The late Uwilingiyimana Agathe , the former
rwandan prime minister
The current leader of the RPF junta now in
control of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, gave the final order for the shoot down (1),
but he did so with the assistance or complicity of the governments of the
United States of America, Britain, Belgium, Canada, Uganda, Burundi and
Tanzania. The UN itself was also complicit (2).
The United States and Britain, hoping to gain
total control of the resources of Central Africa through their proxies in the
Tutsi RPF provided the military support for the RPF invasion of Rwanda from
Uganda beginning in 1990, flowing that support through Uganda. Britain also
supplied the technical means and funding for the RPF propaganda radio station
Muhabura as well as the training of RPF soldiers at their base at Jinja,
Uganda.(3) Uganda was a direct aggressor against Rwanda, and all the soldiers
and officers involved in the RPF invasion of Rwanda carried Ugandan army
identity cards.
It is now known that the missiles used to shoot
down the aircraft came from stockpiles the Americans had seized in their first
war against Iraq. It was in a warehouse at Kigali airport, rented by a CIA
Swiss front company, that the missiles were assembled (4). In fact, the French
anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who has spent several years
investigating the shoot down on behalf of the families of the French
flight-crew, told Boutros-Boutros Ghali, the Secretary-General of the UN in
1994, that the CIA was involved in the shoot down, adding strength to
Boutros-Ghali’s earlier statement that the Americans are 100% responsible for
what happened in Rwanda.(5)
There is strong direct and circumstantial
evidence that the Belgian and Canadian contingents of the UN peacekeeping force
in Rwanda in 1993-94, known as UNAMIR, were involved in the shoot down and
assisted the RPF in their final offensive launched with the decapitation strike
on the President and the Army Chief of Staff.(6) It was the Canadian, General
Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander of UNAMIR, who arranged for one axis of the
runway at the airport to be closed at the request of the RPF, making it easier
to shoot down the plane as it tried to land.
Dallaire also consistently sided with the RPF
during his mandate, gave continuous military intelligence to the RPF about
government army positions, took his orders from the American and Belgian
ambassadors and another Canadian general, Maurice Baril, in the Dept of
Peace-Keeping Operations in New York, lied to his boss, Jacques Roger
Booh-Booh, about his knowledge of a build-up for a final Ugandan Army-RPF
offensive(7), and turned a blind eye to the infiltration into Kigali of at
least 10 battalions and possibly13,000 RPF combatants when they were permitted
only 600 under the Arusha Accords.(8) It was another Canadian, General Guy
Tousignant, who took over from Dallaire after the RPF took power when UNAMIR II
helped the RPF consolidate the rewards of its aggression
. Burundi was involved both by permitting 600
US Army Rangers to be situated in Burundi in case they were needed by the RPF
and by invading Rwanda from the south in May, 1994 to link up with the RPF
forces. Tanzania was involved in both the planning of the shoot down and,
itself, invaded Rwanda from the east and south blocking escape routes for the
Hutu refugees fleeing the atrocities of the RPF in their sweep towards Kigali.
This was all part of the long-term strategy of
the RPF and its allies before their renewal of hostilities on April 6th, 1994.
They had conspired to use the facilities provided by the power sharing
agreements, to take over the institutions of the country and seize power
militarily whatever the cost. A military solution was the sole option developed
by the RPF and its allies. In a pamphlet provided to its supporters in Kigali
in January 1994, the RPF defined four scenarios for taking full control of
power before the projected general elections, initially planned by the Arusha
Accords to end the 22 months transition period. The fourth scenario(9) and the
only one pursued provided for a military takeover within nine months from the
date of the signature of the Arusha peace Accords and then the rescheduling of
the elections to the most convenient time for the RPF, which, in essence, meant
never.
As a matter of fact, President Habyarimana’s
assassination and the final RPF offensive that followed occurred exactly eight
months from the date of the Arusha Agreement 4 august 1993 and there has never
been a legitimate transition government formed since the RPF’s seizure of
power.
For reasons it continues to refuse to provide,
the UN has never investigated the shoot down of the Presidential plane. The
French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière’s report of his investigation into the shoot
down was leaked to Le Monde in 2004 and states that the RPF was responsible and
that the CIA was also involved. The Chief Prosecutor for the International War
Crimes Tribunal For Rwanda, Canadian judge Louise Arbour had begun an
investigation soon after she accepted the position and was told by her lead
investigator, Australian lawyer Michael Hourigan, that it was the RPF group
known as the « Network », with the assistance of a foreign power and including
the involvement of the CIA, that was responsible for the shoot down.
At that point Arbour ordered the investigation
closed, making her an accessory to a war crime. She then completely reversed
herself and took the position that the shoot down was not within the ICTR
mandate. This policy of protecting war criminals, in fact those who started the
Rwanda war, has continued at the ICTR to this day with the full support of the
US selected judges.
To add salt to the wound, the murder of the two
Hutu presidents was preceded a few months before, on 21 October, 1993, by the
murder of President Melchior Ndadaye of Burundi, also a Hutu, murdered by Tutsi
officers of the Burundian Army. It is strongly suspected that the RPF was also
involved in that assassination and it is known that Paul Kagame was in
Bujumbura a few days before the Hutu president was murdered. This complicity of
the RPF in the murder of the President of Burundi was a principal factor in
creating extreme fear in the Hutu majority population of Rwanda that the RPF
intended to kill as many Hutus as possible and that no political solution was
ever possible with an organization whose methods were worthy of Murder
Incorporated of the US Mafia.
The Prime Minister
But there was another important Hutu political
figure killed within hours of the president’s death, the Rwandan prime
minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, known by the population simply as Agathe. She
was killed the morning of April 7th, 1994, by persons unknown. As with the
death of the president, there has never been an investigation into who was
responsible for her death or why she was killed. And there, as the say, hangs a
tale.
Agathe was a member of the pro-RPF, Movement
for a Democratic Republic, or MDR party. The RPF and Tribunal propaganda has
always been that the government of Rwanda was under the thumb of a dictatorial
Hutu president. However, since the implementation of the internal political
parties agreement signed in April 1992, and the Arusha Accords in 1993, the
president had lost all real governmental power and, according to Dallaire, «
was little more than a figurehead.(10)
Agathe, herself, who was in practical control
of all the government ministries including the civilian intelligence service,
was in reality little more than a puppet of Faustin Twagiramungu, the prime
minister designate under the Arusha designed Broad-Based Transitional
Government that was to be sworn in to conduct national elections. He in turn
was a close ally of the RPF.
The real role of Agathe was revealed on January
5th, 1994, at the ceremonies for the swearing in of the Transitional
Government. The RPF has always blamed President Habyarimana for the failure to
install the new government on that day. However, the facts tell a different
story. It had been agreed that each party would send a list of designated
deputies to be sworn in after the president, as head of state, had been sworn
in. A problem arose when the Liberal Party or PL split into two factions, one
pro-majority Hutu rule and one pro-RPF minority rule.
The day the Transitional National Assembly was
to be installed, the PL had not yet come to an agreement within its two
factions as to who should occupy the seats allocated to the party. Two
conflicting lists of candidates stood. Because of that problem, neither of the
two factions was invited to represent the PL and to take the oath as PL
parliamentarians. However, with the complicity of UNAMIR, the pro-RPF faction
was brought by the Belgian UN soldiers to the place of the ceremony and tried
to enter the premises during the ceremony, but the UN Bangladeshi security force
on guard refused to allow them entry without the proper accreditation.
There was some scuffling at the entrance which
was turned by the RPF propagandists into a beating of its allies. To further
ensure that the ceremonies never succeeded the RPF never even turned up at the
event, even though they were billeted in the same building complex, and General
Dallaire snubbed the ceremonies as well by refusing to attend them even though
he was an important invited guest. However, the swearing in of the president at
least took place that morning and then the president announced that the
swearing in of the deputies would take place that afternoon, despite the
refusal of the RPF to take part. But the afternoon ceremonies never took place.
Instead, Agathe sabotaged them by sending out a letter to all parties and
officials canceling the ceremonies with no reason given.(11)
It was clear the RPF and its allies did not
want the ceremonies to go ahead and thereby give the Hutu majority the balance
of power in the National Assembly. The ceremonies were suspended with no date
fixed for their resumption. However, on 8 January 1994, taking advantage of the
absence of the President from the country, Agathe, the pro-RPF President of the
Constitutional Court and Faustin Twagiramungu, together with the RPF, tried to
persuade Jacques Roger Booh-Booh, the special representative of the UN
Secretary-General and political head of UNAMIR, to support holding a ceremony
swearing in the deputies in the absence of the president and in their favour.
Since only the president could officially
preside at such a ceremony, the attempt « could be considered an attempted coup
d’etat, » according to the testimony of Colonel Claeys of the Belgian Army
before the ICTR in the Military II trial in late 2005. However, Booh-Booh
refused to play their game and to be drawn into their plot, and nothing ever
took place on the 8th.(12)
Rumours of another coup attempt by Agathe on
behalf of the RPF were circulated on April 4th, I994, when a meeting was held
between Agathe and some officers from the south of the country, for the most
part gendarme junior officers. It was apparently an occasion for drinks.
Whatever the reality, someone leaked the meeting to the RTLM radio station,
noted for its opposition to all things RPF, and leaked information that she had
discussed the planning of a coup against the president along with
From that point she was seen by the population
as suspect if not an outright traitor. One can only wonder who provided RTLM
with the information and why. But it served to set her up for a fall two days
later. It also provided a convenient reason to blame the Rwandan Army for her
death.
What is little known is that in the night of the
6th of April, at a crisis meeting of the Rwandan Army and Gendarmerie after the
murder of the president and Army Chief of Staff, the senior Army and Gendarme
officers had agreed with Booh-Booh and Dallaire that Agathe would continue as
prime minister even though some officers were suspicious of her loyalties and
of her involvement in the murder of the president. They were intent on keeping
the peace process going at almost any cost.
However she completely failed that night to
undertake any of her responsibilities or functions.(13) Instead of immediately
contacting the Army and Gendarmerie and the various ministers of the government
to coordinate a response to the murder of the president, she did nothing in
that regard and allowed herself to be manipulated by the RPF, Faustin
Twagiramungu and General Dallaire.
After the shoot down of the presidential plane,
senior army and gendarme commanders took steps to maintain security and manage
the crisis. They immediately sought the assistance and advice of the UN. As
early as only half an hour after the announcement of the crash, they invited
General Dallaire to the first meetings they held in the Chief of staff’s office
and sought his advice as well as that of Booh-Booh.
But at the same time they were getting advice
from Booh-Booh, Faustin Twagiramungu was calling the prime minister by
telephone and asking her to commit to making a radio address to the nation that
the president had been killed in an « accident ». According to the French
investigative journalist Pierre Péan she was also to tell the nation not to
obey any army communiqués, only hers.
It was no doubt expected by the RPF that the
Army would reject her as prime minister thereby giving the RPF the opportunity
to openly support this « moderate » Hutu against the Army and through her seize
power. They did not expect the Army to agree to her continuing as prime
minister. Once she had the support of the Army, however reluctant that support
was, the RPF could no longer come out in her support in opposition to the Army.
The speech that never was
The speech Twagiramungu wanted Agathe to make
was never made. But why? For reasons unknown, General Dallaire, who was aware
from the start of her intention to make a radio address to the nation, never
mentioned the speech at the senior officers meeting the night of the 6th.(14)
The senior officers were completely unaware of it.
For some reason she and Dallaire saw fit to
keep it a secret. Instead of fulfilling her duties as prime minister in a time
of national crisis, she took instructions from others. Twagiramungu states, « I
called her to ask her to prepare a statement to the nation… » (15) The senior
officers only became aware of the radio address after General Dallaire had left
the meeting with Colonel Bagosora to meet Booh-Booh at his residence.
A Belgian officer, Colonel Luc Marchal, the
Kigali UN commander, arrived later to inform them. There was surprise but no
expressed opposition to the idea.(16) When they came back from the meeting with
Booh-Booh, neither Bagosora nor Dallaire spoke of any problem concerning Prime
Minister Agathe. General Dallaire partially confirms this in his book. He
states that Agathe called him seeking his assistance.
Dallaire also states in his book that General
Ndindiliyimana, Chief of Staff of the Gendarmerie, wanted to post guards at key
points in the city, including Radio Rwanda, the government station on which
Agathe was to make her address, to prevent sabotage. Dallaire states that it
seemed a good idea but that it had to be done in coordination with UNAMIR, and
Ndindiliyimana agreed.(17) It was decided to organize joint patrols by UNAMIR
troops and the Gendarmerie.
Dallaire then says that about 2:00 am on the
7th he told Colonel Marchal not to go ahead with the plans for the joint
patrols worked out with the Gendarmerie. He says he thought the presence of
Belgian troops on the streets would be a provocation, though he does not say
why. So he instructed Marchal to cut back those patrols(18) , and the Belgian
UN troops did not show up at the stations designated to be the bases for those
night patrols.
The real reason remains obscure but the effect
of the withdrawal of the joint UN-Gendarme patrols was to contribute to the
break down in the security situation and give the RPF a free hand to activate
the 10-13,000 soldiers they had infiltrated into the city and to gather the
arms they had secreted in weapons caches all over the city under the
deliberately blind eye of Dallaire and in continuous violation of the Arusha
Accords.(19)
However, Dallaire says that he did order
Colonel Marchal to send an escort to Agathe’s house to take her to the radio
station. He says also that sometime after 3:00 am Agathe called him about the
radio address, but he does not disclose the contents of that conversation.
Dallaire then says that the Radio Rwanda station-manager telephoned to say that
he refused to give her air time unless his family was protected and then, in a
second conversation, that nothing could be done, as soldiers were around the
station. Dallaire states that he suggested a telephone interview but the
station manager said it was not possible.
In complete contradiction to Dallaire, the
station manager, Jean-Marie Vianney Higiro, states(20) that Agathe called him
at 2:20 am stating she would make an address at 5:00 am. « She asked me to send
journalists to her house to record her statement. Towards 4:20 am I called her
to be prepared to do the interview by telephone because sending personnel to
her was impossible as the roads around Radio Rwanda had been cut (referring to
the gendarmes trying to protect Radio Rwanda from saboteurs). I then asked the
technicians to record the prime minister’s message by telephone and to
broadcast it. »
Higiro then telephoned his Chief of Services to
advise him of developments and was told that he had just received an anonymous
telephone call that no messages should be broadcast without the approval of the
Army. He had assumed the call came from someone in the Army or Ministry of
Defense, but if it had it would have been an official call from a named officer
or official. It would have been normal under the circumstances for the army to
consider such a precaution, so there was no need to make an anonymous call.
Further no official or officer has ever stated that they made such a call. So
who made it and why? Was it someone who did not want Agathe’s message to get
out?
The Army had already agreed to the broadcast
when Colonel Marchal announced it. The only ones who could want to prevent her
from making the address were those who had first proposed the idea. But why?
Had the contents of her address changed?
Why does Dallaire state in his book that a
telephone interview was not possible when Higiro states it had all been set
up? Why does Dallaire say nothing in his
book of the anonymous telephone call Higiro states was the reason the address
was not made.
Did Dallaire or someone in his service make
that anonymous call?
Higiro says he telephoned Agathe at about 4:30
am to tell her the broadcast was no longer possible. She seemed resigned. He
then states that between 6:00 am and 6:30 am, Dallaire telephoned to ask why
the prime minister had not made the address and was told why. But, strangely,
in his book, Dallaire states that it was he who phoned Agathe to tell her the
broadcast was off.
So Dallaire’s phoning the station at 6:00 am to
ask why she had not been on the radio makes no sense. He already knew why.
Agathe knew at 4:30 am the broadcast was off. She must have spoken to Dallaire
about the same time about the matter. Was his 6:00 am call a diversion to draw
suspicion away from himself?
It is clear that Agathe could have made the
radio address to the nation. Even if Dallaire had wanted to take her physically
to the station it could easily have been arranged. All he had to do was contact
his partners in the Army and Gendarmerie to ensure her arrival as they had
already agreed to the address. The radio station was guarded by gendarmes, with
Dallaire’s approval. So why did Dallaire not mention the speech to the
Gendarmerie commander? Why did he fail to mention it to Booh-Booh as to enlist
his support?
The night of the 6th at the meeting between
Dallaire, Booh-Booh and Colonel Bagasora, Booh-Booh suggested that a meeting be
held at the America ambassador’s residence the next morning at 9:00 am with
various ambassadors, Agathe, senior officers of the Army and Gendarmerie and
UNAMIR to discuss the situation. However, at the appointed time only Bagasora,
another army colonel and General Ndindiliyimana of the Gendarmerie showed up.
The American ambassador, Mr. David Rawson, not
only failed to express any condolences on the death of the president and the
others, he told them that he did not know why none of the others had come and
stated he could not make contact with anyone. But he was aware that Agathe had
planned to make a radio address as he asked why she had not done so. So he must
have been advised of the matter by Dallaire the night before.(21)
It is likely that the others never showed up at
the meeting with Ambassador Rawson because they already knew that Agathe had
left her house some hours before and was no longer playing their game, and so
the meeting had no point.
Rawson must have been aware that Agathe had
left her house and was now in the UNDP complex, but inexplicably he failed to
mention this fact to the Rwandan officers. Rawson had to know this as Dallaire
states that he was in contact with New York about Agathe’s situation around the
time of the meeting and that he and « various ambassadors » maintained close
communication.(22)
Colonel Bavagumenshi, the officer in charge of
the Gendarme VIP security detail states that at 21:00 hours, the night of the
6th, he received orders to reinforce the VIP’s protection and that of Agathe in
particular. When he testified in the court martial trial of Colonel Marchal,
Bavugamenshi said that during that night, he telephoned the office of Colonel
Marchal at least five times to inform him of the degrading VIP’s security
situation.
Bavagumenshi stated that he discussed the VIP’s
security with Colonel Marchal again in the morning of the 7th April. Colonel Marchal
promised him that he would act but nothing was done by UNAMIR in favor of those
Ministers. At 7:00 am he again telephoned Marchal and this time was told by
Colonel Marchal that he could join an escort mission at 8:30 am to take her to
the radio station.
Inexplicably, Marchal kept secret the fact that
a team of 13 Belgian soldiers had already arrived at Agathe’s residence between
4:30 am and 5:OO am.(23) Bavagumenshi showed up at 8:30 am only to be told the
mission was scrubbed because Agathe had fled her house. Marchal must have been
aware that the Prime Minister had fled her house and sought refuge in the UNDP
compound by that time, but again, inexplicably, Marchal never told Bavagumenshi
that he knew where she was, that she was in UN hands, and that the escort
mission could have been redirected to the UNDP compound where she was then
located.
Also, inexplicably, General Dallaire took part
in a meeting with senior Rwandan officers at 11:00 am the morning of the 7th at
the Officers Military School or ESM and said nothing to those there that he
knew where the prime minister was and had known for over three hours. This is
the same meeting at which Dallaire fails to tell them that he was aware his men
were under attack by mutinous soldiers.
Agathe’s Final Hours
What happened to Agathe after the station
manager told her at 4:30 am that the telephone interview was not possible? It
is important to recall that this was just after the placing of the anonymous
telephone call supposedly preventing any radio addresses. And that anonymous
call was made shortly after Dallaire talked to Agathe by telephone some time
after 3:00 am. Had she told him that she now refused to go on air and say it
was an « accident »? Did she threaten to tell the world that she knew who was
responsible for the shoot down of the plane? In other words, had she become a
liability and signed her own death warrant?
The Ghanaian UN soldiers on guard at her house
the night of the 6th and 7th of April have provided statements to Belgian
investigative judge Vandermeersch, investigating the deaths of the Belgian
soldiers who had gone to Agathe’s house at 4:30 am. Sgt. George Aboye, who
commanded the unit of 5 men, states that at about 4:30 am to 5:00 am, that is,
shortly after Dallaire’s conversation with Agathe and the placing of the
anonymous call to the radio station, four Belgian jeeps arrived at her house.
It is important to note here that both Dallaire and his Deputy Force Commander
state in their respective books that they had asked Agathe in the early morning
of the 7th if she wanted to be taken out of her house but that she had
refused.(24)
These Belgians were the same men who had gone
out to the area east of Kigali airport area from which the missiles were fired,
earlier on the 6th on a mission only Dallaire is aware of, and it is these same
men who had been intercepted and detained, coming out of the area from which
the missiles were fired, by the Rwanda Army, just after the plane was shot
down.(25)
The Ghanaian commander approached the Belgian
officer in charge and asked him what their mission was. The Ghanaians, also
inexplicably, had no prior notice that the Belgians were coming there even
though they were in radio contact with the UN command. The Belgian officer, Lt.
Lotin, refused to answer, stating simply, « We are coming to see the Prime
Minister. » The Sgt, then accompanied the Belgians to the door of Agathe’s
residence.
They knocked on the door but Agathe refused to
answer the knock or open the door. Did she know these men had been involved in
the murder of the president? Why had they been sent to her house secretly? Were
they there, or did she think they were there, to kill her also? A clue may be
found in a cryptic entry in the official Belgian Army history of the events
known as the KIBAT (for Kigali Battalion) Report. On page 13, at paragraph k,
the report states that the Belgian officer radios to his superior that the «
Rwandans believe that the Belgians want the skin of Agathe. »(26)
The Ghanaian Sgt. then states that shooting in
the area got very close and everyone took cover; the 4 or 5 gendarmes and 5
Ghanaians who made up her security detail, and the 13 Belgians who had just
arrived. They stayed in firing positions until, at about 7:00 am, the gendarmes
suddenly cut a hole in the barbed wire fence at the back of her house and then
took her and her family out of the compound. The Ghanaians and Belgians stayed
in their positions.
At about 7:15 am Rwandan soldiers entered the
residence compound and detained the UN soldiers. They were disarmed but then
allowed to board a bus without armed guard to take them to Camp Kigali, the
nearest UN post. The officer was allowed to keep his pistol. This is confirmed
by the UN military observer stationed at Camp Kigali, Capt. Apedo, who states
that Ghanaians and Belgians arrived there at 7:00 am.(27)
We must pick up the story from the only
seemingly reliable witness to her death. The witness is a UN functionary.
Despite this, his testimony has been suppressed by the Prosecutor at the ICTR,
thereby emphasizing its importance. His name is Willy Mpoye and he lived at the
UNDP complex to which the gendarmes took Agathe and her family. The gendarmes
state that they took her there and then, so as not to attract attention to her
whereabouts, left the scene, believing her to be safe in UN hands.(28)
He says(29) that she arrived in the compound
about 7:30 am and went to the house of a Mr. Daff, while her husband and
children were put in the house of Bampieng Maxime. Around 8:30 am, the witness
contacted a man named Yvon LeMoal, Chief UN Security Coordinator, somewhere in
Kigali, who promised to contact New York and UNAMIR regarding her presence at
the UNDP complex. Indeed, Dallaire confirms he knew where she was at about that
time as does the Deputy Force Commander, Brigadier Anyidoho.(30) At 9:30 am,
that is, over two hours after the Rwandan soldiers had entered her house
nearby, the witness re-contacted LeMoal by radio and telephone to say soldiers
were near the house.
He then says that at 10:04 am four soldiers
speaking Kinyarwanda, entered the compound, first searched the house in which
the witness was located, failed to find her, searched another house, found her,
shot her and left. He says that at 12:30 pm General Dallaire arrived at the
compound with a Belgian officer, asked questions, looked around and then left
leaving the Belgian officer on the site.
At 2:30 pm Dallaire returned this time with a
Senegalese officer, left him at the site and departed with the Belgian officer.
The witness does not say what became of the body of the prime minister. Since
the witness was in contact with LeMoal who was in contact with New York and
UNAMIR, Dallaire must have been aware by at least 10:30 am that Agathe had been
killed. Only this explains the complete failure by Dallaire to mention Agathe’s
name at the meeting with senior Army and Gendarme officers at 11:00 am that morning,
which surprised them in light of the heavy pressure he had put on them to
continue supporting her just a few hours before. Now it was as if she did not
exist.
Why did Dallaire not tell them she was dead?
Why does he say in his book that it was only around 1:00 pm that he learned of
her death when Mpoye says he was at the UNDP compound at I2:30 pm? Why does he
state in his book that he and another officer named Robert walked without any
trouble whatsoever from Camp Kigali to the UNDP compound to see Agathe at about
I:00 pm only to be met by a Senegalese UN officer who informed him Agathe was
dead, whereas the UNDP witness states it was Dallaire who brought the
Senegalese officer and that not until 2:30 pm?
Dallaire goes to great lengths in his book to
make it appear that he did not know of Agathe’s death when everything indicates
he did know. Who were the four men who came in, quickly shot her and left? Why
does the prosecutor of the ICTR deliberately keep this evidence buried, all the
while alleging, without credible proof, that Agathe was killed at her house by
the Rwandan Army?
It is certain that Agathe knew many things. It
is clear that she was counted on by the RPF and its allies to be their puppet
and to calm the nation by telling them about an « accident ». It is clear that
the RPF hoped to use her as a front for their seizure of power. But things went
wrong.
Unexpectedly the Army accepted her as prime
minister instead of rejecting her. Her utility decreased. Then between 2:20 am
and 4:30 am something happened with the speech. In that time she talked to
Dallaire. But he fails to state what they talked about.
Did she threaten to tell the world what really
had happened and who was responsible?
Did she realize that she had been set up, made
a patsy, by the RTLM rumours that she was plotting against the president just
two days before, and that she would be labeled as a prime suspect in his
assassination?
Did she want to clear herself in the eyes of
the public?
Was that why the anonymous call was made, so
that she could not make such an address?
Was that why the 13 Belgians were secretly sent
to her house, men implicated in the assassination of the president?
Is that why she refused Dallaire’s « offer » to
take her out of her house, or to answer the knock of the Belgian officer?
Was she fleeing the Rwandan soldiers or the
Belgians and the RPF?
She may have thought she was safe at the UNDP
compound. But New York and Dallaire were alerted to her presence and for
several hours did nothing to ensure her safety. Why did General Dallaire and
Colonel Marchal do nothing to protect the prime minister, the most important
political figure in Rwanda, though they easily protected the prime minister
designate, and her controller, Faustin Twagiramungu? Just like men, dead women
tell no tales. Agathe cannot tell us who killed her.
Her children, still alive, are silent. There
are many disturbing questions to be asked of General Dallaire, Colonel Marchal,
Faustin Twagiramungu, Paul Kagame and others regarding the death of the prime
minister. It is time an international investigation was conducted into the
affair to learn the answers, something the prosecutor at the ICTR singularly
refuses to do.
Notes:
(1) Bruguiere Report as published by Stephen
Smith, Le Monde, 2004. Abdul Ruzibiza,Testimony before the ICTR, March 2006,
Military I trial, Jean Pierre Mugabe, Hourigan Report of the UN, I997
(2) Testimony of Francois-Xavier Nsanzuwera,
ICTR, before the Belgian Senate, May 22, I997.
(3) Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert
Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, and testimony before US Congressional
Subcommittee on International Operations and the Human Rights Committee on
International Relations, Chaired by Cynthia McKinney
(4) Bruguiere,supra, Madsen, ibid
(5) Interview with Robin Philpot, Feb. 26/27
2005. Counterpunch, « Second Thoughts on Hotel Rwanda, Boutros-Ghali: A CIA
Role in the I994 Assassination of Rwanda President Habyarimana
(6) Radio intercept night of April 6, I994,
Statement of James Gasana, testimony before French National Assembly, 1998
(7) Jacques Roger Booh-Booh, Dallaire’s Boss
Speaks, Editions Duboiris, Paris, 2005
(8) Abdul Ruzibiza, Rwanda, A Secret History,
Duboiris, Paris, 2005, Outgoing Code Cable Dallaire to Baril, April 7, I994
(9) Guichaoua : « LES
CRISES POLITIQUES AU BURUNDI ET AU RWANDA » p 656-658 :
L’environnement actuel et
l’avenir de l’organisation (document confidentiel non signé ni daté, attribué
au FPR, Kigali, février 1994, 13 p. :
Scénario IV: Rupture des
accords par la chute du gouvernement de transition à base élargie de
Twagiramungu et reprise des hostilités au détriment de Habyarimana…………. –
rupture des accords d’Arusha et recomposition d’un gouvernement en écartant par
la force militaire et populaire Habyarimana et ses satellites, dans un délai ne
dépassant pas neuf mois à partir de la date de la signature des accords de paix
; – redéfinition de la Transition ; – organisation des élections au moment jugé
opportun par le FPR.
(10) Dallaire, Shake Hands With The Devil,
Random House, Toronto, 2003, p193
(11) Letter, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, January
50th, I994, made a defence exhibit in the Military II trial, ICTR.
(12) Jacques Roger Booh-Booh, supra
(13) General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, Chief of
Staff, Rwanda Gendarmerie, Testimony, Belgian Senate, I997
(14) Ndindiliyimana Testimony, ICTR, April 3,
2000ana,supra
(15) Testimony, ICTR, April 3, 2000ana,supra
(16) Ndindiliyimana, To the author
(17) Dallaire, supra, p
224
(18) Dallaire, ibi, p 228
(19) Confidential Inter-office Memo,15th April,
I994, Mil Observer to Dallaire. « RPA is conducting massive but concealed
infiltrations in Kigali. It has assured that about 10 battalions are already in
the city…It also seems that the RPA had begun infiltrations before the current
hostilities.
(20) Letter dated November 29th’, 1994, from
Higiro to Herve Deguine, Reporter Without Borders
(21) Ndindiliyimana, testimony before the
Belgian Senate, 1997
(22) Dallaire, UNAMIR Code Cable to Baril,
April 7th, 1994
(23) Statements of 5 Ghanian UN soldiers on
guard duty at Agathe’s, provided to the Belgian investigative authorities in
I995
(24) Brigadier Anyidoho, Guns Over Kigali,
Waeli, Accra, 1999
(25) This is the Belgian blue helmets who had
disappeared from their duty the whole day of 6th, it has been alleged in the
Belgian Parliamentary Commission that they had accompanied a VIP RPF team to
the national part of Akagera, to the east of the Capital city. Colonel Marchal
alleges that no one knew about that mission. It is from that area that the
lethal missiles were fired in the evening.
(26) Kibat Report, Col. Dewez, Belgian Army,
Sept. 20, 1995
(27)
Statement of Capt. Apedo, UN Military Observer, Camp Kigali, in the Dounkov Report,
UNAMIR, made April 7th’, I994
(28) Testimony of prosecution witness OOX, ICTR
(29) Appendix, Rapport sur l’evacuation du personnel international du système des nations Unis au Rwanda, 7-I2 April. I994
(30) Anyidoho, supra, Dallaire, Code Cable April 7th’ to Baril supra
(28) Testimony of prosecution witness OOX, ICTR
(29) Appendix, Rapport sur l’evacuation du personnel international du système des nations Unis au Rwanda, 7-I2 April. I994
(30) Anyidoho, supra, Dallaire, Code Cable April 7th’ to Baril supra
By Christopher Black
