Shedding Light on Rwanda's Great Mystery

The events of that night have been referred to as one of the great mysteries of the 20^th century: April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down just before landing in Kigali, and within hours the wholesale slaughter of the country's Tutsi minority began.

The president was returning from Tanzania that night, following a summit on the implementation of the 1993 Arusha Accords, a power-sharing agreement signed by Habyarimana's Hutu government -- in power for 20 years at that point -- and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The Accords were deeply unpopular with extremist elements of Habyarimana's own party, and an extensive expert report released this week by the Rwandan government points to these men, who were also the chief architects of the genocide, as responsible for Habyarimana's demise.

The circumstantial evidence is well-known, and damning: Roadblocks went up around Kigali at breathtaking speed, and the self-inaugurated new extremist government quickly rounded up those pre-made execution lists of prominent Tutsis and moderate Hutus opposed to their genocidal inclinations. At the scene of Habyarimana's plane crash itself, Belgian peacekeepers patrolling the perimeter of the airport were quickly surrounded and disarmed by the Presidential Guard -- no one was allowed to examine the crash site. The killing quickly spread from Kigali to the rest of the country, claiming 800,000 lives in a mere 100 days. The organization and rapid deployment of these plans leave little doubt of their premeditated nature.

According to the new report, which analyzed numerous eye witness interviews and new ballistics evidence provided by the UK's National Defence Academy, the missiles that brought down Habyarimana's plane came from the Kanombe army camp, next to the airport -- and the army unit trained to use the surface-to-air missiles was under the control of Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the convicted mastermind of the genocide.

The report provides extensive and unprecedented evidence to, on the one hand, confirm the suspicions of many that Habyarimana's death was an inside job and, on the other hand, debunk theories that held the RPF and current Rwandan President Paul Kagame responsible for the assassination. Until someone comes forward to take full responsibility, however, speculation is likely to continue. Kagame has turned into a petty dictator himself in his 15 years in power, but efforts (namely, by certain French judges) to name him as the culprit of the plane crash often suggested that, since the crash set off the genocide (though it was a long time coming), Kagame and the RPF somehow share a level of blame for massacres.

Historical revisionists often seek to place a measure of responsibility on the victims of genocide, and the 200-page, multi-annexed report lays much of this to rest in the Rwandan case. Habyarimana's plane has become a symbol of the destruction that followed its downfall, and responsibility for the genocide's opening ceremony should be known.

Photo credit: Dylan Walters