “So,” Mas said, “pressure on the Rwandan government, but also
support to the Rwandan Army?”154 “Support to the Rwandan Army,” Martres repeated. He
continued, “I already explained to you how we conceived it. Support to the Rwandan Army is
technical support, a support of trainers and instructors, as we bring to other armies of Africa.”155
With killings of Tutsi orchestrated by government and government-affiliated forces continuing in
Bugesera, Martres defended his country’s decision to continue supporting the military—to finance
it, to train its soldiers, to supply them with gear and weapons—as perfectly routine. Would France
reconsider its support for the Rwandan military? The short answer was no.
Bugesera would be, in every way except one, a turning point in the 18-month conflict in
Rwanda. Despite everything it indicated—about government sponsorship of ethnic violence; the
deployment and effectiveness of state media in particular to incite this violence; the rise of Hutu
extremism; and the patterns that the contest between reform and backlash in Rwanda would now
take—it would do nothing to alter French support for the Habyarimana regime. Despite
comprehensive understanding of what transpired in Bugesera, France would not press the
Habyarimana regime for explanation, let alone suppression of extremists within its ranks, and in
fact would send more weapons, money, and advisors than it had in the past.
Immaculée Songa156
Immaculée was born on December 3, 1954. She was 39 at the time of the invasion.
After the invasion in October 1990, and for several years, the presence of the
French soldiers grew, and they were in a position to witness the constant
discrimination and harassment taking place. During this time, the radio was
constantly filled with anti‐Tutsi hatred. It would speak about the Ten
Commandments of the Hutus and demonize Tutsi.
I lived in Gikondo, on the road which goes from Kigali City to Kanombe,
where the airport is. From my home, I observed trucks full of militia members who
were singing about Hutu power and killing Tutsi. I learned they were going to a
place called Gako in Bugesera because I had a member of the Interahamwe at my
office, a business called Office des Cafés. He would tell us what the Interahamwe
were going to do, including saying that “We are killing you tomorrow! We have
guns! We will kill you tomorrow!”
Roadblocks were used throughout the country to check identification. I saw
French soldiers at roadblocks supporting militias as they checked IDs. The
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roadblocks were a problem for the Tutsi. We would learn that people were beaten
at them. I recall seeing my friend Claudine after she was beaten at a roadblock as
she was on her way to work passing through Nyamirambo.
The practice of putting Tutsis in prison and denying them basic rights
became more frequent after the RPF invasion, as Hutus then became more hostile
towards Tutsis. Many people were put in prison and many died there. Everyday
life for all Tutsis became more difficult, as we were viewed as second‐class citizens.
People would be telling us “move Tutsi, go get out of here.” On the radio, Tutsis
were called “snakes,” “cockroaches,” and other such words that would say Tutsis
were sub‐human. Such messages were heard on the radio and were constantly
being played to spread hatred.
The night of the plane crash, we were told that the President had died, and
that the military was saying no Tutsis would survive. My husband and I went to
hide in a neighbor’s house, stowing away in the kitchen storage area when militia
members would come searching. The militia members went away twice after
receiving bribes. I knew we would not survive a third time, so we decided to leave.
We had placed our children with Hutu friends in the Southern Province for
fear of violence. Our two daughters were killed with those friends in Gisenyi. The
last time we saw our daughters was when they were in hiding at our friends’ house.
Our Hutu friends kept them because the adults all agreed that it would be worse
for our children to be seized at a roadblock and killed in front of me and my
husband.
My husband and I went to Butare with my one‐year‐old son and stayed with
other families in a friend’s house. When militia members attacked the house for the
third time, my husband and I were put in a line in a forest with the other families
from the house. As they started killing my friends, the soldiers were coming up to
us to make sure we didn’t escape. One soldier approached me, I gave him the
money I had with me and told him we had money in the house. He pushed me
aside, and I saw him going to the other people as I moved backward into the forest.
I heard the militia members killing everyone and saying they needed tools to get
rid of the bodies. A heavy rain made them leave the forest along with the people at
the closest roadblock. I had survived there with my son, but my husband was killed
with all the families we were with. Afterwards, I went from house to house and
survived in Sahera, Butare with my son.
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After Operation Turquoise began, I was still in a village near Butare. A
militia member in front of the house where I was hiding stated proudly that he had
killed many and was counting the Tutsi remaining in that village. The man of the
house I was staying in was a member of the Interahamwe, and he would bring
news. A neighbor told me that I was going to be killed next. So, I went to hide in
the bushes with another girl from the house. I would hide there during the night
while the neighbor woman kept my one‐year‐old, then return to the house during
the day.
The neighbor woman eventually helped me get a Hutu identity card because
our brothers were good friends before mine was killed on April 7th. Meanwhile,
the RPF was making its way towards Butare, making Hutu militia members flee the
surrounding villages and head for Burundi. The militias used this as an opportunity
to kill any Tutsi who were flushed out of hiding. The other Tutsi girl and I moved
to another house where the lady of the house was Tutsi. Hutu extremists returned
to the village to kill any remaining Tutsis and were coming into the house where I
was, when we heard heavy gunfire nearby. The extremists left in a hurry. We were
in total despair, until the RPF Inkotanyi found us in that house and rescued us.
I believe that we survived for a reason. It is to remind the world that
genocide must never happen again. It is to tell the truth about the Genocide Against
the Tutsi.
C. Despite Ferdinand Nahimana’s Pivotal Role in the Bugesera Massacres, French Officials
Welcomed Him and Pledged Additional Aid to the Government-Run Media That Had Incited
the Violence.
Martres’ reporting about the Bugesera massacres had been unequivocal in one critical
respect: it was, he wrote, the government-run national radio that had “ignited the fire” with its
broadcasts of the alleged plot to murder prominent Hutu.157 The man responsible for those
broadcasts—and, more pointedly, for the thinly veiled calls to murder in response to reports of a
conspiracy he almost certainly knew to be false—was Ferdinand Nahimana.158
Nahimana, who would later receive a lengthy prison sentence for inciting genocide and
other genocide-related crimes,159 was the director of l’Office Rwandais d’Information
(ORINFOR), the government broadcasting arm and Radio Rwanda’s parent agency. He owed the
position to President Habyarimana, who had personally selected him for the directorship in late
1990.160 It was a powerful perch, as radio was a leading source of information for Rwandans, and
Radio Rwanda was then the only station in the country.161
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It is difficult to overstate the influence of the state-run radio in early 1990s Rwanda. In a
country more than half of whose people could not read,162 the radio had unequaled reach.
“Inexpensive radios are assembled locally and available everywhere,” the US State Department
reported in 1992.163 MRND, the ruling party—and the only party until political reforms began in
1991164—subsidized radio production, sold discounted radios, and gave radios away.165
The French government had been supporting Radio Rwanda since 1962, a year after the
station began broadcasting,166 by providing technical and professional training for the station’s
staff, as well as experts and advice through France’s Radio Cooperation Office.167 This aid
constituted one of the earliest forms of French governmental support for the Government of
Rwanda.168 It helped make Radio Rwanda the most authoritative and widespread source of
information in Rwanda, even as the MRND leaned on the station to pump out what a January 1992
US State Department report would describe as “sel[f]-serving propaganda.”169
Nahimana had begun his career not in broadcasting, but in academia, earning his doctorate
in history at Paris Diderot University.170 His dissertation, entitled, “From Lineages to Kingdoms
and from Kingdoms to Chiefdoms,” had argued that the Tutsi were not native to Rwanda.171 The
imprimatur it had received from Paris Diderot, one of the leading academic institutions in France,
had turned him into a revered intellectual at home.
Nahimana “was someone who was ready to do everything in order to be rich or to get
appointments,” recalled Christophe Mfizi, head of ORINFOR from 1976 to 1990, who had taught
Nahimana at the National University of Rwanda.172 According to Mfizi, Nahimana, as a young
academic, ingratiated himself with Agathe Kanziga Habyarimana’s fearsome brother, Protais
Zigiranyirazo, the Akazu power-broker.173 Zigiranyirazo, according to Mfizi, became an important
patron for Nahimana, who, in turn, showed his fealty by faithfully promoting what Mfizi termed
the “politique zédienne”—the systematized corruption that served primarily to funnel money to
Zigiranyirazo and his close associates in the Akazu (or “Network Zero,” as Mfizi called it).174
Mfizi said it was Zigiranyirazo and his cronies who, in 1990, encouraged President Habyarimana
to tap Nahimana to replace Mfizi as director of ORINFOR, where Nahimana proceeded to stoke
ethnic tensions.175
It was Nahimana’s decision, on 3 March 1992, to broadcast the false allegations that the
Parti Libéral was an arm of the RPF and was planning to assassinate prominent Hutus.176 His
employees suspected that the letter giving rise to those allegations was false and urged him not to
air reports about it, let alone refer to it in such inflammatory language.177 Nahimana went ahead
with the broadcasts anyway.
By the time of Nahimana’s visit to Paris later in March 1992, Nahimana’s responsibility
for the violence in Bugesera had, to some extent, become public knowledge. On 10 March 1992,
a group of five Rwandan human rights groups issued a statement condemning the national radio
and demanding that authorities dismiss Nahimana “for his obvious complicity in the fascist and
partisan media campaign that triggered the violence at Bugesera.”178 The MDR echoed this
demand in an 11 March press release.179 Whether French officials were aware of these statements
is unclear. What is certain is that they knew, as Ambassador Martres had reported, that Radio
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Rwanda’s broadcasts sparked the violence, and that Nahimana was the director of the agency
responsible for Radio Rwanda.
Nahimana nevertheless appears to have encountered no resistance during his March 1992
visit to France. In fact, the opposite occurred. After returning to Rwanda, Nahimana wrote to
President Habyarimana that he had met with a French Ministry of Cooperation official, who had
“reaffirmed that France is always ready to help us set up a national television. To this end, a
Rwandan television dossier will be submitted for approval to the [French Ministry of
Cooperation’s] Assistance and Cooperation Fund . . . which will meet at the beginning of June
1992.”180
France made good on its offer, in the end. In December 1992, a Rwandan government
delegation once again met with Ministry of Cooperation officials,181 who told the delegation that
France was ready to step up its support in the form of close to 1.2 million French francs,
approximately $225,000 at the time.182
“It is not a surprise to me that Nahimana went to France in March 1992 even though French
officials knew that he was behind the massacres in Bugesera,” Mfizi said.183 “The French
Ambassador to Rwanda, Mr. Martres, seemed very close to extremists; once, in 1992, Martres
received a delegation of CDR members in the embassy. I wrote him a letter saying I was shocked
by that visit.”184
D. The French Government Overlooked the Habyarimana Administration’s Complicity in
Massacres and Contended That Incremental Steps Toward Multi-Party Democracy Had
Justified France’s Continued Support for the Regime.
Following the Bugesera massacres, the opposition parties and Western diplomats, led by
Belgian Ambassador Swinnen, argued it was more necessary than ever for President Habyarimana
to relax the MRND’s grip on power and install a true “coalition government.”185 They had a hard
time persuading Habyarimana.186 He maintained that the current cabinet was sufficiently
pluralistic, even though the MRND controlled 15 seats, and the opposition held only two seats.187
The pressure, though, ultimately proved too much for Habyarimana. On 2 April 1992, he agreed
to replace MRND Prime Minister Nsanzimana with the opposition parties’ preferred candidate,
Dismas Nsengiyaremye of the MDR.188 The ensuing cabinet reshuffle in mid-April left the
president’s party with just nine out of 19 cabinet seats.189
The ministers of this new coalition government lost no time pursuing some long-sought
reforms. For example, Education Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate affiliated with the
MDR, did away with the “policy of equilibrium” that had allowed the government to consider a
candidate’s ethnicity and regional origin in awarding educational opportunities, and replaced it
with an exam.190 Soon, too, new préfets (regional governors) drawn from the opposition supplanted
the MRND faithful who had abused their power.191
Pluralism, though, brought neither peace nor stability. On the contrary, the weeks after the
April 1992 cabinet reshuffle saw a marked uptick in violence—in Kigali especially, but not
exclusively.192 On 25 April, for example, a bomb exploded in front of a newspaper counter at the
bus station in the center of Kigali, seriously injuring six people, two of whom had to have their
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legs amputated.193 On 1 May, a landmine blew up a van outside of a crowded shopping center in
Ruhango, reportedly killing 17 people and wounding 13 more.194 A few days later, a bomb blew
apart a restaurant in a Butare hotel, tearing off the roof and injuring 30 people.195
Uwilingiyimana, the new education minister and a member of the MDR party, would
herself become a victim of the country’s deteriorating security situation on 7 May 1992, when, not
long after sundown, a band of roughly two dozen thugs stormed into her house in Kigali.196 The
men, armed with machetes and grenades, forced her to hand over whatever cash she had, then
clubbed her in the head.197 After just a few minutes, they ran off with the money, some clothes
they snatched from her wardrobe, and an assortment of blankets and bedsheets.198
Uwilingiyimana would suffer far worse before the war’s end. Two years later, in April
1994, just hours after President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, a group of Rwandan
Presidential Guard soldiers would track down and murder her and her husband, cementing her
legacy as one of the first casualties of the Genocide.199 Though, of course, she could not have
known in May 1992 what was to come, she understood immediately that the perpetrators behind
the armed robbery at her Kigali home had targeted her for political reasons.200 “Unless my memory
is not good, I think that so far we have never seen such an attack on an individual from the MRND
party,” she remarked to a reporter after the attack.201 In the interview, she recalled that the
neighbors who rushed over to the house just after the mob left had wanted to know why none of
the gendarmes who had been patrolling the neighborhood that night had come to her aid.202
There was general agreement that many of the attacks in the interior of the country, outside
of the combat zone, in mid-1992 constituted a form of terrorism, but little agreement as to who
bore responsibility for them. The RPF blamed the Interahamwe,203 while, according to the Belgian
paper Le Soir, the Rwandan people felt the Army was to blame:
The Rwandan Army has indeed gone from 5,000 fairly professional soldiers to
35,000 hastily trained men, attracted by the pay and the prospect of receiving
weapons. Already today, these makeshift soldiers represent, like their Zairian
counterparts, a great source of insecurity: The population blames them for the
attacks, acts of terrorism and banditry that have multiplied in recent weeks.204
French officials, perhaps unsurprisingly, attributed the surge in violence, in large part, to
the RPF and its sympathizers.205 A confidential French defense memo indicated that the FAR had
shared with French officers a number of messages it had purportedly intercepted from the RPF,
which, according to the memo, confirmed suspicions that “the RPF has used terrorist methods for
several months at the expense of civilian populations neighboring the combat zone in the north of
the country.”206 To the French officers’ apparent surprise, though, the messages also indicated that
Rwandans on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum—anti-Tutsi extremists with the newly
formed Coalition pour la Défense de la République (CDR) party—were using those same methods
in a parallel campaign to “destabilize” the Habyarimana government, which, in the CDR’s view,
had become too sympathetic to Tutsi.207 In one message, the RPF supposedly called off a plan to
stir up ethnic tensions in a girls’ school in Gisenyi after learning that CDR members had already
concocted an identical scheme involving the same school.208 “[O]nce again,” the French memo
concluded, “we run into the feeling—incomprehensible to our Western sensibilities—that there is
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collusion, or at the very least a coincidence of interests, between the inner circle surrounding the
president, the ‘Akazu,’ and those from Uganda who have sworn to achieve [the regime’s]
undoing.”209
When General Varret, the head of the French Military Cooperation Mission, met with
Rwandan authorities in Kigali in May 1992, he spoke of the country’s deepening instability as if
it were a problem the Habyarimana administration was making a good-faith effort to mitigate, as
opposed to a crisis the regime was actively making worse.210 Varret, according to a Rwandan
Defense Ministry memo, spoke approvingly of the government’s transition toward multi-party
democracy: “He added that it is this reason that justifies their support for our country. He also
added that France will not let us down in these difficult times that our country is going through.”211
Col. Rene Galinié, who accompanied Varret on the trip, offered congratulations of his own
while chatting with a Defense Ministry official at a cocktail hour reception at the Méridien hotel
on 9 May.212 Galinié, who, less than a year earlier, had been France’s defense attaché in Kigali,
said Rwanda was lucky—it was the first country in the region to “succeed” at multiparty
democracy.213 As such, he said, it could count on European countries and international
organizations to offer “a lot of help.”214 This assistance, though, would not be unconditional, he
warned: “[I]f certain persons manage to torpedo this democracy, as is happening in Togo [where
forces loyal to the sitting dictator were undermining democratic transition—ed.] the French will
leave.”215
The French government, however, would remain committed to supporting the Rwandan
military all through the turbulent season that followed Varret’s visit. Notably, the DAMI Panda,
which, as of May 1992, had trained nine of the Rwandan Army’s 29 active battalions,216 saw its
ranks increased from 30 to 45 officers.217 In the months ahead, the DAMI officers would train
many of the FAR platoons leading the charge at the front, prompting one Rwandan military official
to write: “For the time being, the DAMI remains of paramount importance to us as long as the war
persists in our country.”218
Extremists, meanwhile, including those with connections to the Rwandan government,
continued to showcase their opposition to peace and democracy. Between May 28 and May 30,
members of the MRND and Interahamwe massed in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in
Kigali.219 Their protest, led by Interahamwe president Robert Kajuga, was meant to condemn
alleged attacks against the Interahamwe by members of the Parti Libéral, one of the opposition
parties.220 In a speech, Kajuga warned that the MRND would have to “use all means possible to
defend themselves,” if its complaints were ignored.221 A slew of MRND ministers seconded his
remarks and rained calumny on the opposition.222 A subsequent MRND press release called for
the dissolution of the PL and the arrest of its leader, Justin Mugenzi.223
The MRND/Interahamwe protest may have had another target: a new round of peace talks
taking place at that same moment in Brussels between the RPF and representatives from three
opposition political parties (MDR, PL, PSD) who were not formally representing the Rwandan
government. The late May 1992 talks in Brussels may have represented a unique opportunity for
peace in Rwanda because, as a Belgian newspaper observed, they enabled the warring parties to
make concessions without losing face: the RPF could argue that it was making concessions to the
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opposition, not the Habyarimana regime, and the Habyarimana regime could protect itself by
claiming the inverse, namely that it did not bear responsibility for the concessions from its side.224
“[P]eace without humiliation, where there would be no winners or losers,” was how the delegation
from the opposition parties put it.225 According to MDR Chairman Faustin Twagiramungu, the
two sides at the talks shared the goal of removing the “dictator,”226 but they differed on the means
of achieving that goal, with PL Chairman Mugenzi speaking for the delegation in saying that it
“condemn[s] the use of violence.”227
Habyarimana was later reported to have condemned the talks in Brussels and “those who
fell into the enemy’s trap” by agreeing to them.228 Meanwhile, the Interahamwe, who were on the
streets of Kigali protesting the new multiparty government, attacked Charles Karemera, a highranking PSD member,229 provoking clashes between the Interahamwe and supporters of the former
opposition parties,230 leaving seven dead and 20 injured.231
Elements of the Rwandan Army rioted, too, attacking civilians and pillaging stores in
Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, and elsewhere.232 The chaos ultimately left about 30 people dead.233 News
reports indicated the riots began after MDR Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye announced that “peace
[was] to come,” and so was the demobilization of many FAR members.234 However, Le Soir, the
Belgian newspaper, noted there was speculation that some unspecified party (presumably,
Habyarimana’s supporters in the military) had orchestrated the violence to delegitimize the
coalition government and its negotiations with the RPF.235
E. The French Government Responded to a June 1992 RPF Military Offensive in Byumba with
a Swift Increase in Military Assistance to the Rwandan Government.
Whatever the nature and scale of this attack, which the post has not been
able to evaluate yet, it appears to me in any event necessary to reinforce the
Noroît detachment.236
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
Amid the tumult, the RPF launched a major offensive—its largest since the January 1991
attack on Ruhengeri. In the early morning of 5 June 1992, RPF forces pushed into Byumba
province, briefly taking Byumba town, the logistical base for government forces in the area,
located approximately 19 miles from the border and only 25 miles north of Kigali along a main
road.237 The goal, as RPF army officers have since explained, was not to capture Byumba, but to
attack it and retreat—which, in fact, is what the RPF forces did.238 “We had moved into a phase of
a propaganda war, and the objective was not to seize territory,” Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, then
an intelligence officer in the RPF’s Army, has said. “We were trying to seize equipment and break
morale, which would help create leverage for the RPF at the negotiations table.”239
The attack highlighted how the two sides’ fortunes had changed since the start of the
conflict.240 While the RPF military had increased its numbers and had a solidified leadership and
chain of command,241 the FAR was showing signs of stress. The FAR had tried and failed several
times in April 1992 to reconquer sections of Mutara where the RPF was firmly ensconced.242
Rwandan authorities had been quick to blame these failures on a lack of firepower and claimed to
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need more mortars.243 Colonel Cussac, though, said the FAR lacked courage and drive.244 He also
said its commanders were employing the wrong tactics and ignoring the advice of their French
military cooperants.245
In Cussac’s view, the FAR at that moment—and its elite para-commando battalion, in
particular—was worn out.246 The para-commando battalion had been deployed in virtually every
major battle since the start of the war—“too often,” in Cussac’s opinion.247 As of May 1992, he
noted, no more than 120 of the battalion’s 500 soldiers were fit and available for combat.248 “The
rest,” he wrote, “are sick or . . . absent.”249 (Ambassador Martres would later describe the FAR,
more generally, as “increasingly demoralized,” and he would even go so far as to question whether
Rwandan soldiers might pose a greater threat to the security of French expatriates than the RPF
did.250)
Almost as soon as the RPF launched its 5 June offensive in Byumba, President
Habyarimana called Ambassador Martres to report the attack and to request that France send “a
second company . . . immediately to Kigali to cover the town and the airport.”251 Martres was
apparently of the opinion that France should send more troops regardless of the situation, writing
a cable to Paris that “[w]hatever the nature and scale of this attack, which the post has not been
able to evaluate yet, it appears to me in any event necessary to reinforce the Noroît detachment.”252
Martres’ suggestion had immediate effect: France deployed a second Noroît company of 150
troops to Rwanda in the evening of 5 June/morning of 6 June, increasing the Noroît presence once
more to two companies. (As a reminder, France had withdrawn one of the two Noroît companies
in December 1990 because it was needed in the Persian Gulf.253)
By the time French troops arrived in Byumba town on the afternoon of 6 June, the RPF
forces had already withdrawn.254 In a 7 June cable to Paris, Martres appeared to question whether
Habyarimana had misled him:
As with the taking of Ruhengeri in January 1991, that of Byumba showed . . .
exaggerations more or less calculated to raise the concern and support of Western
countries [that are] friends of Rwanda. There was no massive attack by the Ugandan
Army, as President Habyarimana had told me . . . nor a massive invasion as the
Minister of Defense had suggested.255
The Byumba offensive precipitated a major shake-up in the Rwandan armed forces. Among
the officers axed on 9 June, just four days after the offensive, were the heads of the Army and
national Gendarmerie, both Akazu members and notorious anti-Tutsi hardliners: Col. Laurent
Serubuga, who had succeeded Habyarimana as head of the Army in December 1991,256 and who,
Martres would tell the MIP, had welcomed the RPF military offensive in 1990 because it provided
a pretext for carrying out anti-Tutsi violence;257 and Col. Pierre-Célestin Rwagafilita, the chief of
staff of the Gendarmerie, who had alarmed Jean Varret with his talk of “liquidat[ing]” the Tutsi in
December 1990.258 (Also significant, Théoneste Bagosora, who would go on to become one of the
primary architects of the Genocide,259 was pulled from his role as head of Camp Kanombe and
assigned to a position as the Cabinet director in the Ministry of Defense, essentially the second in
command in the department.260) Martres and Cussac, in a cable to Paris, noted that the official
reason for the replacement of Serubuga and Rwagafilita was a forced retirement on account of
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age,261 although other observers would claim that claim Habyarimana had dismissed the officers
for incompetence or because they could not be trusted.262
US Ambassador Robert Flaten was pleased with the reorganization: “This was a very
important step,” he wrote in a cable the day after the announcement.263 “As long as I have been
here I have heard the names of Rwagafilita, Serubuga and [Elie] Sagatwa [President
Habyarimana’s private secretary—ed.] as the eminence grises behind all of the evils of this
Habyarimana administration. The removal of two of them will prove to many Rwandans that this
government of transition is now functioning.”264 Flaten had high hopes for Rwagafilita’s
successor, Col. Augustin Ndindiliyimana, who, he said, was “well respected in and out of the
armed forces, and generally considered to not have used his positions of power to enrich
himself.”265 He was less sure about Serubuga’s replacement, Col. Deogratias Nsabimana. The
FAR’s new chief of staff, Flaten wrote, was known to be “effective and [have] earned the respect
of his soldiers,” but also “known as a man who gives no quarter, believed to have tortured prisoners
to death and instituted summary executions on the battlefield.”266
Indeed, Nsabimana would prove before long that he was no reformer. In September 1992,
he ordered Rwandan Army commanders to circulate among their troops an explosive document—
one that defined the FAR’s “main enemy” not as the RPF military, but as “the Tutsi.”267
F. Despite Press Criticism Aimed at French Military Engagement in Rwanda, Following the
Byumba Offensive, French Leaders Provided New Weaponry and Training to the FAR and,
by Several Accounts, Engaged Directly in the Fight.
[A] commanding officer cannot avoid responsibility because he did not
shoot a bullet. There is training, there is preparation, mentoring, advising
people—the actual battle is the last aspect.268
– Charles Kayonga, RPF Battalion Commander
Publicly, throughout 1992, France continued to claim its troops were in Rwanda for
humanitarian purposes and for the security of expatriates. A spokesperson for the Quai d’Orsay
said that France’s sole goal was “to help the country [Rwanda] move towards democracy.”269 The
RPF presented a different take in a 9 June 1992 press release, “The French Military Guarantor of
the MRND Regime,” that began, “The humanitarian justification for the French military presence
in Rwanda has increasingly proven to be a decoy.”270 Two days later, in an article in the French
paper Libération, reporter Stephen Smith offered reasons to believe the RPF was right. Smith
observed that the recent deployment of additional French troops had taken place in the “utmost
secrecy.”271 He also reported on several ammunition deliveries to Rwanda from Châteauroux
airport in central France, and he added that the French military had proven willing to “deduct”
ammunition from its own stock when French arms supplier Thomson-Brandt could not fill an order
for Rwanda.272
Smith was not the only French journalist to criticize France’s intervention in Rwanda. In
the last week of June 1992, Jean-François Dupaquier published a scathing article in the French
weekly magazine L’Événement du Jeudi titled, “France at the Bedside of African Fascism.”273
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Dupaquier’s article ticked off the history and resurgence in Rwanda of anti-Tutsi repression and
slaughter: “exterminat[ion of] some two hundred and fifty thousand Tutsi between 1960 and 1973,
pushing half a million others to the roads of exile”; the renewal of widespread killings in a
“Cambodian-style scenario”; the racist rants in Kangura, reminiscent of Nazi newspapers, that
appealed to “Hutu fanatics of the ‘final solution’”; the failure of Habyarimana (referred to as a
good friend of President Mitterrand and his son) to “punish the fanatical groups who have sworn
to bring about the total extermination of the 14% of Tutsi ‘remaining’”; government use of torture
during interrogations; and the role of Radio Rwanda in inciting the massacres in Bugesera.274 On
this last point, Dupaquier reported that French soldiers protected Radio Rwanda, and that
ORINFOR director Ferdinand Nahimana had not explained or apologized for the radio’s role in
provoking the Bugesera violence.275
Dupaquier then turned his analysis to French support of the regime:
Most astonishing is the role of the French military in Rwanda. . . . François
Mitterrand wants above all to prevent the fall of his old friend, Juvénal
Habyarimana . . . . [T]he French intervention corps of about two hundred men has
thus gone from having a “humanitarian” role to that of a second Presidential Guard.
The French soldiers have been instructed to show themselves as much as possible
in the streets of Kigali and to police the high places of power: the presidency, the
airport, [and] the French embassy.276
Among the allegations that made their way into both Dupaquier’s and Smith’s reports was
one—previously the subject of some conjecture in Rwanda—that a French officer had secretly
been leading the FAR’s war against the RPF Army. A substantially similar claim had arisen in
February 1992, when press outlets obtained from the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs a
letter277 purportedly informing French embassy officials that Lieutenant-Colonel Gilles Chollet,
then the commander of DAMI Panda, had been named a military adviser to both President
Habyarimana and Col. Serubuga, the then-chief of staff of the Rwandan Army.278 Rwandan
opposition political parties pounced on the letter, with the People’s Union Party calling Chollet
the new “strong man of the regime,”279 and the MDR wailing in a press release: “It’s serious. . . .
Very serious! . . . Today our troops are under the command of a Frenchman.”280 An editorial in
Kanguka, a prominent opposition newspaper, drew parallels to Rwanda’s colonial past—save that
this time, the colonial power exercising control over Rwanda was France, rather than Belgium.281
The Quai d’Orsay had promptly denied the reports of Chollet’s advisory position,282
without ever mentioning that another French officer, Colonel Gilbert Canovas, had served as an
advisor to senior leaders of the FAR for the first nine months of the war.283 (The MIP would later
echo the Quai d’Orsay’s denial: Chollet, it wrote, “had never, unlike Colonel Gilbert Canovas,
been instructed to act in an advisory role to the Rwandan Head of State or to the chief of staff to
the Rwandan Army.”284) It would not be long, though, before the French government did, in fact,
assign an officer to advise the FAR chief of staff. A new deputy defense attaché, Lieutenant
Colonel Jean-Jacques Maurin, took on this role in mid-April 1992.285 Maurin’s orders were to
advise Colonel Serubuga, then the top official in the Rwandan army, “on everything concerning
the conduct of operations,” as well as on “the preparation and training of the Rwandan armed
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forces.”286 A draft letter of assignment instructed him to approach his task with “great
discretion.”287
Smith, in his June 1992 article in Libération, wrote that Lt. Col. Maurin was no mere
advisor—rather, he wrote, Maurin now “decides, de facto, on the Rwandan Army’s war
strategies.”288 Similarly, Dupaquier asked, “How far can the involvement of the French Army in
Rwanda go? Very far, if we observe that Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Jacques Maurin, officially
deputy to the military attaché, is in reality the head of the état-major of the Rwandan Army, in
charge of supervising a war [that is] less and less military, and increasingly uncivil.”289
General Varret, the head of the French Military Cooperation Mission, had opposed
Maurin’s appointment. “Do we need to get more involved in this conflict when our military
presence is already misunderstood and misinterpreted?” Varret wrote in an April 1992 note. Varret
thought not. His note argued it was inadvisable “to assign a military cooperant to an army
commanded by a chief of staff [i.e., Colonel Serubuga] whose methods we cannot endorse.”290
While, officially, Maurin’s role consisted of “discreetly advising the Chief of Staff of the
FAR on everything concerning the conduct of operations, but also the preparation and training of
the Rwandan armed forces (FAR),” the full scope of Lt. Col. Maurin’s work with the FAR, in
practice, remains unclear.291 (Maurin’s testimony to the MIP is unavailable to the public.) The
French government, in any event, paid no heed to Smith’s and Dupaquier’s criticisms. The French
government’s response to the Byumba offensive was to fortify its military assistance to the FAR,
which was then trying to push back the RPF forces that continued to hold much of the area north
of Byumba.292 According to ex-FAR officer and current Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) Brigadier
General Evariste Murenzi, “it was after the RPF assault on Byumba in June 1992, when they [the
RPF] showed their military superiority over the Rwandan Armed Forces, that the French became
resolutely engaged.”293 France promptly integrated the DAMI and Noroît forces into a single unit
under the authority of a commander of operations, Colonel Jacques Rosier, who would lead French
efforts to help the FAR counter the RPF military’s Byumba offensive.294
Col. Rosier was a decorated officer—a 1985 recipient of the Legion of Honor, France’s
highest order of merit—with decades of military experience, much of it in Africa.295 He had, in
that time, participated in several military interventions on the continent, including in Chad, where
from 1969 to 1972 France helped Chadian dictator François Tombalbaye fend off an insurgency.296
Rosier later led a detachment in the Central African Republic during a controversial 1979 French
intervention that led to the ouster of the country’s self-proclaimed emperor, Jean-Bedel Bokassa.297
Described years later as “legend in the French Army,”298 Rosier would go on to play a significant
role in Rwanda, including as a French special forces commander during Operation Turquoise,299
the ostensibly “humanitarian” operation France launched more than two months into the Genocide.
Between 11 and 16 June 1992, Col. Rosier and Col. Dominique Delort conducted a French
military mission to evaluate the FAR’s capabilities.300 (Delort, like Rosier, had served in Chad
against the insurgency there.301) According to an interview given by Col. Rosier, “[i]t emerged,
above all, from this mission that the FAR did not have sufficient firepower to stop the RPA
offensives, sufficient reserves of maneuver to counter-attack in the various sectors and a
management team that was equal to the situation.”302 To address the first of these issues, Col.
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Cussac, the French military attaché, informed the new head of the FAR, Déogratias Nsabimana,
on 20 June 1992 that the French would deliver five 105 mm cannons, along with 2,400 shells, to
Kigali on 24 June (with another 300 shells authorized to be delivered).303 The RPF soldiers would
nickname these powerful new weapons “dimba hasi” (Kinyarwanda for “earth shaker”).304
Cussac told Nsabimana that France intended to train FAR soldiers on the 105 mm howitzer
“in the Byumba region so as to deal with real targets on the field.”305 It appears, though, that French
officials soon had second thoughts about this plan. On 22 June, the FAR was informed that the
decision to allow the French to train them in the combat zone was “amended by a message from
Paris, which prohibits the use of these 105 mm cannons in the combat zone for the time
being.”306 Displeased, Col. Nsabimana asked Defense Minister Gasana to intervene with the
French, “so that training can take place in the combat zone where . . . [it] will positively impact
the morale of our men.”307 Nsabimana was clear about his intentions, explaining to French officers
on 25 June that he wanted to put the battery to use soon, “within the context of the current fighting
in the BYUMBA OPS sector.”308
Colonels Rosier and Delort promptly returned to Rwanda, where, as Rosier would later
say, their top priority “was to set up in the shortest possible time a battery of 105s given by France
and operated by the FAR.”309 To help him accomplish this objective, France sent 28 artillery
specialists from the 35th Artillery Parachute Regiment to train Rwandan troops to use the new
weapons, some of the time at an “artillery school” at Kanombe Camp.310
The pressure to expedite the cannons’ deployment on the battlefield spurred Col. Delort to
propose a new concept—what he termed “semi-direct” aid to the FAR.311 Acknowledging that it
would take some time before FAR soldiers would be ready to fire the new weapons, Delort wrote
to Paris on 26 June: “In a restricted circle, we are studying the possibility of semi-direct actions,
i.e. FR/RW [French/Rwandan] battery, with the FR personnel being the least visible but
present.”312 The Duclert Commission discussed documents indicating that such “semi-direct
actions” did, in fact, occur in the weeks that followed.313
Rosier has said that, on 8 July 1992, “doubled by the French cadres, the Rwandan battery
carried out its first firing in the Byumba sector. We were only at the shooting-exercise stage, but
the level was progressing rapidly because every day the battery was in one of the three operational
sectors.”314 He said the French cooperants—who, at one point, would set up a second battery of
122 mm howitzers provided by Egypt—continued to train the Rwandan troops in the field until 1
August 1992, by which time the Rwandan soldiers were “completely autonomous.”315
The 105 mm cannons—weapons never used before by the Rwandan Army—surprised and
alarmed RPF troops, who soon had to contend with new types of injuries, in addition to the
psychological impact of realizing that the FAR had new and substantial reinforcement.316 “The
deployment of the 105 mm guns had a demoralizing effect because they were much bigger than
what we had,” Emmanuel Karenzi Karake, then an intelligence officer in the RPF’s Army, said.
“They were fired from long range, they pinned us down in the trenches. You didn’t know when
you were going to get out.”317 Charles Kayonga (who was a commander in the RPF’s Army in
1992) said he knew it was French soldiers directing the use of these weapons because
communication equipment captured by RPF forces revealed French soldiers expressing
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disappointment that the FAR was not taking advantage of the French artillery support. “Ils sont
faible [they are weak],” the French were saying over the radio, comprehensible to the RPF troops
thanks to its Francophone soldiers who had joined from exile in Burundi and Congo.318
The dimba hasi made a similar impression on James Kabarebe, then the commander of the
101 battalion based in Mukarange (about 15 kilometers north of Byumba). According to his
account, a few weeks after the start of fighting in Byumba, RPF troops learned that the French had
returned to the field with enough 105 mm artillery ammunition to bomb them all day and night for
two or three weeks.319 “The noise alone from the 105 mm was terrible,” he said.320 The FAR
opened fire on the 105 mm around 6 a.m., and at around 4 p.m. French soldiers could be heard
over the radio commanding the FAR to “avance [advance].”321 But because RPF forces had dug
trenches, its forces were not incapacitated by the shelling.322 When the FAR advanced their attack
on foot, the RPF soldiers waited until the FAR troops were about 20 meters away from their
trenches to defend their positions.323 The French could be heard on the radio calling the FAR
“cowards,” “useless,” saying they would not win this war if they could not defeat the RPF troops
after such heavy shelling.324
st
One French officer who served in Rwanda that summer has since written that, while French
troops managed throughout the war to avoid direct combat with the RPF, “we were hitting them
copiously with 105 mm shells (and even 122 mm [shells] from Egypt).”325 A number of ex-FAR
soldiers have attested that it was French soldiers who manned the 105 mm cannons at Byumba.326
In contrast, former French ambassador to Rwanda George Martres testified in front of the French
Senate that “French forces of the Noroît detachment had not taken part in any engagement,” and
further that “[o]ur technical assistants have not taken part in combat in the sense that they have not
directly fought.”327 Whether or not French troops were firing the cannons, they trained and advised
the FAR soldiers operating the artillery in the field. As Kayonga observed recently, a
“commanding officer cannot avoid responsibility because he did not shoot a bullet. There is
training, there is preparation, mentoring, advising people—the actual battle is the last aspect.”328
There were no contemporaneous news reports in France on this intervention. It did not even
appear in a 14 July 1992 article in Libération written by Stephen Smith, who one month earlier, in
a separate article, had revealed the 5 June Noroît deployment (see discussion above). Apparently
unaware that France had supplied the 105 mm howitzers to Rwanda, Smith nevertheless wrote in
his 14 July piece, “Officially, the purpose of French military presence is only ‘the protection and
security of foreigners.’ However, the constant support of Paris, since the beginning of the Rwandan
civil war, makes the regime of Juvénal Habyarimana seem like a ‘protectorate’ of the Élysée.”329
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G. Following a July 1992 Ceasefire Agreement, French Authorities Supplied More Weapons
to the FAR and Took Measures to Ensure the DAMI “Panda” Advisors Would Not Be
Forced to Leave Rwanda.
In keeping with your orders, the Army chief of staff continues its logistical
aid in order to avoid a brutal destabilization of the Rwandan Army.330
– Christian Quesnot, Chief Military Advisor (1991 – 1995)
With talks between the RPF and the Rwandan government set to commence in Arusha,
Tanzania in July 1992, President Mitterrand’s top military advisor, General Christian Quesnot,
warned the president that “the RPF will probably try to reach a maximal territorial guarantee
before” the negotiations.331 Quesnot, by this time, had been advising Mitterrand on Rwanda
matters for a little more than a year. Where, once, in June 1991, he had advised Mitterrand to
withdraw Noroît troops, Quesnot had begun, in time, to favor more aggressive action in support
of the Rwandan government, and his antipathy toward the RPF was becoming more and more
evident.332
Quesnot was a leading voice in the Élysée’s internal debates over Rwanda policy.
According to Françoise Carle, an aide to Mitterrand who worked at the Élysée during the Rwanda
conflict to archive the French president’s files,333 Quesnot was more involved in Rwanda than
either Mitterrand or his chief advisor, Élysée Secretary-General Hubert Védrine.334 Quesnot’s
outspokenness had defined him as far back as the 1970s, when, as a relatively junior army
commander, he had been part of a group of reformers who openly criticized senior officers for
focusing on personal advancement while under-investing in the Army.335 (This made it necessary
for Quesnot to rely on political figures for future career advancement.336) Quesnot would later
distinguish himself for his ingenuity and daring,337 as well as his readiness to work outside the
lines. Reflecting, years later, on his service in anti-terrorism operations in Chad and Lebanon in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, he acknowledged: “I defended French interests . . . using methods
that morality condemns, but efficiency recommends.”338
Quesnot’s recommendation to Mitterrand on 1 July 1992, while the FAR was still reeling
from the surprise attack in Byumba, was to offer “temporary operational assistance of a few
advisers to the staffs as well as to the units recently equipped with the new equipment”—subject
“to the utmost discretion and with the prior agreement, on a case by case basis, of the [French]
état-major des Armées.”339 He noted that existing directives “exclude[d] all direct French
participation in the confrontations,” but questioned whether Mitterrand might reconsider that
position in light of recent events: “The previous strict directives could also be confirmed, but then
there would be no guarantee that the Rwandan forces, though experienced, would hold under RPF
pressure until 10 July [when peace talks were due to start in Arusha—ed.]. Could you let me know
your decision?”340
At the top of Quesnot’s 1 July 1992 note, Mitterrand replied in handwriting: “I saw Mr.
Joxe [Minister of Defense].”341 What Mitterrand decided or communicated to the minister of
defense is unknown, but the lack of public information on this topic would be in keeping with the
“utmost discretion” advised by Quesnot.
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The FAR, in any case, did manage to hold its ground until representatives from the two
sides met for talks later that month in Arusha. Those talks culminated on 12 July 1992 with the
adoption of a cease-fire agreement, which called for the two sides to stop fighting one week later,
on 19 July, and to recommit themselves to the terms of an earlier cease-fire agreement they had
signed in March 1991 in N’Sele, Zaire.342 In so doing, the government and the RPF promised, once
again, to suspend the delivery of “supplies of ammunition and . . . weaponry to the field.”343 They
further agreed, as they had at N’Sele, that that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) would
deploy observers to Rwanda to monitor the cease-fire, and that this deployment would trigger “the
withdrawal of all foreign troops . . . except for Military Officers serving in Rwanda under bilateral
Cooperation Agreements.”344 The agreement did not mention France by name, but the implications
for French troops were clear: if, as envisioned, the OAU were to dispatch observers to Rwanda,
only a small number of French military cooperants—essentially, the 20 or so advisors and technical
assistants working with Rwandan armed forces through the French Military Assistance Mission
(MAM)—would be permitted to stay. Other French troops, including the Noroît detachment and
DAMI Panda advisors, would be expected to leave.345
Quesnot wrote to Mitterrand that he saw the 12 July 1992 cease-fire agreement as no more
than a delaying tactic by “Ugandan-RPF forces . . . to reinforce and develop their offensive.”346
He conceded that even “French aid cannot reverse the balance of power between the powerful
Ugandan Army and what remains of the Rwandan army after 21 months of fighting. Only an
exceptional and rapid diplomatic pressure on the Ugandan president Museveni would be likely to
stop the ongoing offensive against Rwanda.”347
Quesnot doubted Museveni’s commitment to the peace process. “[G]iven the
psychological profile of the Ugandan president,” Quesnot wrote, “it’s feared that . . . perceiving
the rise in international hostility against his operation, he may be tempted to abruptly accelerate
his offensive in order to outpace the peace process expected in Arusha.”348 As a result, Quesnot
concluded, “In keeping with your orders, the Army chief of staff continues its logistical aid in
order to avoid a brutal destabilization of the Rwandan Army.”349
France’s policy during this period may have been best summarized by a Rwandan
Gendarmerie officer, who, after sitting through a September 1992 meeting between a French Army
intelligence officer, was put in mind of a Latin adage: “Si vis pacem, para bellum”—if you want
peace, prepare for war.350 The French intelligence officer, speaking for himself, if not necessarily
for the whole of the French government, said he had no doubt of the Rwandan government’s
commitment to the peace process, “but he castigated the maximalist position of the RPF delegation
during the Arusha negotiations.”351 What France wanted, the Gendarmerie officer’s memo
suggested, was to help the FAR mount enough of a defense on the battlefield to convince RPF
leaders to pin their hopes on the Arusha process, and to settle for less than they were currently
demanding: “At the moment when the Inkotanyi realize that our Army has regained its power and
fury, the Negotiations will succeed.”352
The French government did not let the July 1992 cease-fire agreement imperil its support
for the Rwandan military. Though the agreement had expressly precluded the delivery of “supplies
of ammunition and . . . weaponry to the field,”353 France continued to ship weapons to the FAR.
On 6 August 1992, a French Defense Ministry official sent the French Foreign Ministry a note
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seeking guidance on what to do about a planned transfer of “2,000 shells of 105 mm and 20
machine guns of 12.7 mm, with 32,400 cartridges.”354 One week later, the Defense Ministry—
with the blessing of the Foreign Ministry—authorized the military to transfer those munitions.355
According to the MIP, the French government provided 23.4 million French francs (roughly $4.3
million) in weapons and ammunition to Rwanda in 1992.356 Of this, substantially more than half
was provided free of charge.357 These figures represented a substantial increase from 1990 and
1991.358 In addition, the French government authorized arms sales by French companies to the
Rwandan government.359
Rwandan authorities, meanwhile, proved determined to find a work-around for another of
the July 1992 cease-fire agreement’s provisions: the one requiring the withdrawal of foreign troops
upon the deployment of an OAU observer force to monitor the cease-fire.360 The agreement, as
Rwandan officials were well aware, had made an exception for “military cooperants” who “are in
Rwanda as a result of bilateral Cooperation Agreements,” which promised to shield a limited
number of French military personnel—specifically, the roughly 20 MAM advisors and technical
assistants whose presence in Rwanda was authorized under the 1975 Franco-Rwandan Military
Technical Assistance Agreement (MTAA).361 These cooperants would be allowed to stay. It was
understood, though, that the exception did not cover the Noroît detachment and the DAMI “Panda”
advisors, because the MTAA—which, strictly speaking, authorized French assistance only to the
Rwandan Gendarmerie—did not apply to them.362
The Rwandan authorities’ solution to this problem was to ask the French government to
amend the MTAA.363 France agreed. On 26 August 1992, the two countries amended the MTAA
to authorize French assistance not only to the Gendarmerie, but to the “Rwandan Armed Forces,”
more broadly.364 The amendment was made with DAMI “Panda” particularly in mind, with a
French Ministry of Cooperation official explaining: “The uncertainty weighing on the evolution
of the Rwandan situation inclines the Army general staff to consider the continued presence of the
DAMI as desirable and could justify granting them the status of military cooperant in order to
make it legally possible.”365 Though the official plainly saw the value in reclassifying the DAMI
advisors as technical cooperants so they could remain in Rwanda consistent with the MTAA, he
cautioned that this should be done in a way that would “not appear to observers as a maneuver
intended to maintain, at all costs, a total French military presence that they will not fail to note as
significant.”366
H. French Officers Worked Alongside Rwandan Gendarmes at the Kigali-Based Criminal
Investigations Center, Despite Allegations That Gendarmes Abused Prisoners There.
In July 1992, France sent four technical advisers to help Rwandan gendarmes conduct
criminal investigations at the Centre de recherche criminelle et de documentation (Center for
Criminal Research and Documentation, or CRCD), in Kigali.367 Their arrival had been in the works
since May 1992, when General Varret, the head of the French Military Cooperation Mission,
agreed to support a plan to help Gendarmerie leaders combat the growing threat of terrorism in
Rwanda.368
Controversy had stalked the center that summer, as Amnesty International aired allegations
that gendarmes had beaten and tortured prisoners at the center, then known as the Fichier Central
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(“Central File”).369 Letter writers, spurred on by the organization’s report, urged Rwandan political
leaders to stop the abusive treatment of prisoners at the “notorious” facility.370 One letter told the
story of two detainees, both Tutsi, who “were subjected to severe beatings while in Gendarmerie
custody in an effort to force them into making false statements meant to incriminate themselves
and others.”371
The allegations, broadly speaking, were true, according to Liberata Mukagasana, a
seasoned judicial police officer who managed to survive the Genocide by keeping her head down
in Gendarmerie barracks in Kigali.372 Mukagasana said that, after the war started in October 1990,
the Fichier Central became the scene of many interrogations of suspected “accomplices,” a term
that usually just meant the person was Tutsi, or perhaps a journalist from an opposition
newspaper.373 Rwandan gendarmes, Mukagasana said, would tie the person’s hands behind his
back and lash his chest with an electric cable.374 Some were tortured to death.375
It was the French, she said, who first proposed changing the center’s name, a bit of public
relations legerdemain after the torture allegations became public.376 Some French officials had
pressured the Habyarimana regime to reform its treatment of prisoners. French defense attaché
Col. René Galinié, for example, before his departure from Rwanda in June 1991, had urged
President Habyarimana to stop the summary execution of prisoners.377 According to Mukagasana,
however, the approach taken by cooperants in the CRCD was more laissez-faire. The French
officers knew the Rwandan gendarmes were torturing suspects, but they did not tell the gendarmes
to stop it—just to do it somewhere else, when the French advisers were not around to see it.378
Gerard Nshimyumuremyi379
Gerard was born December 28, 1967. Beginning in 1990, he was a resident of the Kicukiro
Commune.
After the invasion, I became increasingly aware of anti‐Tutsi racism. It was
always there but became much worse. Beginning in primary school, students were
asked to identify themselves as Tutsi or Hutu. For high school entrance exams, Tutsi
were “not supposed to pass,” and even those possessing high marks were often not
allowed to progress. The identification card had both ethnicity and region of birth,
and those cards were to be displayed any time one sought official services. Soldiers
at roadblocks would also ask for these identification cards. And if you were Tutsi
you would have problems, mostly at roadblocks.
From 1990 to 1994, every day you could hear and see the hatred. The French
were aware, they could watch people be mistreated at roadblocks, hear the
messages on the hate radio about Tutsi being cockroaches and snakes.
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I recall seeing French soldiers at roadblocks on my way back into Kigali from
Nyanza, now the Southern Province. They had distinctive hats, uniforms, and
tricolor badges, and the Rwandan soldiers at the roadblocks spoke French to them.
The roadblocks were a fixture of life, dispersed roughly every 20 miles and were
mobile, sometimes being a piece of wood, or string, or even a horse. The typical
procedure was to have everyone leave the bus, line up single file, and present their
IDs. It seemed I had to stop at roadblocks every day from 1992‐1993. Not all the
roadblocks had French people present, but they were often at the main entrances to
Kigali.
Besides being at the roadblocks, the French assisted the Rwandan police. At
the end of 1992, I was brought in for questioning after a car bombing at my
workplace, PetroRwanda. I was the Transportation Officer at the time, and my
coworkers had told the gendarmes to start with me. They suspected I was an RPF
collaborator because I was a Tutsi. The gendarmes were accompanied by French
officers who were in uniform and speaking French, though I do not know if they
were French Gendarmerie officers or soldiers. They took me to the Gendarmerie’s
criminology department. I believe that the French officers were there to lend their
expertise with police work, as they did in my case. They seemed to be permanently
assigned there since they had a desk filled with paperwork. It was clear that the
Rwandan gendarmes had a lot of confidence because of the French presence
working with them and supporting what they did.
The French could also see the growing presence of the Interahamwe. The
Interahamwe were all over Kigali, when you were driving or walking, every day.
They could stop you and take your car with impunity. They were harassing, hurting
people, and doing all the bad things you could imagine. They would have been
visible to the French because they were visible to everyone.
You could tell who was with the Interahamwe because they had their
uniforms and weapons. They would have been visible to the French because they
were visible to everyone, and present throughout the country. The French were
supporting the Habyarimana government even while the Interahamwe were
threatening and hurting civilians like me.
I was at home asleep when the plane was shot down. The next day, the
Interahamwe started trying to break through the gate to my house. I thought it was
my last day. I took my infant son out of the back door and handed him over the
fence to my neighbor because I did not want him to die with me. I eventually
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escaped, but most of my family were killed by machetes – my mom, my brother,
my grandparents.
One day, when I was hiding, the Interahamwe came to find me. At the house
where I was, they had chickens. An Interahamwe took one of the chickens, cut it on
the neck, and showed me the blood on the blade to show me how sharp the machete
was and what it would do to me. Then, they said “let’s go.” Two of them went in
front of me with machetes and the one behind had the grenade. As we left, they
said to me, “You think you’re hiding? Everyone knows where you are.” They were
escorting me to kill me elsewhere. As we walked, I saw people lying dead and
naked everywhere on the streets, hacked apart. Eventually, as we were walking,
one of them convinced the others to take my car and leave me. That was how they
would do it: in the beginning, they would take stuff and then a few days later they
would come to kill you. I managed to stay in hiding and ultimately, I was able to
reach the RPF. I then lived in a refugee camp in Byumba for two months.
Even today [February 2021] as I drive by some places, I can still see those
bodies in my mind, lying hacked apart and in heaps. Other people who do not know
the story cannot see them, but they are still clear to me.
The DAMI officers’ presence at the CRCD was a source of comfort for some Rwandan
opposition party members, who assumed that, left to its own devices, the regime would corrupt
and exploit investigations for political gain.380 François Nsanzuwera, a prosecutor in Kigali in the
early 1990s—and later an Appeals Counsel in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s
(ICTR’s) Office of the Prosecutor—said he worked on cases with the French cooperants in CRCD,
and they were “judicious” and did “their job well.”381 Mukagasana, though, said the French officers
delayed or undermined some investigations to protect France’s partners in the Rwandan
government.382 One tactic, she recounted, was for the French officers to question witnesses
themselves, then have a young Rwandan gendarme sign the witness statements; the questioning
would be quick and perfunctory, but if anyone questioned why the investigation had not been more
thorough, the officers could always point a finger at the young gendarme.383 Documents drafted
by the cooperants themselves while serving in Rwanda might resolve questions about their
activities. The Government of Rwanda requested such documents from the Government of France
in connection with this investigation but received no response.
The CRCD kept lists of the many “accomplices” it arrested.384 Before the DAMI’s arrival,
the list was little more than a scroll of names. According to Mukagasana, the French officers
professionalized the operation, advising the gendarmes to collect and compile far more, from
fingerprints to addresses to photos.385 It does not appear that anyone stopped to consider how such
a list of people, most of them Tutsi, might, in the wrong hands, be put to grievous misuse.
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Mukagasana, who worked in the same office space as the French technical advisors, said that one
French officer in particular was unmoved by the suffering many Rwandans had endured during
the war.386 When, for instance, a colleague remarked, with sadness, on a report that 10 Tutsi had
been slaughtered in Gisenyi, the French officer was unfazed. “Rwandans kill each other,” he said.
“That’s what they do.”387
I. Recurring Allegations Have Been Made That French Soldiers Oversaw the Training of
Rwandan Militias in 1992 and 1993.
Mukagasana has suggested that her French colleagues engaged in activities even more
nefarious than hamstringing criminal investigations. According to her, on Sundays during 1992
and 1993, three of the four French advisors stationed in the CRCD (one of the four always stayed
behind in the office)388 would climb into a Rwandan military land rover to drive from Kigali in the
direction of Mutara, the eastern province that was home to both the Akagera nature reserve, with
its lions and elephants, and the FAR military camp at Gabiro, where French soldiers trained the
FAR,389 and where the FAR trained Interahamwe between 1992 and 1994.390 Not coincidentally,
on Sundays a white minibus full of Interahamwe leaders traveled in the same direction. According
to Mukagasana, her colleagues told her the French soldiers and the Interahamwe were both headed
to Mutara with the same mission: to oversee militia training.
The French gendarmes always returned the day they left, and they would later show off
safari pictures—week after week, for months, similar pictures of animals. When asked why they
went to see the same animals every weekend, the French advisors provided “nonsense”
explanations, according to Mukagasana. She recalled that a Rwandan gendarme colleague once
refused to provide the French advisors with fuel for their trip to Mutara, presumably to undermine
what he perceived to be an ill-advised mission; he soon found himself transferred out of the CRCD.
If Mukagasana’s French colleagues were headed to Mutara, their destination was likely in
or near the Gabiro military camp, where numerous witnesses—Rwandan, French, and other
nationalities—have testified that French soldiers trained not only FAR soldiers, but also recruits
for civilian militias. For example, a Rwandan Army private testified confidentially under the
initials “DA” at the ICTR’s Military II trial that toward the end of 1992 he observed French soldiers
training Interahamwe in survival techniques near Gabiro.391 Similarly, Emmanuel Mwumvaneza,
a communal councilor in Muvumba commune, witnessed a 1992 meeting between the bourgmestre
of Muvumba (Onesphore Rwabukombe, who in 2015 would be sentenced by a German court to
life in prison for his role in the Genocide)392 and four French soldiers with black berets dressed in
uniforms similar to the FAR.393 Three of the four French soldiers had their faces coated in what
looked like shoe polish or coal, and the one without a darkened face appeared to be their
commander, who went by the name Captain Jacques.394 After the meeting, the bourgmestre
informed Mwumvaneza and the other councilors that French and Rwandan soldiers were to train
select civilians in self-defense, and it was up to the councilors to provide civilians to train.395
Mwumvaneza gathered a group of sixteen, himself included, who boarded buses to Gabiro, where
they spent about a month in tents just outside the camp and received firearms training in a valley
roughly five kilometers from the camp.396 According to Mwumvaneza, French soldiers
occasionally supervised the trainings delivered by FAR soldiers, with the French supervisors
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drawing circles on paper targets and inspecting the targets to see if the trainees were hitting their
marks.397
Paul Rwarakabije, the Rwandan operational commander of the Gendarmerie, explained
that militia training took place outside the camps, including Gabiro, to conceal it from rank-andfile FAR soldiers, some of whom were moderate and would have objected to civilian training.398
Only certain solders, presumably those known to hold reliably extremist views, were trusted
enough to train militia.399 Rwarakabije emphasized that as operational commander of the
Gendarmerie, he received written reports every day about operational units, including from
gendarmes stationed in Mutara at Ngarama, who had access to Gabiro camp.400 It was, he said,
“his job to know what was going on,” and in 1992 and 1993, he received reports of French soldiers
participating in militia trainings.401
Consistent with the testimonies of Rwarakabije and Mwumvaneza, human rights
researchers Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke have cited interviews with diplomats serving in
Kigali during this period who reported seeing French officers with Interahamwe in Gabiro.402 Also
consistent is an account from Thierry Prungnaud, who in 1992 was a GIGN, a so-called “supercop,” in Rwanda with the French Military Assistance Mission training members of the Presidential
Guard.403 In a 2012 book recounting his experiences in Rwanda, Prungnaud recalled passing a
group of French soldiers training one hundred armed Rwandan civilians as he and another GIGN
accompanied two other officers (and one officer’s wife) on a drive to Akagera for a weekend
trip.404 “There, in Akagera,” the game park which, Prungnaud explained, had been closed to the
public to use as a FAR training ground, “the trainers were French soldiers. They must have
belonged to the 1st RPIMa or the Legion, which were the only units present in Rwanda at that
time.”405
French academic Gérard Prunier speculated before the MIP that the French military had
trained militia “without having realized—through stupidity and naivety.”406 But Prungnaud
dismissed this hypothesis:
In my opinion, it was neither an error nor a careless mistake. No soldier in the world
can mistake a beginner for a man who is already trained and toughened! When you
put a rifle in someone’s hands, you can see right away if he knows how to take the
rifle apart and put it back together, and then support it. So you necessarily know
whether you’re training a civilian or perfecting a soldier. And it’s not the same
thing!407
Another French witness, Sylvain Germain, an accountant at the French Cultural Center in
Kigali from 1987 to 1994, was at a café bordering a street near work when, around 8 p.m., he saw
a group of young Interahamwe disembark from a bush taxi excitedly discussing two weeks of
training in a French Army camp.408 Germain did not date the account or say where the training
may have occurred, but accounts of French soldiers training militias have included sites and
timeframes beyond Gabiro in 1992. For example, Paul Rwarakabije, the Gendarmerie operational
commander, has said that he received reports from Gendarmerie stationed in Gisenyi about training
of militias in nearby Bigogwe camp, in 1992 and 1993.409 Other witnesses have described militia
training closer to Kigali.410
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Did French officials know the purpose of the militia they reportedly trained? Col. Cussac’s
expression of concern in January 1992 over a program to arm “self-defense militias” in northern
Rwanda (as described above)411 suggests that French officials were well aware of the dangers
posed by armed civilians—and that was before militias had massacred Tutsi in Bugesera in March
1992.412 Paul Rwarakabije summed up his view on the French government’s understanding of the
purpose behind training militias: “The French knew everything. From 1993, they had their people
in the Presidency, in the Army, in the Gendarmerie. I can confirm that they knew what was going
on. The French will deny it now, but they knew.”413
French officials have vehemently denied training militias. The MIP dismissed the
allegation as “never seriously supported to date,” offering the equivocal denial by Col. JeanJacques Maurin that “never, during the état-major meetings he had attended, had there been a
reference to the equipping of militias” (leaving the possibility that the trainings took place but were
not discussed at état-major meetings).414 The allegations of French training of militias, however—
particularly at Gabiro—cannot be ignored. The French government can and should clarify the
matter by disclosing any documents and testimony that would shed light on the truth.
J. The Rwandan Government Recognized the Value of French Support in 1992 and Made
Every Effort to Ensure It Continued.
Throughout 1992, President Habyarimana and other Rwandan officials made sure to thank
their French patrons for their support. “[F]irst and foremost, I would like to reiterate my feelings
of deep gratitude for the steady support my country receives from France, invaluable support to
tell the truth, which the Rwandan people truly appreciate,” President Habyarimana wrote to
President Mitterrand on 21 April 1992, before asking the French President for his continued
support as well as an opportunity to meet in person.415
To show its appreciation, the Rwandan government regularly bestowed honors and awards
on the Noroît and DAMI soldiers who served in Rwanda.416 For example, on 23 August 1992,
Rwandan Defense Minister James Gasana wrote President Habyarimana to recommend Col.
Rosier for decoration as an Officer of the National Order of the Thousand Hills—the highest
honor—for “personally supervis[ing] and lead[ing] on the ground the action of a 105-mm artillery
battery which put a stop to the enemy’s advance in the operational sectors of Byumba, Ruhengeri
and Mutara.”417 While the highest decorations were reserved for military leaders like Col. Rosier,
nearly every French soldier received an honor.
French officials could plainly see, as Ambassador Martres put it in a 15 October 1992 cable,
that the Rwandan government “strongly desired” the “continuation and reinforcement” of French
military cooperation “at all levels.”418 Rwandan authorities wanted Martres to stay in Rwanda, too.
In a 5 December 1992 letter to President Mitterrand, President Habyarimana expressed his “deep
appreciation” for Martres’ “outstanding services” and requested that France extend Martres’ term
as ambassador.419 Habyarimana elaborated:
Indeed, through his effective action, and his vast knowledge of the Rwandan
problem and complexity, and in view of the extremely unstable times that my
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country is going through, Mr. Martres should be able to continue his functions for
some time to come, for the greater good of Rwanda. Any change in this regard,
occurring at this difficult time, could only be a source of instability and endanger
the precarious balance of political dialogue in my country.420
Thereafter, Mitterrand extended Martres’ term for three more months.421
Defense Minister Gasana, a moderate MRND member, found it intolerable that any
Rwandan would call for the withdrawal of French troops from Rwanda, “[s]eeing how military
cooperation with France has been of vital importance during this war, and considering how we still
need [France’s] help after the war.”422 To “demoraliz[e] these co-operants and clamor[] for their
departure,” he wrote in a 17 December 1992 letter to Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye, of the MDR,
would be to “follow[] the example of the Inkotanyi” and “would constitute an attack on the
Security of the State.”423
But perhaps the most eye-opening thank-you to France in 1992 came from CDR co-founder
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, who, in the summer, sent President Mitterrand a letter, featuring 700
signatures by Rwandan citizens, thanking France for its military and political support.424 Bruno
Delaye, who had recently replaced Mitterrand’s son, Jean-Christophe, as head of the Élysée’s
Africa Cell,425 wrote back to Barayagwiza: “The President has asked me to send you his thanks.”426
The reply letter was dated 1 September 1992—just days after the Kibuye massacres (discussed
below). When asked years later by the French Parliamentary Mission (the MIP) about Delaye’s
response to Barayagwiza, Hubert Védrine—who, as Élysée secretary-general, headed Mitterrand’s
team of advisors—replied that “France was in contact with everyone between 1990 and 1994,
whether it was President Habyarimana, opposition parties, the RPF, or the Ugandans,” and said all
such communications “should not be interpreted as support but as pressure to obtain an agreement
for a ceasefire from each of the parties.”427 Barayagwiza would later be found guilty of genocide
by the ICTR and sentenced to 32 years in prison.428
K. While Halting Progress toward Peace Produced Violent Extremist Reactions, French
Officials Discounted the Backlash and Continued to Shore Up a Government Beholden to
Extremists.
An imminent and meticulously prepared plan for systematic physical
extermination, mainly targeting the Tutsi population, is in the process of
being implemented. 429
– 25 residents of Kibuye
By August 1992, RPF High Command Chairman Paul Kagame could see two rival camps
emerging in Kigali: those with a sincere desire to solve the country’s problems, and “those who
wished to sabotage” the coalition government’s ongoing peace talks with the RPF in Arusha,
Tanzania.430 The latter camp seemed to be growing stronger and wreaking havoc. On 4 August
1992, the CDR’s youth militia staged a violent demonstration in Kigali, blocking roads and forcing
people out of their vehicles, both to protest the jailing of some CDR members and to condemn the
coalition government, led by Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye, for pursuing “peace with the
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rebels.”431 At least two civilians and possibly two gendarmes lay dead by the time order was
restored.432
The violence did not stop the peace negotiations in Arusha, where several highly
contentious issues were still on the table, including the balance of power in the “broad-based
transitional government,” which the two sides had agreed to form once peace was achieved.433
That issue, and the equally thorny problem of integrating the two sides’ militaries, would take
many months to resolve. The negotiators did, however, succeed, with the help of Tanzanian
facilitators, in approving an 18 August 1992 “Protocol of Agreement . . . On the Rule of Law,”
which affirmed the parties’ commitments to principles of national unity, democracy, pluralism,
and human rights.434 Ratification of these principles was a top priority for the RPF, according to
RPF Vice President Protais Musoni, who had reaffirmed recently that the RPF sought to have the
rule of law, including the protection of human rights, respected in Rwanda.435 He also said that
power sharing and the creation of a cabinet whose decisions would not be overruled by the
president remained primary objectives for the RPF in these 1992 talks.436 The August 1992
protocol recognized the return of refugees as an “inalienable right” and reaffirmed a commitment
to establishing a coalition government,437 with a new round of talks slated to follow in September
1992.438
Extremists responded with additional violence, this time renewing the now familiar tactic
of murdering Tutsi civilians. Between 20 and 25 August 1992, extremists in the prefecture of
Kibuye, located on Rwanda’s western border with Zaire, attacked Tutsi families, killing several
people, burning scores of homes, destroying coffee fields and banana farms, and displacing
hundreds, if not thousands, of people.439 The RPF and opposition parties blamed Habyarimana’s
party, the MRND, for the violence.440 Speaking to Radio France International on 23 August, not
long after the violence in Kibuye started, Rwandan Minister of Public Works and Energy Felicien
Gatabazi—who also served as the secretary general of the Social Democrats (“PSD”)—accused
elements closely associated with President Habyarimana and the MRND of orchestrating the
violence in order to undermine peace talks with the RPF.441
On 18 September 1992, a group of 25 Kibuye residents sent a letter to foreign diplomats in
Rwanda alleging that Akazu members and high-level government officials had directed the
Interahamwe to commit the massacres in Kibuye.442 The letter warned that “[a]n imminent and
meticulously prepared plan for systematic physical extermination, mainly targeting the Tutsi
population, is in the process of being implemented.”443 (Belgian Ambassador Swinnen would
forward the letter to Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Willy Claes on 13 October 1992. The
letter was addressed to the Apostolic Nonce, ambassadors, and heads of diplomatic, cooperative,
and advisory missions in Rwanda, presumably including French Ambassador Georges Martres.
Likely, Martres or someone on his staff received it.444)
When Habyarimana’s cabinet director, Enoch Ruhigira, met with US Ambassador Robert
Flaten on 29 August 1992, Ruhigira argued the violence in Kibuye cast doubt on the peace
process.445 According to Flaten, Ruhigira, “unsettled by the communal violence in his own
prefecture (Kibuye),” did not believe that the Rwandan government would be in any position to
negotiate a power-sharing agreement “generous” to the RPF.446 Ruhigira said the MRND and CDR
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would not accept a power-sharing agreement that favored the RPF, and he predicted that even if
they were to do so, civil violence would follow.447
Allegations would soon surface that various Rwandan soldiers had participated in the
massacres in Kibuye and elsewhere, and that gendarmes who had responded to the violence
committed “barbaric acts against the population.”448 On 30 August, Col. Ndindiliyimana, the head
of the Gendarmerie, brought his French advisor, Lt. Col. Alain Damy, along with him on a trip to
Kibuye, where the two spoke with local authorities.449 The local officials claimed the violence had
actually stemmed from a disagreement between two local families, one Hutu and the other Tutsi.450
They insisted that the accusations of Gendarmerie misconduct were false.451 Ndindiliyimana
concluded: “[O]ne shouldn’t always rely on the rumors spread by certain people about the conflicts
in Kibuye.”452
Apart from the allegations against government officials, the 18 September 1992 letter from
Kibuye residents alleged that Presidential Guard members had been among the participants in the
Kibuye massacres.453 The Presidential Guard—one of the many beneficiaries of French technical
assistance during the war—was officially a part of the Gendarmerie. Lt. Col. Damy, the French
officer assigned to advise Ndindiliyimana, would note that the Presidential Guard occupied a
unique space in the Rwandan military and was, for obvious reasons, close to the President and his
family.454 (Damy called it “a kind of Praetorian Guard,”455 a reference to the elite force charged
with protecting the Roman emperor.)
Damy took note of the criticism the Presidential Guard had generated in the year since
France assigned officers to reorganize and train it.456 After rattling off two of those criticisms—
first, that northern Rwandans were overrepresented in its ranks, and, second, that it had sometimes
performed missions outside of its jurisdiction—he alluded, obliquely, to “certain underground
actions aimed at destabilizing certain opposition political parties.”457 There was talk among human
rights groups and opposition parties that the MRND’s Interahamwe militia counted some
Presidential Guard soldiers among its members.458 A US Department of State cable described this
allegation as “credible,” though unproven.459
The French government’s response to the allegations involving the Presidential Guard in
1992 was neither swift nor decisive. According to the MIP, Col. Cussac told President
Habyarimana that France would start withdrawing its technical assistance to the Presidential Guard
in August 1992.460 The assistance, though, was still ongoing that fall, when Colonel Philippe
Capodanno was sent to Rwanda to evaluate French military cooperation there.461 Capodanno wrote
in a November 1992 report that France was planning to withdraw its DAMI of two noncommissioned officers from the Presidential Guard and assign new duties to Major Denis Roux,
the French officer who had been serving as the Guard’s technical advisor.462 “That is to say, to
cease our activities in aid of the Presidential Guard,” Capodanno wrote.463 Even then, though, the
severance was less than total. Roux—though he received an additional title, that of advisor to the
mobile Gendarmerie—retained the title of technical adviser to the head of the Presidential Guard
through at least May 1993,464 and continued to work with the Guard through his departure from
Rwanda in August 1993.465
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Roux’s recollection, as recounted in a 2014 book, was that his instructions in the summer
of 1992, as the allegations against the Presidential Guard were surfacing, were simply to “step
back a little.”466 “From then on, I intervened more as an advisor than as a trainer-instructor with
the Presidential Guard,” he said.467 His primary responsibility for the remainder of his time in
Rwanda was to train the mobile Gendarmerie to respond to rising social unrest in the country.468
“They were taught how to respect the rules, how to handle weapons, individual and collective
actions in policing, crowd management,” he recalled.469
One French officer who worked with the Presidential Guard in 1992 has since admitted to
having regrets about his service in Rwanda. The officer, Thierry Prungnaud, had, upon his arrival
in January 1992, participated in an effort help the Rwandan Gendarmerie stand up a new elite
tactical unit known as the security-and-intervention group (Groupe de sécurité et d’intervention de
la Garde Présidentielle, or GSIGP).470 The GSIGP was created in the image of the French National
Gendarmerie’s Security and Intervention Group, a conglomeration of elite gendarme units
specializing in hostage crises, para-commando operations, and presidential security.471 According
to Prungnaud, France selected about 30 Rwandan military members to serve in the new unit, whose
primary task would be to ensure the security of the Rwandan president and his entourage.472 In the
course of their training, the Rwandan recruits learned to shoot with precision, to respond to hostage
situations, to conduct reconnaissance, and to perform anti-terrorist actions.473
Prungnaud has said he later learned that his trainees—some of them, at least—were among
the perpetrators of the Genocide.474 “I think some of these guys were part of the notorious death
squads that executed many opponents of the regime, Hutu and Tutsi alike,” he said. “Of course,
it’s a shock to think that we trained killers of this sort, and that they used for genocide what we
taught them as part of a simple military training!”475
L. In Late 1992, General Quesnot’s Attempt to Fortify FAR Defensive Positions Resulted in
French Troops Running Afoul of the Cease-Fire.
In mid-October 1992, a trio of Rwandan military helicopters headed north from Kigali to
allow General Quesnot, on a brief but densely packed visit to Rwanda, to inspect the FAR’s
positions along the front.476 The cease-fire, in effect since mid-July 1992, had frozen the
government troops in place, leaving them in a defensive crouch on the near side of the
demilitarized zone.477 The FAR’s failure to retake the entirety of Byumba province before the halt
in hostilities had been humbling, but they had managed to stop the RPF military’s advance and
inflict heavy losses.478 To French observers, it seemed that neither camp was poised to launch a
major offensive anytime soon.479 And yet, with negotiations in Arusha limping along and the
prospects of an enduring peace still highly uncertain, both camps felt it necessary to prepare for
the possible resumption of combat.480 For their part, FAR commanders took advantage of the break
in fighting to train recent recruits and to replenish their stocks of equipment and ammunition.481
Ambassador Martres, who accompanied Quesnot in his meetings with President
Habyarimana and other Rwandan officials, had no doubt that the Rwandan president, at least, had
not given up hope of reconquering the territory the FAR had lost before the cease-fire.482 “[B]ut,”
he wrote in a 15 October memo, “it is clear that [Habyarimana’s] entourage is convinced that it is
prudent to focus on dissuading the RPF to return from the political field to the military field . . .
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.”483 The short-term goal for the Rwandan government was to enhance the FAR’s capacity for
“defensive combat.”484 Martres reported that the “continuation and reinforcement of French
military cooperation is strongly desired at all levels,” and emphasized, “it is on this defensive
aspect that the reinforcement of our military cooperation must be focused.”485 The goal of
preventing the RPF from taking the country by force continued to be the focus of French military
cooperation.
Quesnot’s visit led to a reshuffling of French military resources in Rwanda. Not two weeks
later, Col. Cussac, France’s defense attaché in Kigali, announced that the second Noroît company,
dispatched in response to the RPF’s attack on Byumba in June 1992, would depart Rwanda on 10
November “and will not be replaced.”486 Lest there be any concern, though, that France was
abandoning its ally, Cussac reassured the Rwandan defense minister that “if the situation so
requires, a reinforcement company from the Central African Republic could intervene within 6
hours.”487 At the same time, to help the FAR troops fortify their defenses along the front, France
agreed to send a DAMI of engineering specialists, known informally as the DAMI “Genie.”488 The
officers of this new DAMI made landfall in Rwanda on 4 November,489 joining a network of
French servicemen in Rwanda that then included the remaining Noroît company, the DAMI
instructors in Gabiro, and the various advisers and technicians assisting the Amy and Gendarmerie
under the banner of the Military Assistance Mission.490
The DAMI “Genie” officers’ stay would prove short, but controversial. Within a few weeks
of their arrival, the RPF Army twice spied them out in the field, supervising the digging of new
defensive trenches.491 A US cable on 12 December reported that American embassy officers “have
been aware of French military involvement on the front lines for some time.”492 The FAR, though,
tried to conceal their presence from the Neutral Group of Military Observers [the GOMN],493 the
team of international military officers that, under the July cease-fire agreement, was charged with
monitoring the front.494 The GOMN’s chief of operations vented his frustration to a US diplomat
in late November, saying he knew that French officers were training the FAR along the front on
the use of 105 mm artillery pieces and rocket launchers, but that Rwandan soldiers had stalled
GOMN observers at road blocks “in order to give the French the opportunity to leave the area.”495
On 2 December 1992, the FAR slipped up. In Byumba, the RPF spotted FAR soldiers, in
the company of French soldiers, advancing 500 meters to dig new trenches, a violation of the
cease-fire agreement.496 RPF forces opened fire, and a GOMN patrol was caught in the crossfire.497
The episode angered the GOMN commander, Major General Ekundayo Opaleye, who, not for the
first time, “expressed his displeasure with the French forces’ activities at the front, and stated
categorically that these forces were directly involved in the [Government of Rwanda’s] attempt to
reinforce forward.”498 A US Department of State cable was similarly disapproving: “If, as the
GOMN commander asserts, the French were supervising FAR soldiers digging foxholes in front
of the ceasefire lines in order to take new ground, this constitutes a blatant disregard for the
ceasefire line and should be addressed.”499
In Col. Nsabimana’s view, the takeaway from this incident was not that the French officers
should show more respect for the cease-fire agreement, but that their “presence around the front
must henceforth be more discreet.”500 The Rwandan Army chief of staff faulted the GOMN for
hounding the French officers, having heard from the FAR’s Byumba sector commander that a
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particular member of the GOMN team, a Zimbabwean lieutenant colonel, had been “pursuing
French specialists of the DAMI Engineers in order, according to him, to surprise them in the field
and thus have additional proof of French presence in the combat zone.”501 Nsabimana complained
about the officer to the chief of the GOMN team in Byumba and insisted that the DAMI officers
were there lawfully “within the framework of the co-operation agreements between France and
Rwanda, two sovereign countries.”502 The GOMN chief, who was already familiar with the FAR’s
complaints about the Zimbabwean officer, reportedly “promised to deal with [the officer] in an
effort to ease the strained atmosphere.”503
M. By the End of 1992, Negotiators in Arusha Had Reached a Framework for Peace That Left
a Sidelined and Furious Col. Bagosora—Widely Considered the Architect of the Genocide—
Announcing That He Would Begin Planning the “Apocalypse.”
When peace talks resumed in Arusha on 5 October 1992, the parties remained distrustful,
but observers saw reason for hope.504 The RPF signaled openness to the government’s proposal
for cabinet control over presidential actions, in lieu of the RPF’s own proposal for the
establishment of a “presidential council.”505 “All in all,” a US cable on the recommencement of
peace talks summed up, “the [Government of Tanzania, which facilitated the talks,] seems to think
there are grounds for confidence that the two sides may make more substantial progress in [the
upcoming negotiations], provided the RPF can be persuaded to desist in its posturing and both
parties can focus on negotiating a settlement as opposed to scoring points off each other.”506
This would not do for the CDR. On 8 October 1992, CDR Party President Martin Bucyana
sent an indignant letter to President Habyarimana and Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye, denouncing
the Arusha negotiations and alleging that opposition party government negotiators had gone rogue
as “allies of the RPF.”507 “It is clear that the new orientation in the negotiations is aimed at
excluding the other political formations from power-sharing that represent . . . the majority of the
population,” wrote Bucyana, expressing the fear that Arusha would diminish the CDR’s power.508
The CDR followed this letter with a march on 18 October 1992 protesting the Arusha negotiations
and supporting “the presence of French troops and François Miterrand [sic].”509 According to an
account by historian Gérard Prunier, the CDR protesters chanted, “Thank you President
Mitterrand!” and “Thank you French People!” among other slogans objecting to the peace
process.510 The protest led to violence a few hours after its conclusion when a group of eight to ten
“CDR Party fanatics” stabbed the representative of the PL party in Kanombe.511 CDR members
also killed a local MDR party leader, although it is unclear whether that happened shortly before
or after the march.512
In a 21 October 1992 memorandum, the French Foreign Ministry’s new director of African
and Malagasy affairs, Jean-Marc Rochereau de La Sablière, who had taken over the post in August
1992 when Paul Dijoud was named ambassador to Mexico,513 recognized the threat the CDR posed
to peace.514 He reported that France, regardless, was encouraging President Habyarimana to
“solidify the movement and accept the participation of the RPF in the government until elections
are held.”515 De La Sablière wrote that France needed to publicly declare its support for the Arusha
negotiations, and that France must also “persuade” Habyarimana, “so that his worries do not lead
him to refuse the Arusha compromise.”516 At the same time, de La Sablière considered it prudent
to help the Rwandan government prepare for war in the event the peace failed:
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On the ground, insofar as the possibility of renewed hostilities cannot be entirely
excluded, France should, potentially by reinforcing its cooperation, help the
Rwandan Army to solidify the frontline. The focus should particularly be on
training, the most operational use of available materials, and provision of
munitions.517
On 30 October 1992, the parties in Arusha reached a “Protocol of Agreement” that sketched
out how power would be distributed within the during the transitional period after the war.518 The
protocol’s most notable feature was that it allowed President Habyarimana to stay on as president,
but stripped him of much of his authority, devolving the bulk of his powers to a “Broad-Based
Transitional Government” (made up of the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and ministers
and secretaries of state).519 The protocol also called for the repatriation of refugees and for the
elimination of “all types of discrimination and exclusion,” among other items demanded by the
RPF,520 while leaving the issue of force integration for another day.521
This time, Habyarimana did not endorse the negotiators’ work. He took the hint from the
CDR and tacked right. In two radio addresses in early November 1992, he spoke against the GOR
delegation at Arusha.522 Later that month, during a speech in Ruhengeri, Habyarimana declared
that while he supported the negotiations, the July 1992 cease-fire was merely a piece of paper.
“Peace is not confused with papers,” he declared.523 “There will be peace if Rwandans understand
that their representative in Arusha is actually speaking in their name . . . . That is what we ask of
him. . . . That he should not bring papers to us and then claim that he has brought peace. Is peace
obtained from papers?”524 At that, the crowd applauded and whistled its support.525
Elsewhere in the speech, Habyarimana celebrated the links between the MRND and the
Interahamwe by promising to purchase new uniforms for Interahamwe members, questioning
allegations of Interahamwe crimes—“People say that investigations were carried out, but I have
not seen their results!”—and telling the audience of his political future, “it is mostly the
Interahamwe who will do my campaign, because I am with them.”526
The president’s strident support for the militia had clear implications for the steps to be
taken moving forward. “I heard instructions had been given to us [Interahamwe] to kill some
people after the Ruhengeri rally,” a former Interahamwe leader told the East and Central Africa
specialist Andrew Wallis. “I remember Habyarimana’s speech was all about the need to stop ‘the
enemy.’ We took this to mean both Tutsi generally and anyone who opposed the party.”527 As one
Rwandan magazine observed of the days that followed the Ruhengeri address:
Fear has gripped the town of Kigali. . . . [G]renade explosions are heard throughout
the night. People are cut up with the sword with total impunity. Many houses have
been demolished. All these acts are committed by the Interahamwe militia of
MRND. Since their leader once more reminded them of their mission at the MRND
rally held in Ruhengeri on 15 November 1992, much blood has flown. Before, they
beat people and destroyed houses, but did not commit many killings. Now the dead
are no longer counted. In Shyorongi, there were more than 31 persons killed and
more than 50 wounded who are now in hospital.528
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News of Habyarimana’s remarks quickly reverberated among the other parties to the
ongoing Arusha negotiations. As one US cable noted, “The Tanzanians were particularly miffed
that Habyarimana, in a recent speech in Ruhengeri, had reportedly characterized the Arusha IV
round as a ‘civil coup d’etat.’”529 Likewise, a subsequent US cable speculated that while it was
possible that RPF representatives were unwilling to discuss military integration at Arusha because
of a breakdown in communication among the party, “a more substantive, and probably more likely
explanation” was that the RPF, “in close consultation with internal allies, either reassessed the
Habyarimana motivations on the basis of the President’s November 15 speech and the deteriorating
security situation, or decided on an effort now to put maximum pressure on the MRND. The
decision could be a combination of the two . . . .”530 Meanwhile, Prime Minster Dismas
Nsengiyaremye expressed disbelief at the President’s abrupt betrayal of the spirit of the
negotiations; as Nsengiyaremye said in a speech the following week, “it is quite regrettable to note
that the chairman of the MRND, who is President of the Republic at the same time, characterized
the Arusha Accords as pieces of paper when he delivered his speech during an MRND rally in
Ruhengeri . . . . Men and women of Rwanda, such language is incomprehensible. Power, for all
times, has functioned on the basis of agreements.”531
Ultimately, however, Habyarimana’s rally would be remembered as tame compared to the
one that took place the following Sunday, 22 November 1992 (the day before the resumption of
talks in Arusha). This time, the microphone belonged to Leon Mugesera, the vice-chairman of the
MRND, speaking before a crowd in Kabaya, in the Gisenyi prefecture.532 Mugesera was known to
US diplomatic sources at the time as “a close associate of the President’s entourage” who had been
“generally attributed with complicity in the massacres of an estimated 300 Tutsi that wracked
Kibilira (just south of Kabaya) shortly after October 1990.”533
Two years after his alleged crimes at the start of the war, as Col. Laurent Serubuga looked
on from his seat on the stage,534 Mugesera stood before the crowd and called for the death of Prime
Minister Nsengiyaremye for having ceded territory to the RPF on the battlefield:
The punishment for such people is unequivocal: “Any person who demoralizes the
country’s armed forces on the war front shall be punishable by death.” That is what
the law says. Why would such an individual not be killed? Nsengiyaremye should
be prosecuted and found guilty. The law is there and it is written. He should be
sentenced to death as stipulated by the law. 535
Mugesera went on to call for the arrest and “exterminat[ion]” of Tutsi families that were,
he claimed, sending their sons to join the RPF, and death for those recruiting them.536 His words
were as chilling as they were explicit, as Mugesera told the crowd that he wanted those Tutsi
families to be “put on a list” and brought to justice.537 And if judges of Rwanda refused to
prosecute, Mugesera declared, “then the people, in the interest of whom justice should be done,
should take it upon ourselves.”538
“The delegates you will hear are in Arusha do not represent Rwanda,” Mugesera went
on. “Recently, I told someone who came to brag to me that he belonged to the P.L. [Parti Liberal,
with many Tutsi members—ed.]—I told him ‘The mistake we made in 1959, when I was still a
child, is to let you leave. . . . Your home is in Ethiopia [and] we will send you by the Nyabarongo
River so you can get there quickly.’”540 In a chilling allusion to the violent mob that attacked
539
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Education Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana at her home in May 1992,541 Mugesera promised, after
repeatedly deriding her actions as education minister, that defenders of the cause “will set out for
Nyaruhengeri, to Minister Agathe’s home, to look after the education of her children!”542 His
followers would deliver on his promise at the start of the Genocide, when Uwilingiyimana, by that
point prime minister, would be murdered.543
On the same day as Mugesera’s speech, the Belgian paper La Cite reported that “death
squads” directed by lead figures in the Habyarimana regime were engaged in mass killing around
the country.544 Violence continued to intensify in the days that followed Mugesera’s speech,
prompting the prime minister to convene an emergency 26 November meeting with members of
his cabinet “to discuss mounting political violence and banditism that is causing widespread
insecurity, even terror, among Rwandans.”545
Justice Minister Stanislas Mbonampeka dispatched a warrant for Mugesera’s arrest,
writing, “He allegedly stated among others, that certain Rwandans should go back to their homes
. . . and that, if they failed to do so, he would ask the inhabitants to entrust them to [the] River
Nyabarongo.”546 Facing imminent arrest, Mugesera found protection among government elements
sympathetic to the anti-Tutsi extremist cause, according to a 2 December cable by US Ambassador
to Rwanda Robert Flaten.”547 The justice minister submitted his resignation in protest, as the
Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique reported.548
When the MDR sent Habyarimana a 2 December letter to protest the ongoing terror
wrought by the Interahamwe, it was with the increasing sense that no one was listening. It
referenced atrocities northwest of Kigali that had started two weeks before, on the same day that
Habyarimana had given his speech in Ruhengeri, and it described violence committed “by MRND
militiamen, with the support of soldiers disguised as civilians and under the supervision of the
Mayor of Shyorongi . . . who is providing all the logistics and ferrying the executioners to their
victims’ homes.”549 Referring to “the MRND-CDR scheme to systematically massacre all the
Tutsi,” the MDR letter exhorted Habyarimana:
We believe that you are always Head of State before being Head of Party . . . . and
that as such you have the imperative responsibility of ensuring the security of all
Rwandan citizens whatever it is, even if it does not belong to your party. The
Almighty and the Rwandan people will demand it. . . . [P]lease stop these massacres
in Shyorongi Commune and order your services to sheathe the sword . . . . [I]t is
not enough to declare on the radio that there is democracy in Rwanda when people
die for daring to take the path of freedom by fleeing the tyranny of the MRND and
its President.550
Talks in Arusha had resumed on 23 November, and there was no hiding the divisions within
the Rwandan government delegation. A French observer to the negotiations, Jean-Christophe
Belliard, would later say it was as though the government had sent three delegations.551 The first
was led by the MDR-affiliated foreign minister, Boniface Ngulinzira, officially the government’s
chief negotiator.552 Separately, he recalled, there was “Habyarimana’s man,” the Rwandan
ambassador to Uganda, Claver Kanyarushoki.553 “[A]nd then,” he said, “there was somebody at
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the end of the table who did not speak a word, but we could see was influential”: the Ministry of
Defense Chief of Staff Colonel Théoneste Bagosora.554
Belliard had Foreign Minister Ngulinzira’s ear in Arusha but came to find that this was not
worth much.555 “Ngulinzira was powerless,” he recalled at a conference in the Hague in 2014. “It
was not he who made decisions. The real decisions were made elsewhere.”556 Ambassador
Kanyarushoki’s role, it seemed, was to slow the process down557—to keep Ngulinzira from getting
ahead of the rest of the delegation. Col. Bagosora, meanwhile, “did not speak but seemed to think
a lot,” Belliard said. “I had the sense that a lot of things got decided at his level. So we had the
negotiations going on every day, a kind of shadow theatre, and then the real negotiations going on
in parallel with people who did not want to make any progress.”558
Back in Kigali, it was increasingly apparent that Habyarimana was boxed in.559 On the one
hand, he seemed to recognize that the Rwandan army, even after two years of French wartime aid,
was weak and ill-prepared to go back to war.560 It was also clear, though, that the extremists within
his party, and within the CDR, would be hostile to virtually any compromise that might break
through the impasse in Arusha.561 “[T]he current situation looks more and more like a puzzle
whose various parts seem less than ever to want to fit together harmoniously,” Habyarimana mused
in a 5 December letter to President Mitterrand.562 The new era of multiparty politics in Rwanda
had complicated his rule. Habyarimana seemed to lament this development, telling Mitterrand that
his administration, no longer under the sway of a single party, was too riven by partisanship to
“succeed[] in imposing itself and restoring public order.”563 This, he suggested, is why the BroadBased Transitional Government must not reign long; elections must be held within 12 months at
most, so that “my country can regain a strong government capable of escaping the current transition
phase.”564
Habyarimana’s letter went on to say that, until peace is restored in Rwanda, it would be
incumbent on France not only to maintain, but to “intensify,” its military presence, which he
described as an “invaluable” force for stability in a time of crisis.565 In Habyarimana’s telling,
France’s military support for the government was helping to pressure the RPF—and, he could not
help but add, Uganda—to be “realistic” in its negotiations in Arusha.566 His argument, essentially,
was that the RPF would be more inclined to accept a fair deal if the prospect of resuming its war
with the government was too daunting to contemplate, in light of the government’s continued
support from France.567
Habyarimana, it bears noting, was not alone in thinking this way. Ambassador Martres,
reflecting back on his tenure in Rwanda, would similarly argue in his 1993 end-of-mission report
that France’s military support for Habyarimana’s government, “especially during the period of
intense fighting in July 1992,” had helped “convince the RPF that [France] would hinder any plan
to resolve by arms a problem that should only be resolved by democratic means.”568 But in midDecember 1992, Martres had expressed an “increasingly critical view” of the Habyarimana regime
that cast doubt on its commitment to peace.569 In his notes marked “consultations w[ith] The
French on Rwanda,” David Rawson, who was the initial US observer during the Arusha peace
talks, and would be appointed as the US ambassador to Rwanda in November 1993,570 wrote that
Martres thought Habyarimana was “playing for time” and was “no longer acting in good faith.”571
Martres understood that “people around Habyarimana” were “fearful for [their] own lives in [a]
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gov[ernmen]t controlled by opposition” and were “prepared to do anything to protect
themselves.”572
Bruno Delaye, the head of the Élysée Africa Cell, sensed that the negotiations in Arusha
were “rapidly approaching the end-game,” according to a US cable.573 Delaye and Quai d’Orsay
African Affairs Director de La Sablière told a State Department official that Habyarimana had
indicated he was “prepared to accept 90 percent of the RPF’s demands at Arusha.”574 In exchange,
the Rwandan president wanted assurances that local elections would be held promptly, and, more
controversially, that the agreement would “bring extremist Hutu elements into the government”—
in order, he insisted, to “preclude their taking their cause into the streets.”575 De La Sablière said
the French government viewed both of these demands as reasonable.576 (Belliard would later tell
the MIP that it had been the settled position of the Quai d’Orsay’s Directorate of African and
Malagasy Affairs that the power-sharing agreement should reserve a place for the CDR in the
interim government, or, failing that, in the national assembly.577 The thinking, he said, was “it was
better to integrate these extremists in politics to prevent them from becoming uncontrollable.”578)
Word made it back to Rwanda late on 22 December that Foreign Minister Ngulinzira, as
head of the government delegation, had reached an agreement with the RPF.579 Under the
agreement, which remained unsigned, the MRND would retain the presidency and would hold four
posts in the transition cabinet.580 The MDR and RPF would each get four posts as well, with the
position of prime minister going to the former and vice-prime minister to the latter. The rest of the
posts would go to the PL and the center-left PSD (three positions apiece), with two more posts yet
to be allocated.581
The reaction in Kigali was, at first, muted.582 Even as Radio Rwanda was reporting the
announcement, it was continuing to report on an MRND communiqué, pegged to a party meeting
just one day earlier, that accused the MDR-affiliated prime minister of spreading lies about the
MRND and hampering the peace process.583 “Thus,” a US cable reported, “everyone who heard
the radio on the evening of December 22 or the morning of December 23 knew there was
something amiss.”584
The MRND formally confirmed suspicions about its dissatisfaction with the deal the
morning after the announcement.585 In a statement, the party’s national secretary denigrated the
deal as unfair and criticized Ngulinzira for short-circuiting ongoing discussions between the
MRND and other parties.586 The statement left open the possibility that the MRND would refuse
to participate in the new government.587 It was fast becoming evident that Ngulinzira, in approving
the deal when he did, had been gambling that the MRND would come around. Even PL President
Justin Mugenzi, whose party would get three seats in the proposed cabinet, was willing to
acknowledge privately that the announcement had been premature and, in his words, “stupid.”588
Col. Bagosora, too, was unhappy that the foreign minister had not sought out his blessing
before accepting the deal.589 There could be little doubt that, had Ngulinzira done so, he would not
have assented to it. Bagosora had been adamant that the CDR must be represented in the
government, at one point pulling Belliard aside to make this clear.590 To deny the CDR a seat at
the table, he wrote in a 23 December letter to Ngulinzira, “does not take into account the political
reality in the country and risks creating a difficult situation to manage.”591
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1992
Negotiations in Arusha were not yet complete when Christmas rolled around. In particular,
the parties had yet to hash out a plan for integrating the military.592 By 26 December, though,
Bagosora had had enough. In a terse letter to President Habyarimana, Ngulinzira wrote that
Bagosora had walked out in the middle of a meeting and did not come back, having apparently
decided to return to Kigali.593 “I consider that he has just abandoned the mission you entrusted to
him and that disciplinary action should be taken against him,” the foreign minister wrote.594
Years later, at Bagosora’s trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, a
witness for the prosecution testified about an encounter he and two colleagues had with Bagosora
during the negotiations in Arusha before Christmas.595 The witness, a member of the RPF
delegation, recalled that, one day, while heading to lunch after a morning of negotiations, the three
colleagues came upon Bagosora in a hotel elevator, his suitcases in hand.596 When the witness
asked why Bagosora was heading home early, the colonel replied, ominously, that he “was going
to prepare the ‘apocalypse.’”597
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Notes to Chapter V
1
Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda, Case No. ICTR-97-23-S, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 39(vi) (Int’l Crim. Trib. for
Rwanda 4 Sep. 1998). Kambanda was the prime minister of the genocidal interim Rwandan government (8 April to
17 July 1994). He made this statement upon pleading guilty to genocide, among other crimes, in 1998.
2
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
3
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”). The minister of the interior was Faustin Munyazesa. See Gouvernements, representation
politique, principaux corps d’état, institutions de la société civile [Governments, Political Representation, Main Bodies
of State, Institutions of Civil Society] 5 (20 Mar. 2000).
4
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
5
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
6
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
7
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”) (“Faced with this situation, the AD contacted the Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie
[Rwagafilita] while emphasizing that this mission (at least on a judicial level) should have been incumbent upon the
Gendarmerie. If he agreed, he has nevertheless hid behind the argument of digital inadequacy of his personnel and
lack of their professional training.”); see also ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 141 (2019) (describing
Rwagafilita’s lack of professionalism).
8
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
9
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
10
Excerpt of Cable from Bernard Cussac, signed by Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “BRAVO: Arming of
civilian populations”).
11
See, e.g., Report from Military Assistance Mission to the Head of the Military Cooperation Mission (21 Oct. 1992)
(Subject: “Compte rendu semestrial de fonctionnement”) (noting the activities of the political parties’ militias);
Duclert Commission Report 159 AN/PR-BD, AG/5(4)/BD/58, Note du général Quesnot et Thierry de Beaucé [ce
dernier signe de façon manuscrite] au président de la République sous couvert du secrétaire général, 3 avril 1992.
12
MIP Tome I 99.
13
See Chapter V, Section I.
14
Letter from Alphonse Kibibi to Juvénal Habyarimana (7 Oct. 1991). In Kinyarwanda, the word interahamwe was
used to connote a coming together, such as in this quote from a 7 Oct. 1991 letter to Habyarimana: “This is how we
should behave in the difficult times we are going through. Difficult times for our Rwanda. [A]ll of us Rwandans should
continue to support the policy of peace and unity for all the people of Rwanda. Tutsi, Hutu, Twa and all those who
live in Rwanda, we must be those who come together [interahamwe] and do the job well, striving to promote the truth
by staying together as brothers.”
15
See Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 456-57;
Prosecutor v. Bagosora, Case No. ICTR-98-41, Expert witness report of Dr. Alison Des Forges 17 (3 Sept. 2002).
Some accounts suggest that the Interahamwe was created in response to the formation of militias by opposition parties,
such as the MDR’s Inkuba [Thunder]. See Prosecutor v. Karemera, Case No. ICTR-98-44-T, ¶¶ 182, 199 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 2 Feb. 2012); see also Prosecutor v. Bagosora, Case No. ICTR-98-41, Expert witness report of Dr.
Alison Des Forges 17 (3 Sept. 2002). Other accounts, like the 1993 FIDH commission, suggest that armed militia of
other parties were created in response to the Interahamwe. See Communique De Presse, FIDH Report (8 Mar. 1993),
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Chapter V
1992
in ASSOCIATION RWANDAISE POUR LA DEFENSE DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DES LIBERTES PUBLIQUES [RWANDAN
ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND PUBLIC LIBERTIES], RAPPORT SUR LES DROITS DE L’HOMME
AU RWANDA OCTOBRE 1992 - OCTOBRE 1993 [REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN RWANDA OCTOBER 1992 - OCTOBER
1993] 66 (1 Dec. 1993) (“Following the establishment of the Interahamwe, other political parties also organized
militias, which also engage in abuses and attacks.”).
16
Prosecutor v. Bagosora, Case No. ICTR-98-41, Expert witness report of Dr. Alison Des Forges 17 (3 Sept. 2002).
17
Memorandum from James Gasana 10 (6 June 1998) (Subject: “La Violence Politique au Rwanda 1991-1993”).
18
Prosecutor v. Bagosora, Case No. ICTR-98-41, Expert witness report of Dr. Alison Des Forges 17 (3 Sept. 2002).
19
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 12 (14 May 1992).
20
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 12 (14 May 1992).
21
Communique De Presse, FIDH Report (8 Mar. 1993), in ASSOCIATION RWANDAISE POUR LA DEFENSE DES DROITS
DE LA PERSONNE ET DES LIBERTES PUBLIQUES [RWANDAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND
PUBLIC LIBERTIES], RAPPORT SUR LES DROITS DE L’HOMME AU RWANDA OCTOBRE 1992 - OCTOBRE 1993 [REPORT ON
HUMAN RIGHTS IN RWANDA OCTOBER 1992 - OCTOBER 1993] 66 (1 Dec. 1993).
22
See, e.g., Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 457 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. For Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008) (“President Habyarimana made the first donation of 500,000 Rwandan francs
to the organization, which was used to purchase uniforms and to provide transport to meetings and rallies.”). A Belgian
intelligence official would later write, shortly before the Genocide, that “support from personalities of the
[Habyarimana] regime” enabled the Interahamwe to operate “with almost total impunity.” Rapport - Étude sur les
milices interahamwe préparée par le Major Hock [Report – Study on the Interahamwe Militias prepared by Major
Hock] 2 (2 Feb. 1994).
23
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 5-7 (14 May 1992).
24
The MRND originally filled the Interahamwe’s ranks with unemployed youth from in and around Kigali. See
Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 457 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008); see also HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 14 (1999) Of the
nearly 60 percent of Rwandans under the age of twenty, tens of thousands had little hope of obtaining the land needed
to establish their own households or the jobs necessary to provide for a family. Such young men, including many
displaced by the war and living in camps near the capital provided many of the early recruits to the Interahamwe,
trained in the months before and in the days immediately after the Ggenocide began.
25
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 5-6 (14 May 1992).
26
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 6-7 (14 May 1992).
27
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 10 (14 May 1992). See page 7 of the
same for Major Nkundiye, a battalion commander in the Presidential Guard, recruiting from within the Presidential
Guard for the Interahamwe and for Captain Pascal Simbikangwa doing the same within the Rwandan Service Central
de Renseignements.
28
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Exhibit 2D12 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 22
Feb. 1992).
29
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 278 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
30
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 259, 261 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003). Prior to the creation of the CDR, Barayagwiza (like all Rwandans before
multipartyism) was an MRND member. See Letter from Bonaventure Habimana, Secretary General of the MRND to
Juvénal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda 1 (5 Sept. 1990).
31
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 1052 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
32
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 1052 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
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Chapter V
1992
33
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶1052 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
34
JEAN-PIERRE CHRETIEN, JEAN-FRANCOIS DUPAQUIER, MARCEL KABANDA & JOSEPH NGARAMBE, RWANDA LES
MEDIAS DU GENOCIDE [RWANDA THE MEDIAS OF THE GENOCIDE] 95 (2002). The ICTR found that CDR co-founder
Jean Bosco Barayagwiza directed the Impuzamugambi to carry out massacres and other acts of violence on his orders.
See Prosecutor v. Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement, ¶¶ 706-720 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3
Dec. 2003).
35
Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda, Case No. ICTR-97-23-S, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 39(ii) (Int’l Crim. Trib. for
Rwanda 4 Sep. 1998).
36
Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda, Case No. ICTR-97-23-S, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 39(vi) (Int’l Crim. Trib. for
Rwanda 4 Sep. 1998).
37
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 179 (1999). According to the HRW report, “Once the
genocide began, there was virtually no distinction between Impuzamugambi and Interahamwe in the field.”
38
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
39
Broadcast Editorial, Radio Rwanda, Les Agresseurs du Rwanda se prépareraient à se livrer à des actes de terrorisme
et de déstabilisation des institutions étatiques sous leurs différents aspects [The Attackers of Rwanda Would Prepare
Themselves to Commit Acts of Terrorism and Destabilization of State Institutions in their Various Aspects] (3 Mar.
1992); see also Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 671
(Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003) (regarding Bamwanga reading the broadcast).
40
Broadcast Editorial, Les Agresseurs du Rwanda se prépareraient à se livrer à des actes de terrorisme et de
déstabilisation des institutions étatiques sous leurs différents aspects [The Attackers of Rwanda Would Prepare
Themselves to Commit Acts of Terrorism and Destabilization of State Institutions in their Various Aspects], RADIO
RWANDA, 3 Mar. 1992.
41
Broadcast Editorial, Les Agresseurs du Rwanda se prépareraient à se livrer à des actes de terrorisme et de
déstabilisation des institutions étatiques sous leurs différents aspects [The Attackers of Rwanda Would Prepare
Themselves to Commit Acts of Terrorism and Destabilization of State Institutions in their Various Aspects], RADIO
RWANDA, 3 Mar. 1992.
42
Broadcast Editorial, Les Agresseurs du Rwanda se prépareraient à se livrer à des actes de terrorisme et de
déstabilisation des institutions étatiques sous leurs différents aspects [The Attackers of Rwanda Would Prepare
Themselves to Commit Acts of Terrorism and Destabilization of State Institutions in their Various Aspects], RADIO
RWANDA, 3 Mar. 1992.
43
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 675 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003). The FIDH Report investigators later determined that the letter broadcast on Radio Rwanda
was fraudulent. That finding was echoed in the MIP, which reported that Rwandan officials, possibly Nahimana,
authored the false letter. MIP Tome I 98.
44
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 689 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
45
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 681 & 689 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
46
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 681 & 689 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
47
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 689 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003); see also Ferdinand Nahimana et al. v. Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, Appeals
Chamber Judgement, ¶ 1052 (28 Nov. 2007). The international tribunal sentenced Nahimana to life in prison in 2003
before an appeals court reduced his sentence to 30 years in 2007. Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Case No. MICT13-37-ES.1, ¶ 35. In 2016, he was released after serving two-thirds of the reduced sentence.
48
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶¶ 668, 681 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
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Chapter V
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49
Pierre Bucyensenge, Tales from Bugesera, Where Tutsis were ‘Exiled’, THE NEW TIMES (31 Mar. 2014). Bugesera,
as described in Bucyensenge’s article, was Rwanda’s version of the barren steppes where undesirables and the
politically suspect were deported throughout Soviet history. The communal violence that followed Belgium’s
departure in 1959 and Rwanda’s transformation into a one-party state founded on the principle of Hutu domination
left thousands of Tutsi dead and some 300,000 refugees dispersed internally and in neighboring countries. The
authorities often “replanted” internal refugees in Bugesera and a neighboring district, places of “dense forests, gigantic
savannah, wild animals and tse-tse flies,” and left them largely to fend for themselves. Many, especially the young
and old, succumbed to hunger and disease. The survivors erected makeshift grass huts and, though the region was hot
and dry, began to farm small plots of land. Three decades later, some had managed to carve out a modest prosperity,
owning cattle and family cars.
50
Pierre Bucyensenge, Tales from Bugesera, Where Tutsis Were ‘Exiled’, THE NEW TIMES (31 Mar. 2014).
51
FIDH Report 26 (1993).
52
FIDH Report 26 (1993). There were other signs of the violence ahead. By February 1992, the Interahamwe was
threatening the kind of violence that would come to characterize the coming massacres. See also Press Release, MDR
(12 Feb. 1992) (Subject: “Announcement No. 2”) (warning MDR members that the Interahamwe was stockpiling
traditional weapons like cudgels, swords, and commando rope); Press Release, MDR (25 Feb. 1992) (Subject:
“Announcement No. 4”) (updating the previous MDR notice, notifying its members that the Interahamwe was now
armed with grenades).
53
Press Release, MDR (12 Feb. 1992) (Subject: “Announcement No. 2”).
54
Press Release, MDR (25 Feb. 1992) (Subject: “Announcement No. 4”).
55
Anastase Gasana, Interahamwe za Muvoma or the MRND Party Hardliners 9-10 (14 May 1992); see also DANIELA
KROSLAK, THE FRENCH BETRAYAL OF RWANDA 38 (2008).
56
FIDH Report 27 (1993). See also id. at n.14. The FIDH points out that facilities to make photocopies of a document
(in this case the pamphlet) in Bugesera are virtually non-existent outside of government or party offices.
57
FIDH Report 28 (1993).
58
FIDH Report 27 (1993).
59
FIDH Report 27 (1993).
60
FIDH Report 27 (1993).
61
FIDH Report 27 (1993).
62
FIDH Report 27 (1993).
63
MIP Tome I 97.
64
Thousands Still Displaced After Tribal Clashes, AFP, 27 Mar. 1992.
65
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 72 (1999). Notably, human rights reports claimed that
Rwandan military joined forces with the Interahamwe at Bugesera. During the massacres, “soldiers in civilian dress
joined groups of killers while others in uniform disarmed Tutsi and kept them cornered until the killing teams could
arrive.”
66
DANIELA KROSLAK, THE FRENCH BETRAYAL OF RWANDA 38 (2008).
67
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.
68
See, e.g., DANIELA KROSLAK, THE FRENCH BETRAYAL OF RWANDA 38 (2008).
69
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
70
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
71
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
72
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
73
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
74
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
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75
Rwanda Imposes Curfew in Area of Ethnic Fighting, REUTERS, 8 Mar. 1992. The article reported that, according to
witnesses, “bands of Hutus armed with machetes, spears, and clubs were still roaming the mountainous area,” several
days after the violence started.
76
Rwanda Imposes Curfew in Area of Ethnic Fighting, REUTERS, 8 Mar. 1992; Toll of Tribal Fighting in Rwanda
‘Could Be 300’, AFP, 8 Mar. 1992.
77
Arson, Looting Leaves 3,000 Tutsi Refugees, 10 Dead, AFP, 7 Mar. 1992.
78
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
79
Cable from George Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
80
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992).
81
Duclert Commission Report 153 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 989/57, Msg n°115 AD/RWA, 9 Mar. 1992). A French
military intelligence report on 13 March 1992 described the massacres, similarly, as an “anti-Tutsi pogrom.” Id.
(quoting SHD, GR 2000 Z 131/14, Fiche n° 8981 DEF/EMA/CERM2, 13 Mar. 1992).
82
Duclert Commission Report 153 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 989/57, Msg n°115 AD/RWA, 9 Mar. 1992).
83
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
84
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
85
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
86
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992. As a March 1992 letter from 13
Rwandan expatriates in Nairobi sent to President Mitterrand after the Bugesera massacres would reiterate: “The
presence of your troops . . . does not have the effect of tempering the murderous ardor of Rwandan civil and military
authorities against innocent populations.” MONIQUE MAS, PARIS-KIGALI 1990-1994 92 (1999). French officials
intended French troops to serve as a deterrent of the RPF, but the attackers of unarmed Tutsi did not see these troops’
presence as a reason to restrain themselves.
87
PIERRE PEAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA
1990-1994] 104 (2005).
88
PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA
1990-1994] 104-05 (2005).
89
PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA
1990-1994] 105 (2005).
90
PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA
1990-1994] 105 (2005).
91
PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA
1990-1994] 105 (2005).
92
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
93
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
94
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
95
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
96
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
97
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
98
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State 1-2 (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “GOR Seeks Emergency
Assistance”).
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1992
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State 6 (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “GOR Seeks Emergency Assistance”).
100
Cable from Johan Swinnen (7 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles sérieux dans le Bugesera”).
101
Cable from Johan Swinnen (7 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles sérieux dans le Bugesera”).
102
Cable from Johan Swinnen 1 (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”) The Canadian consul
and a representative of the papal nuncio also made trips to Nyamata that day.
103
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”).
104
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”).
105
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”).
106
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”).
107
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.”, is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
108
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Ethnische onlusten in de Bugesera”).
109
Cable from Johan Swinnen (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Onlusten Bugesera”).
110
Cable from Johan Swinnen (8 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Émeute ethnique - demarche aurpés des autroités
Rwandiases”).
111
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
112
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
113
Cable from Francois Ngarukiyintwali 1 (10 Mar. 1992).
114
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
115
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
116
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
117
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
118
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (13 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Prime Minister Comments on Politics
and Bugesera”).
119
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
120
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Demarche to President Habyarimana
on Bugesera and Democracy”).
121
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.”, is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda.
122
Duclert Commission Report 321 (citing SHD, GR 2003Z 989 57, Fiche n° 898 57, 13 Mar. 1992).
123
Duclert Commission Report 321 (quoting SHD, GR 2003Z 989 57, Fiche n° 898 57, 13 Mar. 1992).
124
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (13 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Prime Minister Comments on Politics
and Bugesera”).
125
Cable from Johan Swinnen (12 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Onlusten in Rwanda”).
126
Memorandum from Donat Hakizimana to Juvénal Habyarimana (7 Feb. 1992). (Subject: “Note à Son Excellence
Monsieur le Président de la République sur la mise en place des cadres de l'Administration Centrale et des Société
mixtes”).
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127
Shyirambere J. Barahinyura, 1973-1988 Le Major-General Habyarimana, quinze ans de tyrannie et de tartuferie
au Rwanda [1973-1988 The Major-General Habyarimana, Fifteen Years of Tyranny and Hypocrisy] 84-85 (1988)
(reproducing Birara’s 1979 letter).
128
Cable from Johan Swinnen (12 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Onlusten in Rwanda”).
129
Cable from Johan Swinnen (12 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Onlusten in Rwanda”).
130
Cable from Johan Swinnen (12 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Onlusten in Rwanda”); see also Cable from Johan Swinnen
(27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”).
131
Cable from Johan Swinnen (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”).
132
Cable from Johan Swinnen (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”)
133
Cable from Johan Swinnen (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”).
134
Cable from Johan Swinnen 2 (27 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”).
135
See, e.g., FIDH Report 28 (1993); ASSOCIATION RWANDAISE POUR LA DEFENSE DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET
DES LIBERTES PUBLIQUES [RWANDAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND PUBLIC LIBERTIES],
RAPPORT SUR LES DROITS DE L’HOMME AU RWANDA OCTOBRE 1992 - OCTOBRE 1993 [REPORT ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN
RWANDA OCTOBER 1992 - OCTOBER 1993] 139 (1 Dec. 1993).
136
Report from Alain Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992 [Activity Report:
Period from 1 April to 30 September 1992] 4 (14 Oct. 1992).
137
Report from Bernard Cussac, Bilan de l’Assistance Militaire Technique Gendarmerie au Rwanda [Assessment of
Gendarmerie Military Technical Assistance in Rwanda] 4 (9 Oct. 1992); see also Letter from Bernard Cussac to
Augustin Bizimana (25 July 1991) (Subject: “autorisation d’importation et de detention d’armes”); Report from Alain
Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992 [Activity Report: Period from 1 April
to 30 September 1992] 17 (14 Oct. 1992); Report from Philippe Capodanno, Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa
Mission au Rwanda (3 – 6 novembre 1992) [Report of Colonel Capodanno on his Mission in Rwanda (3 – 6 November
1992)] 7 (10 Nov. 1992).
138
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”); see also Note from Paul Dijoud (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la
politique de la France”). The MIP report includes a revised version of Dijoud’s note, which bears some slight—but
telling—differences. That version, dated 11 March 1992, is softer in tone. There, one can find passing references to
France’s “effort to help this country end the crisis” and to its hope of “[t]ruly taking responsibility” for refugees. Most
notably, it acknowledges that “violence . . . is multiplying against Tutsi populations which are deemed to be close to
the rebels.” The 10 March note contains none of these statements.
139
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”).
140
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”).
141
MIP Tome I 184.
142
Report from Jean Varret, Compte rendu de mission au Rwanda et au Burundi [Report of mission to Rwanda and
to Burundi] 9 (27 May 1992).
143
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”).
144
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”). Dijoud’s plan had two other points. First, he called for France—and, “if necessary,” other Western
countries—to “exert strong pressure on Uganda and in particular on President Museveni to play a more positive role
in seeking peace.” Second, UNHCR’s proposals to resolve the region’s refugee “problem” should “finally see the light
of day” (though, Dijoud wrote, there should be a common understanding that a fix will take some time—more than a
few months, certainly).
145
Note from Paul Dijoud (10 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Nécessité de réaffirmer et préciser la politique de la
France”).
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146
Excerpt of cable from W.B. to unknown recipient (11 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Troubles inter-ethniques dans le
Bugesera”). “W.B.” is likely William Bunel, counselor to the French Ambassador to Rwanda. The cable on 11 March
reported that the situation was still not yet under control.
147
Italian Nun Killed in Rwanda, AFP, 10 Mar. 1992. This AFP and several other news reports of her death
misidentified Locattelli as a “nun,” but she was a lay missionary. See PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS
MENTEURS: RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS: RWANDA 1990-1994] 105 (2005).
148
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 139 n.20 (1995).
149
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 139 n.20 (1995).
150
Memorandum from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvénal Habyarimana 5 (approximate date 13 May 1992) (Subject:
“Visite du Ministre français de la Coopération et du Développement au Rwanda).
151
Italian Nun Killed in Rwanda, AFP, 10 Mar. 1992.
152
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
153
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
154
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
155
Transcript, Interview by RFI with George Martres in JEUNE AFRIQUE, 9 Mar. 1992.
156
Account taken from interview by LFM with Immaculée Songa.
157
Cable from Georges Martres (9 Mar. 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
158
See Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 668 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003); see also MIP Tome I 98 (reporting rumors of Nahimana’s involvement in creating the
leaflet).
159
See Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 1092 & 1105
(Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003). Nahimana was sentenced to life in prison. However, in 2007, an
international tribunal reduced his sentence to 30 years on appeal. Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No.
ICTR-99-52-A, Judgement, (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 28 Nov. 2007) In 2016, he was released after serving twothirds of the reduced sentence. Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. MICT-13-37-ES.1, Decision of the
President on the Early Release of Ferdinand Nahimana, ¶ 38 (Mechanism for Int’l Crim. Tribs. 5 Dec. 2016).
160
See Justin Hategekimana, Hategekimana Justin yaba atishimiye imikorere ya bamwe mu bavugir’a kuri RadioRwanda, [Hategekimana Justin Might Not Be Happy with the Work of Some Radio Rwanda Reporters/Journalists]
KANGURA 7, 10-11 (Dec. 1990). Nahimana succeeded Christophe Mfizi at ORINFOR sometime before the end of
1990. See Letter from Ferdinand Nahimana to Juvénal Habyarimana (14 Apr. 1992). Nahimana remained at
ORINFOR until at least 14 April 1992, although his last day there is unclear.
161
Thomas Kamilindi, Journalism in a Time of Hate Media, in THOMPSON ET AL., THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA
GENOCIDE 136 (2007); see also American Cultural Center at the United States Embassy in Kigali, Media Situation in
Rwanda 19 (10 Jan. 1992) (“It may even be that private radio stations will start up and break Radio Rwanda’s
stranglehold on the most important medium in the country.”). While the RPF’s radio station, Radio Muhabura, was
received in Rwanda, it broadcast from Uganda.
162
American Cultural Center at the United States Embassy in Kigali, Media Situation in Rwanda 18 (10 Jan. 1992).
Kangura reported that RTLM began broadcasting on 8 July 1993.
163
American Cultural Center at the United States Embassy in Kigali, Media Situation in Rwanda 18-19 (10 Jan. 1992)
(noting “Radio Rwanda’s stranglehold on the most important medium in the country”); Prosecutor v. Ferdinand
Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 342-343 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec.
2003) (“Radio was increasingly important as a source of information as well as entertainment and a focus of social
life. . . . [Y]oung people could always be seen on the street with a radio listening to RTLM and . . . the broadcasts
were a common topic of conversation in homes, offices and on the street. . . . [P]eople listened to RTLM in bars and
at work, and . . . you could hear it in taxis and at the market. . . . [O]ne would find little radios in offices, cafes, bars
and other public fathering places, even in taxis.”).
164
Habyarimana Announces Multiparty State by June, AFP, 21 Apr. 1991.
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165
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 342 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
166
Accord of Radio Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of FRANCE and the Government of the
Republic of Rwanda, Rw. – Fr. (1962); see also Thomas Kamilindi, Journalism in a Time of Hate Media, in
THOMPSON ET AL., THE MEDIA AND THE RWANDA GENOCIDE 136 (2007). It is sometimes falsely reported that it began
broadcasting in 1963. See American Cultural Center at the United States Embassy in Kigali, Media Situation in
Rwanda 18 (10 Jan. 1992)
167
Accord of Radio Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of FRANCE and the Government of the
Republic of Rwanda, Rw. – Fr. (1962).
168
Accord of Radio Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of FRANCE and the Government of the
Republic of Rwanda, Rw. – Fr. (1962).
169
See American Cultural Center at the United States Embassy in Kigali, Media Situation in Rwanda 18-19 (10 Jan.
1992).
170
FERDINAND NAHIMANA, DES LIGNANGES AUX ROYAUMES ET DES ROYAUMES AUX CHEFFERIES: HISTOIRE SOCIOPOLITIQUE DES REGIONS PERIPHERIQUES NORD ET NORD-OUEST DU RWANDA ACTUEL, DU 16EME SIECLE A 1931 [FROM
LINEAGES TO KINGDOMS AND FROM KINGDOMS TO CHIEFDOMS: A SOCIO-POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE NORTH AND
NORTHWEST PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF RWANDA FROM THE 16TH CENTURY TO 1931], DOCTORAL DISS. UNIVERSITÉ
PARIS VII, 1986.
171
FERDINAND NAHIMANA, DES LIGNANGES AUX ROYAUMES ET DES ROYAUMES AUX CHEFFERIES: HISTOIRE SOCIOPOLITIQUE DES REGIONS PERIPHERIQUES NORD ET NORD-OUEST DU RWANDA ACTUEL, DU 16EME SIECLE A 1931 [FROM
LINEAGES TO KINGDOMS AND FROM KINGDOMS TO CHIEFDOMS: A SOCIO-POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE NORTH AND
NORTHWEST PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF RWANDA FROM THE 16TH CENTURY TO 1931], DOCTORAL DISS. UNIVERSITÉ
PARIS VII, 1986.
172
Interview by LFM with Christophe Mfizi; CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RÉSEAU ZÉRO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DÉMOCRATIE
ET DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (1975–1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE
REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 10-11 (2006).
173
CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RÉSEAU ZÉRO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DÉMOCRATIE ET DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (1975–
1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 10-11
(2006).
174
CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RÉSEAU ZÉRO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DÉMOCRATIE ET DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (1975–
1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 4, 8, 11
(2006).
175
CHRISTOPHE MFIZI, LE RÉSEAU ZÉRO: FOSSOYEUR DE LA DÉMOCRATIE ET DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE AU RWANDA (1975–
1994) [THE ZERO NETWORK: GRAVEDIGGER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE REPUBLIC IN RWANDA (1975-1994)] 67 – 68
(2006).
176
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 691 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
177
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-T, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 689 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. for Rwanda 3 Dec. 2003).
178
Association Rwandaise pour la Défense des Droits de la Personne et des Libertés Publiques, Déclaration sur les
massacres en cours de la population de la région du Bugesera [Declaration on the Ongoing Massacres of the
Population of the Bugesera Region] (10 Mar. 1992). The statement said, “We particularly disapprove of the spreading
of fake communiques and other leaflets by the national radio, which, by doing so, is acting as an effective conduit for
the fascists of that country, and which is thereby making itself co-responsible for the loss of human lives through its
calls for interethnic hatred and division.” See Cable from Ambassador Johan Swinnen (March 10, 1992) (showing
Belgian Ambassador Johan Swinnen forwarding the statement to Brussels on 10 March 1992).
179
Press Release, MDR, Halte au massacre des innocents [Stop the Massacre of Innocents] (11 Mar. 1992).
180
See Letter from Ferdinand Nahimana to Juvénal Habyarimana 5 (14 Apr. 1992).
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181
Mission Report of the Ministry of Information in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany,
December 9 – 19, 1992 Ndengejeho (1 Feb. 1993).
182
Mission Report of the Ministry of Information in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany,
December 9 – 19, 1992 (1 Feb. 1993).
183
Interview by LFM with Christophe Mfizi.
184
Interview by LFM with Christophe Mfizi.
185
See Report by Missionnaires d’Afrique, 19 Apr. 1992; Marie-France Cros, Rwanda: la balle est dans le camp du
Président [Rwanda: the Ball is in the President's Court], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 12 Mar. 1992.
186
Report by Missionnaires d’Afrique, 19 Apr. 1992.
187
Report by Missionnaires d’Afrique, 19 Apr. 1992.
188
Report by Missionnaires d’Afrique, 19 Apr. 1992.
189
Gouvernements, representation politique, principaux corps d’état, institutions de la société civile [Governments,
Political Representation, Main Bodies of State, Institutions of Civil Society] 5-6 (30 Mar. 2000). The MDR, Parti
Liberal (PL), and Social Democrats (PSD) each received three seats, while the Christian Democratic Party (PDC)
received one. Habyarimana’s party, the MRND, did at least retain some of the most powerful posts in the cabinet,
including minister of the interior (Faustin Munyazesa, a holdover from the previous cabinet) and minister of defense,
which passed from Augustin Ndindiliyimana to the moderate James Gasana.
190
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 145-146 (1995).
191
GÉRARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS 145-146 (1995).
192
Cable from the US Embassy in Kigali to US Secretary of State 2 (21 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Internal Insecurity: An
Ongoing Problem”).
193
Six People Seriously Injured in Bomb Attack in Kigali, AFP, 25 Apr. 1992.
194
President’s Party Accused Over Blast, AFP, 2 May 1992.
195
Fresh Bomb Attack in Rwanda, AFP, 7 May 1992.
196
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
197
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
198
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
199
ROMÉO DALLAIRE, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL 245, 248 (2003).
200
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
201
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
202
Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
203
Press Release, RPF, La Caution militaire française du régime MRND [The French Military Guarantor of the MRND
Regime] (9 June 1992).
204
Colette Braeckman, Des militaires rwandais en colère se livrent au pillage à Gisenyi [Angry Rwandan Soldiers
Turn to Looting in Gisenyi], LE SOIR, 1 June 1992.
205
Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of Terrorism Perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 7, 9 (31 May 1992).
206
Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of Terrorism Perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 7, 9 (31 May 1992).
207
Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of Terrorism Perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 8 – 9 (31 May 1992).
208
Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of Terrorism Perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 8 (31 May 1992).
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209
Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of Terrorism Perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 9 (31 May 1992).
210
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
211
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
212
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
213
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
214
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
215
Memorandum from François Munyengango to James Gasana (11 May 1992).
216
Report from Bernard Cussac, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities
of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990], 5 (14 May 1992). At the Rwandan government’s urging,
France had opened a second training site in the northeastern community of Gabiro to accommodate units fighting in
that region. See Cable from the French Ministry of Defense (5 Sept. 1991) (Subject: “Emploi du DAMI/RWANDA
(PANDA)”; Cable from Dominique Delort (26 Dec. 1991) (Subject: “Visite de l’Amiral CEMA au Rwanda du 23 au
25 decembre”). There, the instructors sought mainly to prepare their trainees for nighttime operations. Chollet’s
successor as commander of the DAMI, Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Louis Nabias, felt it was important, as well, to teach
the units how to properly effect circumvention maneuvers, as all of their offensives, to that point, had been frontal
attacks. His methods seemed at first to work. In a memo that month, Col. Cussac boasted that, on several instances,
the trainings in Mukamira and Gabiro proved their worth, as freshly trained Rwandan units obtained “brilliant results”
on the battlefield. See MIP Tome I 152; Report from Bernard Cussac, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire
depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990] 5 (14 May 1992).
217
MIP Tome I 152.
218
Report, Situation de la coopération militaire franco-rwandaise [Status of French-Rwandan Military Cooperation]
(21 Oct. 1992).
219
Transcript of an Interahamwe protest in front of the Office of the Prime Minister in Kigali 2 (28 May 1992); Press
Release, MRND and Interahamwe (28 May 1992).
220
Transcript of an Interahamwe protest in front of the Office of the Prime Minister in Kigali 2 (28 May 1992).
221
Transcript of an Interahamwe protest in front of the Office of the Prime Minister in Kigali 2 (28 May 1992); Letter
from MRND National Secretary Matthieu Ngirumpatse to Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye, “Brutalités contre
des militants du MRND,” (May 30, 1992).
222
Transcript of an Interahamwe protest in front of the Office of the Prime Minister in Kigali 2 (28 May 1992).
223
Press Release, MRND and Interahamwe (28 May 1992).
224
Colette Braeckman, L’Opposition rencontre les “rebelles” [The Opposition Meets the “Rebels”], LE SOIR, 30 May
1992.
225
Colette Braeckman, L’Opposition rencontre les “rebelles” [The Opposition Meets the “Rebels”], LE SOIR, 30 May
1992.
226
Marie-France Cros, Opposition et guérilla rwandaise: “Nous nous sommes découverts” [Opposition and Rwandan
Guerrilla Fighters: “We Discovered Each Other”], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 12, 2 June 1992.
227
Marie-France Cros, Opposition et guérilla rwandaise: “Nous nous sommes découverts” [Opposition and Rwandan
Guerrilla Fighters: “We Discovered Each Other”], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 12, 2 June 1992.
228
Marie-France Cros, Opposition et guérilla rwandaise: “Nous nous sommes découverts” [Opposition and Rwandan
Guerrilla Fighters: “We Discovered Each Other”], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 12, 2 June 1992.
229
Colette Braeckman, L’Opposition rencontre les “rebelles” [The Opposition Meets the “Rebels”], LE SOIR, 30 May
1992.
230
Colette Braeckman, L’Opposition rencontre les “rebelles” [The Opposition Meets the “Rebels”], LE SOIR, 30 May
1992.
231
Bagarres meurtrières [Deadly Brawls], REUTERS, 1 June 1992.
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232
Colette Braeckman, Des militaires rwandais en colère se livrent au pillage à Gisenyi [Angry Rwandan Soldiers
Loot in Gisenyi], LE SOIR, 1 June 1992; Marie-France Cros, Opposition et guérilla rwandaise: “Nous nous sommes
découverts” [Opposition and Rwandan Guerrillas: “We Discovered Each Other”], LA LIBRE BELGIQUE, 12, 2 June
1992.
233
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (1 June 1992) (Subject: “Tensions in Rwanda”).
234
Colette Braeckman, Des militaires rwandais en colère se livrent au pillage à Gisenyi [Angry Rwandan Soldiers
Turn to Looting in Gisenyi], LE SOIR, 1 June 1992.
235
Colette Braeckman, Des militaires rwandais en colère se livrent au pillage à Gisenyi [Angry Rwandan Soldiers
Turn to Looting in Gisenyi], LE SOIR, 1 June 1992.
236
Cable from Georges Martres (5 June 1992) (Subject: “Appel du Président Habyarimana”).
237
Report from Marc Verschoore, Rwanda (Synthèse) 9 (18 Jan. 1993); Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992)
(Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
238
See Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake; Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe. The RPF
announced at the time that it had attacked Byumba to head off a FAR offensive following the buildup of forces and
weaponry there. See Press Release, RPF (5 June 1992).
239
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake. See also Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe (“[W]e had
not launched the attack to capture towns but to create impact to force the government to go back to the negotiating
table.”). The day of the offensive, 5 June, was the date RPF and government delegations were scheduled to meet for
talks in Paris. See Cable from Walter Curley Jr. to the US Embassy in Kigali (5 June 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda talks
in Paris: DAS DAVIDOW meeting with Quai Africa director Dijoud”).
240
See Cable from Robert Flaten to US Embassy in Dar es Salaam (8 July 1992) (Subject: “GOR-RPF Peace Talks”)
(“The RPF attack on Byumba town on June 5 . . . has had a profound effect on Rwandan politics. For the first time
since the invasion in October 1990, Rwandans have had to face the possibility that the RPF might actually win
militarily.”).
241
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake
242
Letter from Bernard Cussac to Jacques Lanxade (25 May 1992) (Subject: “Synthèse bimensuelle mars et avril
1992”).
243
Letter from Bernard Cussac to Jacques Lanxade (25 May 1992) (Subject: “Synthèse bimensuelle mars et avril
1992”).
244
Letter from Bernard Cussac to Jacques Lanxade (25 May 1992) (Subject: “Synthèse bimensuelle mars et avril
1992”).
245
Letter from Bernard Cussac to Jacques Lanxade (25 May 1992) (Subject: “Synthèse bimensuelle mars et avril
1992”).
246
Report from Bernard Cussac, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities
of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990] 3 (14 May 1992).
247
Report from Bernard Cussac, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities
of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990] 3 (14 May 1992).
248
Report from Bernard Cussac, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities
of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990] 3 (14 May 1992).
249
Report from Bernard Cussac, defense attaché to the French Embassy in Kigali, Activités de la Mission d’Assistance
Militaire depuis le 1er Octobre 1990 [Activities of the Military Assistance Mission since October 1, 1990] 3 (14 May
1992) (ellipsis in original).
250
Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
251
Cable from Georges Martres (5 June 1992) (Subject: “Appel du Président Habyarimana”). Habyarimana, as was
his habit, said the attack had been “launched by President Museveni.”
252
Cable from Georges Martres (5 June 1992) (Subject: “Appel du Président Habyarimana”).
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253
Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”); Stephen Smith, La Guerre secrète
de l’Élysée en Afrique de l’Est [The Élysée’s Secret War in East Africa], LIBÉRATION, 11 June 1992 (reporting the
number of troops as 150).
254
Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
255
Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
256
Meeting Notes Taken at the Cabinet Meeting Held on 9 June 1992 (9 June 1992); see also Cable from Robert
Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 June 1992) (Subject: “Council of Ministers retires top military officers”) (“[T]he
GOR announced today, 10 June, that the Council of ministers has taken the decision to reorganize the Armed Forces.”).
257
MIP Audition of Georges Martres, Tome III, Vol. 1, 140.
258
Cable from Bernard Cussac (10 June 1992) (Subject: “Changements a La Tete Des Armees Rwandaises”).
259
See Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence (Int’l Crim. Trib.
For Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008).
260
See Cable from Bernard Cussac (10 June 1992) (Subject: “Changements a La Tete Des Armees Rwandaises”);
Letter from James Gasana to Déogratias Nsabimana and Augustin Ndindiliyimana (12 June 1992) (Subject:
“Organigramme du Ministère de la Defense”).
261
Cable from Bernard Cussac and Georges Martres (10 June 1992) (Subject: “Changements a La Tete Des Armees
Rwandaises”).
262
See MIP Tome I 104-05.
263
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 June 1992) (Subject: “Council of Ministers Retires Top
Military Officers”).
264
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 June 1992) (Subject: “Council of Ministers Retires Top
Military Officers”).
265
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 June 1992) (Subject: “Council of Ministers Retires Top
Military Officers”).
266
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 June 1992) (Subject: “Council of Ministers Retires Top
Military Officers”).
267
Memorandum from Déogratias Nsabimana 2 (21 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Diffusion d’information”). The document
had been prepared by a 10-person committee appointed in December 1991 by Rwandan military leaders. Nsabimana,
in circulating the document, asked recipients to disseminate it “widely[,] drawing particular attention to the chapter
on the definition of the enemy, his identification as well as on his recruitment locations.”
268
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
269
AFP, L’Envoi de renforts au Rwanda ne vise qu’à assurer la sécurite des ressortissants etrangers, selon le Quai
d’Orsay [Sending Support to Rwanda is Only to Ensure Security of Foreigners, According to the Quai d’Orsay] (11
June 1992) (“Paris had ‘no other objective than to help the country [Rwanda] move towards democracy’”); Guerre
d’octobre, DIALOGUE No. 157, 48 (Aug. 1992).
270
Press Release, RPF, La Caution militaire française du régime MRND [The French Military Guarantor of the MRND
Regime] (9 June 1992).
271
Stephen Smith, La Guerre secrète de l’Élysée en Afrique de l’Est [The Élysée’s Secret War in East Africa],
LIBÉRATION, 11 June 1992.
272
Stephen Smith, La Guerre secrète de l’Élysée en Afrique de l’Est [The Élysée’s Secret War in East Africa],
LIBÉRATION, 11 June 1992.
273
Jean-François Dupaquier, La France au chevet d’un fascisme africain [France at the Bedside of African Fascism],
L’ÉVÈNEMENT DU JEUDI, 25 June 1992.
274
Jean-François Dupaquier, La France au chevet d’un fascisme africain [France at the Bedside of African Fascism],
L’ÉVÈNEMENT DU JEUDI, 25 June 1992.
275
Jean-François Dupaquier, La France au chevet d’un fascisme africain [France at the Bedside of African Fascism],
L’ÉVÈNEMENT DU JEUDI, 25 June 1992.
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276
Jean-François Dupaquier, La France au chevet d’un fascisme africain [France at the Bedside of African Fascism],
L’ÉVÈNEMENT DU JEUDI, 25 June 1992.
277
MONIQUE MAS, PARIS-KIGALI 1990-1994 65 (1999).
278
Letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the French Embassy in Kigali (3 Feb. 1992).
279
Press Release, Union du Peuple Rwandais (UPR), Communiqué du Parti Union du Peuple Rwandais (UPR) sur la
nomination du Lieutenant-Colonel Chollet comme conseilleur du president rwandais et de son chef d’état-major
[Communiqué from the Rwandan People’s Union Party (UPR) on the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel Chollet as
adviser to the Rwandan president and his chief of staff] (24 Feb. 1992).
280
Press Release, MDR, Communiqué no. 9 (14 Feb. 1992).
281
Adrien Rangira, Rwanda uragana he? [Where Are You Heading, Rwanda?], KANGUKA 53, 4 (25 Feb. 1992); see
also Birakomeye! [Be Cautious!], UMURANGI 006, 8 (26 Feb. 1992) (accusing the Rwandan Army of betraying the
country).
282
Pas de fonctions de conseiller auprès du président [No Advisory Functions to the Rwandan President for the Head
of the French Military Assistance Mission], AFP, 28 Feb. 1992.
283
MIP Tome I 137, 158; Principales actions de la MMC au profit des FAR depuis octobre 1990 [Main actions of the
MCM for the benefit of the FAR since October 1990], 9 (undated). President Mitterrand reportedly decided in April
1991 to make Canovas’ position permanent. See Letter from Casimir Bizimungu to Juvénal Habyarimana (25 Apr.
1991).
284
MIP Tome I 158. The MIP report would treat Chollet’s departure on 3 March 1992, just a few weeks after the leak
of the Rwandan Foreign Ministry’s letter, as proof that the letter’s assertion that Chollet was advising Habyarimana
and the FAR’s chief of staff was inaccurate. See id. at 158-159.
285
MIP Tome I 159; see Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa Mission au Rwanda (3 – 6 novembre 1992) [Report
of Colonel Capodanno on his Mission in Rwanda (3 – 6 November 1992)] 3 (10 Nov. 1992).
286
Duclert Commission Report 158.
287
Duclert Commission Report 157 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/7, Draft letter of mission of Lt cl Maurin, 17 Apr.
1992).
288
Stephen Smith, La Guerre secrète de l’Élysée en Afrique de l’Est [The Élysée’s Secret War in East Africa],
LIBÉRATION, 11 June 1992.
289
Jean-François Dupaquier, La France au chevet d’un fascisme africain [France at the Bedside of African Fascism],
L’ÉVÈNEMENT DU JEUDI, 25 June 1992.
290
Duclert Commission Report 696 (quoting ADIPLO, 610COOP/2, Note to the Minister for Cooperation and
Development, [April 1992], pp. 2-3).
291
Duclert Commission Report 158 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/7, MSG NMR 3100/DEF/EMA/EMP3, 26 February
1991 and 9003 Z 17/16 Directive NMR 3145/DEF/EMA/EMP.3, 20 March 1991). As Serabuga’s advisor, Maurin
was “integrated into the heart of the Rwandan army.” Id. at 167. Maurin was “working on the reorganization or creation
of several units focused on intelligence, a very well-known weakness of the FAR.” Id. But, “Maurin remained far
from the sensitive areas of the front, which seemed to be hidden from him” and Habyarimana, initially, did not meet
with Maurin. Id. The Duclert Commission posited that whatever arms-length treatment Maurin received may have
been the result of Maurin’s close proximity to Serabuga, who Habyarimana would soon remove from his position. Id.
The Duclert Commission suggested also that the FAR attempted to shield Maurin from its “desertions and poor
command.” Id.
292
Report from Marc Verschoore 9 (18 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”); Cable from Georges Martres (7 June 1992)
(Subject: “Situation au Rwanda”).
293
Muyco Report 50-51.
294
MIP Tome I 154.
295
Journal Officiel de la Republique française n°154, Décret du 5 juillet 1993 portant promotion et nomination
[Decree of 5 July 1993 on Promotion and Appointment] 1 (6 July 1993); see also LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS
PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 820-821 (2019).
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296
PIERRE SERVENT, LES PRÉSIDENTS ET LA GUERRE [PRESIDENTS AND WAR] 126-127 (2017); see also Didier Philippi
et l’Amicale des Elephants noirs, Histoire abrégée des operations de la CPIMa au Tchad 1969-1972 [A Brief History
of CPIMa Operations in Chad 1969-1972], REVUE MILITARIA N° 404, May 2019. Didier Philippi et l’Amicale des
Elephants noirs, Histoire abrégée des operations de la CPIMa au Tchad 1969-1972 [A Brief History of CPIMa
Operations in Chad 1969-1972], REVUE MILITARIA N° 404, 7 May 2019. Rosier was a lieutenant in the Marine
Infantry Paratroopers Company (Compagnie Parachutiste d’Infanterie de Marine, or CPIMa) in 1971, when he took
charge of his own commando unit in Chad. He remained in Chad with the CPIMa until 1975; Jacques Rosier, Combats
au Tchad, Tchad – Juin 1971, Kouroudi [Fighting in Chad, Chad – June 1971, Kouroudi], AMICALE DES ANCIENS DE
LA COMPAGNIE PARACHUTISTE D’INFANTERIE DE MARINE DE L’EX-AFRIQUE EQUATORIALE FRANCAISE, 13, 18 June
1971.
297
See NATHANIEL K. POWELL, FRANCE'S WARS IN CHAD: MILITARY INTERVENTION AND DECOLONIZATION IN AFRICA
225-262 (2021); DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 51 (2011). See also JEAN-CLAUDE LAFOURCADE & GUILLAUME
RIFFAUD, OPÉRATION TURQUOISE 69 (2010).
298
LAURENT LARCHER, RWANDA: ILS PARLENT [RWANDA: SPEAKING UP] 820-821 (2019).
299
JACQUES ROSIER, RAPPORT, NMR 001/TURQUOISE/ DET COS (27 July 1994).
300
BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE
FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 101-102 (2005) (Interviewing Jacques Rosier).
301
Loïc Salmon, Dans les livres: l’Escadron Bleu par Dominique Delort [In the Books: The Blue Squad by Dominique
Delort], June 2018; see also Didier Philippi et l’Amicale des Elephants noirs, Histoire abrégée des operations de la
CPIMa au Tchad 1969-1972 [A Brief History of CPIMa Operations in Chad 1969 – 1972], REVUE MILITARIA N° 404,
6-8, 7 May 2019.
302
BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE
FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 101-102 (2005); see also Letter from James Gasana to Juvénal Habyarimana (23 Aug.
1992) (Subject: “Proposition de Décoration”).
303
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (22 June 1992).
304
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
305
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (22 June 1992).
306
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (22 June 1992).
307
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (22 June 1992).
308
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (26 June 1992) (Subject: “Instruction sur les canons 105 mm”).
309
BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE
FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 102 (2005).
310
See Duclert Commission Report 176; BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE
RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 102 (2005).
FRANÇAISE ET LE
311
Duclert Commission Report 177 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/8, Fax 2995/COA/A, 26 June 1992).
312
Duclert Commission Report 177 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/8, Fax 2995/COA/A, 26 June 1992).
313
See Duclert Commission Report 181 (“Clearly, our ‘semi-direct’ aid, as I had initially told [a Rwandan official],
was only temporary” (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/9, Fm Rosier to Mercier “strictly private,” 24 July 1992)); id. at
231 (observing “the transition from indirect to semi-direct support” in the summer of 1992).
314
BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE
FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 102 (2005); see also Mucyo Report 421-422 (2008).
315
BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANCOIS MITTERRAND, THE
FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 102 (2005); see also Mucyo Report 421-422 (2008). According to testimony to the
Mucyo Commission by ex-FAR soldier, Isidore Nzeyimana (given on 12 November 2006), the French taught the FAR
to use the “122 mm Egyptian guns,” as well as the 105 mm French-supplied weapons, because they were similar.
316
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga; Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera; Mucyo Report Sect. 1.1
(2008).
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317
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.
318
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
319
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
320
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
321
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
1992
322
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe; Interview by LFM with Richard Sezibera; Interview by LFM with Charles
Karamba.
323
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
324
Interview by LFM with James Kabarebe.
325
Michel Goya, Je suis complice de genocide mais je me soigne, LA VOIE DE L’ÉPÉE, 5 April 2019.
326
Interview by LFM with Gonzague Habimana; Interview by LFM with Jean Damascene Kaburame; Mucyo Report
Sect. 1.1 (2008) (highlighting the testimony of ex-FAR officers Evariste Murenzi (30 Oct. 2006) and Paul Rwarakabije
(26 Oct. 2006)).
327
MIP Audition of Georges Martres Tome III Vol.1, 155.
328
Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga.
329
Stephen Smith, Espoirs de paix pour les Rwandais [Hope of Peace for the Rwandans], LIBÉRATION, 14 July 1992.
330
Letter from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (23 July 1992).
331
Letter from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (1 July 1992).
332
See, e.g., Letter from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (23 July 1992) (characterizing the RPF as the
“aggressor” for its cease-fire violations).
333
Françoise Carle, [née Chrétien Françoise, Marie], MAITRON, 5 Nov. 2012, http://maitron-en-ligne.univparis1.fr/spiphp?article142840.
334
335
Telephone interview by LFM with Françoise Carle.
JEAN GUISNEL, LES GÉNÉRAUX—ENQUÊTE SUR LE POUVOIR
INVESTIGATION INTO MILITARY POWER IN FRANCE] 80-102 (1990).
MILITAIRE EN
FRANCE [GENERALS—AN
336
ALEXANDRA SCHWARTZBROD, LE PRESIDENT QUI N’AIMAIT PAS LA GUERRE [THE PRESIDENT WHO DIDN’T LIKE
WAR] (1995).
337
Jacques Isnard, Le Métier de démineur ou le face-a-face avec la perversité humaine [Either the Bomb-Disposal
Profession or a Face-to-Face with Human Depravity], LE MONDE, 21 Oct. 1982; see also Claude Denis Mouton, Le
Genie parachutiste au Liban [Paratrooper Genius in Lebanon], Amicale 17e Regiment du Genie Parachutiste (last
visited: March 15, 2021).
338
Christian Quesnot, Le Facteur humain, composante de la dissuasion [The Human Factor, Component of
Dissuasion], OFFICIER UN JOUR, 1, 26 Oct. 2015.
339
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (1 July 1992) (emphasis omitted).
340
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (1 July 1992).
341
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (1 July 1992).
342
The N’sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992).
343
The N’sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992).
344
The N’sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992); see also The N’Sele Ceasefire
Agreement, Rw. – RPF (29 Mar. 1991).
345
Notes on Memorandum from Dominique de Combles de Nayves to French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (6 Aug.
1992).
346
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (13 July 1992).
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347
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (13 July 1992); see also Memorandum from Christian
Quesnot to François Mitterrand (1 July 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda. Situation militaire”) (stating that the RPF was
receiving significant support from the Ugandan Army).
348
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (23 July 1992).
349
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (23 July 1992).
350
Memorandum from Claver Karangwa (23 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport sur l’entretien que le Chef EM Gd N a
eu avec un Officier de la Direction du Renseignement à l’Etat-Major des Armées Françaises”).
351
Memorandum from Claver Karangwa (23 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport sur l’entretien que le Chef EM Gd N a
eu avec un Officier de la Direction du Renseignement à l’Etat-Major des Armées Françaises”).
352
Memorandum from Claver Karangwa (23 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport sur l’entretien que le Chef EM Gd N a
eu avec un Officier de la Direction du Renseignement à l’Etat-Major des Armées Françaises”).
353
The N’sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992).
354
Memorandum from Francois Nicoullaud to Roland Dumas (6 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Application de l’accord de
cessez-le-feu au Rwanda”). Also copied at the Élysée were Gilles Vidal of the Africa Cell and General Quesnot’s
office.
355
Memorandum from Francois Nicoullaud to Jacques Lanxade (14 Aug. 1992). The communication from the Foreign
Ministry to the Defense Ministry occurred on 12 August 1992.
356
MIP Tome I 181.
357
MIP Tome I 181. More specifically, France provided 14.9 million French francs (roughly $2.7 million) in weapons
at no charge to the Rwandan government.
358
MIP Tome I 181. In 1990, France provided 3.3 million French francs ($600,000) in weapons. In 1991, the figure
was 1.7 million French francs ($310,000).
359
Summary of the CIEEMGs from 1987 to 1994 (15 Dec. 1998).
360
Memorandum from Francois Nicoullaud to Roland Dumas (6 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Application de l’accord de
cessez-le-feu au Rwanda”).
361
Memorandum from Francois Nicoullaud to Roland Dumas (6 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Application de l’accord de
cessez-le-feu au Rwanda”).
362
Notes on Memorandum from Dominique de Combles de Nayves to French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (6 Aug.
1992) (“Compliance with Article II-6 [the portion of the cease-fire addressing removal of foreign troops—ed.] should
normally lead to the departure of the two “Noroît” companies whose mission is to protect the French community, the
departure of the military training assistance detachment (DAMI) ‘Panda’ whose members do not have the status of
military technical assistant, [and] the departure of the artillery training team and the transmission team.”); MIP Tome
I 29.
363
Memorandum from Francois Nicoullaud to Roland Dumas (6 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Application de l’accord de
cessez-le-feu au Rwanda”).
364
MIP Tome I 29.
365
Notes on Memorandum from Dominique de Combles de Nayves to French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (6 Aug.
1992)
366
Notes on Memorandum from Note from Dominique de Combles de Nayves to French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(6 Aug. 1992).
367
Memorandum from Bernard Cussac (9 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Bilan de l’Assistance Militaire Technique
Gendarmerie au Rwanda”).
368
Memorandum from Celestin Rwagafilita (12 May 1992) (Subject: “Compte-Rendu de la Visite du Gen Varret à
l’EM Gd N”).
369
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, RWANDA PERSECUTION
CRITICS 1990 – 1992 5-6 (May 1992).
OF
TUTSI MINORITY
AND
REPRESSION
OF
GOVERNMENT
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370
Letter from Daniel Lustig to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (15 July 1992); see also Letter from Jerome Stone to
Mbonampeka Stanislas 2 (11 July 1992).
371
Letter from Daniel Lustig to Dismas Nsengiyaremye, Rwandan prime minister (15 July 1992); see also Letter from
Jerome Stone to Mbonampeka Stanislas 2 (11 July 1992).
372
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
373
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
374
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
375
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
376
See Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana; AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, RWANDA PERSECUTION OF TUTSI
MINORITY AND REPRESSION OF GOVERNMENT CRITICS 1990 – 1992 5-6 (May 1992); Report of the Rwandan National
Gendarmerie Etat-Major, signed by P. Célestin Rwagafilita and J. Baptiste Iradukunda (27 May 1992) (Subject:
“Compte-rendu de réunion d’EM Gd. N. tenue en date du 27 mai 1992 de 09h00 à 10h05”) (showing that French
officers were present at the May 1992 meeting at which it was decided to change the name of the Fichier Central).
377
Duclert Commission 776 (quoting SHD, Late Versement n°1, Fax to EMA. Cab c 32/colonel Fruchard, 6 June
1991) (Galinié insisted to President Habyarimana that the FAR should “finally take prisoners, especially Ugandans,
and that they [the prisoners] must stop ‘dying of their wounds.’”).
378
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana; MIP Tome I 177. The late historian and human rights activist Alison
Des Forges testified to the MIP that former Rwandan Defense Minister James Gasana had reported the presence of
French officers at the CRCD, “a place well known for being the place of torture by the Gendarmerie and the Rwandan
police.” See MIP Audition of Alison Des Forges, Tome III, Vol. 2 83. In a subsequent letter to the Mission, however,
Des Forges stated that after being questioned by on the matter by members of the Mission, she conducted “a small
survey” that convinced her that torture had stopped at the CRCD after the installation of the coalition government in
1992 and that “it is possible that it is the French presence that helped to end the use of torture.” Mukagasana’s
testimony contradicts the results of Des Forges’ small survey.
379
Account taken from interview by LFM with Gerard Nshimyumuremyi.
380
See Report from the MAM, French Embassy in Rwanda, Actes de terrorisme perpétrés au Rwanda depuis décembre
1991 [Acts of terrorism perpetrated in Rwanda since December 1991] 7, 9 (31 May 1992) (noting that the Rwandan
prime minister, an MDR member, “seemed to be completely convinced of the ‘Akazu’s’ guilt” in recent acts of
terrorism and that it “was within this framework that he asked France to increase its assistance to the judicial police”).
381
Interview by LFM with François Nsanzuwera.
382
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
383
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
384
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
385
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
386
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
387
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
388
Interview by LFM with Liberata Mukagasana.
389
See, e.g., Memorandum from Jean-Louis Nabias to Bernard Cussac (19 Apr. 1992) (“The field service period took
place at the Ruhengeri and Gabiro sites in order to apply the technical and tactical know-how acquired . . . to perform
live reconnaissance.”); Memorandum from Jean-Louis Nabias to Bernard Cussac (24 Apr. 1992) (discussing training
“that took place at Camp Mukamira and at Gabiro between 1 March and 4 April 1992”); Memorandum from JeanLouis Nabias to Bernard Cussac (30 April 1992) (noting that “instruction was given by 9 instructor specialists based
at the Gabiro Guest House”).
390
See Prosecutor v. Bernard Munyagishari, Case No. ICTR-05-89-T, Indictment ¶14 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 9
June 2005); HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, LEAVE NONE TO TELL THE STORY 83 (1999) (identifying Gabiro as a militia
training site); Transcript of Interview with Prosper Ngendahimana in Kanombe, Rwanda, 19 Dec. 2002 (interview
with FAR soldier who identified Gabiro as a militia training site); Interview by LFM with Vital Mucanda. Mucanda
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said he spent about a month at Gabiro at the end of 1992 or the beginning of 1993, where FAR soldiers trained him
and other Interahamwe in firearm operation outside of the camp.
391
Prosecutor v. Augustin Ndindiliyimana et al., Case No. ICTR-00-56-T, Trial Proceedings, 19-24 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 13 Jan. 2005).
392
Former Rwandan Mayor Sentenced to Life Over Role in Genocide, VOICE OF AMERICA, 29 Dec. 2015.
393
Some French military cooperants dressed in Rwandan military uniforms. See MIP Tome I 29.
394
Mucyo Report Sect. 2.2.1; Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Mwumvaneza.
395
Mucyo Report Sect. 2.2.1.
396
Mucyo Report Sect. 2.2.1.
397
Mucyo Report Sect. 2.2.1; Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Mwumvaneza. Additional Rwandan witnesses have
provided corroborating testimony. For example, Elias Nkurunziza, another councilor in Muvumba commune,
observed the same 1992 meeting between bourgmestre Rwabukombe and French soldiers. The similarities in their
testimony are striking: both remembered being asked to recruit civilians for training, both traveled by bus to Gabiro,
and both received small arms training outside Gabiro. The differences in their testimony were slight; for example,
Mwumvaneza recalled training in a valley, but Nkurunziza recalled training in an airplane landing field, and while
Mwumvaneza recalled four French soldiers present at the initial meeting, all but one with blackened faces, Nkurunziza
recalled only three present and only one with a blackened face. Also worth noting is that Nkurunziza recalled the
French soldiers arriving at the initial meeting in a Suzuki Jeep, somewhat consistent with Liberata Mukagasana’s
recollection of her colleagues traveling to Mutara in a Land Rover. Mucyo Report Sect. 2.2.1. Another witness,
Sylvestre Munyadinda, recounted being recruited by a Muvumba commune councilor to be trained in the use of
weapons around June 1992. He recalled boarding a bus for Gabiro and then receiving training in the same place that
Nkurunziza identified, Rwangingo. He also recalled that at times white men would inspect their training with highranking FAR officers. Initially, Munyadinda did not identify the men as French, only non-Rwandans. Mucyo Report
Sect. 2.2.1. During a subsequent interview, however, he referred to them as French, said they wore FAR uniforms and
black berets (as did Emmanuel Mwumvaneza), and recalled one of them going by the name Eugene. However, he also
placed the date earlier, in July 1991, potentially misremembering due to the passage of time. See Interview by LFM
with Sylvestre Munyadinda.
398
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije. Munyadinda Sylvestre echoed these sentiments when he explained that
he trained outside Gabiro to conceal the firearms training from opposition political parties. See Interview by LFM
with Sylvestre Munyadinda. And a FAR soldier named Martin Ndamage testified that he saw civilians at Gabiro for
training, but when he asked about them, he was told they were forest rangers receiving military training, which he
interpreted as a lie intended to conceal the secretive training. Mucyo Report Annexes, Witness Testimony #21, 380.
399
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
400
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
401
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije. Evariste Murenzi, a para-commando in 1992 who in 1993 moved to the
Presidential Guard, eventually becoming second-in-command, also received reports of French soldiers training
militias in Gabiro, specifying that the training was in the use of small arms such as pistols. See Interview by LFM with
Evariste Murenzi.
402
HOWARD ADELMAN & ASTRI SUHRKE, EARLY WARNING AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT 33 (Mar. 1996) (citing to
interviews conducted in 1995 in Geneva, Kigali, and Dar es Salaam).
403
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 74 (2012).
404
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 78-80 (2012).
405
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 80 (2012).
406
MIP Tome I 370.
407
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 80 (2012).
408
Mehdi Ba, Au Nom de la France, in GOLIAS MAGAZINE no. 101, 25 (Mar./Apr. 2005); JACQUES MOREL, LA FRANCE
AU COEUR DU GÉNOCIDE DES TUTSIS [FRANCE AT THE HEART OF THE GENOCIDE OF THE TUTSI] 235 (2018) (stating that
Germain was an accountant at the cultural center).
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1992
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
410
See, e.g., VÉNUSTE KAYIMAHE, FRANCE-RWANDA: LES COULISSES DU GÉNOCIDE [BACKSTAGE OF A GENOCIDE]
144-45, 157 (2001). Kayimahe named French Adjutants Lebarde and Gratade of the 3rd RPIMa as supervising the
training of Interahamwe in 1993 and said that he witnessed French soldiers jogging with militia trainees in the Kigali
neighborhoods of Gikondo, Nyamirambo, Kacyiru and Muhima. The MIP noted, however, that Lebarde and Gratade
denied Kayimahe’s account and suggested that Kayimahe may have been confused because Lebarde and Gratade had
been in charge of training the Presidential Guard (which, in addition to the militias, would play a key role in carrying
out the Genocide). MIP Tome I 369. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Rwandan para-commando who was a confidential
witness with initials DA at the ICTR’s Military II trial testified to witnessing French soldiers train Interahamwe leaders
to use firearms in the Presidential Guard camp in Kimihurura around May 1993. Prosecutor v. Augustin
Ndindiliyimana et al., Case No. ICTR-00-56-T, Transcript of trial proceedings, 24 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 13
Jan. 2005).
411
Cable from Bernard Cussac and Georges Martres (22 Jan. 1992) (Subject: “Armement des populations civiles”).
Although the MIP did not publish the complete document—this NMR does not contain the first [Alpha] section, but
picks up with Bravo—this report originated with DA Cussac [FM: “MilFrance Kigali”], and it is assumed that it was
sent to “MINDEFENSE Paris” and others military commands; Ambassador Martres is copied on all NMR reports.
412
Cable from Johan Swinnen (27 March 1992) (Subject: “Rwanda – onlusten Bugesera”).
413
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
414
MIP Tome I 370-71 (referring to the allegation of French soldiers training militias as “never seriously supported
to date”); BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND,
THE FRENCH ARMY, AND RWANDA] 95 (2005) (citing Col. Étienne Joubert, who denied during an interview that the
DAMI under his command trained militias in Gabiro).
415
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to Francois Mitterrand 1, 3, 4 (21 Apr. 1992).
416
See, e.g., Letter from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (4 May 1992) (suggesting that Habyarimana decorate French
soldiers throughout the year in order to ensure that the soldiers are decorated before they leave); Letter from Bernard
Cussac to James Gasana (22 May 1992) (requesting awards for various French soldiers); Letter from James Gasana
to Juvénal Habyarimana (26 June 1993) (recommending awards for French soldiers).
417
Letter from James Gasana to Juvénal Habyarimana, (23 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “proposition de décoration”). For
example, on 10 September 1992, the Chancellor of National Orders, Venant Ntabomvura, recommended that President
Habyarimana decorate 196 French soldiers prior to their anticipated departure. See Letter from Venant Ntabomvura
to Juvénal Habyarimana (10 Sept. 1992).
418
Cable from George Martres (15 Oct. 1992).
419
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand 5 (5 Dec. 1992).
420
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand 5 (5 Dec. 1992).
421
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana 2-3 (16 Jan. 1992).
422
Letter from James Gasana to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (17 Dec. 1992).
423
Letter from James Gasana to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (17 Dec. 1992).
424
Letter from Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza to François Mitterrand (30 July 1992) in ZIRIKANA NO 001 (15 Sept. 1992).
The exact date of the letter is unclear. The reprint in Zirikana dates the letter as 30 July 1992. In his response to the
letter, Bruno Delaye referred to the letter’s date as 20 August 1992. See Letter from Bruno Delaye to Jean-Bosco
Barayagwiza (1 Sept. 1992).
425
See JEAN-CHRISTOPHE MITTERRAND, MÉMOIRE MEURTRIE [BITTER MEMORIES] 167-68 (2001); MIP Audition of
Bruno Delaye, Tome III, Vol. 1, 315 (noting that Delaye’s tenure as advisor to President Mitterrand began in July
1992).
426
Letter from Bruno Delaye to Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza (1 Sept. 1992); Bruno Delaye, Reponse de Francois
Mitterrand [Response of Francois Mitterrand], ZIRIKANA NO 001, 10 (1 Sept. 1992).
427
MIP Hearing of Hubert Védrine, Tome III, Auditions, Vol 1, 206-207.
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428
Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana et al., Case No. ICTR-99-52-A, Judgement and Sentence, ¶ 1097 (Int’l Crim.
Trib. For Rwanda 28 Nov. 2007).
429
Letter from A. Mulindabigwi et al to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan
Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)).
430
Rwanda Youth Block Roads, [publication unknown], 5 Aug. 1992.
431
Cable from Joyce Leader to US Secretary of State (4 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Party Youth Riot; 4 Reported Killed”);
Rwanda Youth Block Roads, [publication unknown], 5 Aug. 1992.
432
Cable from Joyce Leader to US Secretary of State (4 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Party Youth Riot; 4 Reported Killed”).
Paul Rwarakabije, then the operational commander of the Rwandan Gendarmerie, has since echoed these sentiments,
saying, “It was clear to me that the militia was an alternative force for those who opposed Arusha.” See Interview by
LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
433
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, art. 5, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992). The RPF had prodded the
Rwandan government for more than a year to agree to establish a “broad-based government of national unity.” See
Cable from John Burroughs to US Secretary of State (12 Mar. 1991) (Subject: “RPF Pessimistic on Kinshasa Talks”);
Press Release, RPF, Negotiations Between RPF and Rwandese Government: Kinshasa (14 Sep. 1991). The
government finally acceded to the group’s demand during the Arusha negotiations in July 1992, agreeing to continue
negotiating on terms for the “[e]stablishment of power-sharing within the framework of a broad-based transitional
government.” The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, art. 5, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992); see also Joint
Communique Issued at the End of the Negotiations Between the Rwandese Government the Rwandese Patriotic Front,
Arusha, 10 - 12 July 1992 (12 July 1992).
434
Protocol of Agreement between the Government of the Republique of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front
on the Rule of Law (18 Aug. 1992).
435
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni.
436
Interview by LFM with Protais Musoni.
437
Protocol of Agreement between the Government of the Republique of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front
on the Rule of Law (18 Aug. 1992).
438
Protocol of Agreement between the Government of the Republique of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front
on the Rule of Law (18 Aug. 1992); Press Release Issued at the End of the First Phase of Political Negotiations
Between Delegations of the Rwandese Government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front, Held in Arusha from 10th – 18th
August, 1992 (18 Aug. 1992).
439
Press Release, RPF (29 Aug. 1992); Memorandum from James Gasana to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (23 Aug. 1992);
Radio Muhabura, Rebels Claim MRND ‘Undermines’ Negotiations (27 Aug. 1992) (partial transcription by the US
Government); RWANDAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND COOPERATION, DIVISION OF INFORMATION,
ACTUALITES NATIONALES [National News] 31 (31 Aug. 1992).
440
Press Release, RPF (29 Aug. 1992); Radio Muhabura, Rebels Claim MRND ‘Undermines’ Negotiations (27 Aug.
1992) (partial transcription by the US Government).
441
Radio Muhabura, Rebels Claim MRND ‘Undermines’ Negotiations (27 Aug. 1992) (partial transcription by the
US Government); see also Pasteur Bizimungu, Opening speech at the Arusha negotiations (7 Sept. 1992).
442
Letter from A. Mulindabigwi et al. to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan
Swinnen to Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)). The list of government officials reads like a list of
ICTR defendants (plus others who have been accused of planning the Genocide but either died or managed to
otherwise escape international justice), including Zigiranyirazo, Bagosora, Rwabukumba, Nsengiumva, Pascal
Simbikangwa (convicted in a French court), Kangura publisher Hassan Ngeze (convicted by the ICTR), ORINFOR
director Ferdinand Nahimana (convicted by the ICTR), CDR leader Martin Bucyana, Managing Director of OCIRTea Michel Bagaragaza (convicted by the ICTR), bourgmestre of Murambi Jean-Baptiste Gatete (convicted by the
ICTR), and Kigali Prefect Tharcisse Renzaho (convicted by the ICTR).
443
Letter from A. Mulindabigwi et al to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan
Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)).
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444
Letter from A. Mulindabigwi et al to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan
Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)).
445
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha III”).
446
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha III”).
447
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Aug. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha III”).
448
See Memorandum from Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Mathias Nsabimana (5 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport de la
Visite Du Chef Em Gd N en Communes Gishyita et Rwamatamu (Kibuye)”); Memorandum from Augustin
Ndindiliyimana and Leon Mpozayo (1 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Compte-Rendu de la Reunion des Offers D’em Gd N”)
(Subject: “Compte-Rendu”) (appended to Letter from Augustin Ndindiliyimana to James Gasana (undated)); Letter
from A. Mulindabigwi et al to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan Swinnen,
Belgian Ambassador to Rwanda, to Willy Claes, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)).
449
Memorandum from Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Mathias Nsabimana (5 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport de la
Visite Du Chef Em Gd N en Communes Gishyita et Rwamatamu (Kibuye)”).
450
Memorandum from Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Mathias Nsabimana (5 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport de la
Visite Du Chef Em Gd N en Communes Gishyita et Rwamatamu (Kibuye)”).
451
Memorandum from Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Mathias Nsabimana (5 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport de la
Visite Du Chef Em Gd N en Communes Gishyita et Rwamatamu (Kibuye)”).
452
Memorandum from Augustin Ndindiliyimana and Mathias Nsabimana (5 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Rapport de la
Visite Du Chef Em Gd N en Communes Gishyita et Rwamatamu (Kibuye)”).
453
Letter from A. Mulindabigwi et al to foreign diplomats in Rwanda (18 Sept. 1992) (appended to cable from Johan
Swinnen to Willy Claes, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs (13 Oct. 1992)).
454
Report from Alain Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992” [Activity Report:
Period from 1 April to 30 September 1992] 17 (14 Oct. 1992).
455
Report from Alain Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992” [Activity Report:
Period from 1 April to 30 September 1992] 17 (14 Oct. 1992).
456
Report from Alain Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992” [Activity Report:
Period from 1 April to 30 September 1992] 17 (14 Oct. 1992).
457
Report from Alain Damy, Compte Rendu d’Activité: Periode du 1er Avril au 30 Septembre 1992” [Activity Report:
Period from 1 April to 30 September 1992] 17 (14 Oct. 1992).
458
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State 7-8 (5 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Draft Human Rights Report for
Rwanda”).
459
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State 7-8 (5 Oct. 1992) (5 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Draft Human Rights
Report for Rwanda”).
460
MIP Tome I 155.
461
GABRIEL PÉRIÈS & DAVID SERVENAY, UNE GUERRE NOIRE: ENQUÊTE SUR LES ORIGINES DU GÉNOCIDE RWANDAIS
(1959-1994) [A BLACK WAR: INVESTIGATION OF THE ORIGINS OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1959-1994)] 206-07
(2007).
462
Report from Philippe Capodanno, Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa mission au Rwanda (3 – 6 novembre
1992) [Report of Colonel Capodanno on his Mission in Rwanda (3 – 6 November 1992)] (10 Nov. 1992); MIP Report
Tome I 155.
463
Report from Philippe Capodanno, Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa Mission au Rwanda (3 – 6 novembre
1992) [Report of Colonel Capodanno on his mission in Rwanda (3 – 6 November 1992)] (10 Nov. 1992).
464
Memorandum from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (17 May 1993) (Subject: “Poste d’Assistants Militares
Techniques Francais au Rwanda”).
465
Memorandum from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (17 May 1993) (Subject: “Poste d’Assistants Militares
Techniques Francais au Rwanda”).
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466
BENOÎT COLLOMBAT & DAVID SERVENAY, AU NOM DE LA FRANCE: GUERRES SECRÈTES AU RWANDA [IN THE NAME
OF FRANCE: SECRET WARS IN RWANDA] 164-65 (2014).
467
BENOÎT COLLOMBAT & DAVID SERVENAY, AU NOM DE LA FRANCE: GUERRES SECRÈTES AU RWANDA [IN THE NAME
OF FRANCE: SECRET WARS IN RWANDA] 164 (2014).
468
BENOÎT COLLOMBAT & DAVID SERVENAY, AU NOM DE LA FRANCE: GUERRES SECRÈTES AU RWANDA [IN THE NAME
OF FRANCE: SECRET WARS IN RWANDA] 164 (2014).
469
BENOÎT COLLOMBAT & DAVID SERVENAY, AU NOM DE LA FRANCE: GUERRES SECRÈTES AU RWANDA [IN THE NAME
OF FRANCE: SECRET WARS IN RWANDA] 164 (2014).
470
See LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 74, 76 (2012); Cable
from Bernard Cussac 4 (9 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Bilan de l’Assistance Militaire Technique Gendarmerie au Rwanda”).
471
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 74 & n.1 (2012).
472
See Excerpts from interview by Laure de Vulpian with Thierry Prungnaud (22 April 2005); LAURE DE VULPIAN &
THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 74 (2012).
473
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 76 (2012).
474
Excerpts from interview by Laure de Vulpian with Thierry Prungnaud (22 April 2005) (“I had information that the
guys I had trained had actually been involved in the massacres.”).
475
LAURE DE VULPIAN & THIERRY PRUNGNAUD, SILENCE TURQUOISE [TURQUOISE SILENCE] 84 (2012).
476
See Press Release, RPF (signed by Shaban Ruta), La Présence militaire des français au Rwanda et l’intransigeance
du gouvernement au processus de paix [The Military Presence of the French in Rwanda and the Government’s
Intransigence in the Peace Process] (28 Nov. 1992) (discussing the 13 October 1992 visit of an unnamed French
general); Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda).
477
See Press Release, RPF (signed by Shaban Ruta), La Présence militaire des français au Rwanda et l’intransigeance
du gouvernement au processus de paix [The Military Presence of the French in Rwanda and the Government’s
Intransigence in the Peace Process] (28 Nov. 1992) (discussing the 13 October 1992 visit of an unnamed French
general); Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda).
478
Report from Bernard Cussac, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement [Half-yearly Report of Operation] (21
Oct. 1992).
479
Report from Bernard Cussac, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement [Half-yearly Report of Operation] (21
Oct. 1992).
480
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Ceasefire Continues to Hold”) (noting
that “both forces have used the ceasefire to reinforce their positions and restock weaponry”).
481
Report from Bernard Cussac, Compte Rendu Semestriel de Fonctionnement [Half-yearly Report of Operation] (21
Oct. 1992).
482
Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda”).
483
Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda”).
484
Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda”).
485
Memorandum from Georges Martres (15 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Mission du General Quesnot au Rwanda”).
486
Letter from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (29 Oct. 1992).
487
Letter from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (29 Oct. 1992).
488
Memorandum from unknown author (28 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Mise en place du DAMI/GENIE en Rwanda”). This
letter appears under the letterhead of the French état-major headed by Admiral Jacques Lanxade and notes, with
apparent dismay, that the état major had not received advance notice of the proposed mission.
489
Letter from Deogratias Nsabimana and Anatole Nsengiyumva to James Gasana (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Demande
de decorations a l’equipe DAMI Genie”).
490
Report from Philippe Capodanno, Rapport du Colonel Capodanno sur sa Mission au Rwanda (3 – 6 novembre
1992) [Report of Colonel Capodanno on his Mission in Rwanda (3 – 6 November 1992)] (10 November 1992).
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491
Press Release, RPF (signed by Shaban Ruta), La Présence militaire des français au Rwanda et l’intransigeance du
gouvernement au processus de paix [The Military Presence of the French in Rwanda and the Government’s
Intransigence in the Peace Process] (28 Nov. 1992); Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.
492
Cable from Robert Houdek to US Embassy in Kigali and US Embassy in Paris (10 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “French
Military Involvement in Rwandan Ceasefire Process”) (describing the digging of foxholes as “a blatant disregard for
the ceasefire line”).
493
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Ceasefire Continues to Hold”).
494
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, art. 3, Rw. – RPF (12 July 1992).
495
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Ceasefire Continues to Hold”); see
also Press Release, RPF (signed by Shaban Ruta), La Présence militaire des français au Rwanda et l’intransigeance
du gouvernement au processus de paix [The Military Presence of the French in Rwanda and the Government’s
Intransigence in the Peace Process] (28 Nov. 1992).
496
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (4 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “NMOG Reports Ceasefire Violation”).
497
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (4 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “NMOG Reports Ceasefire Violation”).
498
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (4 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “NMOG Reports Ceasefire Violation”).
499
Cable from Robert Houdek to US Embassy in Kigali and US Embassy in Paris (10 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “French
Military Involvement in Rwandan Ceasefire Process”).
500
Letter from Deorgratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (9 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Visite au sect OPS BYB”).
501
Letter from Deorgratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (9 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Visite au sect OPS BYB”).
502
Letter from Deorgratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (9 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Visite au sect OPS BYB”).
503
Letter from Deorgratias Nsabimana to James Gasana (9 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Visite au sect OPS BYB”). The
GOMN had other reasons for being frustrated with the FAR, and with Nsabimana in particular. During his 3 December
visit to Byumba, Nsabimana learned that members of the GOMN team there had heard about the controversial
document he had circulated to the Rwandan Army troops (the one defining the enemy as Tutsi). See id. at 7. The rumor
among the GOMN officers was that the document called for Rwandan soldiers “to continue fighting” in spite of the
cease-fire. Nsabimana told the GOMN’s team leader in Byumba “that the document was an ordinary official document
defining ENI which was fighting against us,” and authorized the FAR’s Byumba sector commander “to show him the
document so that he could see for himself that there was no mention anywhere of the fact that our men must continue
with the hostilities at all cost.”
504
Cable from Raymond Ewing to US Secretary of State (5 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha IV: Opening Notes”). There
had been an earlier round of talks in September 1992, with three French delegates participating as observers. Notably,
this group of supposedly neutral French observers included Col. Dominique Delort, who had helped Col. Rosier
deliver the armaments and training necessary for the FAR to deploy the 105 mm howitzers against the RPF. See
Memorandum from Jean-Marc de La Sablière (3 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Instructions de la Delegation Qui Participera
a la Phase III Des Negotiations D’Arusha (7 – 16 Septembre 1992)”).
505
Cable from Raymond Ewing to US Secretary of State (5 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha IV: Opening Notes”).
506
Cable from Raymond Ewing to US Secretary of State (5 Oct. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha IV: Opening Notes”).
507
Letter from Martin Bucyana to Juvénal Habyarimana and Dismas Nsengiyaremye (8 Oct. 1992).
508
Letter from Martin Bucyana to Juvénal Habyarimana and Dismas Nsengiyaremye (8 Oct. 1992).
509
Letter from Josee [last name unknown] to Ndoba Gasana (20 Oct. 1992).
510
GERARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 163 (1995).
511
Letter from Josee [last name unknown] to Ndoba Gasana (20 Oct. 1992).
512
Letter from Josee [last name unknown] to Ndoba Gasana (20 Oct. 1992).
513
See Anne Dulphy & Christine Manigand, Entretien avec Jean-Marc de La Sablière, vol. 24, no. 3
HISTOIRE@POLITIQUE 180 (2014); Decree from François Mitterrand, Décret du 10 août 1992 portant nomination d'un
ambassadeur extraordinaire et plénipotentiaire de la République française au Mexique, [Decree of 10 August 1992
appointing an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to Mexico] (10 Aug. 1992).
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Chapter V
1992
514
Memorandum from Jean Marc de La Sablière (21 Oct. 2019) (Subject: “Politique de la France au Rwanda”).
515
Memorandum from Jean Marc de La Sablière (21 Oct. 2019) (Subject: “Politique de la France au Rwanda”).
516
Memorandum from Jean Marc de La Sablière (21 Oct. 2019) (Subject: “Politique de la France au Rwanda”).
517
Memorandum from Jean Marc de La Sablière (21 Oct. 2019) (Subject: “Politique de la France au Rwanda”).
518
Protocol of Agreement on Power-Sharing within the Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government, arts.
13 - 15, Rw. – RPF, 30 Oct. 1992.
519
Protocol of Agreement on Power-Sharing within the Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government, arts.
13 - 15, Rw. – RPF, 30 Oct. 1992; Press Release, Communique Conjoint publie a l’issue de la deuxième partie des
negotiations politiques entrée le gouvernement de la republique Rwandais et le Front Patriotique du Pouvoir dans le
Cadre d’un gouvernement de transition a base elarge [Joint Communique Issued at the End of the Second Part of the
Political Negotiations Between the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on PowerSharing Within the Framework of an Enlarged Transitional Government] (30 Oct. 1992); Cable from US Secretary of
State to US Embassy in Kampala (7 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Letter to Museveni on Rwandan Negotiations”).
520
Protocol of Agreement on Power-Sharing within the Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government, art.
23, Rw. – RPF, 30 Oct. 1992.
521
Press Release, Communique Conjoint publie a l’issue de la deuxième partie des negotiations politiques entrée le
gouvernement de la republique Rwandais et le Front Patriotique du Pouvoir dans le Cadre d’un gouvernement de
transition a base elarge [Joint Communique Issued at the End of the Second Part of the Political Negotiations Between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on Power-Sharing Within the Framework
of an Enlarged Transitional Government] (30 Oct. 1992).
522
GERARD PRUNIER, THE RWANDA CRISIS: HISTORY OF A GENOCIDE 170 (1995).
523
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech delivered in Ruhengeri (16 Nov. 1992) (Note that several other sources indicate this
speech actually occurred 15 November 1992). See, e.g., Persons Displaced Following Interahamwe Attacks, 73 ISIBO
3 (29 Nov. 1992); Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Delays”).
524
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech delivered in Ruhengeri (16 Nov. 1992) (partial transcript).
525
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech delivered in Ruhengeri (16 Nov. 1992) (partial transcript).
526
Juvénal Habyarimana, Speech delivered in Ruhengeri (16 Nov. 1992) (partial transcript).
527
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 284-85 (2019).
528
Persons Displaced Following Interahamwe Attacks, 73 ISIBO 3 (29 Nov. 1992).
529
Press Release, Communiqué Conjoint publie a l’issue de la deuxième partie des negotiations politiques entrée le
gouvernement de la republique Rwandais et le Front Patriotique du Pouvoir dans le Cadre d’un gouvernement de
transition à base élargie [Joint Communiqué Issued at the End of the Second Part of the Political Negotiations Between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on Power-Sharing Within the Framework
of an Enlarged Transitional Government] (30 Oct. 1992); see also Cable from US Embassy in Dar-es-Salaam to US
Secretary of State (20 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha V – Going Ahead on Nov. 23, Military Integration to Top
Agenda”).
530
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Delays”).
531
Dismas Nsengiyaremye, Speech delivered in Gikongoro (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 9 (29 Nov. 1992).
532
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
533
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (27 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Prime Minister Takes Steps to
Improve Internal Security”).
534
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992);
see also Prosecutor vs. Protais Zigiranyirazo, ICTR-01-73-T, Expert Report by Dr. Alison Des Forges, 16 (15 Aug.
2005).
535
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
536
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
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Chapter V
1992
537
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
538
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
539
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
540
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
541
See Radio Interview with Agathe Uwilingiyimana, transcription by INFORDOC-MINAFFET (11 May 1992).
542
Leon Mugesera, Speech delivered at MRND meeting in Kabaya (22 Nov. 1992), in 77 ISIBO 5-9 (29 Nov. 1992).
543
William E. Schmidt, Troops Rampage in Rwanda; Dead Said to Include Premier, N.Y. TIMES, 8 Apr. 1994.
544
ANDREW WALLIS, STEPP’D IN BLOOD 289-90 (2019) (citing L’Ere des escadrons de la mort [The Era of the Death
Squads], LA CITÉ, 22 Nov. 1992).
545
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (27 Nov. 1992) (Subject: “Prime Minister Takes Steps to
Improve Internal Security”).
546
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State 7 (Dec. 2, 1992) (Subject: “Canadian Missionary Killed”);
Memorandum from Stanislas Mbonampeka to the National Security Court, Kigali (25 Nov. 1992) (Subject:
“Injonction de pooursuivre” [Injunction to persecute]).
547
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State, 7 (Dec. 2, 1992) (Subject: “Canadian Missionary Killed”).
548
Marie-France Cros, Le Ministre rwandais de la Justice démissionne [Rwandan Minister of Justice Resigns], LA
LIBRE BELGIQUE, Dec. 2, 1992; see also Memorandum from Robert Pringle to Herman Cohen (2 Dec. 1992) (Subject:
“Update on Rwandan Conflict”). Mbonampeka, who had been a human-rights activist, would switch allegiances,
propagandizing internationally for the genocidal interim Rwandan government during the slaughter, and ultimately
serving as the minister of justice of the self-appointed government-in-exile created in Zaire. Eventually, he fled to
France, and he remains at large. See Phillip Gourevitch, After the Genocide, NEW YORKER, 11 Dec. 1995; France
Ignores 39 Arrest Warrants for Genocide Suspects, NEWS OF RWANDA, 5 Feb. 2018.
549
Letter from Ubalijoro Bonnventureto to Juvénal Habyarimana (2 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Massacre des innocents,
venalisme et pilage en Commune Shyorongi par les Interahamwe (malice du MRND)”).
550
Letter from Ubalijoro Bonnventureto to Juvénal Habyarimana (2 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Massacre des innocents,
venalisme et pilage en Commune Shyorongi par les Interahamwe (malice du MRND)”).
551
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 24 (2 June 2014).
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
552
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE:
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 24 (2 June 2014); see also Letter from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvénal
Habyarimana (Subject: “Demande d’ordres de mission de la delegation du Gouvernement Rwandais pour les
negociations avec le FPR prevues a Arusha du 23 Novembre au 20 Decembre 1992”) (identifying Kanyarushoki and
Bagosora as part of the delegation of which Ngulinzira was the chief).
553
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE:
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 24 (2 June 2014); see also MIP Tome III Audition of Jean-Christophe
Belliard, French Representative to the Arusha Negotiations (2 July 1998).
554
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE:
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 25 (2 June 2014); see also Letter from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvenal
Habyarimana (Subject: “Demande d’ordres de mission de la delegation du Gouvernement Rwandais pour les
negociations avec le FPR prevues a Arusha du 23 Novembre au 20 Decembre 1992”) (identifying Kanyarushoki and
Bagosora as part of the delegation of which Ngulinzira was the chief).
555
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 25 (2 June 2014).
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
556
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 25 (2 June 2014).
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
557
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 25 (2 June 2014).
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Chapter V
558
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 25 (2 June 2014).
1992
IN THE
AGE
OF
GENOCIDE:
559
See Cable from Walter Curley Jr. Jr. to US Secretary of State (16 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “A/S Cohen’s Discussions
with the French on Rwanda, December 14”) (“Rwandan President Habyarimana is nervous and feels like he is in
trouble.”).
560
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Consultations with French on
Rwanda”).
561
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992) (observing that pro-Hutu right-wingers
seemed “to take a very negative view of any concession” that would secure for the RPF a “prominent place” in the
government).
562
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
563
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
564
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
565
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
566
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
567
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
568
Notes on Georges Martres, End of Mission Report September 1989 - January 1993 (April 1993).
569
Notes by David Rawson, July 1991 through December 1992 (entry on 11 Dec. 1992).
570
Notes by David Rawson, July 1991 through December 1992 (entry on 11 Dec. 1992); see also Cable from Walter
Curley Jr. to US Secretary of State (15 Sept. 1992) (Subject: “Discussions with the Quai on Rwanda: Arusha III and
the Visit of PM Nsengiyaremye to Paris) (referencing to Rawson’s position as “U.S. observer”); David P. Rawson,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, OFFICE OF THE HISTORIAN, https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/rawsondavid-p (indicating Rawson was appointed Ambassador to Rwanda on 22 November 1993).
571
Notes by David Rawson, July 1991 through December 1992 (entry on 11 Dec. 1992).
572
Notes by David Rawson, July 1991 through December 1992 (entry on 11 Dec. 1992).
573
Cable from Walter Curley Jr. to US Secretary of State (16 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “A/S Cohen’s Discussions with
the French on Rwanda, December 14”).
574
Cable from Walter Curley Jr. to US Secretary of State (16 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “A/S Cohen’s Discussions with
the French on Rwanda, December 14”).
575
Cable from Walter Curley Jr. to US Secretary of State (16 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “A/S Cohen’s Discussions with
the French on Rwanda, December 14”).
576
Cable from Walter Curley Jr. to US Secretary of State (16 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “A/S Cohen’s Discussions with the
French on Rwanda, December 14”).
577
MIP Tome III Audition of Jean-Christophe Belliard, French Representative to the Arusha Negotiations (2 July
1998).
578
MIP Tome III Audition of Jean-Christophe Belliard, French Representative to the Arusha Negotiations (2 July
1998); Notes on TD Diplomatie (6 January 1993) (Subject: “Negotiations in Arusha, on CDR participation in the
enlarged transition government”) (“The Department is sympathetic to the arguments you make in support of the
Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) participating in the expanded transitional government. It seems that
a solution to the portfolio allocation problem is only conceivable in that scenario.”).
579
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (23 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Agreement: Kigali Reaction”).
580
Meeting of Belgian House Foreign Relations Committee (6 Jan. 1993) (enclosed to Memorandum from Pierre
Beaufays to Emmanuel Bahyana Songa and J. Bihozagara (9 Jan. 1993)).
581
Meeting of Belgian House Foreign Relations Committee (6 Jan. 1993) (enclosed to Memorandum from Pierre
Beaufays to Emmanuel Bahyana Songa and J. Bihozagara (9 Jan. 1993)).
582
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (23 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Agreement: Kigali Reaction”).
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Chapter V
1992
583
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (23 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Agreement: Kigali Reaction”).
584
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (23 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Agreement: Kigali Reaction”).
585
Press Release, MRND National Secretariat (23 Dec. 1992).
586
Press Release, MRND National Secretariat (23 Dec. 1992).
587
Press Release, MRND National Secretariat (23 Dec. 1992).
588
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (23 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Arusha Agreement: Kigali Reaction”).
589
Letter from Théoneste Bagosora, et al., to Boniface Ngulinzira (23 Dec. 1992).
590
MIP Tome III Audition of Jean-Christophe Belliard, French Representative to the Arusha Negotiations (2 July
1998).
591
Letter from Théoneste Bagosora, et al., to Boniface Ngulinzira (23 Dec. 1992).
592
Letter from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvénal Habyarimana (31 Dec. 1992).
593
Letter from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvénal Habyarimana (27 Dec. 1992).
594
Letter from Boniface Ngulinzira to Juvénal Habyarimana (27 Dec. 1992).
595
Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora, et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence ¶ 213 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008).
596
Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora, et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence ¶¶ 213 and 218 (Int’l
Crim. Trib. for Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008).
597
Prosecutor v. Théoneste Bagosora, et al., Case No. ICTR-98-41-T, Judgement and Sentence ¶ 213 (Int’l Crim. Trib.
for Rwanda 18 Dec. 2008). The international tribunal that tried Bagosora found that the prosecution, having presented
only one confidential witness able to provide direct evidence about the encounter, had not proven the incident “beyond
reasonable doubt.” See id. ¶ 222. The court based this determination on the “significant discrepancy” between the
witness’s insistence that the encounter took place in October 1992 and the defense’s evidence that Bagosora
participated in the Arusha negotiations only in December 1992. Id. ¶¶ 217-18. The court did not conclude that the
incident could not have happened; on the contrary, it stated that the discrepancy “could be explained if [the witness]
was simply mistaken about when this exchange occurred,” as both the witness and Bagosora had been in Arusha in
December 1992. ¶ 218. The witness, later revealed to be Patrick Mazimhaka, the RPF’s commissioner for diplomatic
affairs and a member of its delegation in Arusha (see JACQUES MOREL, LA FRANCE AU COEUR DU GENOCIDE DES TUTSI
[FRANCE AT THE HEART OF THE TUTSI GENOCIDE] 662 n.69 (2nd ed. 2018)), has continued to maintain that he was in
the elevator with Bagosora and heard the remark. See LINDA MELVERN, A PEOPLE BETRAYED (2nd ed. 2009) (citing
Linda Melvern interview with Patrick Mazimhaka (Sept. 2009)); LINDA MELVERN, CONSPIRACY TO MURDER 40
(2004); THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE, ET AL., INTERNATIONAL DECISION-MAKING IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE:
RWANDA 1990-1994, Annotated Transcript, 59-60 (2 June 2014). Supporting Mazimhaka’s account is an MDR press
release dated 15 January 1993 that reported on Bagosora’s pledge to plan the “apocalypse.” Press Release, MDR,
Itangazo No. 34. It is unclear, however, whether the MDR’s account initially came from Mazimhaka.
Page | 185
CHAPTER VI
January – March 1993
French Officials Foretold That Habyarimana’s Dissatisfaction with a Peace Agreement
Signed in Early January 1993 Would Translate into More Unrest by Anti-Tutsi Extremists.
President Habyarimana believes that the prime minister and the minister of
foreign affairs did not take into account his observations during the
negotiation, and that the RPF “negotiated with friends.” He finds himself,
he told our Ambassador, faced with “a fait accompli,” which he won’t be
able to get his supporters to accept.
The President feels that he has been cheated, and that preparations are being
made for his removal. He could reject the arrangement reached in Arusha.
All this is a sign of new unrest in Rwanda, by Hutu extremists in particular.1
– Dominique Pin, Deputy Chief of the Élysée Africa Cell
(1992 – 1995)
As Rwandans settled into the new year, all eyes were on the MRND and its ally, the CDR.
The former, through its national secretary, Matthieu Ngirumpatse, was continuing to threaten to
boycott the coalition government so long as the MRND felt marginalized within it.2 The latter was
threatening much worse, fueling fears that its members would disrupt the peace process—through
violence, if necessary—unless the negotiators in Arusha acceded to its demands for representation
in the new government.3 The two parties had closed out 1992 with a day of demonstrations that
shut down key roadways between Kigali and various northern prefectures,4 and there was ample
reason to anticipate more disruptions to follow. Tensions were high enough that, on 6 January
1993, when a loud explosion rocked the neighborhood near the US embassy, the Americans
immediately suspected that the MRND or CDR was announcing its rejection of the protocol.5
“What a relief to discover the next morning that it was a simply a grenade thrown by a disgruntled
client at a businessman’s house,” Ambassador Flaten quipped in a US cable.6
The weeks following the announcement in late December 1992 of a tentative agreement in
Arusha had been disquieting. On Christmas Day, in Kigali, a bomb exploded in a crowded
nightclub owned by one of President Habyarimana’s sons.7 The club was a known hangout for
MRND party members, as well as off-duty French soldiers, four of whom were reportedly injured
in the blast.8 Authorities soon arrested two suspects, who, in a twist, turned out to be members of
the MRND Interahamwe.9 A few days later, ethnic violence broke out in Gisenyi prefecture, as
assailants set houses on fire, slaughtered livestock, and attacked Bagogwe Tutsi residents of the
area abutting the Gishwati Forest.10 The attacks presaged many more reprisals to come over the
ensuing three months, a spate of ethnic violence that would claim hundreds of lives, spread terror,
and visit terrible suffering on Bagogwe Tutsi and opposition Hutu victims.
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Chapter VI
January – March 1993
To their surprise, Western ambassadors found President Habyarimana “amazingly relaxed
and jovial” when they joined him for dinner on 7 January 1993.11 (The dinner was billed as a
farewell gathering for French ambassador to Rwanda George Martres.12 Habyarimana, though, had
lobbied Mitterrand in December to extend Martres’ tour,13 and Mitterrand complied, authorizing
Martres to remain in Kigali for an additional three months.14) At the dinner, Habyarimana offered
no opinion on the draft protocol then circulating in Arusha, and, according to US Ambassador to
Rwanda Robert Flaten, none of the ambassadors at the table felt comfortable advising
Habyarimana to accept it.15 Flaten explained:
As Western observers, we are in a very delicate position. It is very difficult for us
to openly reject a peace agreement signed by the foreign minister of Rwanda with
the authorized representatives of the RPF under the aegis and urging of the
government of Tanzania. On the other hand, to urge the president to accept this
accord as written is in essence a recommendation that he abdicate. At least that
would be his perception of our recommendations.16
Two days later, on 9 January 1993, Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Boniface
Ngulinzira (MDR) and the chief of the RPF delegation, Pasteur Bizimungu, signed an accord that
was not much different than the one they backed in December 1992.17 The MRND still retained
the presidency and still received the same number of cabinet posts as the RPF, at five apiece.18 The
MDR received four posts, including prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, while the PL
and PSD received three cabinet posts each.19 The sole remaining spot, which might conceivably
have gone to the CDR, did not. The negotiators handed that portfolio to a new beneficiary, the
Christian Democratic Party,20 leaving the CDR unrepresented, not only in the cabinet, but in the
transitional national assembly as well.
The MRND, as it happens, had previously scheduled a rally for 10 January 1993 at the
regional stadium in Kigali, and had dispatched trucks all through the weekend to publicize the
event via loudspeaker.21 The turnout, though, proved disappointing, with an estimated crowd of
less than 5,000.22 “Those MRND faithful, who hoped that a large show of force would give them
leverage, must be disappointed,” a US cable commented.23 Those who came heard speakers slam
Ngulinzira and an agreement that, among other perceived failings, excluded the CDR from the
new government.24 The speakers threatened, yet again, that they would not participate in a
government in which they would not have a significant role to play, though Ngirumpatse, the
MRND national secretary, made clear that Habyarimana would not be resigning as president.25
Privately, Habyarimana vented his frustrations to Martres, complaining that the delegation
in Arusha had presented him with a fait accompli—one “which he won’t be able to get his
supporters to accept.”26 “The President feels that he has been cheated and that preparations are
being made for his removal,” Dominique Pin, Bruno Delaye’s new assistant at the Élysée’s Africa
Cell, reported in a 14 January 1993 note to President Mitterrand, based on information from
Ambassador Martres.27 Pin warned that Habyarimana might reject the deal.28 “All this is a sign of
new unrest in Rwanda, by Hutu extremists in particular,” he cautioned, foretelling that
Habyarimana’s dissatisfaction would translate into more killing. Mitterrand evidently took the note
under advisement, scribbling at the top: “Deal directly with Habyarimana,”29 that is, without
Martres as an intermediary.
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Chapter VI
January – March 1993
When Mitterrand wrote to Habyarimana a few days later, he voiced his support for the
Arusha process generally, without expressly endorsing the new power-sharing agreement.30
Mitterrand assured Habyarimana that he, personally, remained committed to the stability of
Rwanda, but Mitterrand did not respond to Habyarimana’s plea, one month earlier, for an
intensification of French military support.31 That subject remained delicate, in part because the
July 1992 cease-fire agreement had called for the withdrawal of foreign troops (not present under
bilateral cooperation agreements) upon the effective establishment of the Neutral Military
Observer Group.32 Mitterrand, in his letter, said he had “made note of the terms” of that
agreement.33 Even still, he was not prepared to pull the remaining Noroît company, at least not
without Habyarimana’s consent. “I do not want anyone to blame France for undermining the
proper implementation of the [Arusha cease-fire] agreement,” he wrote, “but I wish to confirm
that, on the question of the presence of the Noroît detachment, France will act in agreement with
the Rwandan authorities.”34
Massacres Began Anew on the Same Day an International Commission Investigating
Previous Massacres Left the Country. That Commission Would Deliver Its Preliminary
Findings Directly to French Officials, Specifically That Officials at the Highest Levels of
the Rwandan Government Were Responsible for Massacres and Targeted Killings.
[T]he report that the mission will deliver at the end of January in Belgium
will only add horror to the horror we already know.
– Georges Martres, French Ambassador to Rwanda (1989 – 1993)
The violent backlash to the agreement would come to pass, as Dominique Pin had predicted
on 14 January 1993. First, though, came a pause in the bloodshed, as a team of experts in social
sciences, law, and medicine from eight countries representing four international human rights
NGOs traveled to Rwanda between 7 and 21 January 1993 to investigate alleged ethnic violence
and human rights abuses dating back to 1 October 1990.35 The group, led by the organization
Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme (International Federation of Human Rights) and
known as the “FIDH Commission,” initiated their investigation at the request of a coalition of
Rwandan human rights groups called the Liaison Committee of Associations in Defense of Human
Rights in Rwanda (“CLADHO”).36 Although a number of Rwandan officials loyal to the MRND
fiercely opposed the investigation and attacked it as a hitjob launched by their political
opposition,37 the investigation went ahead. The Commission collected evidence by reviewing
documents, speaking to hundreds of witnesses, and excavating mass graves; its members visited
five prefectures, being blocked from the others by political demonstrations.38 The investigators
focused on massacres in Kibilira (October 1990), massacres of Bagogwe in the area around
Ruhengeri (January – March 1991), and massacres in Bugesera (March 1992), but collected
information on other violence that had occurred in communes throughout the country over that
time period.39 During its mission, FIDH commission members witnessed the specter of violence
hanging over the country, having been stopped themselves by Interahamwe manning a roadblock
who threatened to kill their Tutsi interpreter.40
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Chapter VI
January – March 1993
Before leaving Rwanda, Jean Carbonare, a member of the FIDH investigative team and
president of French NGO Survie, previewed the Commission’s findings for Ambassador Martres
at an in-person meeting, on 19 January 1993.41 Martres then reported the FIDH’s grim—but hardly
surprising, given what France already knew—preliminary findings to the head of the Élysée Africa
Cell, Bruno Delaye:
[The mission] has collected an impressive amount of information about the
massacres that have occurred since the beginning of the October 1990 war and, in
particular, on the Bagogwe (Tutsi ethnic group) after the [RPF’s] Ruhengeri attack
in January 1991. As for facts, the report that the mission will deliver at the end of
January in Belgium will only add horror to the horror we already know. However,
Mr. Carbonare says the mission was able to obtain the confessions of a “repentant”
member of the [Hutu] “death squads,” Janvier Africa [sic], currently detained in
jail in Kigali for different crimes. These confessions contradict the official thesis
until recently accepted and according to which ethnic violence had been provoked
by the population’s reaction to [RPF military] attacks seen above all as coming
from the Tutsi. According to Janvier Africa [sic], President Habyarimana himself
apparently ordered the massacres during a meeting with his collaborators. Mr.
Carbonare showed me a list of attendees (the President’s two brothers‐in‐law [likely
referring to Protais Zigiranyirazo and Colonel Elie Sagatwa—ed.], Casimir
Bizimungu, Colonels Bagasora [sic], Nsengiyumva, Serubuga, etc. . . .). During
this meeting, the operation was apparently planned, including the order to carry out
a systematic genocide using, if necessary, assistance from the Army and involving
local populations in the assassinations, probably to create a sense of national
solidarity in the fight against the ethnic enemy.42
Ambassador Martres continued:
[T]he report will not fail to emphasize the “neutrality” of the French Army in those
massacres, considered as proof of French “complicity.” Mr. Carbonare himself is
quite hostile to our military presence in Rwanda and would hope this presence be
justified by a humanitarian action larger than the mere protection of expatriates. . .
Mr. Carbonare would like to meet Mr. Bruno Delaye after January 25. It seems to
me that President Mitterrand’s adviser for African Affairs would do well to accept
this meeting, given the seriousness of the charges the mission is able to make.43
Carbonare did meet with Delaye on 29 January 1993,44 and the two corresponded again on
1 February 1993.45 While the French government has not released a report of their meeting (if one
exists), Carbonare’s 1 February letter thanking Delaye for the meeting attached excerpts of Janvier
Afrika’s testimony, suggesting that Carbonare had covered the same preliminary conclusions with
Delaye that he did with Martres.46 In a book published in 2005, former French DAMI would claim
to have investigated Afrika’s claims sometime in early 1993 and found them not credible.47 The
timing and methodology of this purported investigation are unclear, and the reports of investigation
are unavailable. But any investigative conclusion that Afrika was unreliable could not have
undermined the FIDH’s findings, based on “oral and written testimony from several hundred
witnesses,” that “[t]he Rwandan government [had] killed or caused to be killed about 2,000 of its
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citizens,” that “[t]he majority of the victims [had] been members of the minority group, the Tutsi,”
and that “they [had] been killed and otherwise abused for the sole reason that they [were] Tutsi.”48
Based on Martres’ reaction that the FIDH findings only “add[ed] horror” to “the horror we already
know,” French officials did not doubt them. Indeed, more horror quickly followed.
Between 19 and 20 January 1993, the CDR and the MRND organized massive
demonstrations against the Arusha agreement,49 and those protests rendered large parts of Kigali
impassable.50 On the next day, the day the FIDH fact-finding mission departed Rwanda, anti-Tutsi
violence resumed. As Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye later wrote: “With the backing of
local authorities, the MRND organized violent protests across the country from 20 to 22 January
1993.”51 According to a representative from Africa Watch, one of the NGOs that participated in
the FIDH investigation, “several [Rwandan] officials had ordered a temporary halt to the violence
during the commission’s stay in Rwanda, but had asserted that the violence would resume once
the investigation was completed.”52 After the FIDH Commission left Rwanda, “young Hutus from
the [MRND] attacked members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group and members of opposition
parties,” injuring and killing dozens.53 Moreover, “several houses and cars belonging to particular
members of opposition parties were ransacked and looted in Kigali.”54 In response to reports of
this violence, “Habyarimana offered no condemnation of the violence and treated it as the result
of popular displeasure with the most recent version of the Arusha Accords.”55
During this new wave of violence, the FIDH was particularly concerned about reprisals
against “the many Rwandans who have assisted its work, either by providing testimony or by
collaborating in its research.”56 On 27 January 1993, Africa Watch reported:
The father of one witness is dead, either by suicide or murder, after a crowd attacked
his house in retribution for his son’s assistance to the Commission. Many others
associated with the Commission have been threatened with death, including one
who was menaced in full view of Commission members as they boarded their plane
to leave Rwanda. At the church of Nyamata [a site where Tutsi seeking refuge were
gunned down during the Bugesera massacres—ed.] where the Commission was
taking testimony, witnesses awaiting their turn to speak were photographed by an
agent of the secret service.57
One of the Commission’s partners wrote in a private letter, two days after leaving Rwanda, that
she had been threatened by Captain Pascal Simbikangwa—relative of the Habyarimanas and
member of the Akazu,58 who in 2014 would become the first Rwandan génocidaire to be convicted
in France—as the Commission members were departing.59 Simbikangwa, she wrote, warned her
at the airport that “if he’s included in the Commission’s report, he was going to kill us.”60
The resurgence of violence was well reported in France. On 28 January 1993, Le Monde
republished an AFP article reporting that “at least 53 people, mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic
group, were killed in a week . . . in northwestern Rwanda.” The prime minister “implicated young
Hutu militants” connected to the MRND.61 The next day, Le Monde published a longer article,
updating the number of deceased to 80 and placing the number of wounded at “several hundred.”62
(The numbers would continue to rise with Le Monde publishing a third article on 5 February 1993,
estimating the number killed between 120 and 150,63 and Libération, on 8 February 1993,
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estimating the number at 300 in “killings . . . orchestrated by those close to the President.”64 The
French external intelligence service, the General Directorate of External Security (Direction
Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE), would eventually put the number at 300 or more.65)
The FIDH report had urged “both the Rwandan government and the RPF to halt the[ir]
abuses and to bring to justice those guilty for past violations,” having assessed that the RPF had,
on various occasions, “attacked civilian targets and . . . killed and injured civilians.”66 The
Commission did not, however, equate the alleged misconduct of some RPF troops with the
organized massacres of Tutsi perpetrated by the government. There was no equivalence. In a 28
January 1993 interview on the French TV channel France 2, Jean Carbonare compared the killings
of Tutsi in Rwanda to the ethnic cleansing taking place in the Balkans. “What we have discovered,
too, and this is just like [what happened in] Yugoslavia: all the women from the Tutsi minority see
their husbands, their brothers, their fathers being killed. [T]hey then become like abandoned
animals: raped and abused.”67 Carbonare insisted on the organized nature of the violence:
[T]here was talk of ethnic confrontation[s], but in reality, there is much more than
ethnic confrontation; it is an organized policy . . . because in several regions of the
country incidents are breaking out at the same time . . . in the preliminary report
that our committee has prepared, we spoke of ethnic cleansing, of genocide, of
crimes against humanity, and we highly insist on these words.68
Carbonare exhorted France to use its influence in Rwanda to stop these massacres: “Our country,
which militarily and financially supports this system, has a responsibility . . . Our country can, if
it wants, influence this situation.”69
The next day, Ambassador Martres sent a cable copied to the Armée Paris (the abbreviation
used in official French cables referring to the French Armies chief of staff—land, air, and marine)
in which he discussed the French diplomatic ongoing monitoring of the violence in Ruhengeri.70
According to Martres, while the violence that began the week previous had slowed, killings that
took place on the night of the 27 January 1993 caused 400 Tutsi refugees to flee their homes and
leave everything behind them.71 Martres’ cable detailed examples of destruction perpetrated
against Tutsi in the area. Martres relayed a conversation his colleague had with the bishop of
Gisenyi in which the bishop estimated that the number of deaths in January 1993 came to about
120.72 The bishop had been accosted by Interahamwe who threatened to push him in his car into a
ravine.73
The US State Department threatened diplomatic action against the Rwandan government.
Washington instructed Ambassador Flaten to remind President Habyarimana that it was his
responsibility “to control the violence, particularly that part of which is carried out by the MRND
youth” and to warn him that “such violence if continued could jeopardize our ability to carry out
economic assistance work in Rwanda.”74 A week later—after French-embassy staff coordinated a
fact-finding mission in the northwest with their American and Belgian counterparts, which
produced a scathing report, according to Belgian Ambassador to Rwanda Johan Swinnen75—
France joined a joint demarche from diplomats from Belgium, the United States, Canada,
Germany, Switzerland, and the European Community, urging the Rwandan government to stop
the violence and noting that the climate of insecurity and violence threatened international
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humanitarian and development assistance.76 The “donor countries” delivered the demarche in
person during a meeting on 5 February 1993 with President Habyarimana, who pledged to replace
officials complicit or negligent.77 At the meeting, Ambassador Martres told Habyarimana that “if
he did not change some officials immediately, his response would not be understood overseas.”78
“We have seen for two years,” Martres continued, “that there have been incidents of this sort, and
no one has been punished.”79 Martres would, in fact, send a cable to Paris that same day with
information about recent “inter-ethnic massacres” in Gisenyi. The cable explained that the attacks,
which had been instigated by the CDR and “MRND/Interahamwe,” were in keeping with a long
history in Rwanda of fomenting “ethnic quarrels for political purposes.”80 Throughout that history,
he wrote, “[t]he local authorities have been, with a few exceptions, deficient or complicit.”81
Even though French officials joined other Western diplomats in expressing their
displeasure through the joint demarche, they demanded nothing further of the Rwandan
government and continued to support the Rwandan president for the remainder of the year and
beyond.
Following the demarche, Habyarimana took cosmetic steps to address the violence.82 As
Bruno Delaye told the MIP, after the 5 February meeting:
The [Rwandan] President. . . announced the arrest of [150] perpetrators. . . their
bringing to justice and sanctions against the failing local authorities, and on
February 8, the Rwandan Government announced the suspension of the prefect of
Gisenyi [where a significant part of the violence had taken place—ed.], a subprefect and six mayors.83
During his MIP hearing, Bruno Delaye emphasized these and similar efforts, presumably to
explain why France felt enough was being done. While eleven MRND and CDR officials were
suspended—including Leon Mugesera, the counselor in the Ministry of Family who had incited
violence with his fiery 22 November 1992 speech—the core extremist leaders who would lead the
Genocide—like Simbikangwa and Bagosora—remained in place.84 And, as the DGSE would
conclude in an 18 February note, there were two possible explanations for the massacres:
According to the first, it is one element in the vast “ethnic purification” program
directed against the Tutsi, the planners of which are allegedly individuals close to
the Head of State, or at least influential MRND and CDR figures, and which was
taken over by prefects and mayors.
The second explanation lies in the opposition to the democratic process by those . .
. in power, who do not hesitate to rekindle old ethnic demons in order to derail any
progress in the democratic process.85
Either way, Habyarimana’s supposed crackdown on the perpetrators of anti-Tutsi violence
was just theater; the people most responsible for the massacres remained at large, and their work
was far from done. In late February 1993, opposition leaders in Rwanda would be alarmed to learn
that the Rwandan Army, not long after a Habyarimana speech warning that the RPF was sending
spies to Kigali and was preparing to massacre civilians,86 had begun distributing weapons to
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communal-level “civil defense units.”87 Prime Minister Nsengiyaremye, a moderate, told US
diplomats he feared the arms had been given to the CDR and MRND Interahamwe in Ruhengeri
and would be used for ethnic or political killings.88 The Americans pressed the Rwandan military
authorities about it and confirmed, on 2 March, that the Army had handed out 300 weapons (G3
battle rifles, apparently) and 18,000 rounds of ammunition, mostly to MRND and CDR
supporters.89 Defense Minister Gasana, who soon received orders to confiscate the illegally
distributed weapons,90 at first defended the operation by telling US Ambassador Flaten its purpose
“was to protect against RPF infiltrators and against deserters who pillage and kill civilians as they
proceed from the battle front.”91 He later told the ambassador that the order to distribute the
weapons had been issued under false pretenses by his cabinet director, Colonel Bagosora.92
When the RPF Launched Its 8 February 1993 Counter-Offensive in Response to the
January 1993 Ethnic Killings, the French Government Increased Military Support of the
FAR with Another 120 French Troops and More Weaponry.
This situation is disastrous: it provides an avenue to the RPF, which, with
Ugandan military support, Belgian sympathy for the Tutsis, [and] an
excellent system of propaganda emphasizing the wretched abuses
committed by extremist Hutu, . . . continues to score points militarily and
politically.93
– Bruno Delaye, Head of the Élysée Africa Cell (1992 – 1995)
The RPF, for its part, was losing faith in its agreements with the government. In Kampala,
during a 27 January 1993 meeting with US Ambassador to Uganda Johnnie Carson, one of the
RPF’s representatives warned that “the option of ceasefire [was] increasingly becoming more
expensive in terms of human loss. . . . We think we can no longer sit back and watch Habyarimana’s
regime kill our people indiscriminately.”94
From the RPF’s perspective, President Habyarimana’s ridicule of the peace negotiations
(having referred to them in November 1992 as “mere pieces of paper”) and the massacres of Tutsi
civilians in January 1993 broke the cease-fire.95 On 8 February 1993, the RPF took action.
Responding not only to the recent anti-Tutsi massacres, but also to the Rwandan government’s
role in enabling them, the RPF countered the state’s facilitation of the massacres with an offensive
into northern Rwanda.96 In the early morning hours on the 8th, the RPF troops circled past the
demilitarized zone and initiated their attack behind FAR lines,97 first advancing into three sectors
in northern Rwanda, then entering the town of Ruhengeri, and finally attacking two more sectors
in Byumba.98
The RPF troops would advance quickly over the coming days, nearly doubling their
territory in the initial offensive.99 The advance stopped only once it reached the tactically
advantageous position in the mountains overhanging the capital, about 30 kilometers from
Kigali.100 By 18 February 1993, RPF troops had conquered more than a dozen strategic positions
including bridges, roads, and hills, effectively gaining control of two axis roads to Kigali.101
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In an interview with a Christian Science Monitor reporter embedded for four days with the
RPF troops during the second week of the offensive, Paul Kagame, chairman of High Command
of the RPF forces, would explain the move as a reaction to the massacres, which he saw as a
political tool used by Habyarimana to repudiate an unsatisfactory agreement in Arusha:
MONITOR: What were the Objectives of your latest offensive, and did you
achieve them?
KAGAME: The objectives were limited. They were to send a strong signal to
the government that while we are pursuing a peace process they must respect it.
They have been repudiating the agreements that we reached in Arusha. You must
have heard about the recent massacres [in Gisenyi and Ruhengeri districts] that
were instigated by the government.
MONITOR:
Yes. What are your figures of the people massacred?
KAGAME: Anything between 300 and 400. This is not the first time they have
done this, they killed people in Bugyesira, and Kibilira near Gisenyi and also killed
the Bagogwe people in the Gisenyi area. We thought these killings would die out
as we pursued the peace process but they did not. So we could not be indifferent;
just stand by and watch.
MONITOR:
What was the political motive for these killings in your view?
KAGAME: It was intimidation. During the power sharing negotiations in
Arusha, President Habyarimana’s party (Republican National Movement for
Democracy and Development—MRND) was trying to include an extremist Hutu
party (Coalition for the Defense of the Republic—CDR) in the government. That
would have resulted into a pro-Habyarimana majority in the cabinet, so we refused
on the basis that we could not allow a sectarian party in the government. So, when
the agreement was signed leaving CDR, the MRND was trying to show its strength,
combined with CDR’s, could make things go wrong in the country; that there would
be no stability hence the massacres. The government instigated MRND and CDR
supporters to kill members of the opposition parties and fanned ethnic violence
against the Tutsis.102
Four days after the RPF launched its offensive, the spokesperson of the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs pushed back on the RPF narrative by expressing firm support for the Habyarimana
government, accusing the RPF of breaking the cease-fire,103 and rejecting the deterrence of statesponsored massacres of Tutsi civilians104 as a legitimate basis for the resumption of hostilities:
We are aware of the reasons invoked by the RPF to explain the attack. France does
not consider the given reasons [to be] a justification for the resumption of fighting,
even if France condemns, in Rwanda as elsewhere, all violations of human rights.
We have taken note of the measures taken by the Rwandan authorities to restore
security in the north of the country.105
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Yet, four days after the statement, a 16 February 1993 US cable reported ongoing state-sponsored
human rights abuses in northern Rwanda, suggesting that the measures taken by Rwandan
authorities had been inadequate. This included unlawful arrests of “suspected RPF supporters . . .
linked with severe beatings and reports of extrajudicial killings;”106 the abduction by Rwandan
soldiers of three students from a Seventh Day Adventist University Campus north of Gisenyi (The
bodies of the students, all Bagogwe Tutsi, would later be found near the school.107); the FAR arrest
of 24 suspected RPF accomplices in Gisenyi and Gitarama, twelve of whom were severely beaten
before being released;108 and “unconfirmed reports” of “suspects” taken to the Kigali Military
Camp where three to five may have been killed.109
For senior French officials, an RPF military advance always summoned urgency that ethnic
massacres did not. Late in the morning on the first day of the offensive, 8 February 1993, French
officials held a crisis meeting at the Foreign Ministry.110 General Quesnot and Bruno Delaye
submitted their proposal for approval to President Mitterrand:
1 - On the diplomatic level:
- reminder of our support of the Arusha process and condemnation
of this unilateral breaking of the cease-fire (statement from the Quai spokesperson)
- warned Museveni (President of Uganda): Mr. Dumas [minister of
foreign affairs] should call him on the phone.
We will also alert Washington, London, and Brussels.
2 - On the military level:
- reinforcement of our support for the Rwandan Army, with the exception
of any direct participation of French forces in the confrontations;
- delivery of ammunition and equipment;
- technical assistance, especially with artillery;
- one company was put on alert at six o’clock in case the security of the
French community requires its intervention.111
Mitterrand recorded his response by hand: “Agreed. Urgent[.]”112 The same day, France dispatched
a company of approximately 120 soldiers from the 21st regiment of the marine infantry
(“RIMa”),113 commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Philippe Tracqui since 1992114 and stationed in
Bouar, Central African Republic at the time.115 Lt. Col. Tracqui’s company landed in Kigali on 9
February 1993 to reinforce the single Noroît company remaining after the departure of a company
in November 1992, raising the number of Noroît troops from 170 to 291.116
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More aircraft would soon follow, bearing weapons for the Rwandan Army. On 12
February, a Douglas DC-8 jet airliner delivered fifty 12.7 mm machine guns and 100,000
cartridges for the FAR—gratis from the French Ministry of Defense.117 Five days later, when
another French plane landed, members of the FAR “discreetly” unloaded from it a delivery of 105
mm shells and 68 mm rockets.118
These shipments were among 8.4 million French francs (approx. $1.5 million) worth of
weapons and military equipment the French government provided free-of-charge to the Rwandan
military in 1993, much of it arriving in the weeks following the 8 February offensive.119 For
example:
-
On 24 February, the French Ministry of Cooperation donated 200 68-mm helicopter rockets
to Rwanda.120
On 5 March, the French Ministry of Defense authorized the no-cost transfer of 2,000 81mm shells and 1,000 60-mm shells to Rwanda.121
On 9 March, the French Ministry of Cooperation donated 1,000 shells for 120-mm mortars
to Rwanda.122
France provided another 6 million French francs (approx. $1.1 million) in direct, forpayment shipments over the course of the year.123
Despite the assistance provided by the French government, General Quesnot remained
pessimistic about the FAR’s viability. “The Rwandan Army,” Quesnot wrote in a 13 February
1993 letter to President Mitterrand “will not be able to resist the [RPA]. Our logistical aid,
otherwise rather weak with respect to needs, will not compensate for the existing balance of
power.”124 Bruno Delaye also seemed to view weaknesses in the Habyarimana regime as more
concerning than abuses committed against Tutsi: “This situation is disastrous,” he wrote regarding
discord amongst Rwandan leadership in a 15 February 1993 letter to President Mitterrand. “It
provides an avenue to the RPF, which, with Ugandan military support, Belgian sympathy for the
Tutsis, [and] an excellent system of propaganda that is based on the wretched abuses committed
by extremist Hutu, . . . continues to score points, militarily and politically.”125
The cause of the RPF’s military response—the government’s role in ongoing anti-Tutsi
massacres—did not merit mention in the notes written to the President by either General Quesnot
(a military leader) or Bruno Delaye (a diplomat). It did not merit mention even in 1998, when
Bruno Delaye described the moment to the MIP.126 In his testimony, Delaye focused on what he
characterized as the RPF’s violation of the cease-fire and their quick advance by choosing to cast
the events as unjust on the side of the RPF and urgent with respect to the FAR.127 He said that
Mitterrand deemed it necessary to augment the FAR’s fighting power in order to “compel the RPF
to renounce the armed fight, but also because it was feared that its [the RPF’s] offensive might
trigger a logic of ethnic reprisals on the part of the FAR, replacing a conventional military defense
strategy.”128 Foreshadowing its policy during the Genocide, French senior leaders—rather than
press their allies in the Rwandan government to stop the massacres—developed a strategy to defeat
the RPF as a round-about means of discontinuing the mass murder of Tutsi civilians.
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French decisionmakers seemed indifferent to even the practical (to say nothing of moral)
value of prioritizing the prevention of massacres. Such “a humanitarian action larger than the mere
protection of expatriates”—in the words of French Ambassador to Rwanda Georges Martres,
referring to the hopes of Jean Carbonare, the head of the FIDH mission—might have not only kept
the RPF at the negotiating table, but revived its trust in French intentions. But France’s agreement
was to provide military support to its ally, and honoring that agreement was its priority both to
protect its interests in the region and to signal its fidelity to allies around the continent. Intervention
against the government to protect human rights might have scrambled the message President
Mitterrand and his advisors wanted to send. As a result, his government met massacres with “tut
tuts” and met the RPF with force.
Even a Mission to Evacuate Foreign Nationals from Ruhengeri Served the Unstated French
Goal of Deterring the RPF.
The same morning the RPF launched its advance on Ruhengeri, 8 February 1993, French
forces stationed in and around Ruhengeri initiated a mission, known as Operation Volcan, to
evacuate French nationals and other expatriates from the southern limits of Ruhengeri.129 Stepping
into the combat zone would invite accusations of taking part in the fight. Whether or not those
accusations were true, the presence of French forces in the field of battle would remind the RPF
that their new offensive could draw French troops into the fight.
On 8 February, DAMI soldiers participating in Volcan were following FAR soldiers toward
Ruhengeri when they encountered heavy opposition by the RPF military.130 Upon the DAMI’s
counsel, a FAR company launched about a dozen 60 mm mortar shells on the perceived RPF
targets.131 Even so, the RPF Army kept the French forces from reaching the city. In Kigali, the
next day, 9 February, French officials conferred with Rwandan commanders and concluded that,
given RPF military positions around Ruhengeri, “a force action to recover foreign nationals could
not be considered without serious fire support from the 105 FAR cannons and, if possible, a patrol
of French jaguars [fighter jets].”132
Late in the afternoon of 9 February, the French commanders learned that the RPF Army
had made “courteous contact” with French forces to indicate the RPF was ready to let foreign
nationals safely leave the city.133 The French commanders passed the information to Paris, where,
by midnight, officials in the Army état-major, who had considered and rejected more belligerent
options, such as a warning pass by French fighter jets, opted to attempt to broker an agreement
between the RPF and the FAR in order to allow a Noroît detachment to exfiltrate foreign
nationals.134
Following negotiations held on 10 February 1993, French troops, accompanied by Major
General Opaleye, commander of the OAU-led GOMN, successfully extracted 67 expatriates from
an agreed-upon meeting point.135 Opaleye was the same GOMN commander who had in December
1992 accused DAMI forces of a cease-fire violation,136 and Col. Bernard Cussac, who commanded
both Noroît and the DAMI, quickly alerted Paris that Opaleye had been accompanied by a
cameraman who had photographed, amongst other scenes, “Noroît in gathering position on the
road 3km south of Ruhengeri in the middle of a FAR attack device.”137 Indeed, on 16 February
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1993, AFP and Reuters would jointly report a statement from the OAU, which oversaw the
GOMN, as follows:
“French troops have bombed rebel positions south of Ruhengeri,” said the OAU
representative, a member of an international military mission charged with the task
of upholding the bilateral ceasefire signed last year in Arusha, in Tanzania. “The
French troops are stationed in Nyakinama, about 80 kilometers from the capital
Kigali,” the spokesman said. A second testimony, from someone close to the
Rwandan government, said that French troops bombed rebel positions with
“sophisticated weapons.”138
Rwandan Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye, who presumably had received similar
information days before the AFP and Reuters articles broke, reportedly remarked to Belgian
Ambassador Johan Swinnen on the day of the evacuation that “there are among these French some
soldiers who like to shoot.”139
France denied direct engagement in the fight, telling Reuters that “the highest (French)
political authority is categorically opposed to French troops getting involved on the ground,” and
that “[w]e did not take part in the fighting.”140 But whether French soldiers shot at the RPF forces
during Operation Volcan, or, instead, simply trained FAR soldiers to shoot and then directed them
on when and how to shoot, is of little moral significance. As the MIP report acknowledged, French
troops
intervene[d] very closely with the FAR in the field[,] . . . continuously participated
in the development of battle plans, provided advice to the chief of staff and to the
sectors’ commands, proposing restructuring and new tactics . . . dispatched advisers
to instruct the FAR in the use of sophisticated weapons[,] . . . [and] taught
techniques of laying traps and mines, suggesting the most appropriate locations for
them.141
French troops, whether or not they ever pulled a trigger, were co-combatants with their FAR allies.
Even a mission, like Volcan, devoted to the French intervention’s stated goal of protecting
French nationals in Rwanda, furthered the unstated goal of stopping the RPF. To Bruno Delaye,
this was intentional. In a 15 February 1993 note to President Mitterrand, Delay referred to the
“ambiguity” of French troop deployment in Rwanda “as necessary for a good deterrent”—i.e.¸ if
the RPF did not know France’s true mission, it would have to assume the mission was to stop the
RPF.142
Disregarding His Defense Minister’s Objections, Mitterrand Ordered the French Army to
Reinforce Noroît.
While the FAR had managed to regain much of the city of Ruhengeri by 11 February
1993, the RPF retained large gains throughout northern Rwanda.144 During the initial phase of
its offensive, the RPF nearly doubled the land it controlled.145 With RPF forces in the mountains
overhanging the capital roughly 30 km north of Kigali,146 General Quesnot described, in a brief
143
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note to President Mitterrand on 11 February 1993, the situation at the front as “worrying.”147 Or,
as Bruno Delaye put it in a message to President Mitterrand a few days later, “According to our
officers in KIGALI, the RPF is militarily in a position to take KIGALI.”148
On 15 February 1993, a week after the RPF launched its offensive, Bruno Delaye advised
Mitterrand that France was “at the limit of the strategy of indirect support to the forces of the
Rwandan Army.”149 He worried that the FAR could not resist an RPF attempt to take Kigali,
leaving France with “no other choice than to evacuate KIGALI (the official mission of our two
infantry companies is to protect expatriates), unless we become co-belligerents.”150 Mitterrand
would decide that, rather than evacuate, France should become a co-belligerent.
By 15 February, the RPF was fighting the FAR 30 kilometers from the capital city.151 And
by 18 February, panic in Kigali and Paris reached a fever pitch. A cable sent that day from the
Rwandan embassy in Kampala warned that the “Inkotanyi [RPF] are determined to go up to the
end and to grab power by force. They are saying they have reached a point of no return.”152 The
cable warned of reinforcements coming from Uganda and pleaded for “an emergency mobilization
of all volunteers in order to be able to contain the RPF advance and to force them to return to their
known positions before [8 February 1993].”153 To General Quesnot, the stakes were clear. In an
18 February note to Mitterrand, Quesnot reminded the president of what France stood to lose in
the event of an RPF victory: “If we do not find sufficient pressure to stop Museveni, who has
implicit British support, the French-speaking front will be permanently damaged and compromised
in the region.”154
That evening, in Paris, a meeting was held with Admiral Lanxade, General Quesnot, and
the secretary general of the Quai d’Orsay. Delaye’s deputy, Dominique Pin, reported on the
meeting to Mitterrand, setting out the same choice Delaye had presented on 15 February: withdraw
or join the fight by sending 1,000 men to protect Kigali “mainly.”155
Pin showed his distaste for evacuation, emphasizing the message evacuation would send
to other allies in Africa: “President Habyarimana’s power should not survive this departure, which
will be interpreted as the failure of our policy in Rwanda. All this will not be without
consequences for our relations with other African countries.”156 In closing his note, Pin again
emphasized the role of French interests elsewhere in Africa: “[I]t would also be good if we could
obtain the support of Presidents Houphouet-Boigny (Ivory Coast), Abdou Diouf (Senegal), and
[Omar] Bongo (Gabon) before any intervention in Rwanda.”157
By the next morning, 19 February, Habyarimana had called Paris to say that “Ugandan
involvement in the RPF is such that, according to cross-checked information, the Rwandan forces
will not be able to hold the present lines near KIGALI for much longer.”158 He requested “a rapid
intervention by French troops to stop the rebel offensive and prevent the RPF from taking
Kigali.”159
Habyarimana’s urgent plea was out of step with what other observers were seeing, which,
by and large, was simply more of the same, and not the imminent fall of Kigali. France’s
intelligence service, the DGSE, predicted no imminent attack in the report it had drafted the day
before (18 February).160 It did not mention Ugandan support and even noted that the RPF forces
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could retake Ruhengeri “if they wanted to,” but had not yet done so—a restraint inconsistent with
the bloodthirsty opponent portrayed in the cable from the Rwandan embassy in Kampala.161
What France seems not to have known is that the RPF forces were running low on
ammunition and were having trouble replenishing their supplies. In an interview, Paul Kagame
recalled that the RPF had purchased a large quantity of ammunition that, though acquired from
sources outside Uganda, would need to be transported through Ugandan territory to reach the RPF
troops in Rwanda.162 President Museveni refused, however, to release the shipment to the RPF.163
As Kagame recalled, Museveni, who was under tremendous pressure from the international
community (including France) to use his leverage to stop RPF forces from taking Kigali,164
demanded that the RPF stop its advance.165 Kagame, as previously noted, said in February 1993
that the objectives of RPF’s offensive were “limited” and intended to “send a strong signal” to the
Habyarimana regime to respect the peace process.166 Agreeing to Museveni’s demand, which
Kagame did,167 was consistent with these objectives. Museveni withheld the shipment long enough
to ensure the RPF honored its promise.168
French leaders continued to see an emergency, and their information appears to have come
directly from President Habyarimana. Determined to act, Pin and Quesnot presented Mitterrand
with three options.169 The first was to evacuate French nationals.170 The second involved sending
two companies to protect French and other foreign nationals, which had the added benefit of
sending “a clear message to the RPF to curb its appetite.”171 The third was to “dispatch a larger
contingent, de facto prohibiting the RPF from taking Kigali and allowing [FAR] units to reestablish
their positions along the previous cease-fire line.”172 This third option would require a request from
the Rwandan government specifying “that the country [was] the victim of external aggression.”173
Pin and Quesnot blatantly counseled mission creep: “For now, we support solution 2, which, in
case of failure, could form a base structure for solution 3. These two solutions, each accompanied
by intense diplomatic action, could, at the opportune moment, allow us to withdraw under more
dignified conditions.”174 As Pin had done in his earlier note, he and Quesnot again invoked
relations with Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Gabon:
[Solution 3] would require both an external Rwandan request stating that the
country is a victim of external aggression and consultation with Presidents
HOUHOUET-BOIGNY, ABDOU DIOUF, and BONGO. It would have the
advantage of showing our determination to resolve the Rwandan crisis solely by
political means. However, it would be the signal for semi-direct involvement.175
A handwritten note by Hubert Vedrine, the President’s principal advisor, indicates that
Mitterrand chose Solution 2.176 And an official note by Quesnot confirmed this choice to the chief
of staff for the minister of defense, stating misleadingly that the President had decided to send two
companies to Rwanda to “ensure the immediate security of our nationals and if necessary other
expatriates.”177
The message was not well received by Defense Minister Pierre Joxe. The same day, 19
February, he pushed back in a note to President Mitterrand: “[I]n the absence of an immediate
threat to Kigali the two companies that are present, one of which holds the airport, should be
sufficient.”178 France had already reinforced Noroît with a second company on 9 February.179 Joxe
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continued: “I remain convinced that we must strictly limit ourselves to the protection of our
nationals.”180 He warned, “If we let ambiguity shroud the meaning of this movement, the Rwandan
presidency will not fail to present it as support from France.”181 Thus, Joxe not only questioned
the need to send more French troops to Rwanda, but also suggested that doing so could embolden
Habyarimana.
President Mitterrand did not heed Joxe’s warning. Over the next two days, 20 and 21
February 1993, 279 additional French troops arrived in Kigali, swelling the number of Noroît
troops to 570.182 The new arrivals included paratroopers dispatched from the French base in
Bangui, Central African Republic and a heavy mortar section stationed in Libreville, Gabon.183
The order given these troops was to protect French citizens.184 “Concerning the use of Noroît,”
Lanxade wrote, “it is a question of clearly showing our determination to oppose any threat against
our nationals in Kigali.”185 (Noroît’s numbers would continue growing over the ensuing weeks,
rising to 688 troops as of 16 March.186)
Admiral Lanxade named Col. Dominique Delort commander of operations in Kigali,
placing him in charge of all French troops in Rwanda—effectively replacing Col. Cussac’s
command.187 By superseding Cussac, Delort’s appointment effectively stripped authority from
General Varret, because Cussac reported to the French Army’s chief of staff and also to General
Varret, while Delort reported only to the Army chief of staff (headed by Admiral Lanxade). That
said, Varret had already been sidelined, for all intents and purposes, since July 1991.188
French Soldiers Manned Checkpoints Alongside Rwandan Gendarmes, Despite a History
of Abuses.
Lanxade ordered Delort to “set up a deterrent system at the northern exits of Kigali” on
the roads toward Ruhengeri and Byumba.”189 These positions, according to Lanxade, would buy
the French forces enough time to retrieve and evacuate French nationals if need be.190 Lanxade
also placed under Delort’s command about 20 special forces of the RAPAS (Airborne Research
and Special Action) company of the 1st RPIMA (infantry paratroopers), newly arrived in Kigali on
22 February 1993 with a mission “intended to strengthen our assistance to the RWANDAN
command . . . and to ensure advanced guidance of aerial actions.” 191 (See discussion of Operation
Chimère below.) Lanxade warned Delort, “You could be called upon to open fire. Whenever
possible, if time permits, you will first ask for my authorization.”192
Col. Delort placed a heavy mortar section and checkpoints at the outskirts of Kigali.193
French soldiers manned the checkpoints alongside Rwandan gendarmes, providing “limited action
in support” of their Rwandan counterparts.194 “Suspects” were to be delivered to the Gendarmerie,
while GOMN observers were to be restricted from entering the Noroît zone, and French soldiers
were not to speak to the press without approval.195
French activities at checkpoints, in early 1993 and before, have been the subject of a good
deal of controversy. Rwanda is known as the “land of a thousand hills,” and getting from one place
to another typically requires travel along the few roads that wind their way through the valleys of
those hills. Thus, checkpoints—which typically involved blocking the road and stopping travelers
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to check their papers and/or interrogate them—were an effective way of controlling travel, one
that had been used before and throughout the war in the early 1990s.196
By 1993, however, abuses by Rwandan gendarmes at checkpoints was a problem that had
been well known to French officials for years.197 In August 1992, for instance, a collection of
French officers, including Col. Bernard Cussac and Lt. Col. Michel Robardey, told Colonel
Augustin Ndindiliyimana, the Gendarmerie chief of staff, that the French had received reports of
“abuses” at roadblocks manned by Rwandan forces.198 Robardey highlighted specific roadblocks
between Ruhengeri and Gisenyi where, according to the meeting notes, he said Rwandan “soldiers
engage in strange behaviour that is not conducive to the public peace they should be striving
for.”199 He posited an excuse for the reports to Ndindiliyimana: in his opinion, Robardey
suggested, “such abuses are observed at roadblocks held by [F]AR soldiers” as opposed to the
Gendarmerie.200 If the Gendarmerie takes control over roadblocks from the FAR, he continued, “it
will be easy to find out if it is the gendarmes who are holding people to ransom or not.”201 Also
present at this meeting was Col. Alain Damy, who had recently been assigned as the technical
advisor to Ndindiliyimana and the head of the French DAMI assistance.202 Damy informed the
Rwandan officer that he intended to visit all of the Gendarmerie units “to have an accurate idea of
the reality on the ground.”203
Past reports were reinforced on 19 February 1993, the day President Mitterrand decided to
send additional troops to Rwanda who would, among other things, fortify Rwandan gendarmes at
checkpoints. During a meeting of the Gendarmerie état-major that day, Col. Ndindiliyimana
intoned that gendarmes manning roadblocks should conduct themselves with “more seriousness”
and “respect people.”204 Col. Damy attended the meeting and would have certainly understood that
Ndindiliyimana was responding to reports of abuses at roadblocks because Damy had been aware
of such accusations from the beginning of his deployment months earlier and, perhaps, from what
he saw during his planned tour of gendarme positions around Rwanda.205 (Damy also oversaw the
French trainers stationed in the Fichier Central where, according to Gen. Paul Rwarakabjie, a
member of the Gendarmerie état-major, Tutsi were taken for interrogation after being arrested at
roadblocks.206 The Fichier Central, Rwarakabije noted, was commonly referred to as an
“abattoir.”207) A 1 March 1993 cable from Georges Martres reported on a reduction in the number
of abuses at roadblocks when French soldiers were present and explained that “there is no more
ransoming of passers-by and there are much fewer thefts.”208
Additional accounts have placed French soldiers as eyewitnesses to abuses against Tutsi at
checkpoints throughout the war beginning in 1990,209 with some accusing French soldiers of
facilitating the abuses. Several such accounts were provided to the Mucyo Commission established
in 2004 by the Rwandan government to investigate the role of France in the preparation and
implementation of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.210 For example, one witness, Emmanuel
Nshogozabahizi, recounted:
In 1992, I was in a minibus coming from Kigali with my cousin Mudenge JeanBaptiste who worked at the Kicukiro Brewery. When we arrived in Mukamira,
around 7pm, the French stopped the minibus and asked us for our identity cards.
Seeing that my cousin was Tutsi, they took him out and kept him. Since then, I have
not seen him again. However, I immediately started searching for him, and my
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status as an Interahamwe allowed me to go everywhere, which means that if he had
stayed alive, I would certainly have found him, but I never knew what his fate
was.211
Another example, not from the Mucyo Commission’s report, comes from Pierre Damien
Habumuremyi, the prime minister of Rwanda from 2011 through 2014. Habumuremyi has
recounted traveling home to Rwanda in December 1990 for the holidays from Lumbumbashi,
Zaire, where he was studying as a university student. At the northeast border town of Gisenyi, he
approached a checkpoint “manned by five French officers and two Rwandan soldiers, all armed to
the teeth.”212 Habumuremyi did not have a Rwandan ID card, only a passport that did not list his
ethnicity, so the frustrated soldiers told him to return the following day. The next day,
Habumuremyi was allowed into the country and boarded a bus to travel the final 80 km home, but
his bus was stopped again at a checkpoint outside of Ruhengeri manned by four “combat-armed
French soldiers.”213 The French soldiers ordered all of the passengers to disembark and proceeded
“through the gruesome drill of identifying and sorting the passengers along ethnic lines as
indicated on the national IDs with the Tutsi being targeted.”214 While Habumuremyi remembered
these encounters in chilling detail, he noted that the experience of other Tutsi was much worse
because “[t]hey were either imprisoned, tortured or both and even killed.”215
In February and March 1993, French soldiers checked identification at checkpoints outside
Kigali.216 And, per operational orders, they were expected to turn over “suspects” to the
Gendarmerie, 217 despite French officials’ knowledge of the rich and recent history of abuses at the
hands of the Gendarmerie at checkpoints. Testimony given before the Mucyo Commission and in
recent interviews suggests that the Gendarmerie continued to abuse Tutsi travelers detained at
roadblocks in February and March 1993.218 For example, Gen. Rwarakabije told the Mucyo
Commission:
In 1993, the French soldiers had a position at Mount Jali in the Gendarmerie camp
for the Mobile Intervention Group, which they trained in road security techniques.
I remember holding in my hands a report by the camp commander on the screening
and arrests carried out at this roadblock by French soldiers. It was in 1993, at the
time of the capture of Ruhengeri. The report pointed out that if someone was a
Hutu, they let him pass, and when it was a Tutsi, they kept him, abused and insulted
him in such humiliating terms: “you stupid Tutsi, cockroach!,” etc. Tutsis
underwent very tight questioning there. I even think that the Rwandan gendarmes
sometimes beat them up.219
In its 1998 report, the French Parliamentary Commission acknowledged the presence of
French soldiers at Rwandan Gendarmerie checkpoints. But the report failed to appreciate that
when, in February and March 1993, French soldiers manned checkpoints alongside the Rwandan
Gendarmerie, French officials knew of the abuses that some Rwandan gendarmes had committed
at checkpoints throughout the war. A 2 March 1993 operational order instructed French soldiers
not to allow international observers from the GOMN to access the French observation posts at the
checkpoints.220 The order also instructed soldiers manning the checkpoints not to speak to the
press.221 The Parliamentary Commission observed that this secrecy reflected a preference “not to
highlight” that French troops were performing a law enforcement function typically reserved for
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Rwandan authorities.222 More specifically, however, French officials likely sought to hide from
the international community French participation in checking identification for ethnicity. Although
reports from Col. Delort and Lt. Col. Tracqui do not suggest that French soldiers turned anyone
suspected of being an RPF collaborator over to the Gendarmerie,223 accounts of abuses against
Tutsi detained at checkpoints in February and March 1993 (cited above) suggest there was good
reason to emphasize secrecy.
Bernard Kayumba224
Bernard was born on 4 September 1969 in former Kibuye Prefecture.
The first time I had an encounter with the French that was harmful to me
personally was in 1993. This was after the 8 March 1993 RPF Inkotanyi attack on the
outskirts of the capital city. At the time, I was a student at the Major Seminary in
Kabgayi. I had left my school, boarded a public transport vehicle on my way to visit
family friends in Kigali. When I got to Nyabarongo, there was a roadblock manned
by French soldiers and Rwandan gendarmes. The taxi was stopped. A French
soldier asked me “Tutsi/Hutu?” I kept quiet. He asked me again and I gave him my
student ID that did not have my ethnicity. He refused to take it and asked for my
national ID. I gave it to him, and he lifted my photo in the ID to read my ethnicity
and said “Tutsi.” He added that he knew I was Tutsi because Tutsis were tall with
small noses and ordered me to step aside before letting the vehicle continue to
Kigali without me.
At the side of the road where I was forced to sit, I found about six other
Tutsis. They had similarly been taken out of vehicles. We heard rumors that the
soldiers were waiting for our number to increase before transporting us in military
trucks to be killed. As luck would have it, a Red Cross vehicle came, and its
occupants saved us. They asked why we were sitting by the side of the road. A
Rwandan gendarme said we did not have IDs. We heard him say this, and we
contradicted him. A white man who worked for the Red Cross came and looked at
our IDs. He told the soldiers manning the roadblock that they had lied to him, and
that we did have IDs. The man from the Red Cross asked the soldiers to release us.
I found a vehicle heading back to Gitarama and boarded it in the presence of the
Red Cross staff. I have no doubt if the Red Cross vehicle had not come at that
moment, bad things would have happened.
I was very hurt by the French soldier’s actions. How could a foreign soldier
deny me my rights in my own country? It was very humiliating that a French
soldier, a foreigner in my country, could forcibly remove me from the taxi I was
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traveling in because of my ethnicity. All my life, I had been harassed by fellow
Rwandans for being Tutsi. I could not understand why a foreigner felt he had to
visit the same humiliation upon me. The French identified more with our
tormentors than with their victims.
When the Genocide began, I spent many weeks trying to survive and ended
up in Bisesero. After fleeing my home following the deaths of my entire family, I
ended up in Bisesero with four friends that survived the journey.
When the French came to Kibuye, we saw their helicopters fly over Gishyita,
a mere five kilometers from Bisesero. We were hopeful we would be saved. On 27
June, French soldiers came towards Bisesero with trucks and military hardware.
Some of the refugees, among them Eric Nzabihimana, a teacher who hailed from
Gisovu, stopped the convoy. He was able to communicate in French, and he spoke
to the soldiers.
The other refugees and I all left our different hiding places in the bushes and
converged around the French convoy by the roadside because we all thought we
were about to be rescued by the French. The French soldiers were in the company
of Interahamwe who were supposed to show the French that there were no
problems in Bisesero and take them to Gisovu. We pleaded with the French to
protect us, but they said they would not stay.
For the three days that followed the French soldiers’ departure from
Bisesero, the attacks became more vicious and sustained, and survivors were
massacred. We had all been hiding in the bushes but when we came out to speak
with the French soldiers by the side of the road, our hiding places were exposed to
our attackers. On 30 June 1994, the French soldiers came back and took us to a camp
in Bisesero.
Because I was one of the leaders of the camp, the French had asked me and
the other camp leaders to build a tent next to theirs so they could access us anytime
to give instructions to other refugees. I said to one of the French soldiers, “why are
you leaving our killers to flee with their weapons? Won’t they continue killing us?” He
said to me, “you are no longer the priority; the priority are the Hutus fleeing the war.”
Another painful thing is that even after the French came back to Bisesero on
30 June 1994, Tutsis continued to die in Kibuye. I lost two of my aunts, both named
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Felicita, one who was my mother’s older sister, who was killed with her daughter‐
in‐law, her granddaughter and her son in the Bisesero area.
French Special Forces Embarked on a Secret Mission to Direct the War Effort for the
Rwandan Government.
I am to take indirect command of the FAR, an army of 22,000 men.225
– Didier Tauzin, Commander of the 1st RPIMa (1992 – 1994)
The secrecy surrounding Noroît checkpoints in February 1993 paled in comparison to a
secretive mission run parallel to Noroît and initiated the same day: Operation Chimère.226 On 22
February 1993, Colonel Didier Tauzin arrived in Kigali with 20 special forces of a RAPAS
(Airborne Research and Special Action) company of the 1st RPIMa (infantry paratroopers).227 The
1st RPIMa, heir to the World War II Special Air Service of the Free French, is a special forces unit
that is known for conducting air-to-land missions.228 Since 1970, the paratroopers of the 1st RPIMa
had been participating in all major deployments in Africa, and in Rwanda, they participated in
Operations Noroît, Chimère, Amaryllis,229 and Turquoise.230 Col. Tauzin succeeded Col. Rosier
as commanding officer of the 1st RPIMa in July 1992, while Rosier was in Rwanda standing up
the 105mm howitzer battery following the RPF offensive in Byumba (see discussion above).231
Tauzin, who wrote a book on his missions in Rwanda, handpicked 20 men and was given
orders by the head of the Army Operational Center, to “at least save Kigali, stop the RPF, and
allow the diplomatic process to resume, or at best send the RPF back to where it came from,
Uganda.”232 The MIP’s account of the mission was more specific:
-
Enhance the technical operation level of the FAR chief of staff and of the
commands of at least two sectors;
Participate in the remote safety of the Noroît operation, whenever the
situation requires it;
Complete the level of training of FAR personnel on scientific equipment;
Train FAR specialists on new equipment;
Be able to guide air support.233
As the MIP summarized, “the detachment’s objective was to indirectly supervise and command
an army of about 20,000 men.”234 Or, as Tauzin put it, “I am to take indirect command of the FAR,
an army of 22,000 men.”235
But “indirect” may not fully capture the extent of his control. According to Tauzin, the
FAR’s chief of staff, Col. Déogratias Nsabimana (who would perish in President Habyarimana’s
plane at the outset of the Genocide) “was obviously ready to accept whatever I ask him to do. He
will put himself de facto under my command and will carry out without fail all the orders that will
be prepared for him by Chéreau [Tauzin’s deputy—ed.] who, with two or three officers, will take
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over the direction of his staff.”236 Tauzin teamed French officers with FAR commanders located
in the same operational sectors; for example, pairing Augustin Bizimungu, the operation sector
commander in Ruhengeri (who would later lead the FAR during the Genocide and be sentenced in
the ICTR to 30 years for committing genocide) with Gilles Chollet, the former DAMI commander
whose near-appointment in February 1992 as advisor to both the FAR état-major and President
Habyarimana had created a furor amongst the Rwandan opposition and in the international
press.237 Pairing other French officers with FAR commanders in Byumba and Rulindo (north of
Kigali), Tauzin established “a hierarchy parallel to the Rwandan one,” which allowed him to
“effectively direct all Rwandan operations on the entire front, without ever directly engaging my
paratroopers in combat, and while remaining incognito because all orders will apparently be
written by Rwandan officers.”238
This last point was critical because Operation Chimère was conducted under strict
confidentiality. In providing Tauzin with his orders, the head of the French Army Operational
Center emphasized the need to keep the mission out of the press:
There are five of us in confidence: the Head of State, his chief of staff, the Chief of
Army Staff (CAS), me . . . and you! Apart from your “Operations” Officer and your
Chief of “rens” [intelligence—ed.], no one must know anything before boarding
the plane. The press must not know anything, before, during and after!239
In Tauzin’s appraisal:
It is obvious that this confidentiality was primarily intended not to announce our
arrival in the field to the RPF through the press! It is equally obvious that it was
intended to preserve the necessary freedom of action of the head of state, President
François Mitterrand. Indeed, it’s an understatement to say that abroad we did not
only have friends in this venture.240
In other words, President Mitterrand was well aware that providing operational assistance to the
FAR would be unpopular in the press and unpopular with other Western governments, so he
proceeded in secrecy.
On 21 February 1993, Tauzin and his men left Parma airport in Biarritz, France, arriving
in Kigali around noon the next day, following a short stopover in Bangui.241 Col. Delort placed the
DAMI detachments currently in Rwanda under Tauzin’s command, 69 men in total.242 And, on his
first day in Rwanda, Tauzin flew by helicopter to Ruhengeri to meet with Lt. Col. Augustin
Bizimungu,243 whom he would see several times over the next few weeks.244 In his 2011 memoir,
Tauzin described Bizimungu—sector chief in Ruhengeri at the time of their first meeting and later
commander of the FAR during the Genocide, who ultimately was convicted of genocide before
the ICTR—as “a remarkable man of the field as I have met few in my 35-year military career
marked by many operations. I have always considered it an honor to have known him and to have
fought alongside him.”245 (By contrast, General Roméo Dallaire, who would command the United
Nations peacekeeping mission later that year and into the Genocide, would describe Bizimungu as
“a brutal, hard-drinking tyrant who commanded through fear.”246) Tauzin continued with his
recollection of FAR leaders:
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Nsabimana, Bizimungu and Kabiligi [acquitted of genocide charges before the
ICTR—ed.] . . . are among the small number of Hutu who have almost completely
freed themselves from the psychological and intellectual oppression that the Tutsi
have subjected them to for centuries.247
On 25 February 1993, Tauzin, the now de facto leader of the FAR, drew up a plan to stop
the RPF’s offensive north of Kigali and to execute a counter-offensive in Byumba.248 Tauzin later
recounted the ensuing operation in his book:
It is true that for a few days we gave the RPF a hard time! With local counteroffensives, concentrations of artillery fire on entire units on the move, also thanks
to a better organization of the ground in defense, we broke their momentum towards
Kigali. In fact, we estimated the RPF’s losses at about 800 killed and therefore,
according to the usual proportions in this kind of conflict, about 2,500 wounded, or
nearly 15 percent of the troops it had committed, which is considerable in 8 days
of fighting.249
Tauzin clarified that French soldiers never fired unless fired upon.250 He noted that it might have
been tempting to order a direct assault, which would “have solved the military problem by an
assured defeat of the RPF,” but
would not have been consistent with the political context and with the French
strategy in Rwanda, a strategy whose main line of force was the desire to bring
about a “national reconciliation” of Hutus and Tutsis by leading President
Habyarimana to democratize his regime, in the logic of the speech made by
President Mitterrand in La Baule in June 1990.251
“We have remained in our role as advisers,”252 Tauzin proudly concluded. But “advisors”
here seems a bit too narrow and sanitized a description in light of Tauzin’s self-described “indirect”
command over the Rwandan Army.253 Again, whether French soldiers in Chimère engaged the
RPF themselves or through their command of the FAR is a distinction without a difference.
Instead, the issue of direct engagement seems more relevant to public relations. As Tauzin put it,
had France directly engaged the RPF, “[t]he national and global media and political outcry would
most likely have put France in a very delicate situation.”254 In roughly one month—28 March
1993—French voters would be returning to the polls for national elections.255
To prevent such an outcry, Mitterrand and his administration continued to insist, including
on the day Chimère forces landed in Kigali, that the sole mission of French forces in Rwanda was
the protection of expatriates.256 Steven Smith, writing for Libération the same day, was skeptical
of the official line, pointing out that the number of French troops in Rwanda exceeded the number
of French civilians.257 Even when pushed by RPF statements that French troops had fought
alongside government forces, French officials maintained their false narrative line.258 On 1 March
1993, a Quai d’Orsay spokesperson defended French military intervention in the strongest, but
false, terms:
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As for the presence of French forces, I make it my duty to remind you that it has no
other objective than to ensure the security of the French community and that of the
expatriates who are in Rwanda. I have already had the opportunity to say that any
other interpretation of this presence was fallacious or biased.259
But the Mitterrand administration’s media strategy was not only to conceal France’s true
intentions in Rwanda, but also to demonize the RPF—justifying the French commitment required
it. Bruno Delaye had complained about the RPF’s “excellent system of propaganda emphasizing
the wretched abuses committed by extremist Hutus,” presumably referring to the willingness of
certain journalists in Belgium and France, rightly, to take seriously RPF reports of human rights
abuses by the Rwandan government.260 He acknowledged in a 15 February 1993 note to President
Mitterrand, “Our isolation in this case at the international level (the Belgians, English, and
Americans do not like HABYARIMANA) must lead us to deploy an even more offensive
diplomatic effort to obtain the diplomatic support necessary for implementation.”261
Three days before Delaye penned his note to Mitterrand, the Quai d’Orsay released a
statement that emphasized the plight of Rwandan civilians displaced by the resumption of
hostilities:
We deplore and are particularly concerned by the new suffering imposed on the
civil populations as a result of fighting and violence. These new victims . . . [are]
in addition to the approximately 350,000 people displaced by the war, who have
been driven from their land, who cannot, due to the various offensives, return to
their homes, and who, despite the efforts of the Rwandan government, live in
conditions that in many ways pose human rights problems.262
The poor conditions of internally displaced people was indeed a humanitarian disaster and threat
to stability,263 which had started with the October 1990 war and had only grown worse as the DMZ
remained empty, fields remained fallow, and production plants ground to a halt.264 Compounding
the instability, according to a report in Libération, the FAR stole food aid intended for the refugees,
and the Government of Rwanda had begun to distribute arms throughout the refugee camps,
allegedly to prepare for further massacres.265
French officials deflected attention away from their aid to a government that was presiding
over mounting massacres of Tutsi by elevating the war’s displacement of Rwandans as the focus
for the French public.266 These French officials disproportionately blamed the RPF for the
displacement of people in a two-sided war, in which France itself had become a co-belligerent.
In addition to unfairly blaming only the RPF for the problem of internal displacement, the
French government further spun the French public by co-opting and promoting partisan reports of
human rights abuses purportedly carried out by the RPF—in particular the FAR’s claim that the
RPF had attacked a refugee camp in Rebero, in northeastern Rwanda, supposedly massacring 500
people.267 That international aid organizations on the ground in Rebero could not confirm the
FAR’s accusations did not stop the deputy spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, from declaring on 19 February 1993 that according to “indications”
of which he did not specify the origin, “massacres [had been] perpetrated in areas currently
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controlled by the RPF.”268 Three days later, a cable from US Ambassador Flaten to Washington
would observe that the Vatican’s diplomatic mission in Rwanda (the Nonce Apostolic) had not
received any reports of massacres in RPF-controlled areas, and that a member of the White Father
Catholic missionary group, who was “reportedly the last person to have left the Rebero displaced
persons camp,” had “told people that he saw no . . . bodies there. These reports cast doubt on
reports of RPF massacres both at the Rebero camp and at the Nemba church.”269
Despite the Mitterrand government’s media campaign, voices in the French press remained
skeptical of the President’s Rwanda policy. For example, a 17 February 1993 article in Le Canard
Enchaîné, titled, “Mitterrand is hiding an African war from us,” declared, “Morality according to
the Élysée: the sole mission of the French contingent is to protect Kigali, its airport and 400 or so
nationals residing in the country. That’s the official version. In reality, it provides the Rwandan
Army with advisors and instructors, particularly in artillery.”270 Even French politicians began to
join in the criticism, with Gérard Fuchs, the French Socialist Party national secretary, releasing a
statement on 28 February 1993 that he “question[ed] the decision to send new French troops to
Rwanda, when human rights violations by the Habyarimana regime continue[d] to multiply.”271
He continued, “I hope that either our minister for cooperation will find convincing reasons in
Kigali for a military presence which today appears to be a help to a hard-pressed dictatorial regime,
or that this [military] presence will be ended.”272
As the FAR Flailed, Mitterrand Hatched a Plan to Disengage from Rwanda while, in the
Short Term, Keeping Pressure on the RPF.
It is not in our interest for the Tutsis to advance too quickly. We must buy
time, delay [things] by all diplomatic means and continue to support the
Rwandan Army by supplying it with the munitions it needs.273
–
François Mitterrand, President of France (1981 – 1995)
The surge in French military support for the government forces between 9 and 22 February
1993 showed President Mitterrand had not, to that point, lost confidence in his administration’s
power to turn around the war effort. Patience, though, was wearing thin. Just one week after the
launch of Operation Chimère, his ministers and advisors seemed dismayed to find that reports from
Kigali remained grim: the RPF military was still gaining ground, the FAR was still in disarray,
and Habyarimana was “out of breath.”274 Those who had consistently advocated for expanding aid
to the FAR were forced to acknowledge that, for all the financing, equipment, and manpower
France had provided, it was still not enough.275
This sudden reckoning with the reality on the ground would lead the Mitterrand
administration to settle on a new strategy, one whose ultimate goal was to extricate France from
Rwanda without having to admit its policy of backing the government had been a failure.276 The
strategy had two components, in effect: first, a lobbying campaign in New York to persuade the
United Nations to send a peacekeeping team as soon as possible; and, second, maintaining a
continued overt deterrent presence in Kigali as well as covert support for the Rwandan Armed
Forces, to stave off a military defeat in the interim. It was a strategy that aimed, in the short term,
to ward off bad press ahead of the March 1993 French legislative elections and, in the long term,
to spare Mitterrand the embarrassment of a foreign-policy failure.
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1. As Prospects of a FAR Victory Dimmed, the French Government Sought a UN
Lifeline.
The FAR’s flatfooted response to the 8 February 1993 offensive had been revealing in
more ways than one. It exposed, above all else, a Rwandan government in deep distress, with a
disgruntled and increasingly feckless president as its head.277 Habyarimana, sensing the opposition
parties were conspiring to marginalize him, had become increasingly recalcitrant and, since midDecember 1992, had barely spoken with the MDR-affiliated prime minister,278 whom, according
to a 13 February 1993 note by General Quesnot, Habyarimana suspected of “complicity with the
aggressors.”279 The air of distrust at the highest levels of the Rwandan government had already
sabotaged one round of Arusha negotiations and was threatening to torpedo the next one, assuming
there would even be a next round.
France’s message to the governing coalition, in the weeks following the 8 February 1993
offensive, was that the in-fighting had to stop—not only because it was weakening the Rwandan
government’s bargaining position in Arusha, but because it was threatening to undermine the
Habyarimana regime’s war effort. In a 14 February cable, Ambassador Martres said he urged
President Habyarimana to recognize “that, more than ever, the military situation—about which he
has brought before me increasingly alarming information—required a common front of all
Rwandans.”280 French envoys, visiting Kigali on 12 February, went so far as to keep the Rwandan
president and the prime minister up until 2 a.m. preparing a joint declaration condemning the RPF,
calling for a renewed cease-fire, and espousing their commitment to the Arusha process.281 Even
then, tensions between the president and prime minister persisted.282 “We have maintained the
feeling,” Ambassador Martres wrote after the joint declaration’s release, “that both [the president
and the prime minister] remained, both of them, more sensitive to the defense of their respective
political positions than to the immediate military danger represented by the RPF.”283
France’s efforts to keep the governing coalition from unraveling were not faring much
better than its efforts to prop up the FAR. Where, once, there had been hope of besting the RPF
Army on the battlefield, now the best the French government could hope for was that the FAR,
with its support, could hold off enemy forces long enough for the two sides to achieve a peace
deal. The French government’s gravest concern was that Kigali would fall: the threat, by Defense
Minister Joxe’s account, did not appear imminent,284 but Rwandan authorities, including President
Habyarimana, often spoke as if it were just a matter of time before RPF forces marched into the
capital,285 and the prospect evidently troubled President Mitterrand’s advisers.286 (Dominique Pin
and General Quesnot would characterize the threat, in a 19 February memo, as “very
worrisome.”287)
Despite all the assistance they had provided the FAR, French officials were under no
illusions about the poor state of the FAR and could see that it was ill-equipped to stop a potential
assault on Kigali.288 The French intelligence agency, the DGSE, characterized the FAR in late
February 1993 as “not very combative and demoralized.”289 FAR soldiers—particularly those from
southern Rwanda—were refusing to go to the front and, in many cases, had deserted; one US cable
estimated the Army had lost the equivalent of three to four battalions due to desertions.290 Those
who continued to wear the uniform were, in many cases, unreliable and poorly behaved. “The
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Army has spent more time looting and attacking civilians than fighting the RPF,” Foreign Minister
Ngulinzira told US embassy officials.291 It seemed, too, that the MRND and CDR had riled up
many of the troops with their incendiary rhetoric, to the point that some soldiers were killing FAR
comrades they viewed as RPF sympathizers.292
The FAR still had numbers on its side, with a force ranging from three to six times larger
than the RPF’s,293 but it had squandered this advantage by scattering its units across the long
battlefront.294 A US cable, attributing its information to “French sources,” reported there were “not
many troops left to defend Kigali.”295 Even Defense Minister Joxe, after saying he saw no
“immediate threat” to Kigali,296 had trouble imagining the RPF would not reach out for a prize that
appeared to be within its grasp.297 “I don’t see the RPF abandoning such a close victory, which
probably does not even call for a general offensive on their part,” he wrote in a 26 February 1993
note to Mitterrand.298 Joxe warned: “If the RPF retakes the offensive, our soldiers could, in a matter
of hours, find themselves faced with the rebels.”299
The RPF profited from the Rwandan and French fears that its troops might, at any moment,
plow onward toward the capital. Its show of force strengthened its hand in upcoming peace talks
in Arusha, where negotiators hoped to decide, among other things, how many FAR and RPF
troops, respectively, to integrate into the post-war armed forces.300 All the while, though, RPF
leaders were adamant that they would strongly prefer to resolve the conflict peacefully.301 Twice,
in mid-February, they offered a truce.302 For all of the predictions that an attack on Kigali was
imminent, no attack ever came.
The first of the two RPF cease-fire proposals that month proved to be a non-starter.303
Rwandan authorities viewed the offer as unacceptable because, as they understood it, it would
have allowed the RPF troops to remain in place, keeping all of the territory they had taken over
the previous two days of fighting.304 A second cease-fire declaration, on 21 February 1993, had
more traction. The RPF promised to pull its troops back to the pre-8 February cease-fire line, the
government forces would remain in their current positions, and the ground that the RPF Army had
gained would serve as a buffer zone controlled by GOMN.305 The government issued its own
statement, accepting the RPF’s terms, the next day: 22 February 1993.306
The RPF had proven its capabilities and was in a position of strength when its delegation
arrived in Bujumbura, Burundi that week. They were there to meet with representatives from the
four main Rwandan opposition parties: the MDR, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the Liberal
Party (PL), and the Christian Democratic Party (PDC).307 The opposition parties had pitched the
meeting in hopes of striking a deal that would recommit both sides to the Arusha process, but the
MRND undermined the endeavor by refusing to participate.308 (The MRND had declared weeks
earlier that it would not meet with the RPF until RPF troops returned to the positions they held
before the 8 February offensive,309 and the MRND did not soften its stance even after the RPF
promised, in its latest cease-fire declaration, that its troops would do just that.310)
The RPF sensed an opportunity and seized it. When the discussions turned to whether its
troops would, indeed, return to the cease-fire line, the delegation said they would, but only if
France agreed to withdraw the Noroît troops from Rwanda.311 The demand would have met MRND
resistance, but the president’s party had not shown up to hear it. The opposition parties found the
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idea acceptable, in light of the RPF’s assurances that it would pull its troops back to their previous
positions and would take part in the next round of peace talks in Arusha.312
The joint communiqué that emerged from Bujumbura on 2 March 1993 was an astonishing
document.313 It showed, first, just how intensely leaders of the opposition parties had come to
resent President Habyarimana following the MRND’s rejection of the 9 January 1993 powersharing accord, and how free they felt to speak ill of him in public.314 The communiqué denounced
both Habyarimana and his party for their “racist regionalistic, war-mongering dictatorial policies,”
and said the party’s refusal to participate in the Bujumbura talks “confirms its opposition to the
peace process, to the principles of national unity and reconciliation.”315 Habyarimana readied a
response that same day, gathering a group of representatives from various minor parties, as well
as dissenters within the ranks of the MDR, PSD, PL, and PDC, to speak out against the “RPF
Inkotanyi” and to praise France for its military assistance.316
There was nothing new about the RPF’s demand that the French government withdraw its
forces. RPF leaders had been pressing this point for years—not because they viewed France as a
threat, but because they believed French support gave the FAR “false confidence” and made its
leaders less willing to compromise.317 (“Habyarimana’s regime behaved better when they were
pressured,” explained RPF Commander Emmanuel Karenzi Karake.318) The Rwandan government
had, in fact, twice before conceded to the demand: first in the March 1991 N’Sele cease-fire
agreement and then again in Arusha, in July 1992, both times contingent on “the deployment
establishment of the [GOMN].”319 The French government, though, had not abided by either
agreement. Ambassador Martres had brushed off the N’Sele agreement’s troop-withdrawal
provision in 1991, telling a reporter that France, as a non-party to the agreement, was not bound
by it.320 The French government was equally dismissive when the same provision reappeared in
the Arusha accord in July 1992, even after the OAU established the GOMN in late summer 1992,
in theory triggering the country’s obligation to withdraw Noroît. While President Mitterrand had,
according to an 18 January 1993 letter to President Habyarimana, “made note of the terms” of the
July 1992 accord and did “not want France to be blamed for undermining the proper
implementation of the agreement,” he nonetheless agreed “to act in agreement with the Rwandan
authorities” on whether to keep Noroît forces in Rwanda.321 “It is just sad that all the agreements
signed have not been respected,” RPF Commander Karake said in a March 1993 interview
published in Rwanda Rushya.322
The RPF—when the parties reached agreements in 1991 and 1992—had been under no
pretense that Habyarimana’s government or the FAR would adhere to the agreements or take them
seriously. But circumstances changed in 1993. The difference this time was that the RPF had never
been stronger, and the governing coalition never more fractured. This shift in fortunes for the two
belligerents put more weight behind the RPF’s demands. More than that, though, it forced
President Mitterrand to confront a hard reality: that after two and a half years of combining
pressure for political liberalization with military support against the RPF, his policy had conjured
a democratic opposition in Rwanda more closely aligned with the RPF than with the Habyarimana
regime it sought to protect. French military support had also emboldened Habyarimana to eschew
compromise and had drawn him closer to hardliners who sought to undermine the peace process.
Rwanda had become a quagmire, and the authorities in Paris would, at last, have to consider
whether the time had come to find a way out.
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This realization registered earliest with Defense Minister Joxe. “We are at an impasse. I
recommend that we leave,” he said, bluntly, at a 24 February 1993 “restricted council” meeting.323
(The Élysée had begun hosting these weekly meetings shortly before the March 1993 legislative
elections, when the prospect of a cohabitation government appeared likely.324 The meetings served
as a forum for Mitterrand to discuss matters of defense and foreign policy with the prime minister,
other key ministers, and various high-level advisors.) Joxe would reiterate his concerns in writing
a few days later, telling Mitterrand: “I am still concerned about our position in Rwanda and by the
role into which our . . . soldiers could find themselves drawn since the Rwandan Army is de facto
no longer fighting.”325 Joxe argued the 20 February deployment of two additional Noroît
companies had, regrettably, led Habyarimana “to feel he is one of the African leaders best
protected by France. This is not the best way to persuade him to make the necessary
concessions.”326 What was needed, Joxe said, was an ultimatum: “Our only serious remaining
leverage—excluding direct intervention—seems to me to be the possibility of our
disengagement.”327 Joxe argued this could make Habyarimana more flexible in negotiations and,
if presented to the RPF and Museveni, “would make them give up a military victory for a solely
political victory.”328
Mitterrand knew, by the time of the 24 February 1993 Restricted Council meeting, that the
RPF was on the cusp of “a political-military victory.”329 Two of his advisors, General Quesnot and
Africa Cell Deputy Chief Dominique Pin, had warned him of this probability in a note the day
before the meeting, lamenting that, in the face of the RPF’s determination and power, “our indirect
strategy of support to the Rwandan armed forces no longer seems sufficient.”330 Quesnot’s and
Pin’s note presented three options. First, they said, France could evacuate its nationals out of
Rwanda and withdraw its troops—but, they warned, its departure would likely precipitate the end
of Habyarimana’s rein, and “will be interpreted as a failure of our policy in Rwanda.”331 Pin and
Quesnot did not recommend this option.332
The second option—better than the first, in their opinion—was to maintain the status quo
and keep France’s present contingent of roughly 600 soldiers (including Noroît as well as the
DAMI and MAM cooperants reinforced by the Chimère special forces) in Rwanda.333 This, at
least, would preserve “a certain ambiguity” about France’s intentions in the country, which “may
seem temporarily desirable,” they wrote.334 Pin and Quesnot made clear, though, that they would
prefer a more assertive response. They championed a third option: to “strongly intervene in support
of the Rwandan Army.”335 This would not necessarily mean sending French soldiers out onto the
battlefield to join the FAR as co-combatants; direct military intervention, though “technically
possible,” would not be justifiable, they explained, absent “irrefutable evidence of direct Ugandan
military intervention, which is not the case now.”336 Rather, they said, what France could, and
should, do was boost its military presence in the combat zone, without actually firing any weapons.
“It is a question of reversing the balance of power by increasing our assistance to the Rwandan
Army through a strong logistical contribution and a commitment of advisers and artillery [that
matches] the level of our determination,” they wrote.337
Mitterrand’s remarks at the 24 February Restricted Council meeting show he remained
ambivalent about how to proceed, but he was certain of one thing: “Withdrawing from Rwanda is
out of the question.”338 To withdraw, he said, would send “a bad signal.”339 His prime minister,
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Pierre Bérégovoy, was of the same mind: “It is politically impossible for us to withdraw from
Rwanda at this time.”340 As the meeting progressed, Mitterrand mused, as he often did, about
Uganda’s role in the war. The thought perplexed him: He was sure that Uganda had been behind
the RPF’s invasion in 1990, but he could not understand why President Museveni would support
what, in Mitterrand’s mind, would amount to a Tutsi takeover of Rwanda. “If the RPF . . . wins,
there will be revenge,” Mitterrand said. “What is Museveni looking for [?]”341 Convinced that
Uganda remained the key to the whole affair, Mitterrand decided to send French Minister of
Cooperation Marcel Debarge to meet with authorities in both Kigali and Kampala at the end of the
month.342
Mitterrand, to be sure, had not sworn off diplomacy; his advisors, Quesnot and Pin, had
been in agreement that however much military support France might provide the Rwandan
government, it ought to be accompanied by “firm diplomatic action.”343 This meant continued
support for a revival of the Arusha talks, but it also meant leaning on the OAU and United Nations
to step up the role of international observers.344 This latter option raised some intriguing
possibilities for President Mitterrand, as it just might take some heat off of his administration, and
perhaps provide it with the cover it needed to disentangle itself from Rwanda.
The OAU already had a presence in Rwanda. Officers of the GOMN, formed under its
auspices, had been on the ground since August 1992.345 France had initially welcomed the group
as an “essential element” of the 12 July 1992 cease-fire agreement, but complained that the effort
to launch the group’s work of monitoring the cease-fire was taking too long.346 The group would
soon become a thorn in France’s side: FAR leaders complained that the group was biased toward
the RPF and that some of its officers were hounding FAR units on the front in hopes of catching
French troops working alongside them.347 (The GOMN did, in fact, observe the involvement of
DAMI officers in a cease-fire violation in December 1992, as discussed in Chapter 5.348) French
officials worried that with just 50 observers,349 the GOMN was not up to the task of effectively
surveilling the cease-fire line.350 “The operational utility of the GOMN is seriously questioned by
most observers and by the Rwandan government,” Catherine Boivineau, the Quai d’Orsay’s
director of East and Central Africa, wrote in a March 1993 telegram.351 “The very fact that they
did not see coming, or signal, the general offensive the RPF launched on 8 February is a telling
testimony.”352
A movement to enlist the United Nations to supplement, or perhaps take over for, the
GOMN in the demilitarized zone began, curiously enough, with a pair of letters, both dated 22
February 1993, from the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, respectively, to the president of the
UN Security Council.353 The letters pleaded for the deployment of a team of UN military
observers—not to the demilitarized zone, but to the Rwandan-Ugandan border.354 Rwanda’s letter,
signed by its permanent representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Jean-Damascène
Bizimana, argued that such a team would help “promote respect for the cease-fire and the search
for a negotiated solution” to the conflict by “ascertaining that no military assistance, in men or in
equipment, reaches Rwandese territory from Ugandan territory.”355 The letter from the Ugandan
permanent representative sought the same, but for a different reason: “to forestall any accusations
as has happened in the past, against Uganda of any involvement in the internal conflict in
Rwanda.”356
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France embraced this idea. Quesnot and Pin stated without reservation, “We support this
initiative,” in their 23 February note to Mitterrand, though they did not elaborate on how, exactly,
placing a team of international observers along the Rwandan-Ugandan border would help resolve
the conflict.357 One observes, though, that in the same note to the president, Quesnot and Pin
explained that French direct military participation in combat would not be possible without
“irrefutable evidence of a direct Ugandan military intervention”—evidence that, by their own
admission, France did not have,358 but that a UN observer team might, in theory, uncover.
Pin, offering Minister of Cooperation Debarge a list of talking points for his upcoming trip
to Kigali and Kampala, advised the minister to explain to President Museveni that a “military
resolution” to the conflict in Rwanda was “unacceptable.”359 “[A]sk him to use his (obvious)
influence on the RPF to get [the RPF] to implement, on the ground, the cease-fire that it claims to
accept. We want solid proof of the RPF’s willingness to put an end to its current offensive,” Pin
wrote.360 The memo encouraged Debarge to “leave [Museveni] worried about our [France’s]
degree of commitment” in the FAR’s war effort. (The message was apparently received. A news
report following Debarge’s encounter with Museveni on 1 March described a contentious meeting,
stating that the two men “differed on a number of issues[,] with the Ugandan leader accusing
France of interfering in the Rwandan conflict.”361)
Debarge struck a different tone in Kigali. There, as Belgian Ambassador Swinnen reported
in a cable, the French minister reassured Rwandan authorities that France stood in solidarity with
the Rwandan people—and that the French Army stood in solidarity with the Rwanda.362 “Minister
Debarge’s message is a clear political and military endorsement offered by France to Rwanda
against the RPF,” Swinnen assessed.363 Debarge’s one plea to the Rwandan president and prime
minister was that they and their factions must bury their disagreements and “present a united front
against the RPF”364—who, Debarge insisted, were not the liberators they claimed to be,365 and who
would all but certainly rule as totalitarians, were they to succeed in toppling the government.366
Habyarimana agreed to work with the opposition in preparations for the upcoming talks
with the RPF in Dar es Salaam, then just a few days away.367 Pin, though, had his doubts. In a
remarkably candid assessment, Pin intimated in a 2 March 1993 memo to Mitterrand that France’s
recent decision to send two additional Noroît companies to Rwanda had “[r]eassured”
Habyarimana in a way that may have been counterproductive.368 “[H]e no longer seeks a political
compromise with the opposition,” Pin wrote.369 “Convinced of our commitment to him, he cannot
believe that we will let the RPF seize Kigali.”370
Pin was just as concerned about the prime minister and opposition parties, who appeared
to him “more worried about driving Habyarimana from power than opposing the RPF, despite the
fear [the latter] inspires in them.”371 (The Bujumbura joint communiqué, issued the same day as
Pin’s note to Mitterrand, was so laden with disdain for the Rwandan president,372 it could only
have confirmed this view.) Pin suspected that the opposition parties in the governing coalition
viewed themselves as a potential “third force” in Rwandan politics which could seize power as a
more acceptable alternative to the RPF following the government’s collapse.373
Pin’s prescription, as it had been before, was to increase French aid to the FAR “so that
Kigali remains standing.”374 General Quesnot, a fellow advocate for expanding military assistance
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to Rwanda, argued in a memo the next day that France should, at a minimum, maintain its current
military presence, even as he acknowledged, “Our military and technical assistance to the
Rwandan forces is still not sufficient to reverse the balance of power.”375 (Nor, he wrote, had it
achieved France’s political objectives, “which seems more serious to me.”376) He preferred, too,
that the French government do more to strengthen the FAR.377
Debarge poured cold water on this talk when President Mitterrand and roughly a dozen
ministers and advisers gathered at noon of 3 March 1993.378 Notes of the meeting indicate that
when Mitterrand turned the discussion over to Debarge to recount his findings during his visit to
Kigali a few days earlier, the minister’s report was bleak.379 “President Habyarimana is disoriented
and gasping for breath,” he said.380 While the FAR continued to fight “unevenly,” the RPF had
reinforced its positions and “can now pursue its political and military offensive.”381 “The question
everyone is asking,” Debarge said, “is: what will the French Army do?”382
One option, certainly, would have been to send more troops. This, in fact, is precisely what
France’s commander of operations in Kigali, Col. Delort, had recommended in a proposal just one
day earlier.383 In a 2 March 1993 memo, Delort had sought to roughly double the number of men
in the Chimère detachment, from 65 to 126.384 The new men would include an adviser to the FAR
chief of staff, Col. Nsabimana; another adviser to the FAR état-major, this one specializing in
intelligence and operations; an adviser to the commanders of three of the most active operational
sectors; and several dozen trainers and instructors, some specializing in firearms training.385 Delort
also recommended that the French government dedicate some Noroît troops to intelligencegathering operations, an area in which he perceived the FAR as “still weak.”386
Delort’s proposal was only one day old and was still working its way up the chain of
command in the Ministry of Defense when President Mitterrand and the team of ministers and
advisers he had gathered for the 3 March 1993 council meeting took up the question Debarge had
posed: “what will the French Army do?”387 It is notable, though, that no one at the meeting urged
the president to consider placing more troops at the FAR’s disposal, as Delort had just
recommended. Instead, the discussion rather quickly turned to recent developments at the UN
Security Council, which was then considering two proposals: first, to send a team of observers to
the Rwandan-Ugandan border, and, second, to augment the observer team (the GOMN) in the
demilitarized zone.388 French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas let it be known that he supported
these initiatives, saying, “[The situation] is clearer now. We must jump at these opportunities.”389
Mitterrand needed no more convincing. “We must be replaced by international forces from
the UN as soon as possible,” he announced.390 The notion of internationalizing the conflict seemed
to energize him. “[I]f our soldiers become UN soldiers, that changes the nature of things,” he
said.391 “But,” he said, “we must not be alone.”392 To simply put blue helmets on the heads of
French soldiers already in Rwanda would not be enough; other countries would have to send troops
as well.
Not wanting to waste time, Mitterrand urged the Quai d’Orsay to get ahold of France’s
permanent representative to the UN Security Council, Jean-Bernard Mérimée, “within the hour”
in order to “hurry up to get the system in place.”393 The message evidently was received; according
to a US cable, Mérimée reached out at once to all of the other permanent representatives to the
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Security Council and urged them to support a resolution authorizing an inter-positional force
situated between the RPF and the Rwandan government of 500 to 1,000 UN soldiers “as soon as
possible.”394 He framed the proposal as urgent, noting that RPF troops were just outside Kigali and
arguing that “the council needs to tackle this situation to prevent possible massacres.”395 He told
his colleagues that, if asked, France could make 600 of its own troops available to the United
Nations.396 Twenty-four hours later, a Rwandan diplomat formally requested an “immediate
meeting” of the Security Council to discuss the Rwandan crisis,397 a plea that Mérimée seconded
in a letter that same day.398
The French government’s interest in replacing Noroît with UN forces was, in effect, an
acknowledgement that France’s intervention in Rwanda had not been the cakewalk that
Mitterrand’s son, Jean-Christophe, had forecasted at the outset of the war, when he reportedly
predicted “the whole thing will be over in two or three months.”399 “Today, the French presence
is unanimously opposed,” a former Matignon advisor wrote in a 15 March 1993 note to Michel
Rocard, who had been France’s prime minister when the war first started. “That is why Paris has
just asked that the baton be taken up by UN peacekeepers and hopes to be able to get out very
quickly.”400
Mitterrand’s perspective, as he explained during the 3 March meeting, was that a handoff
to the United Nations would not be without some risk,401 but it would, in any event, be “wise.”402
“To stay,” the president said, “would be to risk being helpless spectators of the victors’ arrival.”403
(This, to be sure, was not an image Mitterrand would have welcomed,404 especially with his party’s
grip on power in the National Assembly on the line. The elections were just a few weeks away,
with a first round of voting scheduled for 21 March and a second round for 28 March.) The United
Nations, however, would not send troops to Rwanda overnight. Meanwhile, RPF troops were
within reach of Kigali and could, perhaps, conquer the city in just “a few days,” in Mitterrand’s
estimation.405 “It is not in our interest for the Tutsis to advance too quickly,” he stated at the 3
March meeting.406 “We must buy time, delay [things] by all diplomatic means and continue to
support the Rwandan Army by supplying it with the munitions it needs.”407 Delaye, who took notes
during the meeting, understood this to mean that the French government must do what is necessary
to keep the FAR in the fight long enough for the peace talks to run their course.408 “We can neither
leave nor engage militarily any further,” Delaye wrote. “So if we want Kigali to remain standing,
we must increase the Rwandan Army’s defensive means (equipment and assistance).”409
2. Mitterrand’s Decision to Pursue a Handoff to the United Nations Disrupted
French Special Forces’ Preparations for a Major Counter-Offensive against the
RPF.
French military officials came to understand, soon enough, that the winds had shifted.
Delort received evidence of this on 5 March 1993, when the Special Operations Command (COS)
in Paris responded to his recent proposal to expand Operation Chimère.410 COS did not reject the
proposal outright; it said a temporary reinforcement of Chimère was only “conceivable” due to the
urgent operational situation on the ground.411 It noted, though, that there were reasons to be wary.
“The implementation of this reinforcement comes late, in the context of a crisis rather than
prevention, and amidst much international media hostility,” the memo stated.412 “We may wonder
if, in light of the risks of compromise that have become substantial, the near doubling of the force
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is timely in a local, military, and political context that has become unfavorable.”413 Chimère had
always been risky; now, with French legislative elections just two weeks away, decision-makers
in Paris had even more reason to fear the bad press that the secret operation, if discovered, might
generate. Those fears proved too much, apparently, because, based on our review of French and
Rwandan government documents, it appears the French government did not, in the end, send
Delort the troops he had requested.
Col. Tauzin’s reaction to the Mitterrand administration’s reassessment of France’s strategy,
once word of it reached his post in Kigali, was tinged with “a strong sense of bitterness and
immense disappointment.”414 Tauzin, the leader of Operation Chimère, had been planning a “major
counter-offensive to try to send the RPF back to Uganda.”415 The FAR’s chief of staff, Col.
Nsabimana, had approved the operation, nicknamed “Miyove.”416 The plan, as initially drafted,
was for a team of commandos, specially selected by French officers, to steal into Byumba at night
in preparation for a FAR attack at dawn on 2 March.417 The operation, though, was delayed because
of a logistical snag, which proved fateful.418 The day before it was to launch, Delort delivered
some surprising news to Tauzin: “Paris was wondering if this offensive was really timely.”419 The
top priority, Delort said, was to protect Kigali. Peace talks were expected to resume soon. A
counteroffensive, at this time, would be questionable—“especially since it is not certain that it will
succeed!”420
Tauzin felt blindsided. Recounting the episode in his memoir, years later, he wrote that he
had been “absolutely certain” that the offensive would succeed and “change the course of events”
in Rwanda.421 Lt. Col. Maurin, then heading Delort’s intelligence office, had shared his frustration,
at one point throwing his arms up in the air and shouting, “We have to go! You will surely
succeed!”422
Tauzin’s understanding was that the final decision rested with him.423 In the end, according
to his memoir, he agreed with his deputy, Lt. Col. Chéreau, that the operation could not proceed if
political leaders in Paris did not stand behind it.424 He promptly broke the news to Nsabimana:
I will never forget his despair. . . . Like me, infinitely better than me, he knows
intimately that the war is lost; it was only a matter of time now. He also knows,
infinitely better than I do, what the final consequences of the Hutu defeat [by] the
Tutsis will be. . . . As I leave his office alone at dusk, I cry with rage against
“Paris”!425
Tauzin, in self-aggrandizing fashion, framed this moment in his memoir as a point of no
return. He imagined that, had the operation gone forward, the FAR might have recovered much of
the territory the RPF had gained over the previous two years, precipitating more FAR victories to
come and strengthening the Rwandan government’s hand in the Arusha negotiations.426 And then?
“I have often thought that the ‘genocide’ would probably not have taken place at that time,” he
wrote. Untold lives—most of them Hutu, he was quick to point out—might have been spared.427
Tauzin cursed himself for falling in line with the new directive from Paris. “[A]bove all,” he wrote,
“when the so-called ‘Genocide of the Tutsis’ began, I deeply regretted being so disciplined! And
this is the only regret I have about my decisions and actions during this conflict.”428
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3. Relenting under Pressure, the French Government Withdrew Two Noroît
Reinforcement Companies.
The RPF may not have known just how close France came to orchestrating a major
counteroffensive in early March 1993, but it did suspect plans to that effect were in the works.
“The rebels were convinced that France was preparing a real plan of attack that aimed to drive
them out of Rwandan territory altogether. . . . The deterrent effect of our determination was
significant, and the prime minister is well aware of it. The Rwandan delegation would not have
gained anything if it didn’t have this card in its hand,” Ambassador Martres reported in a cable on
9 March, shortly after the conclusion of a three-day summit between the RPF and Rwandan
government delegations in Dar es Salaam.429 As Tauzin’s memoir confirms, the RPF had not been
wrong. The Rwandan government delegation, though, denied it, going to lengths “to persuade their
interlocutors that [France’s] only objective was to foster a negotiated solution.”430
The Dar es Salaam summit, whose purpose, ostensibly, was to seek assurances from the
two sides in hopes of steering the Arusha process back on course,431 would leave little doubt about
the RPF’s priorities in early March 1993. RPF leaders did not know exactly how many troops
France had sent to Rwanda—the delegation apparently believed there were at least 1,500 French
soldiers on the ground (when in fact there were less than half that number)432—but they knew full
well that the French government was not telling the truth when it repeatedly insisted its men were
there only to protect French nationals. (Delaye’s notes following the 3 March restricted council
meeting in Paris acknowledged that the stated mission of protecting expats had always been a
“pretext”—one that now, with fears of an RPF military assault on Kigali mounting, was “no longer
illusory.”433 ) They had no doubt that the true mission of the French troops was, as Major Kagame
put it, “to prop up the Habyarimana regime,”434 and they correctly surmised that French officers
were helping coordinate the FAR’s military tactics.435 Rwandan authorities, suspecting the RPF
Army still hoped to launch an attack on Kigali, assumed that the group viewed Noroît as an
impediment and was determined to secure their expulsion from the country.436 For this reason, a
French Ministry of Defense memo, dated 9 March, stated, “Thus, all of the RPF’s efforts are now
focused on making us evacuate our forces from Rwanda.”437
The talks in Dar es Salaam began auspiciously enough. Within the first 24 hours, the RPF
announced it had agreed to a partial retreat to the pre-8 February cease-fire line, on two conditions:
first, the OAU must take control of the evacuated positions and, second, the government must
respect the cease-fire.438 The expectation was that the meeting would wrap up the next day, but,
according to an AFP report, the RPF forced a delay by issuing a “last minute demand” for an
immediate withdrawal of French troops.439 The gambit frustrated some observers, who had hoped
to save more contentious issues for a later date,440 but it worked. On 7 March, the delegations
signed two agreements. The first, which was public, called for a cease-fire to begin at midnight on
9 March, required the RPF forces to retreat to the old cease-fire line between 14 and 17 March,
and set a date (15 March) for the resumption of talks in Arusha.441 A second agreement, deemed
“confidential,” called on France to scale back its military presence.442 The key provisions stated,
in particular:
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1. The French troops which arrived in Rwanda on 8th February 1993 (2 companies)
should pull out from the country within a period of eight (8) days effective from 17
March 1993.
2. The French troops which arrived in Rwanda before 8 February 1993 (2
companies) shall be confined in Kigali with effect from 17th March, 1993 until they
are replaced by a neutral international force to be mutually agreed upon by the two
parties.443
French officials noted that the agreement referred only to Noroît. It had entirely glossed over
Chimère (whose presence, of course, had been kept secret), as well as the dozens of French
advisers and technicians whose work with the FAR was authorized by a 1992 amendment to the
1975 Franco-Rwandan military assistance agreement.444
Even still, for French officials, there was a clear risk in reeling back two of the four Noroît
companies. France had long viewed Noroît as a deterrent, believing its presence was all that
stopped the RPF from seizing Kigali.445 An adviser in the French Ministry of Defense predicted
on 9 March that the RPF military would attack Kigali “at the first opportunity.”446 This prospect
was particularly concerning because the RPF, at that moment, was just 30 kilometers outside
Kigali. If it did launch an attack, the Defense Ministry advisor wrote, it would be impossible for
France to send reinforcements in time.447 Kigali, in this hypothetical scenario, would fall, ending
the war before the French government could succeed in taking what General Quesnot, in a
handwritten note also written 9 March, called “the honorable and favorable way out”—that is,
lining up UN troops to take the place of its own (or placing French troops under UN authority).448
Quesnot abhorred the thought, arguing an RPF military victory at this point, with French boots
still on the ground, “would not be without consequences for the credibility of our engagements in
Africa.”449
French officials recognized, though, that as long as the Rwandan authorities were standing
behind the Dar es Salaam agreements, it would be awkward for the French government to
protest.450 And, for the moment, at least, it seemed they were: President Habyarimana told
Ambassador Martres that he did not object to the confidential agreement’s most critical provisions
(those calling for the withdrawal of the two Noroît reinforcement companies and requiring the
remaining companies to confine themselves to Kigali).451 Delaye, the head of the Élysée Africa
Cell, accentuated the positive for France, arguing in a note to President Mitterrand that the 7 March
agreement could prove to be France’s “exit ticket”—provided, he said, “that everyone plays
along.”452 That was far from a certainty. Habyarimana, in his conversation with Martres, had said
he doubted the RPF would honor its own commitments under the 7 March joint communiqué
(referring, presumably, to its promise to withdraw its troops from the positions they had occupied
since 8 February).453
In one respect, at least, France was getting what it wanted: Habyarimana had not
undermined the government delegation or its chief, Prime Minister Nsenginyaremye. The “united
front,” which Cooperation Minister Debarge had urged the two leaders to forge at the end of
February 1993, appeared, temporarily, to be holding. At one point, not long after the summit, the
Rwandan president and prime minister held a joint meeting with senior military leaders, and a
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radio broadcast reported that Habyarimana “expressed his appreciation to the prime minister for
participating in the meeting.”454 A US cable remarked, “This is the first time we can remember the
president saying anything nice to the prime minister in public.”455
Predictably, though, not everyone was pleased. On 10 March, members of the president’s
own party (the MRND) and the CDR organized demonstrations in front of the French embassy to
protest the Dar es Salaam accords and to demand that French troops stay put.456 The CDR issued
a press release blasting Habyarimana, saying, “This shows clearly that Mr. Habyarimana Juvénal,
President of the Republic, is no longer concerned with the interests of the nation; he has other
interests to defend instead.”457 Its statements spurred speculation that the CDR might soon sever
ties with the president’s party,458 as, in fact, it did, on 27 March.459
The growing tensions within the MRND-CDR alliance fueled rumors of a possible coup.460
A US cable on 22 March reported that the rumors had been “floating around Kigali” for a couple
of weeks and took a variety of forms, though all ended the same way: with Habyarimana “departing
gracefully for some foreign shore.”461 The “alleged chief plotter,” according to the cable, was
Colonel Théoneste Bagosora.462 The cable, however, dismissed the rumors as “probably farfetched in current circumstances.”463 Defense Minister Gasana acknowledged he had heard such
rumors, but insisted “that no coup could succeed at this time, even if some officers were dumb
enough to try.”464
Habyarimana encountered dissension within the ranks of the FAR, as well.465 On 10 March,
unit commanders at Camp Kayuya formalized their concerns about the pending departure of
French troops in a memo addressed to the Rwandan Army état-major.466 The commanders were
notably critical of the FAR leadership for their complacency, asking why the FAR was “staying
silent” in the face of grave problems threatening to tear the country apart.467
More and more, Habyarimana seemed tired. On 30 March, he announced his resignation
as chairman of the MRND, the party he had created and led for nearly two decades.468 Speaking
with unusual frankness to Ambassador Martres shortly before this announcement, the president
“implied that . . . he would not look unfavorably on the prospect of relinquishing the presidency
of the Republic,” once the peace process was completed and a new government installed.469
Habyarimana confided, though, that he worried his opponents would seek to have him prosecuted
for alleged human rights abuses (allegations he vociferously denied). “He only asks to live in peace
in his country,” Martres wrote.470 The president pressed Martres to relay this message to President
Mitterrand “with the greatest discretion,” suggesting the French government might help him secure
“a formal promise from his opponents not to take legal action against him and his family” after the
end of his presidency.471 Mitterrand’s response to this request, if indeed he did respond, has not
been made public.
The French government, meanwhile, was making strides in its effort to spur the United
Nations to take action in Rwanda.472 On 12 March, the Security Council unanimously approved a
resolution inviting Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali to “examine” the possibility of sending troops
to the region.473 The resolution envisioned dispatching one multinational force to monitor the
cease-fire and protect civilians, and a second force to surveil the Rwandan-Ugandan border.474 The
French representative, the first to speak after the vote, framed the resolution as an urgently needed
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response to a “very serious humanitarian crisis,” saying, “The French Government felt that resolute
action had to be taken to reach an effective and lasting cessation of hostilities, to promote the
intensification of humanitarian assistance, and to enable the peace efforts to continue.”475 Suffice
it to say, he did not mention that the French government had only decided to push for the resolution
after President Mitterrand resolved that French forces in Rwanda “be replaced by international
forces from the UN.”476
The confidential Dar es Salaam agreement had called for France to begin withdrawing two
Noroît reinforcement companies by 17 March and to complete the process within eight days.477
However, as the deadline approached, President Habyarimana signaled the drawdown may not
happen quite so soon. In a national broadcast on 14 March, the Rwandan president said French
soldiers would not leave until the RPF honored its commitment to retreat to the agreed-upon ceasefire line.478 French officials likewise viewed the two commitments as linked. “The problem,”
General Quesnot wrote in a 17 March memo, “is whether we should begin the withdrawal of these
two [Noroît] companies on the scheduled dates, even if the RPF has not previously withdrawn to
the cease-fire line agreed upon in the Dar es Salaam agreement.”479 Quesnot, saying he was
“certain of the RPF’s bad faith,” recommended that France start by withdrawing only one of the
two reinforcement companies, while, at the same time, “maintain[ing], if not reinforc[ing], our
indirect help to the Rwandan Army, which is in the process of pulling itself together.”480
When President Mitterrand presided over a restricted council meeting later that day,
Admiral Lanxade confirmed that the RPF was, indeed, “making arrangements for withdrawal,”
but was, at the same time, “playing a double game and leaving troops in position.”481 Lanxade
agreed with Quesnot—and with Rwandan authorities—that France could reasonably withdraw one
company as a first step.482 Mitterrand consented.483 “I agree,” he said, according to notes from the
meeting. “We asked for an agreement, we have it. It must be applied. Only, we must be vigilant.”484
Lt. Col. Tracqui, the commander of the Noroît forces, issued the order on 19 March,
announcing that the RPF Army “seems to be withdrawing its first elements” to the cease-fire line
and that the French government, in return, had decided to withdraw the motorized infantry
company, the lighting and support company, and the heavy mortars section, starting on 20
March.485 The order cautioned the remaining French companies: “This measure is more political
than military in nature and should not imply any loosening of the surveillance system.”486
President Mitterrand was forced to confront the issue again several days later, as the
deadline to withdraw the second reinforcement company approached. In a 24 March briefing,
General Quesnot made it known he remained unsatisfied.487 The RPF military had still only
partially retreated.488 Nevertheless, he wrote, it was the recommendation of both the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense that France withdraw the second Noroît reinforcement
company—if only, he said, “to avoid any polemic against us.”489 Mitterrand, presiding once again
over a meeting of the restricted council, deferred to Admiral Lanxade: “Your final position on this
topic—are we withdrawing a company?”490 Lanxade’s answer was yes.491 “Agreed,” Mitterrand
said.492 The order went out later that day,493 leaving France with two companies in Kigali
prefecture—more, still, than it had had before the 8 February offensive, but not enough, it was
believed, to beat back an RPF assault on Kigali.
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As Col. Dominique Delort’s command over all French forces in Kigali came to a close, he
summed up France’s military response to the RPF’s 8 February counter-offensive with a
declaration of mission accomplished. In a 25 March 1993 “Ordre Du Jour”—a daily agenda drafted
by a commanding officer announcing the day’s priorities—he credited a reinforced Noroît
protecting Kigali and “support in the areas of advice and training” to the FAR with preventing the
fall of “the capital of a friendly state” at the hands of “an armed rebellion.”494 “For 45 days the
French forces in Rwanda both presented a credible deterrent and a know-how that was equally
decisive.”495 On 1 April 1993, Col. Tauzin and “most” of his detachment, which had helped
provide much of the “know-how” that Delort praised, returned to France, ending Operation
Chimère.496 Yet, while units were leaving Rwanda, the work of French forces in Rwanda
continued, as Delort added in his 25 March note: “Noroît, a DAMI [contingent] and the AMT
continue on a mission that is always very delicate.”497
To Col. Cussac, however, who remained in his role as defense attaché and chief of the
Military Assistance Mission in Rwanda and returned to commanding Noroît in April,498 the future
looked bleak. The FAR had not acquitted itself well on the field (save the French-trained units that
had preserved Byumba and Ruhengeri); the President and the opposition remained divided,
“underestimating an enemy whom they too naively believed could become an ally;”499 and
Habyarimana, who feared that the FIDH report would become the “centerpiece of a criminal
charge” against him,500 might “soon find himself alone, deprived of the C.D.R. and diehard Hutus
who are abandoning him on the right, while his former single party will collapse when he no longer
holds on to it tightly.”501 “Inexorably,” Cussac bemoaned, “‘Tutsiland’ is taking shape.”502
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Notes to Chapter VI
1
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (14 Jan. 1993) (capitalization in original).
2
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Impasse Again”).
3
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Progress Toward Political
Compromise”).
4
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Party Demonstrations Block Roads,
Bottle Up Kigali; Ethnic Violence in Gisenyi Prefecture”).
5
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”). Although the
cable identified significant evidence supporting the arrest of the two Interahamwe members, including that they were
found at the scene with a hand grenade, it separately raised some doubt as to their connection to the detonated
explosive.
6
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”).
7
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Two Terrorist Attacks in Kigali Leave
20 Injured”).
8
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Two Terrorist Attacks in Kigali Leave
20 Injured”).
9
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (29 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Two Terrorist Attacks in Kigali Leave
20 Injured”).
10
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (31 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Party Demonstrations Block Roads,
Bottle Up Kigali; Ethnic Violence in Gisenyi Prefecture”).
11
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”).
12
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”).
13
Letter from Juvénal Habyarimana to François Mitterrand (5 Dec. 1992).
14
See Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (18 Jan. 1993).
15
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”).
16
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Kigali Awaits Protocol”).
17
Protocole d’accord entre le gouvernement de la republique rwandaise et le front patriotique rwandais sur le partage
du pouvoir dans le cadre d’un gouvernement de transition à base élargie [Memorandum of Understanding between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Sharing of Power within the
Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government], Rw. – GOR & RPF, 17, 9 Jan. 1993.
18
Protocole d’accord entre le gouvernement de la republique rwandaise et le front patriotique rwandais sur le partage
du pouvoir dans le cadre d’un gouvernement de transition à base élargie [Memorandum of Understanding between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Sharing of Power within the
Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government], Rw. – GOR & RPF, 6-7, 9 Jan. 1993.
19
Protocole d’accord entre le gouvernement de la republique rwandaise et le front patriotique rwandais sur le partage
du pouvoir dans le cadre d’un gouvernement de transition à base élargie [Memorandum of Understanding between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Sharing of Power within the
Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government], Rw. – GOR & RPF, 6-7, 9 Jan. 1993.
20
Protocole d’accord entre le gouvernement de la republique rwandaise et le front patriotique rwandais sur le partage
du pouvoir dans le cadre d’un gouvernement de transition à base élargie [Memorandum of Understanding between
the Government of the Rwandan Republic and the Rwandan Patriotic Front on the Sharing of Power within the
Framework of a Broad-Based Transitional Government], Rw. – GOR & RPF, 6-7, 9 Jan. 1993.
21
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Reactions to Arusha Protocol”).
22
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Reactions to Arusha Protocol”).
23
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Reactions to Arusha Protocol”).
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24
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Reactions to Arusha Protocol”).
25
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Reactions to Arusha Protocol”).
26
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (14 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
27
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (14 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
28
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (14 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
29
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (14 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
30
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (18 Jan. 1993).
31
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (18 Jan. 1993).
32
The N’Sele Ceasefire Agreement, as amended, art. II, Rw. – RPF, 12 July 1992. Specifically, Article II of the accord
called for “[t]he withdrawal of all foreign troops after the effective deployment of the Neutral Military Observer Group
(GOMN), with the exception of military cooperants present in Rwanda pursuant to bilateral cooperation agreements.”
This provision could be read to authorize the continued presence of the MAM advisers and technicians working with
the Rwandan Army and Gendarmerie, but not the Noroît troops.
33
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (18 Jan. 1993).
34
Letter from François Mitterrand to Juvénal Habyarimana (18 Jan. 1993) (original capitalization removed).
35
FIDH Report (1993). No allegations of violence during the FIDH Commission’s two-week stay in Rwanda were
included in its report. In its press release of 8 March 1993 upon releasing its final report, the Commission wrote: “The
Commission left Rwanda on 21 January 1993, when it completed its investigations. The following day, [the
Commission] was made aware of further new massacres in north-western Rwanda was brought to its attention, as well
as summary executions, including of one of its witnesses.” See Fédération Internationale des Droits de l’Homme et
al., Communiqué de Presse (8 Mar. 1993).
36
FIDH Report 1 (1993).
37
Memorandum from Matthieu Ngirumpatse to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (4 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Enquête
internationale sur la violation des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda”); see also Memorandum from Faustin Munyazesa
to Dismas Nsengiyaremye (17 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “Enquête internationale sur la violation des droits de l’ homme
au Rwanda”).
38
FIDH Report 3 (1993).
39
FIDH Report 3 (1993).
40
Press Release, Africa Watch, Outbreak of Violence Follows Human Rights Investigation in Rwanda (27 Jan. 1993).
41
Cable from Georges Martres to Bruno Delaye (19 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Mission d’enquete de la Federation
Internationale des Droits de l’Homme”).
42
Cable from Georges Martres to Bruno Delaye (19 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Mission d’enquete de la Federation
Internationale des Droits de l’Homme”). Some questioned the credibility of Janvier Afrika’s claims. See, e.g., Cable
from Johan Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (22 Jan. 1993) (reporting that “[a] Canadian member of
the commission told my American colleague that he doubted the credibility of Afrika's statements”).
43
Cable from Georges Martres to Bruno Delaye (19 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Mission d’enquete de la Federation
Internationale des Droits de l’Homme”).
44
Letter from Jean Carbonare to Bruno Delaye (1 Feb. 1993).
45
Letter from Jean Carbonare to Bruno Delaye (1 Feb. 1993).
46
Letter from Jean Carbonare to Bruno Delaye (1 Feb. 1993). While Martres and the FIDH Report spelled Janvier’s
name as “Africa,” the correct spelling, according to how it is listed in the magazine he published, Umurava, is “Afrika.”
47
PIERRE PÉAN, NOIRES FUREURS, BLANCS MENTEURS RWANDA 1990-1994 [BLACK RAGE, WHITE LIARS RWANDA
1990-1994] 190-94 (2005).
48
FIDH Report 3, 9 (1993).
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Chapter VI
January – March 1993
49
MRND Continues Demonstrations; Kigali Under Curfew, KIGALI RADIODIFFUSION NATIONALE DE LA RÉPUBLIQUE
RWANDAISE, 20 Jan. 1993 (transcribed by US Foreign Broadcast Information Service).
50
Letter from Jan de Bekker to Mathieu Ngirumpatse (24 Jan. 1993).
51
Dismas Nsengiyaremye, La Transition Démocratique au Rwanda (1989-1993), in LES CRISES POLITIQUES AU
BURUNDI ET AU RWANDA (1993-1994) [THE POLITICAL CRISES IN BURUNDI AND RWANDA (1993-1994)] (André
Guichaoua ed. 1995).
52
Press Release, Africa Watch, Outbreak of Violence Follows Human Rights Investigation in Rwanda (27 Jan. 1993).
Before the Commission left Rwanda, its members met with President Habyarimana to “express concern for the security
of persons who cooperated with the Commission’s work.” According to the release, “[d]uring their visit to Rwanda,
two Commission members were stopped at an illegal roadblock set up by the MRND militia. The Tutsi interpreter
with them was threatened with death by the youth who were armed with machetes and who openly identified
themselves as Interahamwe, or members of the MRND militia.” The team protested the “threats [made] against those
who had helped with its work and called upon the President and Minister of Interior . . . to provide its witnesses and
collaborators with full protection.”
53
Quatre-vingt morts dans les violences au Rwanda, selon un nouveau bilan [Violence in Rwanda Leads to 80 Dead,
According to a New Report], AFP, 27 Jan. 1993; see also Deux morts et dix blesses graves dans des manifestations
au Rwanda [Two Dead and Ten Seriously Injured in Rwanda Demonstrations], AFP, 21 Jan. 1993.
54
Deux morts et dix blesses graves dans des manifestations au Rwanda [Two Dead and Ten Seriously Injured in
Rwanda Demonstrations], AFP, 21 Jan. 1993.
55
Press Release, Africa Watch, Outbreak of Violence Follows Human Rights Investigation in Rwanda (27 Jan. 1993).
56
Deux morts et dix blesses graves dans des manifestations au Rwanda [Two Dead and Ten Seriously Injured in
Rwanda Demonstrations], AFP, 21 Jan. 1993.
57
Press Release, Africa Watch, Outbreak of Violence Follows Human Rights Investigation in Rwanda 12 (27 Jan.
1993).
58
Fieulle de Motivation of Pascal Senyamuhara Safari alias Pascal Simbikangwa by Court of Assizes of Paris 3 (14
Mar. 2014); Cable from Johan Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (12 Mar. 1992).
59
Maïa de la Baume, France Convicts Rwandan Ex-Officer of Genocide, N.Y. TIMES, 14 Mar. 2014.
60
Letter from Monique Mujawamariya to Fernand Boedts (23 Jan. 1993). Mujawamariya wrote on behalf of the
Association rwandaise pour la défense des droits de la personne et des libertés publiques [Rwandan Association for
the Defense of Human Rights and Public Freedoms], which was part of the CLADHO cohort of Rwandan human
rights associations that had requested the FIDH Commission come to Rwanda.
61
Rwanda: une cinquantaine de morts lors d’affrontements dans le Nord-Ouest [Rwanda: About 50 Dead in Clashes
in the North-west], LE MONDE, 28 Jan. 1993.
62
Rwanda: une cinquantaine de morts lors d’affrontements dans le Nord-Ouest [Rwanda: About 50 Dead in Clashes
in the North-west], LE MONDE, 28 Jan. 1993.
63
Rwanda: les affrontements entre Hutus et Tutsis, quatre-vingts personnes ont été tuées lors de nouvelles violences
tribales [Rwanda: Clashes between Hutus and Tutsi, Eighty People Killed in New Tribal Violence], LE MONDE, 29
Jan. 1993.
64
Stephen Smith, Paris renforce son dispositif militaire à Kigali [Paris Reinforces Its Military Apparatus in Kigali],
LIBÉRATION, 10 Feb. 1993.
65
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (18 Feb. 1993); see also Cable from US Secretary of State (6
Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Africa Bureau Friday Report, 2/5/93”) (“ICRC has confirmed over 300 killed and 4,000
displaced in January violence.”)
66
FIDH Report 4, 37-38 (emphasis added). The RPF’s response to allegations that it had targeted civilians was that
the FAR had “installed its posts too near civilian targets, thus making it likely that civilians would suffer in the course
of attacks.” Id. at 37. The Commission did not dispute this assertion but reported that eyewitnesses had described three
“deliberate RPF attacks” on a clinic where FAR soldiers were hospitalized. See id.
67
Interview by France TV 2 with Jean Carbonare (26 Jan. 1993).
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Chapter VI
68
January – March 1993
Interview by France TV 2 with Jean Carbonare (26 Jan. 1993).
69
Interview by France TV 2 with Jean Carbonare 26 Jan. 1993). Jean Carbonare would return to French television on
3 February, telling an interviewer for France’s TV5 that he believed “the murders had been organized by the
bourgmestres [mayors] and the Army,” adding “the French military must have been aware and are obligated to
intervene.”
70
Cable from Georges Martres (29 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Les evenements du Rwanda et la communaute Francaise”).
71
Cable from Georges Martres (29 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Les evenements du Rwanda et la communaute Francaise”).
72
Cable from Georges Martres (29 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Les evenements du Rwanda et la communaute Francaise”).
73
Cable from Georges Martres (29 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Les evenements du Rwanda et la communaute Francaise”).
74
Cable from US Secretary of State to American Embassy in Kigali (27 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Demarche on President
Habyarimana”) (emphasis added).
75
Cable from Johan Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (5 Feb. 1993). Swinnen reported that amongst
the conclusions of the investigation were the following: “The victims are essentially Tutsi but are also Hutu affiliated
with Tutsi, people from other regions, and people from parties other than the MRND and CDR. The disturbances and
massacres are organized. The instigators and organizers have exploited the reflexes for fear of the other ethnic group,
other regions or other parties to mount the populations against each other.”
76
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Demarches to President and Prime
Minister”).
77
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Demarches to President and Prime
Minister”).
78
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Demarches to President and Prime
Minister”).
79
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Demarches to President and Prime
Minister”).
80
Duclert Commission Report 222-23 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/13, TD Kigali 103, 5 Feb. 1993. La situation en
préfecture de Gisenyi après les massacres inter ethniques).
81
Duclert Commission Report 222-23 (quoting SHD, GR 2003 Z 17/13, TD Kigali 103, 5 Feb. 1993. La situation en
préfecture de Gisenyi après les massacres inter ethniques).
82
See Cable from US Secretary of State (6 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Africa Bureau Friday Report, 2/5/93”) (“The
President was to have visited the areas of violence February 4 with the intention of suspending those local officials
implicated. We see this action as the essential minimum requirement to demonstrate Habyarimana’s good faith.”).
83
MIP Audition of Bruno Delaye, Tome III, Vol. 1, 106.
84
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (9 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Back to Arusha”). PL leader Justin
Mugenzi told the US ambassador that Habyarimana had planned to replace only four officials, but increased that
number in response to the RPF offensive on 8 February. Simbikangwa continued in his role as an intelligence officer
until the Genocide, remaining close with President Habyarimana. See Memorandum from Marc Nees to Joseph Dewez
(15 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Liste des noms d’Interahamwe distribuant des armes et des munitions”); see also
Memorandum from Joseph Kavaruganda to Juvénal Habyarimana, (19 Mar. 1994).
85
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (18 Feb. 1993).
86
Rwandan President Warns of Civilian Massacre, AFP, 24 Feb. 1993.
87
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Minister of Defense on GOMN and
Civil Defense”).
88
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Minister of Defense on GOMN and
Civil Defense”).
89
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Minister of Defense on GOMN and
Civil Defense”).
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January – March 1993
90
Memorandum from Dismas Nsengiyaremye to James Gasana (25 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Illegal Distribution of
Weapons to Civilians”).
91
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Minister of Defense on GOMN and
Civil Defense”).
92
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (22 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Meeting with Minister of Defense”).
93
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission a Kigali et
Kampala”).
94
Notes from C. Rusagara on Meeting at US Embassy in Kigali (27 Jan. 1993). These are handwritten notes, the
contents of which are corroborated by other sources. See, e.g., Cable from Johnnie Carson to US Secretary of State (1
Feb. 1993) (Subject: “RPF Comments on Recent Events in Rwanda and Urges American Statement and Support”).
Johnnie Carson, the US ambassador to Uganda, wrote a report of the same meeting indicating that the RPF
representative said that, the “RPF did not possess infinite patience and . . . if the political violence continued on a
major scale and was directed at one ethnic group (the Tutsis), the RPF would be forced to intervene militarily.” Carson
continued, “[Théogène] Rudasingwa explained that it would be a mockery to maintain a cease fire and to carry on the
talks in Arusha while Habyarimana and the MRND were killing people.”
95
Press Release, RPF, Resumption of Hostilities in Rwanda (8 Feb. 1993) (“The ceasefire agreement [of July 1992]
stipulated that, among other things, 1) the negotiations had to be conducted and concluded by the 10th of October
1992, 2) violations of human rights are violations of ceasefire, 3) withdrawal of the French troops in Rwanda is part
and parcel of the ceasefire agreement.”); see also Interview by LFM with Charles Kayonga; Interview by LFM with
Richard Sezibera.
96
Press Release, RPF, Resumption of Hostilities in Rwanda (8 Feb. 1993).
97
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “New RPF Attack”).
98
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “New RPF Attack”).
99
Interview by Charles Onyango-Obbo with Paul Kagame, in CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR (26 Feb. 1993).
100
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Karenzi Karake; Interview by LFM with Charles Karamba.
101
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité (18 Feb. 1993).
102
Interview by Charles Onyango-Obbo with Paul Kagame, in CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR (26 Feb. 1993).
103
Cable from Colonna (12 Feb. 1993).
104
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (18 Feb. 1993). Even the DGSE would conclude in a note dated
18 February 1993 that the RPF had attacked “because of ethnic massacres perpetrated in the East of the country (the
RPF considers them to violate the cease-fire).”
105
Cable from Colonna (12 Feb. 1993).
106
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (16 Feb. 1993).
107
Cable from US Secretary of State to American Embassy in Kigali (14 Dec. 1993).
108
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (16 Feb. 1993).
109
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (16 Feb. 1993). Separately, while this cable confirmed that the
French shared their intelligence with the Americans, it does not necessarily confirm an information flow in the
opposite direction. However, given the information sharing practices described by Swinnen and evidenced by this and
other US cables, it seems the French officials would have been informed of the contents of the 16 February 1993 US
cable as well.
110
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot and Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda
– offensive militaire du FPR”).
111
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot and Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda
– offensive militaire du FPR”).
112
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot and Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (8 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda
– offensive militaire du FPR”).
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Chapter VI
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113
Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du
10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993) (“The operation involved 7 officers, 16 non-commissioned officers,
95 master corporals and porpoises (soldiers) of the 21st Marine Infantry Regiment and the head of the detachment that
was deployed.”).
114
Brigadier
General
Philippe
Tracqui,
https://www.nato.int/KFOR/structur/whoswho/cv/bio_tracqui.htm.
NATO,
13
Mar.
2007,
115
MIP Tome I 167; Report from Philippe Tracqui, Noroît detachment, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération
des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du 10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993); La France annonce l’envoi de
cent cinquante soldats supplémentaires au Rwanda [France Announces the Deployment of 150 Additional Troops to
Rwanda], LE MONDE, 11 Feb. 1993. Lt. Col. Tracqui had been stationed in Africa since 1989, beginning as the director
of the National Officers School in Thies, Senegal before moving on to Central African Republic. See Brigadier
General Philippe Tracqui, NATO, 13 Mar. 2007, https://www.nato.int/KFOR/structur/whoswho/cv/bio_tracqui.htm.
116
MIP Tome I 167; see also Report from Philippe Tracqui, Noroît detachment, Rapport concernant l’opération de
récupération des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du 10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993); La France
annonce l’envoi de cent cinquante soldats supplémentaires au Rwanda [France Announces the Deployment of 150
Additional Troops to Rwanda], LE MONDE, 11 Feb. 1993.
117
See Chronologie Générale des Évènements (22 Apr. 1993); Memorandum from Michel Fruchard to François
Leotard (6 Apr. 1993) (noting the French Ministry of Defense on 10 February 1993 authorized a direct transfer of 50
12.7 mm machine guns and 100,000 cartridges at no cost to the FAR).
118
See Chronologie Générale des Évènements (22 Apr. 1993); Memorandum from Michel Fruchard to François
Leotard (6 Apr. 1993). Tauzin defined “‘discrete’ operations” as “official but conducted without the knowledge of all
if possible” and defined “‘secret’ operations” as “in fact clandestine.” See BERNARD LUGAN, FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND,
L’ARMÉE FRANÇAISE ET LE RWANDA [FRANÇOIS MITTERRAND, THE FRENCH ARMY AND RWANDA] 127 n.1 (2005).
119
MIP Tome I 181.
120
Memorandum from Michel Fruchard to François Lépine (16 Feb. 1993); Memorandum from Michel Fruchard to
François Leotard (6 Apr. 1993).
121
See Memorandum from Dominique Delort to French Ministry of Defense et al.; Memorandum from Michel
Fruchard to François Leotard (6 Apr. 1993).
122
Memorandum from Michel Fruchard to François Leotard (6 Apr. 1993).
123
MIP Tome I 181.
124
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (13 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
125
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission a Kigali et
Kampala”).
126
MIP Audition of Bruno Delaye, Tome III, Vol. 1, 99-119.
127
MIP Audition of Bruno Delaye, Tome III, Vol. 1, 106.
128
MIP Audition of Bruno Delaye, Tome III, Vol. 1, 107. In similar testimony, Jean-Marc de La Sablière briefly
acknowledged the massacres in his MIP testimony but quickly pivoted to attack the RPF, insisting that they had
“committed abuses” as well. In his recollection of February 1993, he pinned the blame for breaking the cease-fire on
the RPF; the massacres, which preceded the rearmament of the RPA, did not register as a violation. To justify the
deepening French military involvement, he claimed that massacres would have been a consequence of the RPF taking
the capital in 1993. MIP Audition of Jean Marc de La Sablière, Tome III, Vol. 2, 153.
129
Memorandum from Bernard Cussac to James Gasana (10 Mar. 1993). The date on the document, “10 February
1993,” is an error.
130
Report from Etienne Joubert, Sur les opérations d’évacuation des ressortissants á Ruhengeri (24 Feb. 1993).
131
Report from Etienne Joubert, Sur les opérations d’évacuation des ressortissants á Ruhengeri (24 Feb. 1993).
132
Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du
10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993).
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133
Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du
10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993).
134
MIP Tome I 163; Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des ressortissants
de Ruhengeri du 10 février 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993).
135
Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de recuperation des ressortissants de Ruhengeri du
10 Fevrier 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993). The OAU (Organization of African Unity) was established in
1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It disbanded in 2002 and was replaced by the African Union. The OAU was, like the
United Nations, an intergovernmental organization. Unlike the United Nations, however, “where important decisions
are taken by the Security Council dominated by its five permanent members” (China, France, Russian Federation, the
United Kingdom, and the United States), the important decisions of the OAU were “taken by its Assembly of 52 Heads
of States.” ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY, RWANDA: THE PREVENTABLE GENOCIDE ¶ 11.3 (July 2000)
136
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (4 Dec. 1992) (Subject: “NMOG Reports Ceasefire Violation”).
137
Cable from Bernard Cussac (11 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Ruhengeri – general opaleye – press”).
138
L’Armée française accusée d’aider les forces rwandaises [French Army Accused of Helping Rwandan Forces],
APF/REUTERS, 16 Feb. 1993.
139
Cable from Johan Swinnen to Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (10 Feb. 1993).
140
France Denies Involvement in Rwanda Fighting, REUTERS, 15 Feb. 1993; see also Question de Jean-Pierre Brard:
il proteste contre le soutien militaire français au régime de Kigali [Question from Jean-Pierre Brard: He Objects to
French Military Support of the Kigali Regime], L’HUMANITÉ, 4 July 1992 (“In a question to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Communist MP Jean-Pierre Brard protested against French military support for the Kigali regime. Roland
Dumas responded by saying that the only task of the expeditionary force is the protection of French and foreign
nationals in Rwanda.”).
141
MIP Tome I 171.
142
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission a Kigali et
Kampala”).
143
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (11 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Update number 5: Ruhengeri seige
[sic] broken”); Memorandum from Rwandan Service de Renseignements (11 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Note de synthèse
au chef de service”).
144
See, e.g., Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (12 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Update Number 6: Arusha
to Pause; Fighting Continues”) (“Government forces still hold Ruhengeri, but they have been unable to push the RPF
even as far north as the communal centers of Kinigi . . . and Nkumba . . . . shelling continued to the east in the contested
commune of Bwisigne . . . . The RPF is still in Tumba commune, southwest of Byumba town near the Kigali-Ruhengeri
road.”).
145
Logan Ndahiro, The 8th February 1993 Offensive by RPA Forces, THE NEW TIMES, 2 Feb. 2017; see also MIP
Tome I 110.
146
MIP Tome I 110.
147
Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (11 Feb. 1993).
148
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission à Kigali et
Kampala”) (emphasis and capitalization in original).
149
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission à Kigali et
Kampala”).
150
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission à Kigali et
Kampala”) (capitalization in original).
151
L’Armée française accusée d’aider les forces rwandaises [French Army Accused of Helping Rwandan Forces],
AFP/REUTERS, 16 Feb. 1993.
152
Cable from Rwandan Embassy in Kampala to Rwandan Ministry of Defense (18 Feb. 1993).
153
Cable from Rwandan Embassy in Kampala to Rwandan Ministry of Defense (18 Feb. 1993).
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154
Notes on Memorandum from Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (18 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda –
situation militaire”).
155
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
156
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”) (emphasis added).
157
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
158
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
159
Memorandum from Dominique Pin to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Appel du President
Habyarimana”).
160
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (18 Feb. 1993).
161
Fiche, Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (18 Feb. 1993).
162
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
163
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
164
See Duclert Commission Report 256-257 (discussing a French delegation’s meeting with President Museveni in
Kampala on 13 February 1993).
165
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
166
Interview by Charles Onyango-Obbo with Paul Kagame, in CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR (26 Feb. 1993).
167
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame. Kagame said he insisted, though, that the RPF should not be forced to forfeit
the territory it had gained since the launch of the 8 February offensive, if that would permit the FAR to reconquer that
territory. The ensuing debate over this issue would ultimately lead to the creation of a demilitarized zone.
168
Interview by LFM with Paul Kagame.
169
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
170
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
171
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
172
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
173
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
174
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
175
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
176
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
177
Memorandum from Dominique Pin and Christian Quesnot to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Rwanda”).
178
Memorandum from Pierre Joxe to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
179
MIP Tome I 167; see also Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l opération de recuperation des
ressortissants de Ruhengeri du 10 Fevrier 1993 (Operation Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993); Report from Philippe Tracqui,
Compte rendu d’activités du détachement Noroît (20 Mar. 1993); La France annonce l’envoi de cent cinquante soldats
supplémentaires au Rwanda [France Announces the Deployment of 150 Additional Troops to Rwanda], LE MONDE,
11 Feb. 1993.
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180
Memorandum from Pierre Joxe to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
181
Memorandum from Pierre Joxe to François Mitterrand (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda”).
182
MIP, Tome I 164, 167.
183
MIP, Tome I 164.
184
Cable from French Ministry of Defense (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Alerte pour Operation Noroît”).
185
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
186
Report from Philippe Tracqui, Compte rendu d’activités du détachement Noroît (20 Mar. 1993) (appended as
Annex 2, Subject: “Evolution des effectifs Noroît”); see also Bruce Jones, The Arusha Peace Process, in THE PATH
OF A GENOCIDE 141-42 (Howard Adelman & Astri Suhrke eds. 1999).
187
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
188
See generally MIP Tome I 153-54. Cussac admitted to the French Parliamentary Mission that, in practice, for
matters concerning the DAMI, he reported to the Army état-major.
189
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
190
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
191
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
192
Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Directive pour le colonel
Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”).
193
Memorandum from Michel Rigot to François Leotard (23 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Point de situation au Rwanda le
23 février 1993”) (mentioning the mortar company (“1 SML and six tubes”)); Excerpt of cable from Dominique Delort
(7 Mar. 1993).
194
MIP Tome I 175.
195
MIP Tome I 175-76; Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des
ressortissants de Ruhengeri du 10 février 1993 (Opération Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993).
196
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
197
See, e.g., Cable from Georges Martres to French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (29 Jan. 1993) (Subject: “Les
evenements du Rwanda et la communaute francaise”) (noting that expatriates in Gisenyi had been hassled at
roadblocks); Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana)
(memorializing Col. Cussac discussing with Col. Ndindiliyimana the Gendarmerie’s hassling of foreigners and
Rwandans at roadblocks); Cable from Georges Martres (13 Nov. 1991) (Subject: “Situtation militaire et
renseignements divers”) (noting that Gendarmerie sentry at roadblock pointed his weapon at a driver who was with a
Belgian in a vehicle and fired at the vehicle after they had driven off in fear).
198
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana).
199
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana).
200
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana).
201
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana).
202
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana); see also Fiche
recapitulative COOP / MMC en date du 23 mars 1994 (23 March 1994).
203
Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana).
204
Meeting Notes (19 Feb. 1993) (signed Mathias Nsabimana and Augustin Ndindiliyimana) (meeting occurred on
16 Feb. 1993).
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January – March 1993
205
Meeting Notes (19 Feb. 1993) (signed Mathias Nsabimana and Augustin Ndindiliyimana) (meeting occurred on
16 Feb. 1993); Meeting Notes (23 Nov. 1992) (signed Mugiraneza Ildephonse and Augustin Ndindiliyimana). Also
on 19 February 1993, a US Embassy cable from US Ambassador to Rwanda Robert Flaten reported to Washington
that: “Two Rwandan men who went by motorcycle to their home area just east of Ruhengeri to search for family were,
according to one who survived, treated politely at an RPF checkpoint and permitted to pass. Upon reaching their
destination, they were beaten severely by government troops; one died and the other sustained serious injuries and is
now in Kigali hospital.” Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Update Number
10: Fighting continues; more RPF war crimes reported”).
206
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije.
207
Interview by LFM with Paul Rwarakabije. An “abattoir” is a slaughterhouse for animals.
208
Notes on Cable from George Martres (1 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Visite de M. Marcel Debarge au Rwanda”).
209
Interview by LFM with Emmanuel Nshongozabahizi (10 Aug. 2017) (recalling, as a former Interahamwe, seeing
the French man a roadblock on the road from Kigali to Gisenyi in 1990); Interview by LFM with Charles Bugirimfura
(recalling, as a former FAR soldier, French soldiers manning a roadblock near the Kigali airport in late 1990, as well
as in Nyacyonga and Shyorongi from 1991 until the end of 1993).
210
See generally Mucyo Report Section 1.4 (2008) (summarizing witness testimony on various violent incidents
committed by French soldiers at roadblocks or committed by Rwandan soldiers at roadblocks or after arresting Tutsi
at roadblocks).
211
Mucyo Report Section 1.4 (2008).
212
Peter Mugabo, Ex-Rwandan PM Narrates Horrific Encounter with French Soldiers, NEWS OF RWANDA, 22 Nov.
2016.
213
Peter Mugabo, Ex-Rwandan PM Narrates Horrific Encounter with French Soldiers, NEWS OF RWANDA, 22 Nov.
2016.
214
Peter Mugabo, Ex-Rwandan PM Narrates Horrific Encounter with French Soldiers, NEWS OF RWANDA, 22 Nov.
2016.
215
Peter Mugabo, Ex-Rwandan PM Narrates Horrific Encounter with French Soldiers, NEWS OF RWANDA, 22 Nov.
2016; see also Testimony of Emmanuel Cattier to the Comite d’enquête citoyenne pour la vérité sur l’implication
française dans le génocide des Tutsi, 15 ème commémoration du génocide des Tutsi, Berlin (7 Apr. 2009).
216
See, e.g., MIP Tome I 176 (“This active surveillance, under the form of patrols and ‘checkpoints,’ even if it occurs
in conjunction with the Rwandan Gendarmerie, inevitably leads to exercising checks on persons. If the rules of
behavior at the ‘checkpoints’ refer to the ‘delivery of any suspect, weapon and document seized to the Rwandan
Gendarmerie,’ it is unclear how such a procedure can take place if there was no prior identity check or search.”);
Kigali, AFP, 3 Mar. 1993 (“French troops accompanied by Rwandan soldiers are manning roadblocks on the outskirts
of the capital. The French soldiers were checking identification papers of Rwandans travelling to and from Kigali on
Wednesday. They were also searching cars, apparently for guns.”); Makombe, Rwanda: Ubufaransa Burivanga!
[Rwanda: France Interferes!] KANGUKA NEWSPAPER 12 (23 Mar. 1993) (reporting that French soldiers asked the
population to show identity cards at Nyabarongo and Shyorongi checkpoints and asking people if they are either Hutu
or Tutsi); see also MIP Audition of Jean Hervé Bradol Tome III, Vol. 1, 390. Bradol, a French humanitarian worker
with Doctors Without Borders in Rwanda, told the MIP that he saw French soldiers at the northern entrance to Kigali
either carrying out the checks themselves or observing their Rwandan colleagues carrying them out from their posts.
217
MIP Tome I 176; Report from Philippe Tracqui, Rapport concernant l’opération de récupération des ressortissants
de Ruhengeri du 10 février 1993 (Opération Volcan) (17 Feb. 1993).
218
See, e.g., Mucyo Report Section 1.4 (2008) (summarizing witness testimony on violence against Tutsi at roadblocks
or Tutsi taken from roadblocks for interrogation elsewhere in 1993); see also Interview by LFM with Straton
Sinzabakwira (describing a group, assumed to be Tutsi, pulled aside at a French-FAR jointly manned roadblock at
Nyabarongo in February 1993); Interview by LFM with Kayiranga Wellars (describing Rwandan soldiers raping Tutsi
women in the tents of French soldiers at jointly-manned roadblocks near the Kabuye Sugar Factory, as well as verbal
and physical abuse of Tutsis by Rwandan soldiers in the presence of French soldiers); Interview by LFM with Djuma
Mbarushimana (describing French soldiers denying Tutsis passage at a roadblock in Giti Cy’Inyoni, Kigali); Interview
by LFM with Vital Mucanda (describing the detention and disappearance of his Tutsi family members at a FrenchPage | 234
Chapter VI
January – March 1993
manned roadblock in Shyorongi in 1993); Interview by LFM with Abdoul Maka Ntirenganya (describing being trained
to operate roadblocks by French and FAR soldiers at MRND Headquarters in Gisenyi in 1992 and noting the
harassment, beating, and detention of Tutsis at roadblocks).
219
Mucyo Report Section 4.1 (2008).
220
MIP Tome I 176.
221
MIP Tome I 176.
222
MIP Tome I 176.
223
See Excerpt of Cable from Dominique Delort (7 Mar. 1993) (reporting that Noroît’s “contribution to Rwandan
control at checkpoints in the last 15 days” was to hand over eight FAR deserters to the Gendarmerie as well as several
confiscated weapons, but saying nothing about the detention of alleged RPF collaborators); Report from Philippe
Tracqui, Compte rendu d’activités du détachement Noroît (20 Mar. 1993) (noting the arrest of “many deserters and
the seizure of many arms and ammunition” but nothing about the arrest of alleged RPF collaborators”).
224
Account taken from interview by LFM with Bernard Kayumba.
225
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
226
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 61 (2011). Gen. Didier Tauzin, who led the operation, has said that Chimère was not
the operation’s code name. Instead, he wrote, the operation was named Birunga (referring to the Virunga mountains),
and Chimère, the name given to the dragon on the 1st RPIMa insignia, was the name favored by a media that hoped to
evoke a shadowy association. That said, at least one contemporaneous French document refers to the operation as
Chimère, and since the name has been used widely, it will be used here to avoid confusion. Chronologie Générale des
Évènements (22 Apr. 1993) (identified as Annex 4).
227
MIP Tome I 165; Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Situation
au Rwanda”).
228
1er Régiment de parachutistes d’infanterie de marine [First Regiment of Marine Infantry Parachutists],
MINISTERES DES ARMEES (updated on 21 August 2020).
229
Letter from Survie Gironde to Alain Juppe (2 Apr. 1994).
230
1er RPMIa- Régiment parachutiste d’infanterie de marine [First Regiment of Marine Infantry Parachutists],
FORCES SPECIALES, http://le.cos.free.fr/1rpima.htm (last visited 13 Jan. 2021).
231
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 49 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
232
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 64 (2011).
233
MIP Tome I 165.
234
MIP Tome I 165. See also Memorandum from Jacques Lanxade to Dominique Delort (20 Feb. 1993) (Subject:
“Directive pour le colonel Delort, ambassade de France au Rwanda”) (“As of the use of the RAPAS Unit is concerned,
its staff is initially intended to reinforce our assistance to the RWANDAN command, without going below the level
of sector commander, and to ensure advanced guidance of possible aerial actions.”).
235
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
236
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 71 (2011).
237
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 71-74 (2011); see also MIP Tome I 165 (“After a helicopter flyover of the threatened
zones, it is decided to send a team of officer-advisers to the FAR chief of staff and a team of advisers to each of the
sector commanders (Ruhengeri, Rulindo, Byumba). Elements of DAMI Engineering fulfill an advisory mission to the
sector commanders in terms of defensive organization of the field. An artillery DAMI performs an advisory role for
the use of 122D30 and 105 mm batteries.”).
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January – March 1993
238
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
239
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 64 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
240
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 64-65 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
241
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 67-68 (2011).
242
MIP Tome I 165. Tauzin put the number at “67 men, including 5 senior officers, 9 junior officers, 30 noncommissioned officers and 23 master corporals, all very seasoned specialists and, for the most part, excellent
connoisseurs of Rwanda where they have already made one or more stays under the DAMI. With the exception of
about ten officers and NCOs, artillerymen coming from the 35th RAP (Parachute Artillery Regiment) or sappers, we
are all from the 1st RPIMa. I therefore command a detachment of exceptional military quality: remarkable cohesion,
a wide variety of military skills brought to the highest level, a composure that will stand the test of time, a perfect
understanding of the situation, and adaptability that will take my breath away every day.” DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA:
JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS]
68 (2011).
243
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
244
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
245
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
246
ROMÉO DALLAIRE, SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL 293 (2004).
247
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 71 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
248
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 75 (2011) (“On the morning of the 25th, two days after Chéreau took up his post at
headquarters, Nsabimana issued a coherent and pugnacious order of operations, probably the first in a long time. This
order was, of course, prepared by Chéreau according to the decisions that I made with him.”).
249
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS [RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 76 (2011). The exact timing of the counteroffensive is unclear. However, as a 2 March
1993 Order of Operation notes, “a counterattack to loosen Byumba’s grip is being prepared and could intervene in the
coming days.” Compte rendu d’activité du détachement Noroît (22 Apr. 1993).
250
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 76 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
251
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 77-78 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
252
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 77 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
253
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 70 (2011).
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
254
[RWANDA: I DEMAND JUSTICE
DIDIER TAUZIN, RWANDA: JE DEMANDE JUSTICE POUR LA FRANCE ET SES SOLDATS
FOR FRANCE AND ITS SOLDIERS] 78 (2011).
255
France Election 1993, PARLIAMENTS AND GOVERNMENTS DATABASE (last visited 21 Dec. 2020).
256
Cable from Colonna (22 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda – Declaration du porte parole”).
257
Stephen Smith, Les rebelles s’arretent aux portes de Kigali [The Rebels Stop at the Gates of Kigali], LIBÉRATION,
22 Feb. 1993.
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258
See, e.g., Adam Lusekelo, Rwandans Agree to Negotiate Peace, REUTERS, 8 Mar. 1993 (“The RPF says French
troops fought alongside government forces last month but France says its forces are in Kigali only to protect its
citizens.”).
259
Cable from Colonna (1 Mar. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda – Declaration du porte parole”); see also Une seconde
compagnie a été dépêchée à Kigali, annonce le Quai d’Orsay [A Second Company has been Dispatched to Kigali,
Announces the Quai d’Orsay], AP, 9 Feb. 1993 (quoting Quai d’Orsay spokesperson Daniel Bernard as saying, “[t]he
presence of these additional French forces has no other objective than to ensure the security of our nationals”).
260
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission a Kigali et
Kampala”).
261
Memorandum from Bruno Delaye to François Mitterrand (15 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Rwanda: Mission a Kigali et
Kampala”) (emphasis and capitalization in original).
262
Cable from Colonna (12 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda - Declaration du Porte Parole”).
263
Memorandum from Jean Carbonare to Bruno Delaye (1 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “document corrige”) (enclosing
excerpts from “Violations des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda,” including discussion of the 20 January 1993 testimony
of Father Joaquim Vallmajo, who stated that “the suffering of displaced populations goes beyond the imagination:
murder, rape, pillaging etc. . . . committed by Rwandan soldiers in the region of the camps. To these, add hunger,
sickness (malaria, scabies . . .), lack of water, deplorable sanitary conditions, and also the painful separation of
families.”); see also U.N. Begins Airlift of Emergency Food to Rwanda, AFP, 24 Feb. 1993. David Chazan, Guerre
civile: déplacement de populations et menace de famine [Civil War: Populations Displaced and Risk of Famine], AFP,
8 Mar. 1993; U.N. Increases Food Deliveries to Displaced Rwandans, AFP, 10 Mar. 1993.
264
GUERRE AU PAYS DES MILLE COLLINES: RWANDA, LA MENACE D’UNE CATASTROPHE [WAR IN THE LAND OF A
THOUSAND HILLS: RWANDA ON THE BRINK OF DISASTER] (International Committee of the Red Cross 1993) (Directed
by Adrian Ulrich) (available at https://avarchives.icrc.org/Film/191. See 00:02:00-00:02:35 and 00:09:25-00:12:00).
265
Stephen Smith, Les Refugiés affluent vers Kigali [Refugees Flock Toward Kigali] LIBÉRATION, 8 Mar. 1993.
266
Cable from Colonna (12 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Situation au Rwanda – Declaration du Porte Parole”).
267
Cable from Robert Flaten to US Secretary of State (19 Feb. 1993) (Subject: “Update Number 10: Fighting
continues; more RPF war crimes reported”). Rwanda: L’Armée accuse les maquisards d’avoir massacré cinq cents
réfugiés [Rwanda: Army Accuses Guerrilla Fighters of Killing 500 Refugees], LE MONDE/AFP, 21 Feb. 1993.
268
Rwanda: L’Armée accuse les maquisards d’avoir massacré cinq cents réfugiés [Rwanda: Army Accuses Guerrilla
Fighters of Killing 500 Refugees], LE MONDE/AFP, 21 Feb. 1993; see also Rebels Massacre 500 Civilians: Report,
AFP, 19 Feb. 1993 (stating that the accusation came from “sources close to the Rwandan army high comm
