Citation
One month after a plane crash killed the Presidents of Rwanda and
Burundi and unleashed weeks of massacres, the cause of the crash and
the precise origin of the violence are still unknown.
The Rwanda military, which put together a new Government three days
after the crash, refuses to allow United Nations experts near the site
to find out how it happened.
The massacres, Government officials say, were a popular uprising
against the country's Tutsi ethnic minority, whose rebel group was
singled out as being behind the crash.
But Western diplomats, human rights groups and Rwandan refugees
describe a methodical, organized violence carried out by the Rwandan
military, which is dominated by members of the Hutu ethnic group.
Hutus, Too, Are Targets
They say the President, Juvenal Habyarimana, was probably killed by
hard-liners in his own Government worried that he was yielding to
international pressure to carry out an accord bringing Tutsis into the
Government. Both Presidents were returning from Tanzania, where they
had attended a conference with other African leaders on ethnic
violence in Rwanda and Burundi.
Some of the violence was aimed at those Hutus, described as moderates,
who favored reaching agreement with the Tutsis to form a new
government. One of the first targets was the interim Prime Minister,
Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a symbol of the moderate Hutu opposition, who
was killed by soldiers of the presidential guard along with 10 Belgian
United Nations peacekeepers guarding her.
A pile of crumpled, charred metal in a green field near the eastern
edge of the airstrip of the capital, Kigali, is all that remains of
President Habyarimana's plane, which was downed on April 6 either as a
result of being fired upon or by an explosion.
Besides barring crash investigators from the site, the Rwandan
military has turned down an American offer for technical aid in the
investigation. Officials say they have found the plane's black box but
are too busy fighting a civil war to conduct their own investigation.
Few doubt that the target was Mr. Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu
ethnic majority in Rwanda who has long been accused by moderates and
human rights officials of manipulating ethnic tensions and delaying a
peace agreement.
100,000 Believed Killed
Tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis have periodically exploded
in violence, especially since Rwanda gained independence in 1962. The
Tutsis were favored by the Beligans, who administered the country as a
colonial protectorate.
Relief officials estimate that since Mr. Habyarimana's death more than
100,000 people have been killed, mainly Tutsis.
Heavy fighting continues between the Tutsi rebels of the Rwanda
Patriotic Front and the Hutu-dominated Rwandan Army. Hundreds of
thousands of people have fled the country.
The hastily created new Hutu Government insists that only the Tutsi
rebels could have benefited from the President's death and that most
of the massacres have been by the Tutsi-dominated Patriotic Front.
Rockets Reported Fired
But Tutsi rebels say it was Hutu extremists in the President's party
who killed their leader as part of a plot to undermine recent peace
agreements. They say their forces are fighting to end the chaos and
bloodshed.
There are also minor theories, widely circulated in Rwanda, about who
downed the plane, including allegations on the Government radio that
Belgian troops at the airport fired at it.
Witnesses say that on the day the plane crashed they saw a huge
explosion and fireball at about 8:30 P.M. Belgian officers have told
British journalists that they saw two rockets fired from the vicinity
of a camp belonging to the Rwandan presidential guard and army
commandos.
Within hours of the crash, soldiers from the hard-line Hutu
presidential guard began killing all moderate members of the interim
Government, both Hutu and Tutsis, virtually eliminating all
opposition.
The political atmosphere before the crash and the violence afterward
reflect a country torn apart by political turmoil and ethnic
hatred. Although a peace agreement signed with the rebels in August
called for an ethnically integrated interim government and military,
little progress had been made toward political stability.
"There was very, very intensive competition for political power," said
David Rawson, the United States Ambassador to Rwanda, who was
evacuated along with all other Americans last month.
"The ethnic dilemma was used by different sides as a shield behind
which the play for power was being done," he added. "Quite clearly
there was a real system to the political assassinations. There must be
some system to the mass killings as well. It's not just mayhem."
Leaders Seek Recognition
Representatives of the new Hutu Government are touring European and
African capitals calling for peace and diplomatic recognition. This
Government does not include any Tutsis.
"We did not see any Tutsis to put in the Government," said Matthew
Ngirumpatse, the chairman of the governing party. He said that the
killing of Tutsis was carried out by "popular anger" and added, "It is
a civic duty for people to join themselves to the army when their
country is attacked."
Even though Tutsis and Hutus share the same language and culture,
Rwandan history has been marked by ethnic massacres, most of them
against Tutsis, who fled Rwanda by the tens of thousands.
In 1973, after increasing anti-Tutsi attacks probably organized by the
military, Mr. Habyarimana, who was Minister of Defense at the time,
took over in a military coup.
Ethnic Violence Continues
Originally hailed as a popular and honest leader, Mr. Habyarimana lost
support after years of increasingly repressive rule and economic
stagnation. An invasion by 10,000 Tutsi guerrillas of the Rwanda
Patriotic Front in 1990 and pressure from international donors served
as a catalyst for an agreement aimed at transforming a one-party
dictatorship into a multi-party system.
Despite a fragile cease-fire and the signing of the peace accord in
August, ethnic violence, in particular against the Tutsis, continued
as the governing party felt its exclusive control threatened.
The human rights groups Amnesty International and Africa Watch have
said Mr. Habyarimana bore special responsibility for the violence in
recent years. His party, the Republican Movement for Democracy and
Development, armed its supporters, especially the party youth militia,
to kill known rebel sympathizers.
"In the early 1980's Habyarimana's popularity started to slip and he
felt threatened," said Alison DesForges of Africa Watch. "He became
bitterly anti-Tutsi after 1990. It was a scapegoat kind of mentality
to focus all your hatred on these people."
Tensions Grow in Burundi
Tensions within the Hutu-dominated Government increased significantly
after a failed coup last October in neighboring Burundi, a country
that shares the same ethnic division.
The Tutsi-dominated Burundi Army killed the first democratically
elected Hutu President, Melchior Ndadaye. More than 80,000 people were
killed in two months of massacres and hundreds of thousands of Hutus
fled to Rwanda. In Rwanda, the military stepped up the arming of Hutu
militias and Mr. Habyarimana consolidated his Hutu support.
By December, political infighting had divided the opposition Hutu
parties into moderates and hard-liners.
"Habyarimana used Burundi to persuade his people that the Tutsi threat
was real," Ms. DesForges said. "It was a pretext for the hard-line
Hutus in Rwanda. There was plenty of paranoia and fear. This is not a
tribal conflict but a coldblooded, ruthless, cynical plot."
