Rwanda: 2nd genocide
on horizon?

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 shocked the world with its savagery and sheer numerical total. Within 90 days time, Hutu genocide against the Tutsis saw 800,000 people killed, mostly with machetes. In a dark and ominous reminder of that bloodbath, last month, Rwanda’s Tutsi-led government warned of preparations for a new genocide by militias of the Hutu majority based in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Emmanuel Hayarimana, Rwanda’s minister of defense issued a statement to the world media which said more than 40,000 rebels were marching from their Congolese bases at Kabalo, some 280 miles from Rwanda’s southwest border, and from Kamina, 500 miles from the frontier. These troops are expected to come together to form a crack military unit that may attack the Tutsis.

Thousands of Rwandans fled to neighboring Congo during and after the 1994 genocide. They were Tutsis, the minority elite caste that had been the target of the frenzied murders, as well as their Hutu friends. Others who fled, however, included those who perpetuated the genocide.

The Hutus, who lost the genocidal battle in the political sense, may be plotting revenge, according to recent reports.

Many of the Interahamwe killers – meaning “those who attack as one” – are still hiding out in refugee camps in the Congo. One relief worker in Zaire has stated that “all the criminals are now in these refugee camps. Casting these refugees purely as victims reflects a lack of moral memory. These are the people responsible for most of the murders.”

Even in the refugee camps, the hatred continued with Hutu mobs attacking Tutsis and beating them to death. Is the bad blood between the Hutu and Tutsi in the Congo ready to boil over again in Rwanda?

The London Independent reported that an Interahamwe militia leader captured by the Rwandan military claims he received “a sign from the Lord” that “the land was going to be ours.”

The paper quoted 40-year-old Mr. Habimana, whose nom de guerre is Bemera, as a Hutu leader who is interested in retaking Rwanda’s government back from the Tutsis.

The Rwandan Patriotic Army, or RPA, which took power in Rwanda after stopping the genocidal killers in ’94, claims that Habimana and his allies are being directed by Congo’s Marxist leader Joseph Kabila and his Marxist allies from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Burundi. According to Rwandan military intelligence, two groups of men are preparing offensives, one of at least 13,000 men, the other consisting of up to 40,000.

The Independent reported, “Mr. Kabila is allegedly prepared to destabilize Rwanda by raising the specter of a new genocide.”

Speaking of the genocidal killers who escaped prosecution, the RPA deputy chief of staff, Brig. Gen. James Kabarebe, told the Independent, “The Interahamwe are unrepentant. They want to finish the job. If two or three of them are picked up in Europe from time to time, just imagine how many are hiding in Congo. They have received airdrops of arms from Kabila.”

Habimana, told the Independent about his views on the Rwandan genocide: “We do not use the word genocide. What happened in 1994 was, to us, a massacre. To have been a genocide, the killings would have had to be premeditated. There was incitement to hatred, but there was not a preplanned annihilation of the Tutsis. They were killed because of their possessions and because they were at war with the government. I was innocent of genocide. I was like a technician. I was defending the government of the day. It is not true that we wanted to bring back the genocide. We Hutus just want our power back.”

The Reuters news agency reported this week that Rwandan President Paul Kagame has welcomed apparent moves by the Congolese government to disarm thousands of Hutu rebels in the Congo. According to the report, Kabila had promised to show the U.N. military observer mission to the Congo a site in the south of the country where 3,000 Rwandan rebels had been disarmed.

If it is true, that’s a step in the right direction,” Kagame told a news conference.

Back to the future: The genocide of 1994

Kofi Annan was criticized by a Canadian military commander of U.N. intervention forces in Africa for failing to act in order to prevent the Rwandan genocide in 1994 – as the Hutus began their slaughter of the Tutsis. The Hutus had been supported by France and the French Foreign Legion well into 1994.

“France continued to strongly support the Rwandan army through the genocide of April-May 1994,” South African missionary Peter Hammond told WorldNetDaily. “In effect, the French army has actually been protecting the killers from receiving justice.”

The Tutsis were well-known as the Watusis in past times and were a tribe whom the Nazis praised as savage warriors. Rwanda is a former German colony, having came under German control between 1884-85. The nation features rich farmland and green rolling hills. Women carry large buckets of water on their heads while children play soccer on makeshift fields. Over 50 percent of the population is Catholic.

Krissy Van der Poole, a Danish Red Cross worker who spent time in Rwanda, told WorldNetDaily, “We had a small Hutu boy in one of our refugee camps in Denmark. He was only 12 years old or so. Then we found out he was wanted by The Hague for war crimes. What a sad situation.”

Another smaller tribe in Rwanda, the Twa, have managed to stay out of the conflict. They are small in stature and in numbers compared to the Tutsis and Hutus.

Skulls of victims of the Rwanda genocide. Photo courtesy of Peter Hammond and Frontline Fellowship.

Speaking of the genocide, Hammond told WorldNetDaily, “When the Presidential Guard and the Interahamwe launched their ‘final solution’ on April 6, 1994, they concentrated on the capital, Kigali. Within a week, 20,000 people had been murdered. The international community responded by evacuating foreign nationals. Encouraged by this retreat, the Hutu leaders then expanded their genocide campaign throughout the country. The anti-Christian aspect of the Hutu mobs seems to have been generally ignored. So too has the influence of witchcraft, Marxism and Islam in fomenting Hutu hatred. In Kibungo, 2,800 Tutsi believers gathered in a church were slaughtered by Hutu Interahamwe mobs using grenades, machine guns, machetes and rockets. Only 40 members of the congregation escaped. At Cyahinda only 200 survived a massacre of 6,000 Tutsi who had taken refuge in a church.”

Hammond is critical of the United Nations’ response to the genocide in Rwanda.

“For the first two weeks of the [1994] slaughter, the province of Butare remained calm and free from violence. The Hutu and Tutsi had lived peacefully together in Butare for centuries. Then on April 19, 1994, the Tutsi governor, Jean-Baptiste Habyolimana, was removed, and units of the Presidential Guard flew into the Butare airport. The massacres then began immediately. Huge pits were dug and filled with burning tires. Thousands of people were then systematically thrown – generally alive – into the burning pits. The killings continued day and night for the next three days. A dense network of roadblocks were set up to catch any fleeing survivors.

“During this incredible campaign of cold blooded murder, the international community failed to act decisively. Had the 2,500 United Nations troops in Rwanda taken prompt and firm action to suppress the initial violence, the entire holocaust might have been prevented. On April 21, the U.N. Security Council refused to admit that genocide against the Tutsi was taking place. …

“By mid May of 1994, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights undertook a fact-finding tour of Rwanda and Burundi. In his report, he condemned the violence but failed to identify either the culprits or the primary victims. Neither did he describe the killings as genocide. At a June 22 Security Council meeting, the U.N. was still unwilling to recognize what the Hutu government was guilty of. Instead they supported the unilateral intervention by France into Rwanda.”

The United Nations is not the only entity being roundly criticized for inaction in Rwanda. In a comprehensive report on the Clinton administration’s handling of the issue, the Atlantic Monthly charges that the former president and his staff were guilty of “self-serving caution and flaccid will” in their unwillingness to take action to limit the slaughter.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is cautiously optimistic about lasting peace in Rwanda.

According to Reuters, Annan said this week, “The mood is much more hopeful, but there are still lots and lots of difficult tasks ahead, so we should not relax and we need to persevere.”