தியோநேஸ்டே பகாசூரா - 5,00,000 பேரை கொன்ற கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாதி

ர்வாண்டாவில் தியோநெஸ்டே பகாசூரா என்ற கிறிஸ்துவ பயங்கரவாதிக்கு 4 லட்சம் மக்களை கொன்றதற்காக ஆயுள் தண்டனை விதிக்கப்பட்டது.

தமிழ்நாட்டு கிறிஸ்துவர்கள் வெறுப்பை கக்கும் பிரச்சாரத்தை செய்யும்போது அவர்களிடம் ஜாக்கிரதையாக இருங்கள்.

வெள்ளைக்காரர்களிடம் கூலி பெற்றுக்கொண்டு சொந்த மக்களையே கொன்று வெறியாட்டம் ஆடியது இது முதன் முறையும் அல்ல கிறிஸ்துவர்களுக்கு கடைசி முறையும் அல்ல.


Théoneste Bagosora
AKA 'Colonel Death', AKA 'Rwanda's Milosevic'.

Country: Rwanda.

Kill tally: Over 500,000 Tutsis and thousands of moderate Hutus during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda estimates "some 800,000 Rwandans were killed." Other sources estimate that between 800,000 and one million were killed.)

Background: Pre-colonial Rwandan society is made up of three social groups - the Tutsi, the Hutu and the Twa. The Tutsi are a cattle-rearing elite. The Hutu are "commoner" farmers. The Twa are forest-dwellers.

Landlocked and inaccessible, Rwanda is one of the last areas of Africa to be exposed to Europeans. In 1899 the Tutsi king allows Germany to establish a protectorate over the country. Following the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the Germans are chased out by troops from the neighbouring Belgian Congo. After the war the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations (UN), confirms Belgian control.

In 1933 the group divides are entrenched when all Rwandans are registered as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa and issued with a racial identity card. About 15% of the population declare themselves as Tutsi, approximately 84% say they are Hutu, and the remaining 1% identify as Twa.

The colonial system serves to polarise Rwandan society. While the Tutsi elite comes to see itself as superior with a right to rule, the Hutu come to see themselves as an oppressed majority. More background.

Mini biography: Born on 16 August 1941 in the commune of Giciye in the northwest of Rwanda. He is a Hutu. According to Bagosora his family is "Christian and relatively well-off." His father is a teacher.

Bagosora will become an anti-Tutsi extremist, believing the Hutu are the "legitimate possessors of the region, where they lived 'harmoniously' with the Twa since the ninth century."

The Tutsi, on the other hand, "never had a country of their own to allow them to become a people" and are "masters of deceit," "dictatorial, cruel, bloody," "arrogant, clever and sneaky."

Bagosora pursues a career in the Rwandan Army. In 1964 he graduates from the Ecole des Officiers (School for Officers) in Kigali with the rank of second lieutenant. He undergoes military training in Belgium and France, receiving a certificate in advanced military studies from France's staff college.

He is made second-in-command of the Ecole Supérieure Militaire (Higher Military School) in Kigali then commander of the Kanombe Military Camp, also in Kigali. In June 1992 he is appointed directeur de cabinet (cabinet director) to the minister of defence.

Bagosora retires from the Rwandan Army on 23 September 1993 with the rank of colonel but continues to act as cabinet director to the minister of defence. He will retain this position up until the time he flees the country in July 1994.

1957 - On 24 March Grégoire Kayibanda, the editor of the Catholic newspaper 'Kinyamateka', and Catholic Bishop Perrudin publish a 'Hutu Manifesto' calling for the emancipation of the Hutu.

1959 - In November a Hutu rebellion overthrows the Tutsi monarchy. The so-called 'Hutu Revolution' stretching over the following half-dozen years will result in the deaths of about 20,000 Tutsi. Up to 300,000 more, including the king, flee to neighbouring countries. By 1991 the Tutsi will make up only about 8.4% of the population, or just over half the level declared in 1933.

1960 - Rwanda is granted limited autonomy by Belgium on 1 January.

The Parti du Mouvement de l'Émancipation des Bahutu (Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement - PARMEHUTU), headed by Grégoire Kayibanda, wins elections for an interim government and unofficially declares the country a republic. The use of group identity cards is maintained.

1961 - PARMEHUTU's successor, the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (Democratic Republican Movement - MDR), wins an overwhelming majority in an UN-supervised election held in September. The Hutu-dominated party takes government, with Grégoire Kayibanda as president. An 80% majority also votes to end the monarchy.

The MDR will also win the elections held in 1965 and 1969.

1962 - In June a UN General Assembly resolution grants full independence to Rwanda. The first Rwandan republic officially comes into existence on 1 July.

1963 - In December several hundred Tutsi exiles from the 1959 revolution form a militia and attempt to invade Rwanda from neighbouring Burundi. The invasion force comes within 19 km of the capital Kigali before being defeated by the Rwandan Army.

During the conflict thousands of Rwandan Tutsi are killed by their Hutu countrymen.

1973 - The military, led by Defence Minister Major-general Juvénal Habyarimana, stage a bloodless coup on 5 July. Parliament is dissolved and all political activity is banned. Habyarimana, a Hutu from the northwest prefecture of Gisenyi, declares himself president of the second Rwandan republic.

As with the previous regime, the use of group identity cards is maintained.

Earlier actions to secure Hutu power are extended. Tutsi employment is restricted, especially in the public service. Hutu take complete control of the army.

For the first 10 years of Habyarimana's rule the economy does relatively well, although cronyism become rife, with Hutus from Habyarimana's home province receiving preferential treatment over those from the rest of the country.

1975 - Habyarimana declares Rwanda to be a one-party state under the Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement (National Revolutionary Movement for Development - MRND). Habyarimana is president of the state, president of the party and head of the army. He will remain president of Rwanda up until the time of his death in 1994.

1987 - Tutsi exiles based in neighbouring Uganda, along with some Hutu dissidents, form the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

The RPF seeks to overthrow Habyarimana and establish a multiparty democracy. At its core are Tutsi officers serving in the Ugandan army. The Front's armed wing, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), is commanded by Paul Kagame.

1988 - A sharp drop in the international price of coffee, Rwanda's main export, sees the economy falter. The situation is exacerbated by a drought that begins in 1989. At the same time dissatisfaction with Habyarimana begins to mount as evidence grows of corruption and favouritism towards Hutu from Habyarimana's home province. Critics of the regime begin to call for greater democracy.

1990 - On 1 October about 3,500 RPF operatives within the Ugandan Army desert with their equipment and move south over the border into Rwanda, heading for Kigali with the intent of unseating Habyarimana and implementing political reform. They are joined by about 3,500 Tutsi refugees.

Success for the RPF seems a real possibility until France, Belgium and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) send troops to Rwanda to support the defence. The RPF advance is halted then reversed. (France will later provide further assistance to the Rwandan Army, including military training.)

Pushed back across the Ugandan border and approximately halved in number, the RPF reorganises and begins a guerrilla war, attacking Rwanda from bases in Uganda.

The attempted invasion results in an escalation of violence against Tutsis in Rwanda. About a dozen massacres will take place prior to the 1994 genocide, with a death toll of about 2,000 Tutsis. No one will ever be brought to account for the killings.

Rattled by the RPF's attack, Habyarimana and several of his close associates begin to devise a strategy to incite hatred and fear of the Tutsis, unite the Hutu majority, and keep themselves in power.

1991 - In response to internal and international pressure and to the attack by the RPF, Habyarimana reestablishes Rwanda as a multiparty democracy.

At the same time, the MRND (now Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement) transforms its youth group, known as the 'Interahamwe' (Those Who Stand Together or Those Who Attack Together), into a militia.

Beginning in 1992 the Interahamwe receives military training from the Rwandan Army. It will commit its first atrocities at Bugesera in northwest Rwanda in March 1992, slaughtering Tutsis during one of several massacres committed in the run-up to the 1994 genocide.

1992 - In April a prime minister is appointed to a transitional government in preparation for multiparty elections in 1995. The transitional government is composed of the MRND, the MDR, the Parti Démocrate Chrétien (PDC - Centrist Democratic Party), Parti Libéral (PL - Liberal Party) and the Parti Social Démocrate (PSD). Habyarimana remains as president. The prime minister is from the MDR.

The new government soon makes changes in the army high command, rejecting Bagosora as chief-of-staff and installing him instead as directeur de cabinet (cabinet director) to the minister of defence.

In June the RPF recommences hostilities, winning a substantial foothold in the northeast of Rwanda. With the RPF again a real threat, and with internal opposition mounting, the transitional government goes to the negotiating table.

On 12 July a cease-fire agreement between the RPF and the transitional government is signed in Arusha, in the northeast of Tanzania. The agreement calls for political talks on a peace accord and power sharing. The cease-fire takes effect on 31 July. The talks begin on 10 August. The first protocol of the so-called Arusha Accords is signed seven days later.

Habyarimana, the MRND, elements within the army, and the Interahamwe largely reject the talks and accords. Habyarimana fears that granting too many concessions to the RPF could provoke a coup. His head of military intelligence, Anatole Nsengiyumva, predicts that, in the event of major concessions, the military will kill the political leaders responsible while the general Hutu population will massacre their Tutsi neighbours then flee the country.

Meanwhile, on 21 September, Army Chief-of-staff Colonel Déogratias Nsabimana issues a top-secret memorandum to his commanders identifying and defining "the enemy" as:

"The Tutsi inside or outside the country, extremist and nostalgic for power, who have NEVER recognised and will NEVER recognise the realities of the 1959 social revolution and who wish to reconquer power by all means necessary, including arms."

Bagosora instructs the general staffs of the army and police to establish lists of the enemy and their accomplices. The lists are maintained and updated by the Intelligence Bureau of the army. They will be used in the 1994 genocide to target victims.

1993 - Early in the year Bagosora sketches out elements of a program to create a regional-based "civilian self-defence force" of non-professional recruits commanded by retired soldiers or other military men. He attempts to implement the program, distributing firearms to Hutu communes in the northwest, but is countermanded by the minister for defence.

However, by November the proposal has been largely accepted by senior army officers and in early 1994 a document called 'Organisation de l'Auto-Défense Civile' (Organisation of Civilian Self-defence) is produced.

According to Human Rights Watch the document states that the civilian force will defend against not only uniformed RPF combatants but also "disguised RPF" and their "accomplices". While overall coordination will come from the ministries of interior and defence, all levels of government will be involved in implementing the plan, from "the presidency and the military general staff down to the level of the administrative sector."

Soldiers and political leaders distribute firearms to militia and other Habyarimana supporters in 1993 and early 1994, but Bagosora concludes that firearms are too costly to distribute to all participants. He advocates arming most of the young men with weapons such as machetes. Businessmen close to Habyarimana import enough machetes to arm one in every three adult male Hutu.

At the same time, recruitment to and training of the Interahamwe is expanded.

On 8 February the RPF violates the cease-fire and launches a massive attack all along the northern front. The Rwandan Army is rapidly driven back. Though the cease-fire is soon reinstated and the peace talks continued, the move leads to a rise in politically directed violence within Rwanda. Most of the abuse is directed against opponents of the MRND.

Late in July donor-nations along with the World Bank hand Habyarimana an ultimatum - sign the final Arusha Accords or international funding for his government will be halted. With an already weak economy buckling under the cost of the war and associated military spending, Habyarimana has no choice.

The accords are signed on 4 August. They provide for a transitional period leading up to elections for a democratic government. During this period power will reside with a broad-based transitional government in which the RPF will be represented. All refugees will be allowed to return, the RPF will be merged with the national army and the size of the combined force will be halved. A UN peacekeeping force (the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda, or UNAMIR) will be stationed in Rwanda to oversee the transition.

The UNAMIR force will number about 2,500 troops, including 440 Belgians, 942 Bangladeshis, 843 Ghanaians, 60 Tunisians and 255 others from 20 countries. Under its rules of engagement the force, commanded by General Roméo Dallaire, is to use weapons "normally for self-defence only." The use of force for deterrence or retaliation is forbidden.

While the broad community welcomes the peace, hard-line Hutus, especially within the armed forces, see the accords as a sell-out.

Bagosora is completely opposed to the accords and scorns those Hutu who had signed it as "House Hutu and opportunists." According to charges that will be laid against him by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda following the genocide, Bagosora publicly states "that the solution to the war (is) to plunge the country into an apocalypse in order to eliminate all the Tutsi and thus ensure lasting peace."

On 3 December General Dallaire, the commander of UNAMIR, receives a letter from three senior officers in the Rwandan Army warning that "massacres ... are being prepared and are supposed to spread throughout the country, beginning with the regions that have a great concentration of Tutsi."

According to the officers, politicians opposed to the MRND would be assassinated in a plan initiated by Habyarimana and supported by a handful of military officers from his home province.

Later in December Belgian intelligence agents report that, "The Interahamwe are armed to the teeth and on alert. Many of them have been trained at the military camp in Bugesera. Each of them has ammunition, grenades, mines and knives. They have been trained to use guns that are stockpiled with their respective chiefs. They are all just waiting for the right moment to act."

1994 - On 11 January General Dallaire sends a telegram to his superiors describing a build-up of the Interahamwe and warning that all Tutsi in Kigali are being targeted for extermination. The telegram says that an Interahamwe informant has revealed a plan to kill a number of Belgian soldiers in the UNAMIR contingent "and thus guarantee Belgian withdrawal from Rwanda." It says that the informant has also disclosed the location of a "major weapons cache." However, the UN vetoes a proposal to seize the weapons.

UN heavyweights like the United States, the United Kingdom and France also refuse to consider requests to broaden UNAMIR's mandate.

On 6 April unknown assailants shoot down an aeroplane carrying President Habyarimana and the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, as it prepares to land at Kigali. Both men are killed. The chief-of-staff of the Rwandan Army also dies in the crash.

Coincidentally, the minister of defence, the chief of Army Intelligence Services, and the officer in charge of operations in the Army General Staff are all out of the country.

In the ensuing power-vacuum Bagosora takes charge, closing out the Prime Minister and leader of the MDR, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, and initiating steps that will eliminate all legitimate claimants to government and all opposition within the armed forces. He fails, however, to have himself officially installed as the country's leader.

Undeterred, Bagosora begins issuing orders for the extermination of Rwanda's Tutsi population. The Presidential Guard and other elite troops loyal to Bagosora, backed by about 2,000 militia, target prominent Tutsi leaders and officials named on pre-prepared lists.

Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian peacekeepers sent to protect her are among the first victims. The Belgians are killed about 100 metres from where Bagosora is attending a meeting. He does nothing to intervene.

On 8 April Bagosora and his cohorts select an interim government composed solely of supporters of the so-called 'Hutu Power' movement. Jean Kambanda is appointed as government leader.

The Rwandan Army, the UN and the international community accept the move. The interim government is installed the following day.

The Hutu Power leaders now have the political means to coordinate and carry out genocide.

The Presidential Guard, the elite Reconnaissance and Paracommando battalions, the National Police and militia groups begin rounding up and killing Tutsis in Kigali. Hutus who had opposed the Habyarimana Government or were critical of Hutu Power movement are also pursued.

According to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, "From April to July 1994, by virtue of his position, his statements, the orders he gave and his acts, Colonel Théoneste Bagosora exercised authority over members of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (Rwandan Army and National Police), their officers and militiamen. The military and militiamen, as from 6 April 1994, committed massacres of the Tutsi population and of moderate Hutu which extended throughout Rwandan territory with the knowledge of Colonel Théoneste Bagosora."

The UNAMIR peacekeepers try to maintain some order but are muzzled by UN headquarters in New York, where the US, the UK and France continue to block any attempt to broaden the mission's mandate. The peacekeepers are allowed to help evacuate foreigners but prevented from stopping the genocide or assisting Tutsis to escape. The are forced to stand by and watch.

The violence spreads beyond Kigali.

Broadcasts by Radio RTLM (Radio Télévision des Mille Collines) and Radio Rwanda encourage ordinary citizens to join in on the slaughter, issuing directives, naming victims, providing instructions for the erection barriers and conduct of searches, and inciting the continuation of the genocide. Tutsi are characterised as 'Inyenzi' (cockroaches) who should be exterminated and their dead bodies thrown into the Nyabarongo River. Both stations have close ties with the MRND.

The country's borders are closed to prevent Tutsi from escaping. Identity cards are checked at roadblocks. Those identified as Tutsi face almost certain death. Women and girls are routinely raped before being killed. Others are held as sex slaves.

Politicians and government officials campaign in support of the genocide. District administrators help with the coordination. Soldiers and police direct the major massacres. The Interahamwe and other militia do much of the actual killing, though tens of thousands of ordinary citizens also take part, either willingly or under duress. Membership of the militia swells from about 2,000 to between 20,000 and 30,000.

On 26 April the program for a "civilian defence force" as set out in the 'Organisation of Civilian Self-defence' document is formally announced on Radio Rwanda. The program is run from Bagosora's office and administered by military officers loyal to him.

According to a Human Rights Watch briefing paper, "In the weeks before its formal establishment, as in the weeks after, the civilian self-defence system was used to mobilise ordinary civilians to hunt Tutsi civilians who had been identified with the military enemy. Using the civilian self-defence effort against non-combatants, military, administrative and political authorities transformed the system from a potentially legitimate form of self-defence into a violation of international law; by defining the group to be targeted as Tutsi and seeking their elimination, the authorities transformed the self-defence system into a weapon for genocide."

The killing goes on until the beginning of July. It will leave over 500,000 Tutsis dead. (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda estimates "some 800,000 Rwandans were killed." Other sources estimate that between 800,000 and one million perish.) Thousands of Hutus opposed to the genocide are also killed. Men, women and children; the old and the young; the healthy and the sick; the rich and the poor; the elite and the humble; no one is spared. In just 100 days three quarters of the Tutsi population are exterminated. It is the most ferocious massacre in modern history. Most of the killing is done with machetes.

Up to two million Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans will flee the country and up to one million will be internally displaced. By early August an estimated one-quarter of the pre-war population of Rwanda has either died or fled the country.

Meanwhile, the international community sits by and watches but does not take action.

A telegram sent by General Dallaire on 8 April informs the UN that Tutsi are being slain solely because of their race.

"The appearance of a very well planned, organised, deliberate and conducted campaign of terror initiated principally by the Presidential Guard since the morning after the death of the head of state has completely reoriented the situation in Kigali," the telegram states.

"Aggressive actions have been taken not only against the opposition leadership but against the RPF ..., against particular ethnic groups (massacre of Tutsi in Remera), against the general civilian population ... and against UNAMIR ... which has resulted in fatal and non-fatal casualties. The particularly barbarous murder of the 10 captured Belgian soldiers emphasises this situation."

However, the UN fails to name the massacre as genocide. Dallaire instead is directed to protect his soldiers, monitor and report on events, assist with humanitarian aid and, after renewed hostilities break out between the Rwandan Government and the RPF, to try to effect a cease-fire.

On 13 April Belgium withdraws its troops from UNAMIR. The Bangladeshi troops depart soon after. One thousand French, Belgian, and Italian troops rushed in to evacuate foreigners also depart. Three hundred US Marines dispatched to the area are halted in Burundi.

The administration of US President Bill Clinton advocates the total withdrawal of the UNAMIR force.

In an article in the September 2001 edition of 'The Atlantic Monthly', Samantha Power writes, "During the entire three months of the genocide Clinton never assembled his top policy advisers to discuss the killings. ... Rwanda was never thought to warrant its own top-level meeting. When the subject came up, it did so along with, and subordinate to, discussions of Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Whereas these crises involved US personnel and stirred some public interest, Rwanda generated no sense of urgency and could safely be avoided by Clinton at no political cost."

On 21 April the Security Council votes to cut the size of UNAMIR to 270 men. All but 503 of the troops are withdrawn on 25 April. They will not return until after the genocide.

On 30 April the Security Council warns Rwandan leaders that they could bear personal responsibility for violations of international law but fails to characterise the killing as "genocide" as this would legally oblige it to act to "prevent and punish" the perpetrators.

On 17 May the UN resolves to send a second UNAMIR force of 6,800 mainly African troops and policemen to Rwanda with powers to defend civilians. However, deployment is delayed until after the genocide has ended, principally because of bickering between the US and the UN over who will foot the bill and provide the equipment.

On 8 June the Security Council formally acknowledges that "acts of genocide" had taken place in Rwanda. Use of the phrase is one step short of naming the killing as "a genocide" and so does not oblige the UN to intervene.

In late June the French government sends 2,500 troops to establish a safe area in the southwestern part of the country. A French contingent is also stationed in the northwest for several weeks.

The RPF ends the cease-fire and resumes its military campaign on 7 April, the day after Habyarimana dies in the plane-crash. The war rages at the same time as the genocide, with the RPF also committing atrocities, but no where near the scale of those incited by Bagosora and his cohorts. A mission sent by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) later estimates that from April to August the RPF killed between 25,000 and 45,000 persons.

The Rwandan Army is quickly defeated by the RPF. Kigali falls on 4 July. The war ends on 16 July.

The Rwandan Army flees northwest across the border to Zaire, followed by the interim government, members of the Hutu militias and some two million Hutu refugees.

Bagosora flies out of the country on 2 July, reportedly under the protection of French soldiers. He eventually he settles in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Though the war is over the killing is not yet done. Retaliatory violence by Tutsi claims several thousand lives, including that of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kigali.

Refugees in camps set up in Zaire, Tanzania, and Burundi perish from disease, starvation and exposure. More than 20,000 die in a cholera epidemic.

While many Tutsi refugees will return to Rwanda, including refugees who had fled in the 1960s, the repatriation of Hutu refugees is slower. Some fear reprisals but many are also intimidated into remaining in the camps by the militia who fled there with them.

The refugee militias, coordinated and armed by Bagosora, among others, continue their violence, launching cross-border raids.

In Rwanda, the RPF bans political parties that participated in the genocide, including the MRND, and appoints a multiparty Transitional National Assembly headed by Pasteur Bizimungu, a moderate Hutu, to oversee a transition to civilian rule. A multiracial cabinet of 16 Hutus and six Tutsis is formed. Ethnic identity cards are abolished and the Arusha Accords are adopted by the transitional government as its constitutional base.

Meanwhile, the UN votes to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to try the organisers of the genocide. The tribunal will have its headquarters at The Hague in the Netherlands, running in concert with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The trial chambers will be located in Arusha, Tanzania.

The tribunal will indict 81 people for genocide-related crimes. The maximum sentence it can hand down is life imprisonment.

1996 - Following the outbreak of civil war in eastern Zaire in October 1996 and the routing of Hutu militias from refugee camps by Rwandan troops, about 800,000 Rwandan refugees move back to their homeland. However, several hundred thousand are pushed deeper into Zaire.

By the end of Zaire's civil war in May, tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees have been killed in the fighting or have died of disease or starvation.

In December another 500,000 refugees in Tanzania return to Rwanda.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Tribunal opens in Arusha. Trials began in early 1997, but progress is slow and the UN is criticised for mismanagement and poor organisation.

Jean Kambanda, prime minister of the interim, Hutu Power government, pleads guilty to genocide in May 1998 and is sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 September 1998. It is the first time a head of government has been found guilty of genocide.

The RPF government begins its own trials of mid-level genocide organisers in December 1996. By mid-1998 some 135,000 persons are incarcerated in prisons and communal lockups, most of them charged with genocide or related crimes. The Rwanda-based trials can hand down a maximum sentence of death.

Bagosora is arrested in Cameroon on 9 March after Belgium requests his detention and extradition on charges that he was responsible for the deaths of the 10 Belgian peacekeepers killed at the start of the genocide.

He will be transferred to the UN prison quarters in Arusha on 23 January 1997 for trial before the International Criminal Tribunal.

1998 - On 25 March US President Bill Clinton apologises for not having acted to stop the genocide.

"The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy," President Clinton says. "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope."

Documents obtained by the National Security Archive under freedom of information legislation later reveal that US intelligence services had informed the Clinton administration of the scale and speed of the genocide within three weeks of its commencement. The documents show that administration refused to publicly name the slaughter as genocide because to do so would have required it to intervene.

UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan apologises to the Parliament of Rwanda on 7 May.

"The world must deeply repent this failure," he says. "Rwanda's tragedy was the world's tragedy. All of us who cared about Rwanda, all of us who witnessed its suffering, fervently wish that we could have prevented the genocide. Looking back now, we see the signs which then were not recognised. Now we know that what we did was not nearly enough - not enough to save Rwanda from itself, not enough to honour the ideals for which the United Nations exists. We will not deny that, in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda."

1999 - In August Bagosora is charged on 12 counts by the International Criminal Tribunal, including "conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, (and) crimes against humanity."

The indictment against him states, "His rank, his office and the personal relations he had with the commanders of the units that were the most implicated in the events referred to in this indictment, and the fact that they were from the same region and shared the same political beliefs, gave him authority over those persons and over members of the militias, given the regionalist context in which power was exercised in Rwanda. ...

"Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, in his position of authority, ... participated in the planning, preparation or execution of a common scheme, strategy or plan, to commit the atrocities set forth above. The crimes were committed by him personally, by persons he assisted or by his subordinates, and with his knowledge or consent."

Bagosora pleads not guilty.

2000 - In March Pasteur Bizimungu resigns as Rwandan president in protest against "Tutsi domination" in government. He is succeeded in April by Paul Kagame, the vice president and defence minister. Kagame, a Tutsi and the former head of the RPA, has long been considered Rwanda's real political leader. He becomes the first Tutsi president since the nation's independence.

2002 - Bagosora's trial commences on 2 April in Arusha before the First Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal.

He is tried along with three others - Brigadier-general Gratien Kabiligi (commander of Military Operations), Major Aloys Ntabakuze (commander of the Paracommando Battalion) and Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva (commander of Military Operations for the Gisenyi sector).

In what becomes a hugely drawn-out trial, the case for the prosecution continues until 14 October 2004, after hearing testimony from 82 witnesses.

The case for the defence does not begin until January 2005. Bagosora denies all charges.

"I do not believe in the genocide theory," he tells the tribunal in November 2005. "Most reasonable people concur that there were excessive massacres. ... They have labelled and continue to label me as the mastermind of the massacres. ... The accusations that I led the killings are malicious."

Meanwhile, the Rwandan Government turns to traditional local courts, the so-called Gacaca Courts, to address the enormous backlog of lower-level human rights cases arising from the genocide.

2003 - A new Rwandan constitution is introduced following a referendum in May. The constitution establishes the rights of citizens, prohibits political parties based on ethnic or racial groups and resolves to fight ethnic hatred.

Paul Kagame wins a multiparty presidential election held in August, receiving 95% of the vote. The RPF wins a landslide victory in legislative elections held over the following months.

2007 - Bagosora continues to deny any responsibility for the genocide right up to the end of his trial on 1 June.

"I request people of goodwill to free their minds of intoxication and poison," he says in his final statement. "I solemnly declare that I did not kill anyone or issue orders for anyone to be killed."

The trial verdict awaits.

Comment: Anyone old enough to remember will never forget the images from the media coverage of the Rwandan genocide: footage of the dead and bloated bodies of murdered Tutsi sweeping down rivers; scenes of panic as refugees desperately tried to flee the terror; landscapes of degradation and squalor in refugee camps.

Viewing these images brought a feeling of disbelief and helplessness. What could be done to halt the carnage? Surely the UN and world community were working overtime to bring the killing to a halt? When would the genocide stop and those horrifying pictures leave our TV screens?

Little did we know how little was being done by world leaders. And little did we know how little it might have taken to reign in the genocidal mobs.

The Human Rights Watch report Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda makes a convincing case that even a relatively minor intervention by the world community could have been enough to prevent the killing descending into genocide. The architects of the genocide were not deaf to world opinion, the report argues. However, instead of hearing unambiguous condemnation of their actions they received signals that could be interpreted as a "green light".

By the time the UN, the US, the UK and France, among others, were forced from their wilful detachment by media and community outrage it was too late.

--

இவனது கூட்டாளி ஒரு கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரி


அதனாஸீ ஸெரோம்பா Father Athanase Seromba என்ற கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரிக்கு 15 வருட கடுங்காவல் தண்டனை கொடுக்கப்பட்டது
Rwandan Priest Sentenced to 15 Years for Allowing Deaths of Tutsi in Church
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By MARC LACEY
Published: December 14, 2006
An international war crimes court yesterday sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to 15 years in prison for ordering his church in western Rwanda demolished by bulldozers in 1994 while 2,000 ethnic Tutsi sought refuge there from the mass killing breaking out all around.

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Reuters
Judges said Athanase Seromba ordered the bulldozing of his church, with 2,000 Tutsi inside.
The Rev. Athanase Seromba, a Hutu convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, was the first Roman Catholic priest to be tried before the International Criminal Tribunal based in Arusha, Tanzania, officials said.

At least two other Catholic priests await charges in Arusha, according to news service reports, while three Catholic nuns and a handful of clergy members from other denominations have already been convicted in various courts for their roles in the killing, which led to an estimated 800,000 deaths.

The mass killing began in April 1994 when Hutu extremists mobilized the majority population in the tiny central African country to root out and kill Tutsi and moderate Hutu.

Some of the most gruesome attacks in what is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country took place in churches and missions, where members of the clergy committed acts of heroism but also of shame.

The brutality is still visible in Rwanda today as some churches have been left as memorials, with the human remains of victims piled up among the pews.

The Vatican has suggested in the past that it is unfairly being made a target over the killings in Rwanda. “The Holy See cannot but express a certain surprise at seeing the grave responsibility of so many people and groups involved in this tremendous genocide had been heaped on so few people,” a Vatican spokesman said in a statement in 2001, after two Catholic nuns were convicted in Belgium.

The Tutsi hiding at Father Seromba’s church on April 12, 1994, in Nyange, a village in western Rwanda, managed to repel the first attackers, according to testimony. But members of the so-called Interahamwe militia, joined by Rwandan soldiers, threw grenades at the church and secured the assistance of Father Seromba.

He identified the weakest parts of his church as targets for the bulldozer drivers, a panel of judges found. He also later encouraged the fighters who charged the church to finish off any survivors, to whom he referred as cockroaches, according to testimony.

After the massacre, Father Seromba fled Rwanda, changed his name to Anastasio Sumba Bura and worked as a priest in two parishes near Florence, Italy. He surrendered to the tribunal on Feb. 6, 2002, and pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

During his trial, prosecutors called 15 witnesses, including survivors of the attack who put Father Seromba at the scene. His defense attorneys, Patrice Monte and Barnabe Nekuie, both of Cameroon, called 24 witnesses to buttress his reputation as a well-regarded religious man, before closing their case in April.

Since the tribunal, backed by the United Nations, began work in 1997, it has convicted 27 people and acquitted 5. The court, which has been criticized at times for its slow pace, was meant to supplement Rwanda’s own justice system by focusing on prominent figures, including politicians, journalists and members of the clergy.

Last week, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who had been a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, was released by the tribunal after serving a 10-year sentence for his role in the killings. He was accused of standing by in western Rwanda as his parishioners were killed.

The judges said the 15-year sentence for Father Seromba reflected aggravating factors such as his authority as a Catholic priest and the trust he had from those seeking shelter in his parish. His sentence will be reduced by the four years he has already served, the judges said.

பாதிரியார் மட்டுமல்ல, கொலைவெறி பிடித்த கன்யாஸ்திரிகளும் இதில் அடக்கம்

The conviction of two Rwandan nuns


If the church of Rome has changed then why doesn't the Pope ex-communicate these two blood-thirsty women.
Rev. Kyle Paisley
The conviction of two Rwandan nuns for their part in the massacre of nearly 7000 Tutsis has proved a great embarassment to the Church of Rome.

Sister Gertrude (nee Consolata Mukagango) and Sister Maria Kisito (nee Julienne Mukabutera) were sentenced to 15 years and 12 years respectively by a court in Belgium last week.

The two Benedictines were found guilty of driving the Tutsis into the clutches of Hutu militants and standing by as they were done to death. In one particular incident Sister Kisito supplied petrol used for the burning alive of several hundred Tutsis. Clearly, the sentences they received are in no way commensurate with the crimes they committed. Capital punishment is what they deserved.

One wonders what Rome will do now, after the conviction of the two nuns, when she has protested their innocence all along.

Will she recognise the wickedness that they committed or gloss over it?

For more than fifty years following the end of the second world war the Papacy was mute, and it is only recently that she has proferred any sort of apology for her complicity with, and the succour she gave to the Nazi war machine.

How long will the families of those murdered by Rwandan Hutus, which murders would not have happened without the help of two faithful children of 'mother church', have to wait before they receive an unqualified apology from the 'holy' see?

If the church of Rome has changed then why doesn't the Pope ex-communicate these two blood-thirsty women.