A Hundred Days

Jul 1994

One hundred days. This was genocide against the Tutsi. Between April and July 1994 an estimated 500,000 to more than a million people were killed in Rwanda, among them Hutu who opposed the killing; the UN inquiry says about 800,000, and the last scene sets out who counted. The Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber has held that the genocide is a fact of common knowledge which there is no reasonable basis to dispute. The same UN inquiry found that the UN failed to stop it.

5 Oct 1993

Arusha, 1993. Rwanda’s government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), whose army had entered Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, signed the Arusha peace agreement in August 1993. A week later a UN report found that victims of attacks, “Tutsis in the overwhelming majority of cases”, were targeted for their group; the inquiry says it was largely ignored. On 5 October the Security Council created UNAMIR with a narrower mandate than the Secretary-General proposed. The inquiry says the U.S. had suggested a symbolic force of 100, and France 1,000.

11 Jan 1994

The cable of 11 January. Force Commander Roméo Dallaire told UN headquarters that an informant, a trainer of the Interahamwe militia of the MRND party, had been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. He said the party paid him, and his link ran to the army chief of staff and the party president. He offered to show a cache of at least 135 weapons if his family was protected. Dallaire planned to act within 36 hours, and noted a trap was not fully excluded. A later Tribunal chamber treated his evidence with caution but was convinced the Interahamwe were making lists of suspected opponents.

11 Jan 1994

The reply. Dallaire asked for guidance on protecting the informant. Headquarters answered: no reconnaissance or other action “until clear guidance is received”, then a cable under Kofi Annan’s name, signed by Iqbal Riza, saying the raid went beyond UNAMIR’s mandate and telling Dallaire to warn President Habyarimana instead. The 1999 inquiry did not fault that reading of the mandate, but found they did not brief the Secretary-General, the Council was not informed, and it was “incomprehensible” that more was not done. Asked on Frontline if the mistake cost lives, Riza said: “Eventually, yes, three months later.”

6 Apr 1994

6 April. At about 20:30 a missile brought down the plane carrying Rwanda’s President Habyarimana and Burundi’s President Ntaryamira as it came in to land at Kigali; all aboard died. No court has said who fired. A French investigation led to arrest warrants for senior RPF officials in 2006; the Paris Court of Appeals dismissed the case in 2020. The Tribunal took no view. Within the hour roadblocks went up, and at them, it found, Tutsi were “immediately apprehended and killed, sometimes on the spot.”

18 Dec 2008

Who ran it. That night Dallaire found Colonel Théoneste Bagosora in “the position of authority” at army headquarters. The Tribunal held him responsible as superior for the killings of the Prime Minister, Landoald Ndasingwa and the ten Belgians, and convicted him of genocide; his 35 years were affirmed in 2011. It acquitted him and three co-accused of conspiracy before 7 April, the plan not being the only reasonable inference. Kambanda, the interim Prime Minister, admitted his government handed out arms to militias knowing they would be used for massacres.

7 Apr 1994

The Prime Minister. Opposition politicians were among the first killed. Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana fled over her wall to a UN volunteers’ compound; at 09:20 Dallaire told Riza that UNAMIR might have to use force to save her, and Riza confirmed it was not to fire unless fired upon. Soldiers found her and shot her. About 20 Presidential Guards searched Landoald Ndasingwa’s house, where UN guards had been posted; his family says the guards fled. They shot Ndasingwa, his wife, mother and two children. His niece Nausicaa Habimana remembers one of his last calls.

12 Apr 1994

Ten Belgians. Ten Belgian peacekeepers sent at 05:00 to escort the Prime Minister were disarmed and taken to Camp Kigali. Bagosora arrived, saw four bodies and left; soon after, camp soldiers killed the rest. On 12 April Belgium’s foreign minister, Willy Claes, told the Secretary-General in Bonn that, by UN minutes, the requirements for a peacekeeping operation “were no longer met” and “the Arusha peace plan was dead”; Belgium would withdraw, and it lobbied the Council to withdraw the whole force. The inquiry calls that campaign “difficult to understand”.

11 Apr 1994

The school. About 2,000 people sheltered with Belgian UN troops at a Kigali school, Don Bosco in Frontline’s film and ETO in the UN inquiry, with Interahamwe and soldiers waiting outside. On 11 April the Belgians left. The inquiry: the men, women and children left behind were, “many of whom”, “massacred by the waiting soldiers and militia”; the manner of leaving “was disgraceful”. Boniface Ngulinzira, the former Foreign Minister of the Arusha talks, asked the French to evacuate him, was refused, and was killed. The Tribunal sentenced Georges Rutaganda to life for his part in the assault.

21 Jun 1994

The airwaves. Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines broadcast through the killing. The Tribunal convicted its founder, Ferdinand Nahimana, board member Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze, editor of the newspaper Kangura. In 2007 the Appeals Chamber confirmed that some broadcasts after 6 April “directly incited to commit genocide against the Tutsis”, and cut their sentences to 30, 32 and 35 years. Prime Minister Jean Kambanda admitted he “encouraged the RTLM to continue to incite the massacres”. A State Department adviser, Tony Marley, says he proposed jamming the radio and a Pentagon lawyer objected on free-speech grounds.

15 Apr 1994

Nyarubuye. On 15 April several thousand civilians sought refuge at Nyarubuye Parish. The Tribunal found that the mayor of Rusumo, Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, of the MRND party, arrived with police and Interahamwe, killed an old man called Murefu with a machete, and ordered Hutu refugees to separate from the Tutsi, who were attacked. Survivors were finished off over the next two days, and corpses littered the compound weeks later. Valentina Iribagiza told Frontline of Nyarubuye. The Tribunal sentenced Gacumbitsi to 30 years at trial; the appeal was not read for this story.

19 Apr 1994

Taba, 19 April. Ephrem Karangwa told the Tribunal he hid in a eucalyptus bush eighty metres from his brother-in-law’s house in Musambira and heard the mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu, say his brothers must be shot. They were Simon Mutijima, Thaddée Uwanyiligira and Jean Chrysostome Gakuba. The Chamber found Akayesu ordered their deaths, and those of eight refugees and five teachers. His testimony shifted: he said Interahamwe were killing refugees, then that no one was killed in the courtyard; he said he stopped a man with a machete attacking the commune’s cashier. He was sentenced to life.

Apr 1994

Rape as genocide. At Taba, the Tribunal found, Tutsi women who sought refuge at the commune office were raped, often publicly, often repeatedly, often by more than one man. It names one of the dead, Alexia, wife of Professor Ntereye, forced with her two nieces to undress and run before being raped and killed. Akayesu was present while some rapes were committed, and the Chamber found he encouraged them. It held that rape and sexual violence “constitute genocide in the same way as any other act” when done with intent to destroy a group, and convicted him of rape as a crime against humanity.

21 Apr 1994

Two hundred and seventy. The Secretary-General’s 20 April report set out three options and said he did not favour withdrawal; the inquiry says he “could have done more” to argue for reinforcement. The U.S. said it would accept only a withdrawal, then accepted a cut; by UN notes the UK said the stronger option was not feasible, citing Somalia. On 21 April the Council voted unanimously to cut UNAMIR to about 270. The killers’ government held a Council seat: its delegate spoke that day, and no one challenged him. On 29 April, with some 200,000 estimated dead, Boutros-Ghali asked for forceful action.

10 Jun 1994

The word. On 17 May the Council authorised a force of 5,500 and an arms embargo, over Rwanda’s vote against; by 25 July UNAMIR had 550 troops. The U.S. proposed postponing later phases. On 8 June the Council endorsed the plan; the U.S. draft said “genocide” until China objected, and it became “acts of genocide”. On 10 June, asked how many acts make a genocide, the State Department spokeswoman said she could not answer. Marley says an official asked what recognising genocide would mean for the November elections. The inquiry calls the reluctance to use the word “deplorable”.

27 Jun 1994

Bisesero. On 22 June the Council authorised France to lead Operation Turquoise, 10 votes to none with five abstentions. On 27 June Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Rémy Duval’s commandos met about a hundred refugees in the Bisesero hills, who said they were hunted daily by army, gendarmes and militia and that some 2,000 were hiding. Duval could only promise to return. Eric Nzabahimana spoke for the survivors. The French came back on 30 June and found about 500 people, a hundred of them wounded, and corpses. General Lafourcade, who commanded Turquoise, told an interviewer in 2019: “That’s my responsibility.” Duclert’s commission also credits Turquoise with saving many lives.

Aug 1994

Killings by RPF soldiers. The RPF’s advance ended the genocide. Its soldiers also killed unarmed civilians. Human Rights Watch says they executed most in the days and weeks after combat ended, at places including Ntyazo, Mukingi, Runda and the Byumba stadium, and that commanders must have known. Robert Gersony, a consultant to the UN refugee agency, put the toll at 25,000 to 45,000 from April to August; HRW says that may include combat deaths, and that the UN agreed to suppress his report. General Kagame told the UN’s Commission of Experts that about 70 soldiers, three of them majors, were detained for private acts of revenge. HRW says one major was later sentenced to life.

9 Dec 1994

“Double genocide”. At the Franco-African summit in Biarritz in November 1994, France kept, in its own commission’s words, “ambiguity about a possible double genocide”; the Muse report says Mitterrand’s written speech spoke of “genocides”. The record does not bear it out. The UN’s Commission of Experts found overwhelming evidence of genocide against the Tutsi, and no evidence that Tutsi elements acted with intent to destroy the Hutu. It also found substantial grounds for crimes against humanity by RPF soldiers and asked that they be investigated. In 2010 Rwanda’s government said the Mapping report was used for “improperly apportioning blame for the genocide that occurred in Rwanda”.

25 Mar 1998

Kigali, 1998. President Clinton spent about three and a half hours at Kigali airport, Frontline reports. He said the killings “were not spontaneous or accidental” and that the international community “must bear its share of responsibility”. People like him, he said, sitting in offices “did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed” of the terror. Michael Barnett, at the U.S. mission to the UN in 1994, called the apology “hollow”. James Woods, a former Defense Department official, said: “They were adequately informed.” Clinton also said refugee camps should not have been allowed to become havens for the killers.

2 Sep 1998

The verdict. Resolution 955 created the Tribunal on 8 November 1994, by 13 votes to 1, with China abstaining. Rwanda cast the one vote against; Duclert’s report says it had asked for the Tribunal’s period to start in 1990. On 2 September 1998 the Tribunal found Jean-Paul Akayesu guilty of genocide, and said this genocide “appears to have been meticulously organized”. Jean Kambanda pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life. A later chamber, in the Bagosora case, found a plan before 7 April not proven beyond reasonable doubt. The Tribunal indicted 93 people.

16 Dec 1999

What the UN found. In 1999 an inquiry led by Ingvar Carlsson reported that the failure “was a failure by the United Nations system as a whole”, summed up as “a lack of resources and a lack of will”. A force of 2,500, it said, “should have been able to stop or at least limit” the massacres. It said Boutros-Ghali “could have done more” and credited peacekeepers who stayed. Kofi Annan, who in 1994 headed UN peacekeeping, accepted its conclusions, including those that reflect on Secretariat officials, “of whom I myself was one”, and said: “I acknowledge this failure and express my deep remorse.”

1 Oct 2010

Mapping. In 2010 the UN human rights office published a report on the Congo from 1993 to 2003. It describes attacks in 1996 and 1997 by Rwanda’s army and Congolese allies on Rwandan Hutu refugees and Congolese Hutu, and says that if proven they could be crimes of genocide; it also sets out an alternative reading, collective retribution against Hutu civilians suspected of links to the former army and Interahamwe. Rwanda’s foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, called it “flawed and dangerous from start to finish”, listing seven objections including “the omission of the historical context”. HRW says Rwanda threatened to pull its peacekeepers from Darfur, then backed down. This is about 1996 and 1997, after the hundred days.

26 Mar 2021

France, 2021. The Duclert commission told President Macron that nothing in the archives showed a will to join the genocide, but that France stayed with a regime that encouraged racist massacres, “remained blind” to its radical wing’s preparations, and bore responsibilities “both serious and overwhelming”. Rwanda’s Muse report says the commission “fails to state what the French government was responsible for”, and that France “bears significant responsibility for enabling a foreseeable genocide”. At Kigali on 27 May Macron said, in the advance text, that France was not an accomplice, and: “I come to recognise the magnitude of our responsibilities.” Kagame replied: “something more valuable than an apology: they were the truth”.

2020

Who counted. These are estimates. The UN inquiry says about 800,000, with no method given; HRW notes a UN expert’s 800,000 included deaths from other causes. The Commission of Experts said in 1994 “an estimated 500,000”, perhaps nearer a million. HRW concluded at least half a million. A Rwandan census in 2000 counted 1,074,017 victims; Rwanda’s 2003 constitution says “more than a million”; Clinton said “at least a million”. Luc Reydams of Notre Dame, who does not dispute the genocide, argues “more than a million” is not an actual count but propaganda; no Rwandan reply was found. Gersony’s 25,000 to 45,000 count killings by RPF soldiers, a separate figure.