Citation
The genocide video shot by Nick Hughes
on April 11, 1994
Jacques Morel
September 14, 2023, v1.1
Abstract
The massacre scene filmed by Nick Hughes became emblematic of the
genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. It shows in particular a man on
his knees among the other corpses, begging the killers to spare his live and
one of them comes and hit him with a machete or a club. He collapses.
The author says that he filmed from the top of the French school in the
presence of Belgians soldiers. His footage was broadcasted on television on
Monday evening April 11, 1994. On this date at the French school, they
were still French paratroopers, equipped with precision rifles and anti-tank
missiles. So they observed the killings for hours without doing anything
against it. The french army chief of staff, Admiral Lanxade, wrote: “we
did not have, then, any information on the beginning of massacres ”.
This April 11, the French ambassador transmits to Paris a request for
military support to the Interim Rwandan Government which organizes
the genocide...
During the Tutsi’s genocide, there are pictures of rotting bodies, but no
images of the killing itself, with one exception. British cameraman Nick Hughes
filmed a massacre scene a few days after April 6, 1994 in Kigali. It was named
the genocide video. These terrible images are very often featured in films and
television shows about this genocide. For example, “The Bloody tricolors” from
BBC1 or “The Dead are Alive”.2 A picture extracted from this last film is
shown in figure 1 page 2. This footage of Nick Hughes can be seen on https:
//vimeo.com/126760724.
April 11, 1994 evening at french television
Excerpts from this crime scene appears on French television channels in the
evening of April 11, 1994.
1 Stephen
Bradshaw, The Bloody Tricolor, BBC, 20 août 1995 (26:47).
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/RwandaPanoramaBloodyTricolour.mp4
2 Anna Van der Wee, The Dead are Alive, Wild Heart Productions, 1996. Italian version
at 10:02 in https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vrzf
1
2
Figure 1: Extract of Nick Hughes footage from “The Dead are Alive”
France 3 broadcasts images of this massacre at 7:30 p.m. in a report focused
on the evacuation of Europeans where the presenter evokes “massacres between
the two tribes”:
[Marc Autheman :] Almost all French people have left now Kigali. The French paratroopers should withdraw from the city quite
quickly. Rwanda plunges into civil war and nothing has allowed for
the moment to stop the massacres between the two tribes of the
country. Jean-Paul Gérouard.
[Jean-Paul Gérouard :] They are already wounded but one finish
them off by big blows with sticks. Street scene in Kigali [some images
of Nick Hughes briefly scroll on the screen with an overlay “Kigali
(Rwanda), today” ; we hear a soldier speaking into a radio then a
voice comments on the scene of the massacre by saying:“Oh, la, la,
la, la this other is beating him”].
Hate, anarchy and death reign supreme in the city for four days.
Corpses lie everywhere in the streets. The massacres of Tutsi by
3
Hutu civilians and by soldiers of the regular army have already
caused several thousand deaths [we see several corpses lying in the
streets of Kigali].3
We therefore learn that these massacre images were filmed on April 11 in
Kigali. The presenter’s comment “massacres between the two tribes”, is intended
to deceive. However, the victims, the Tutsi, and the killers, Hutu civilians and
soldiers of the regular army, are clearly designated by Jean-Paul Gérouard.
These images are shown again on the 11 p.m. news on France 3 with the
comment: “The massacres are increasing in Kigali and the corpses litter the
streets of the Rwandan capital [...] For four days, violent fighting has opposed
the minority Tutsi to governmental troops in majority Hutu..4 This comment
totally disagrees with the images that show massacres and not fighting.
In the 8 p.m. news on France 2, an extract from this scene opens the
report by Patrice Romedenne who comments: “Cruelty, brutality, terror reigns
in Rwanda. In Kigali, one even persist on the corpses”.5
Likewise, TF1 broadcasts in its 8 p.m. news a sample even more reduced
of these images. Gauthier Rybinski, special correspondent, comments on them:
“Here is the current face of Kigali, the capital of Rwanda: bodies lying in the
streets. Most often this are civilians who massacred their own people with machetes neighbors, only guilty of not being of the same tribe”.6
From these images, we only learn that this massacre took place on the 11th
April in Kigali. They are used by French television to maintain confusion in the
minds of viewers.
The Duclert’s report notes that the massacres of Tutsi of genocidal nature
“acquire an unprecedented visibility in french public opinion this same April 11
thanks to the television news of 8 p.m. from the two major national french channels.”7 But it is limited to observe: “Each of these two television news programs
opens its first filmed report by image montages, almost similar, showing a machete killing, and corpses of civilians lying on the roadsides of the Rwandan
capital.”
3 Marc Autheman, Jean-Paul Gérouard, France 3, 11 avril 1994, 19 h 30.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-19-30fr3.mp4 http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
ScriptFrance3JournalDe19Heures3011041994.pdf
4 Christine Ockrent, Éric Thibault, France 3, 11 avril 1994, 23 h.
http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-23fr3.mp4
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
ScriptFrance3JournalDe23Heures11041994.pdf
5 Bruno Masure, Patrice Romedenne, France 2, April 11, 1994, 8 p.m.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-20.mp4
6 Dominique Bromberger, Gauthier Rybinski, TF1, April 11, 1994, 8 p.m.
http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-20tf1.mp4
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
ScriptTF1JournalDe20Heures11041994.pdf
7 Vincent
Duclert
[1,
p.
388].
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
RapportCommissionDuclert26032021.pdf .
4
April 12, 1994, in english newspapers
Catherine Bond, The Times
Catherine Bond of the Times, present in Kigali, is the first journalist to report
on April 12, 1994 the testimony of his compatriot Nick Hughes on this massacre.
After having described one massacre, she continues :
Nick Hughes, a British cameraman for World Television News,
filmed a similar scene from the French school. Half a mile away,
men were beating women to death. “They brought women, old or
middle-age women, out of the houses and on to the street and made
them sit in a pile of bodies, wounded and dying people”, he said.
“For about 20 minutes, the women pleaded for their lives with a
group of men who walked up and down the street chatting. They
clubbed one woman to death then the other. Il was the most horrific
thing I have ever seen.”8
Thanks this article, we know that it was Nick Hughes who filmed this massacre from the French school.
Mark Huband, The Guardian
Mark Huband, also present in Kigali, describes the same scene which it seems
having witnessed from the French school:
At Antoine de Saint-Exupery school, French troops lay on the
roof with guns trained on the deserted road outside as the names of
evacuees were read out in the courtyard below.
From the roof traffic lights could be seen changing from red to
amber to green. A mud road led up a hill less than a mile away. The
road was littered with up to 20 bodies.
Halfway up the hill lay a pile of corpses. From nearby houses
women, old and young, were casually led to the pile and forced to
sit down on it. Men with clubs then beat the dead and dying bodies
which surrounded the women as they sat, screaming, pleading for
their lives.
Suddenly the men turned on the women. They beat them until
they no longer moved, then went to find more people to kill, within
view of the school where the evacuees packed their children, pet
dogs, teddy bears and suitcases into trucks.9
8 Catherine Bond, Rebels advance as Kigali slaughter goes on, The Times (London), 12
April 1994. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/CatherineBondTheTimes12April1994.pdf
9 Mark Huband, UN troops stand by and watch carnage. French and Belgian forces
are evacuating expatriates but leaving, The Guardian, Tuesday April 12, 1994. http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/UnTroopsWatchCarnageGuardian12April1994.pdf
5
This testimony from Huband describes the same scene that Nick Hughes
filmed. They observe this scene from the French school. Huband specifies that
the school is under the protection of French soldiers who are lying on the roof
with their weapons aimed towards the opposite hill.
Sending the footage
According to Allan Thompson, Reuters cameraman Mohammed Shaffi told Nick
Hughes at the French school that from above, he could see killers slaughtering
people on the other side of the valley. Nick Hughes handed over his tape at the
airport to a foreigner who was heading to Nairobi again this April 11. Using
his satellite phone, he asked his producer in Nairobi to pick up this tape at the
airport. Its content has been transmitted to WTN London10 which distributed
it on exchange networks between television channels such as Eurovision.11
A lot of film producers will use these images to maintain confusion in the
mind of spectators. Hughes will be disgusted: “you know, my video of killing
during the Genocide and archive I saved from Kigali at the time, was used
by the cruel filmmakers not to educate but to obfuscate the crime the pictures
graphically depict”.12
Belgian soldiers ?
Presenting these images of Nick Hughes at the symposium The Media and the
Rwanda genocide at Ottawa on March 13, 2004, Allan Thompson reads the
testimony of Nick Hugues (who is not present13 ) about the circumstances in
which he filmed this scene. Hughes states that it was Belgian soldiers who
guarded the French school this April 11, 1994.14
Exhibit 467
In 1998, Nick Hughes was called by the prosecutor of the International Criminal
Court for Rwanda (ICTR) to testify during the trial of Georges Rutaganda,
second vice-president of Interahamwe, to explain the circumstances in which
he had filmed this scene which had been tendered as exhibit number 467. He
testified on May 25, 26 and 27, 1998. While we were able to download from the
ICTR website the transcripts of the three hearings of Nick Hughes, the MICT
registry asked us at the end of 2019 to remove these documents from our web site
10 WTN:
Worldwide Television News, agency now defunct.
Thompson, The father and daughter we let down, Toronto Star, April 11, 2009.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/TheFatherAndDaughterWeLetDown11April2009.pdf
12 Nick Hughes, mail on a discussion list, December 8, 2015.
13 Mail from Nick Hughes to the author, December 8, 2015.
14 Nick Hughes, Exhibit 467: Genocide Through a Camera Lens, 13 mars 2004.
Cf.
Allan Thompson, The Media and the Rwanda genocide, Pluto Press 2007. http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/NickHughesAllanThompsonP231.pdf .
11 Allan
6
https://francegenocidetutsi.org/ with this only explanation “Confidential
Transcripts”.
The transcript of the first hearing is truncated. Especially the date of arrival
of the witness in Kigali is not indicated and it is not possible to reconstruct the
chronology and to know the date when these images were filmed. Questioned
by prosecutor James Stewart, Nick Hughes specifies under which circumstances
he took these images:
What I saw, I was in the French school, there were Belgiun [Belgian] power [para] troopers there. They had a rocket launcher on the
top – in the top room of the French school. The French school goes
up the side of the valley and over looks another road going up the
other side of the valley. Through their sight they could see people
being killed on the other side of the road. I became aware of this,
I went down up there, I looked, it was true, yes, there were bodies
on the other side of the road. I went into the room next door, I set
my camera. At this point I was a bit short of batteries a bit short
of tapes. [...]
So I set up my camera. I wanted to be careful of what I was filming but I was looking across from the French school which is exactly
here. On the map it is marked Lasibukunga [Lycée de Rugunga].
And I was looking across on the road which is marked avenue Labutuba [Mburabuturo]. Now on that, that road goes the side of the
opposite valley over the centre disportive [centre sportif] to Kigali.
I could see groups of people walking up and down that road and
I could see piles of bodies. In between filming the first time and
the second time, I think about two or three men had been bought
[brought] out and killed. You can see that on the footage. You can
see them still being beaten. I think the interesting is they weren’t
being killed. They were being slowly beaten to death. The final
blow wasn’t being delivered. So if you like they were being tortured.
On the second time as I was watching, two women were brought out
and sat down in the pile of bodies. There must have been may be
eight bodies by then. There is a group of men on the other side
of the road. And they were investigating something. May be they
were instead bothered about these two women sitting in the pile of
bodies. One was kneeling, one was sitting down. And the one who
was kneeling was begging for her life. This went on for twenty minutes. Finally quite nonchalantly, they would come across and beat
the men who were dying in front of them and go away. And finally
they came and killed the two women with severe blows.15
He specifies on a map that between this school and the scene of the massacre there is a river. The scene takes place beyond the Sports Circle. He also
15 Haruna Farage, The Prosecutor v/ George Rutaganda, Kearing’s transcript ICTR, May
25, 1998, pp. 39-42.
7
shows “faculty Detroit” i.e. the Faculty of Law which sits on top of Mburabuturo Hill. A soldier he says Belgian makes him look through the lense which
equips his “rocket launcher”. He cannot distinguish whether the killers hit with
sticks or machetes. He says that the area where the massacre took place was
controlled by the Rwandan government. He sees pick-ups carrying Rwandan
soldiers. Sometimes they stop and talk to the killers on the barriers.
Hughes was traveling in a convoy with Belgian soldiers who were running
more risks at the barriers than the French soldiers. The militiamen applaud the
French, insult and threaten the Belgians. He remembers Catherine Bond saying
: “there won’t be any Tutsi left by the time this war is over”.16
Weak memory
It is difficult for the cameraman to remember after years the exact sequence
of events that he experienced, especially among these corpses which lined the
roads in Kigali those days. He has been himself the target of fire. It turns out
that in his testimony before the ICTR, he mixes up several killings he witnessed
from the French school. Showing the images he took to rwandan witnesses that
he found later, they recognize in the personage who extends his hands in a
position of supplication or prayer a man while Hughes speaks of a woman at
ICTR. He circulated in Kigali by following both French and Belgian military
convoys. He believes remember that the first time he went to French school, it
was occupied by Belgian soldiers then later by French soldiers.17 In fact, it is
exactly the opposite that happened. These confusions are human and it would
be completely unfair and inappropriate for us to reproach him for it. These
images of killing that he transmitted to us are of inestimable value.
April 10, 1994, killings in front of the French
school
AFP journalist Annie Thomas interviews Sunday April 10 1994 captain Éric
Millet who manages the evacuation operations from the French school:
We don’t really know where the approximately 4,000 additional
RPF soldiers are, who were supposed to arrive in the city Sunday.
“We don’t know what front they reached,” admits captain Eric Millet
who, with a team of 80 paratroopers, directs the French evacuation
operations from the school French. [...]
Sitting in front of a small table, on a lawn of the French school,
the captain dominates the side of the hill opposite. Shootings. He
takes his binoculars. “You see, over there, on the road, the shape
white, elongated. He was just killed.”
p. 64.
from Nick Hughes to the author, December 10, 2015.
16 Ibidem,
17 Mail
8
He returns to his lists, to his calculations, to the French sent to
good port, that is to say, for him, at the airport. “The airport is
controlled by us”, he explains, “there is no issue”.18
We note that captain Millet observes a massacre on the road on the side of
the opposite hill on Sunday April 10. It continues at the same place on Monday
the 11th when Nick Hughes films.
Captain Éric Millet commands the 4th company “d’éclairage et d’appui”
(lighting and support) of the 3rd RPIMa. RPIMa is an acronym for Régiment
parachutiste d’infanterie de marine, the old colonial troops.
The place of the massacre
On figure 2, the French school Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is marked by a red dot.
The road ahead makes a turning into a hairpin. We can spot the Cercle Sportif
(Sports Circle) at the bottom of the valley and the Mburabuturo hill where
stood the “Faculty of Right” now “UR College of Business ans Economics”. The
scene filmed by Nick Hughes took place on this road KK31, then a dirt road
that goes up to the hills of Gikondo and Mburabuturo. As we see trees and
houses in the images of Hughes, the scene must have taken place in front of the
Sports Club.
Using GoogleEarth we measure 436 meters between the French school (next
to the hairpin road) and these houses along the path that goes up to Gikondo.
Rugunga High School is next to the French school.
On April 11, 1994, french soldiers stood at french
school
It seems impossible that Belgian soldiers could have been stationed at the French
school on April 11 and place a rocket launcher on the roof. The French soldiers
have not finished their evacuation operation. The French embassy closes the
next day, April 12. We also know that relations between French soldiers and
Belgians are not very good. In addition to Marc Huband’s article, cited above,
we have other proofs that the military in the French school on April 11 were
French:
A anti-tank missile-launcher Milan
Jean-Marie Milleliri, a military doctor in Kigali assigned to the cooperation on
a AIDS project, lives in the “French Village” on the Kiyovu hill. Since April
7, 1994, he sees on the Gikondo hill in front, corpses lined up on the track
18 Annie
Thomas,
Kigali, la mort et la
l’AFP, Annie Thomas, AFP, 10 avril 1994.
AnnieThomasKigaliMortFuiteAFP10avril1994.pdf
fuite par l’envoyée spéciale de
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
9
Figure 2: The french school (red point) and the wooden hill Mburabutoro. The
massacre takes place on road KK31 which heads along this hill. (GoogleEarth
2015)
which goes up to summit.19 The massacres continue on this same track on
the 8th April.20 Sunday April 10, he is gathered together with all the other
French people at the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry school. They are protected by
paratroopers from the 3rd RPIMa :
Milan batteries21 have been installed. Snipers with their precision rifles keep watch over an ever-present threat, and ensure maximum protection of the site. Mburabuturo hill, opposite the school,
is closely monitored through binoculars. There is for some time, the
19 Jean-Marie
Milleliri [3, p. 22].
p. 43.
21 The Milan is an anti-tank missile made by the french firm Matra, now MBDA. It is
equipped with a sighting system very accurate.
20 Ibidem,
10
students of the Faculty of Law in went down to reach the avenue
behind the Sports Center.
The army doctor of the 3rd RPIMa to whom I present myself in
order to know how I can be useful to him, has arranged his position
as advanced aid in the school library.22
The Faculty of Law (on Mburabuturo Hill) and the sports circle are mentioned by Hughes to clarify before the ICTR the location of the massacre. The
French soldiers present would be members of the 3rd RPIMa.
A french sniper lying on the roof of the french school
Photojournalist Scott Peterson shows a paratrooper with a rifle precision lying
on the roof of the French school on April 11, 1994. See figure 3. The red beret
indicates that he is part of the RPIMa. His uniform is a solid khaki color.
Liz Gilbert, photojournalist from the Sygma agency, takes the photo of this
same French sniper from another angle this April 11. The picture in figure 4 is
taken on the terrace of the French school in Kigali. We notice the scope on the
rifle which is supported on a bead.
On April 12 in the 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. news, France 2 broadcasts images
arrived during the night and commented on by Benoît Mousset. We see figure 5
and 6 a French paratrooper which appears to occupy the same position on the
roof of the French school. But his weapon appears to be a sniper rifle with a
scope of type FR-F1 or FR-F2 equipped with a bipod and having a maximum
range of 800 meter.
It seems that the photo of Scott Peterson shown figure 7 is also taken from the
terrace of the French school but it is dated April 13 and the soldiers are Belgians,
recognizable by their camouflaged outfit. He believes they are Belgians from the
UNAMIR. Error, they are Belgians from Silver back. One has a Browning M2
machine gun from FN Herstal.
Simal asked to put away his camera
The Belgian Jacques Simal, deputy general director of the Banque commerciale
du Rwanda (BCR)23 , was evacuated by the French military through the French
school. Asked about his colleague Ephrem Nkezabera, also an Interahamwe
leader, he tells that he witnessed a scene like this one filmed by Nick Hughes
and confirms that the French soldiers occupied the French school this April 11:
When I was at the French school, waiting the evacuation to the
airport, I attended like all the expatriates and French soldiers, to a
scene which took place in the distance on a track. This scene filmed
by journalists was broadcasted on all televisions. We see a person on
22 Jean-Marie Milleliri,
ibidem, pp.
66-68.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
MilleliriUnSouvenirDuRwanda68-69.pdf
23 BCR is a subsidiary of the Banque Bruxelles Lambert (BBL).
11
the left of the track, decapitated with a machete. Before this scene,
others people had been killed in the same place, by firearms or cold
steel. I filmed this first part on video. At a certain moment, the
French soldiers asked me to put away my camera. So I didn’t film
the scene that went around the world, but what happened before,
on this track. This scene took place on April 11, 1994 after noon.24
French soldiers at the French school on April 11, 1994
In the 8 p.m. France 2 news on April 11, Philippe Boisserie is joined by phone.
The evacuation of the French ended at 6 p.m. He accompanied Belgian soldiers
who, for the first time, entered into Kigali.25 In the midnight news, France 2
broadcasts a video report by Philippe Boisserie and Marcel Martin on site in
Kigali which proves that the French soldiers are still at the French school on
April 11:
[Philippe Boisserie :] This morning 500 meters from the airport,
eight bodies lie in their blood. Four men and four women of the
Tutsi minority have just been massacred with machetes, under the
eyes of evacuated foreigners [close-ups on bodies lying on the ground
in their blood]. French soldiers in arms, who provided convoy safety,
did not move. Their mission specifies clearly that they should not
take sides for any of the belligerent [a vehicle of the French army
with a soldier armed with a submachine gun crisscross a road from
Rwanda; the scene is filmed from the interior of the vehicle].
[A para with red beret speaks in his transmitter post: “we are
in front the French school. There are shots directed towards us”.]
It is in a city left to fights that the French soldiers perform the
last evacuations. Machine guns but also grenades, mortars sometimes punctuate the call of those who can finally leave [we see white
civilians grouped under the courtyard of the french school of Kigali].26
The journalist reveals here that orders of non-intervention against the massacres were given to the French soldiers.
Belgian soldiers replace the French on April 12, 1994
The commander (CO) of the Belgian operation Silver Back, the colonel JeanPierre Roman, orders an evacuation mission at the French school on April 11
at 1:45 p.m. On April 12, the 17th Cie of the Belgian Brigade para-commandos
replaces the French at the French school called below “French high school” :
24 Pascal Remy, Audition de Jacques Simal, Police fédérale belge, 5 août 2004, p. 6. http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/SimalJacques5aout2004.pdf#page=7
25 Bruno Masure, Journal de 20 h, France 2, 11 avril 1994, 00:03:47.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-20.mp4
26 Catherine Ceylac, Journal de minuit, France 2, 11 avril 1994, 00:00:28.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/1994-04-11-24fr2.mp4
12
9. Monday Apr 11, 94 [...] 1:45 p.m.: CO gives Mission to the
Comd 3 para to make a force recognition towards the French School,
in order to proceed to a Belgian force demonstration. This mission is
carried out with escort (FR) and brings back 100 to 150 expatriates.
[...]
11. Tuesday Apr 12, 94 [...]
CO announces that UNAMIR will proceed to the EVACs. The
17 Cie returns to town and replaces them (FR) in the French high
school and evacuates expats to the air field. The other Cies remain
on the aircraft. Cie (FR) replaced from high French school leaves
Kigali the same evening.27
Identification of victims
Nick Hughes returned in 2002 to the scene. With help of a Rwandan filmmaker,
Éric Kabera, he found a woman who witnessed the facts.
Canadian journalist Allan Thompson investigated later these massacres.28
On the indications of Nick Hughes, he found in 2007 two women witnesses of
the facts that identified the two victims that we see on the images of Hughes,
Gabriel Kabaga, the praying man (so not a woman), and his daughter Justine
Mukangango. He found Rosalie Uzamukunda, wife of Kabaga and mother of
Justine. He situates the events filmed by Hughes on April 11, 1994 around 10
a.m. He comes back to the scene and tells the story on Youtube.29
Hughes identified Tatiana, the woman with the baby on the back that was
killed just before Justine and her father. He adopted two of her surviving
children. He found one of the killers, Alexandre Usabyeyezu. This one was
condemned to perpetuity in particular because of the evidence provided by
these images. With Éric Kabera, Hughes made a film of this story. He added
there extracts of video he recovered on Rwandan television in July 1994, notably
the meeting where Prime Minister Jean Kambanda brandishes his pistol.30
On April 11...
Ngulinzira, negotiator of Arusha, abandoned to killers
This April 11, 1994, French soldiers come to the “Ecole Technique Officielle”
(ETO) a school in Kicukiro (Kigali) in order to identify people to evacuate.
Boniface Ngulinzira, former minister of Foreign affairs, asks the French officer
27 Opération Silver Back.
Compte rendu, Armée belge, 15 avril 1994.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/SilverbackCompteRendu.pdf
28 Allan Thompson, The father and daughter we let down, Toronto Star, April 11, 2009.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/TheFatherAndDaughterWeLetDown11April2009.pdf . See
also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg0o1aiaC0w
29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg0o1aiaC0w.
30 Juan Reina, Éric Kabera, Nick Hughes, ISETA - Behind the Roadblock, 2008. http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/IsetaBehindTheRoadblock540p.mp4 .
13
to be evacuated. Ngulinzira is the main negotiator in Arusha for the Rwandan
government. He is hated by Bagosora and his clique of MRND (Mouvement
révolutionnaire national pour le développement), former single party created
by Habyarimana.31 He is well known to the French authorities. But when the
French military return to ETO, they ignore it. 32 Carlson’s report of United
nations states that :
On 11 April, after the expatriates in ETO had been evacuated by
French troops, the Belgian contingent at ETO left the school, leaving
behind men, women and children, many of whom were massacred
by the waiting soldiers and militia.
Mr Ngulinzira asked the French troops to evacuate him from
ETO but was refused. In massacres in the aftermath of the departure
of the UNAMIR troops, he was killed.33
In Paris, Alain Juppé invokes the Arusha Accords
In Paris, Minister of Cooperation Michel Roussin underlines that “it is not our
goal, for France, to intervene militarily in Rwanda” and he adds that “it is
clear that our mission is only of a humanitarian nature aimed at repatriating
our nationals”. For him, France’s mission is now to “try to put all our weight on
the factions present to convince them to finally find the path to the reason”.34
On the airwaves of Europe 1, Alain Juppé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, says
he is horrified by the images coming from Rwanda and calls for a return to the
Arusha agreements while in Kigali, the French abandon the main negotiator of
these agreements to the killers :
Q - Let’s move on to Rwanda, precisely, where the Americans
are a little absent, it must be said, and from where reach us terrible
stories of ethnic massacres. All over the country, the Hutus hunt the
Tutsis and vice versa...
A - You just need to see the images to realize, here again, that
horror has no limits. France, as you know, has done a lot in Rwanda
for months and months to try to return to a peaceful situation...
Q - ... without much result...
31 Mathieu Ngirumpatse, Communiqué de presse, MRND, December 22, 1992, http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/Ngirumpatse22decembre1992.pdf ; Théoneste Bagosora, Monsieur le ministre des Affaires étrangères et de la Coopération, Chef de la délégation du
gouvernement rwandais. Objet : Stratégie de la négociation, June 1st, 1993. http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/BagosoraBonifaceNgulinzira1erjuin1993.pdf
32 Circonstances de la mort de Boniface Ngurinzira.
Rapport de la mission effectuée
au Rwanda de M. Philippe Mahoux.
Commission d’enquête parlementaire du Sénat
belge, Annexe 1 [5, 1-611/9, section 3.6.5.2, p. 12] http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
SenatBelgique-r1-611-9.pdf#page=12
33 Ingvar Carlsson, Letter dated 15 December 1999 from the Secretary-general addressed
to the President of the Security Council, United nations, S/1999/1257, December 16, 1999.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Carlsson-en.pdf .
34 Interview de Michel Roussin, Information, April 11, 1994. Cf. Vincent Duclert [1, p. 391].
14
A - Yes, we had obtained results since the agreements of Arusha
had been signed, since the French soldiers had been on the ground to
facilitate reconciliation and things were progressing. Unfortunately,
it is the attack against the plane carrying the two presidents of
Rwanda and Burundi who provoked the resumption of fighting. At
that time we decided, with much speed, a lot of composure and a
lot of efficiency to set up a system at Kigali airport to evacuate our
nationals and it is now 90% done like you know. [...]
Q - When we see what is happening, do you believe that France
must ensure a continued presence in Rwanda and Burundi?
A - We cannot first lose interest in our nationals and, then I
believe that it is our duty to restart the dialogue process. It seems
impossible when we see what is happening, when we see the degree of
hatred between the Hutu and the Tutsi, but the Arusha agreements
are there and the role of France is doing everything, with all the
countries in the area, with the OAU, with the UN to try to make
reason prevail over madness which is being unleashed. This is our
role.35
On Radio Africa, Alain Juppé justifies his refusal to send soldiers to “restore order” in Rwanda while they are already there, in Rwanda, watching the
massacres:
Q: Last question, the current situation in Rwanda and Burundi
greatly worries Africans. A lot informed observers believe that
the latest measures taken by France constitutes a disengagement
of France in this area. Don’t you fear that these measures will leave
the free field for the adversaries of democracy?
A: We have to get along well. The situation in Rwanda is a
tragedy which touches us deeply. France has made considerable
efforts for months and months to facilitate the return of stability
within the framework of the Arusha Accords. We have taken very
recently the measures intended to protect our nationals. But, again,
excuse me for a certain frankness: the role of France is not to restore
order by its soldiers throughout the African continent. We cannot
replace the responsibility of African actors themselves. We call on
them today to pull themselves together to come back to the logic of
the Arusha agreements and find the path to a national harmony.
This may seem paradoxical as the battles rage a little everywhere,
but that is our role, rather than transforming ourselves again into
an interventionist power which would send its soldiers everywhere.
This is not the role of France.36
35 Interview du ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Alain Juppé, Europe 1, April 11, 1994.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Europe1Juppe11avril1994.pdf
36 Interview du ministre des Affaires étrangères, M. Alain Juppé, Africa n° 1, April 11,
1994. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/RadioAfrica1Juppe11avril1994.pdf Cf. Vincent
Duclert [1, p. 391].
15
At a press conference in Bordeaux, still this April 11, Juppé reiterates its
refusal to intervene against the massacres: “It is naturally not our duty to carry
out an operation of military character in Rwanda. It’s up to organizations
international organizations, the UN, the OAU to take their responsibilities in
this area”.37
French authorities are well informed about the genocide
On April 8, 1994, France decided to intervene in Rwanda to evacuate its nationals. The order of operation Amaryllis, which is a set instructions given
to soldiers sent to Rwanda, reveals that the genocide of the Tutsi has begun.
Indeed, we read at the beginning of this text, declassified for the Quilès Parlementary Mission of Information and published by this one, that “to avenge the
death of the president [. . . ] members of the presidential guard carried out from
07 morning reprisal actions in Kigali” including “the arrest and elimination of
opponents and Tutsi”.38 What does it mean “elimination of the Tutsi”? It is
in truth destroying the Tutsi group as such. This group is defined according to
an ethnic or racial criterion. We are well within the definition of genocide as
adopted by the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of crime of genocide adopted by the United Nations in Paris on December 9, 1948. On April 8,
1994, the authors of this operation order thus recognize that the genocide of the
Tutsi has begun. Faced with this genocide, the operation order prescribes an
attitude of neutrality. Indeed, we read on page 3: “The French detachment will
adopt a discreet attitude and neutral behavior towards of the different Rwandan
factions”.39 However, France, having signed the Convention for Prevention and
Repression of the crime of genocide, is committed to prevent and punish it or
less to take it to the United Nations.
This April 11, a note of the DGSE (Direction générale de la sûreté extérieure,
French intelligence and action agency), which dismisses the responsibility of
the RPF in the attack against the plane of the president, informs the French
government about the ongoing genocide:
Furthermore, guided by CDR activists, provided with pre-established
lists, the soldiers of the presidential guard undertook to massacre all
the Tutsi, as well as the Hutus originating from the south or supporting opposition parties. Most often, these liquidations spare neither
women nor children.
37 Intervention devant la presse du ministre des Affaires étrangères M. Alain Juppé à
l’occasion de l’inauguration du centre de commerce international de Bordeaux, 11 avril 1994,
Politique étrangère de la France - Textes et documents - La Documentation française, marsavril 1994, pp. 152-153. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/Europe1Juppe11avril1994.pdf
38 Ordre d’opération Amaryllis, 8 avril 1994, déclassifié.
Cf.
Enquête sur la
tragédie rwandaise 1990-1994 [4, Annexes, p. 344].
http://francegenocidetutsi.
org/OrdreOpAmaryllis.pdf
;
Ordre
d’opération
Amaryllis,
NMR/00901MSG/DEF/EMA/C0.TER,
8
avril
1994.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
OrdreOperationAmaryllis8avril1994.pdf
39 Ibidem
16
(1) The CDR is a Hutu extremist organization, led by MM.
Jean Barahinyura and Ferdinand Nahimana. Already, in October
93, “Radio mille collines” had called for the massacre of the Tutsi
populations to avenge the death of President Ndadaye.40
Massacre of all Tutsi, including women and children, we are right there in
the definition of genocide.
On April 12, a note from the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM)
insists on the responsibility of the Rwandan army in the massacre of Tutsi:
After the death of the Rwandan heads of state, Mr. Habyarimana, and Burundian Mr. Ntaryamira (both Hutu), occurred on the
6th Kigali in the fall of their plane the situation is critical in Rwanda,
where ethnic clashes continue. Forces Rwandan armies (FAR), after
having murdered numerous leaders of the Hutu opposition, attacked
without discrimination and with the help of young Hutus the Tutsi
part of the population and attacked the Popular Forces battalion
(RPF) stationed between the capital and the airport.41
The expression “ethnic clashes” is more than ambiguous. However, the rest
of the text explicitly states that the Rwandan armed forces, that is to say the
government army, attacks “without discrimination” “the Tutsi part of the population”. This identification of the perpetrators of the massacres is important.
It’s not about uncontrolled elements taking advantage of the chaos provoked
by the attack against the president of Rwanda. It is the Rwandan government
army, dependent on the Interim Rwandan Government that France recognizes
and with which it collaborates.
Refusal to intervene against the genocide
From April 9 to 11, 1994, French soldiers attended from the French school to
the massacre filmed on the 11th by Nick Hughes without opposing it. They are
not, like others, simple helpless spectators, simple “bystanders”. They are not
paralyzed by a restrictive mandate of the UN.
The French authorities know that a genocide has been launched on the 8th
April 1994 as indicated in the Amaryllis operation order already cited above
and confirmed by other French sources such as the DGSE and DRM. Observing
a genocide and deciding not to oppose it is being in breach of the Convention
about prevention and repression of the crime of genocide of which France is a
signatory. This is all the more serious as France had troops on place who could
join the UN peacekeepers to stop the genocide.
40 Fiche particulière n° 18502/N - Rwanda :
Précisions sur la mort des Présidents rwandais et burundais, DGSE, April 11, 1994. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
DGSE18502N11avril1994.pdf Cf. Vincent Duclert [1, p. 390]
41 Éléments de situation du 12 avril 1994, DRM, Note n° 1202 DEF/DRM/SDE/SITU du 12
avril 1994. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/NoteN1202DRM12avril1994.pdf Cf. Vincent
Duclert [1, p. 389]
17
To camouflage this refusal to intervene against the massacrers and avoid
a scandal, we will hide the reality from our fellow citizens. Colonel Poncet,
commander of the French troops arrived on April 9, 1994 as part of operation
“Amaryllis”, writes blandly :
The media were present from the second day of the operation.
The COMOPS made their work easier by giving them two press
briefings daily and helping them in their travels but with a permanent concern not to show French soldiers limiting access to regroupment centers only for foreigners on the territory of Rwanda
(Directive No. 008/DEF/EMA of April 10, 1994) or not intervening
to stop the massacres which they were nearby witnesses.42
In order to justify not having intervened to stop the massacres which took
place in front of the French soldiers during Operation Amaryllis, Admiral Lanxade, Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, will write: “nous n’avions pas,
alors, d’information sur un début des massacres (we did not have, then, information on a start of massacres).43
This is of course a lie, because on April 13, 1994 in the Conseil restreint, when
François Mitterrand asks him if the massacres will spread, Admiral Lanxade
replies: “Ils sont déjà considérables. Mais maintenant ce sont les Tutsis qui
massacreront les Hutus dans Kigali (They are already considerable. But now it
is the Tutsis who will massacre the Hutus in Kigali).44 Both the Admiral and
the President of the Republic were well informed of the massacres.
Assistance to the perpetrators of the genocide?
This non-action is clearly a matter of non-assistance to people in danger. This
offense is prescribed after nine years in French law. But this is not just about
failure to assist people in danger. On April 8, French Ambassador Jean-Michel
Marlaud announced in Paris the composition of the Interim Government, saying that “ces décisions sont les plus conformes possibles aux Accords d’Arusha”
(these decisions are the most consistent possible under the Arusha Accords).45
These peace agreements of Arusha provided that the RPF would have five ministerial portfolios. Not only is the RPF excluded from this government but the
most extremist members of the other parties are sitting, the most moderate
being assassinated or hiding.
42 Henri Poncet, Le colonel commandant l’opération Amaryllis à Monsieur l’Amiral
Chef d’état-major des Armées.
Objet : Compte rendu de l’opération Amaryllis,
N° 018/3° RPIMa/EM/CD, 27 avril 1994, p. 6.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
PoncetCrAmaryllis3eRpima27avril1994.pdf
43 Jacques
Lanxade
[2,
p.
174].
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
LanxadeQuandLeMonde174.pdf
44 Conseil restreint, April 13, 1994.
Secretariat: Colonel Bentégeat.
http://
francegenocidetutsi.org/ConseilRestreint13avril1994.pdf
45 Jean-Michel Marlaud, TD Kigali 326 - Objet : Situation politique, 8 avril 1994. http:
//francegenocidetutsi.org/TdKigali326Marlaud8avril1994.pdf .
REFERENCES
18
This April 11, the French ambassador receives Jérôme Bicamumpaka, Minister of Foreign Affairs in this Interim Government. Jean-Michel Marlaud reports
in Paris: “ Les FAR souhaitent pouvoir envoyer des effectifs complémentaires
au combat et, dans ce but, nous sollicitent pour les aider à assurer la sécurité
à Kigali. Selon mon interlocuteur, la Gendarmerie est déjà parvenue à réduire
significativement le niveau des massacres et des pillages (The FAR wish to be
able to send additional troops into combat and, for this purpose, are asking us
to help them ensure the security in Kigali. According to my interlocutor, the
Gendarmerie is already succeeded in significantly reducing the level of massacres
and looting). No one would have informed the French ambassador of the massacre in progress in front of the French school ? Finally, the minister “évoque
un problème d’approvisionnement en munitions et indique que le Gouvernement
pourrait être amené à nous présenter une requête” (mentions a problem of ammunition supply and indicates that the Government could be required to present
to us a query).46
The content of the remarks exchanged between Ambassador Marlaud and
the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Interim Government is far away from
indifference or neutrality. While the massacres beat in full swing on April 11,
1994, it was discussed between the two men of military assistance to the forces
which organize the massacres and to provide them with ammunition.47
Is this a matter of non-assistance to people in danger or rather assistance to
people committing genocide?
References
[1] Commission de recherche sur les archives françaises relatives
au Rwanda et au génocide des Tutsi : La France, le Rwanda et le
génocide des Tutsi (1990-1994). Armand Colin, 2021. Rapport remis au
président de la République le 26 mars 2021.
[2] Jacques Lanxade : Quand le monde a basculé. Nil éditions, 2001.
[3] Jean-Marie Milleliri : Un souvenir du Rwanda. L’Harmattan, 1997.
[4] Paul Quilès : Enquête sur la tragédie rwandaise 1990-1994. Assemblée nationale, rapport n° 1271, http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/
dossiers/rwanda.asp, 15 décembre 1998. Mission d’information de la commission de la Défense nationale et des Forces armées et de la commission
46 Jean-Michel Marlaud, TD Kigali 363 - Objet :
Entretien avec le ministre
des Affaires étrangères, 11 avril 1994, 14 h 04.
http://francegenocidetutsi.org/
19940411EmaTDKigali363.pdf .
47 The Duclert report cites extracts from this TD 363 of Marlaud, commenting:
“L’ambassadeur de France, lui, semble toujours pris dans des négociations et des combinaisons politiques hasardeuses (The ambassador of France, for his part, always seems caught
up in negotiations and risky political combinations). He notes that the assertion on the significant reduction in the level of massacres is not commented on by the ambassador while it
is contradicted by all testimonies. Cf. Vincent Duclert [1, p. 373].
REFERENCES
19
des Affaires étrangères, sur les opérations militaires menées par la France,
d’autres pays et l’ONU au Rwanda entre 1990 et 1994.
[5] Sénat de Belgique - Commission des Affaires étrangères : Commission d’enquête parlementaire concernant les événements du Rwanda 1611/(7-15) 1997/1998. Sénat belge, 6 décembre 1997.
REFERENCES
20
Figure 3: A sniper protects a French school as it is evacuated April 11, 1994 in
Kigali, Rwanda (Scott Peterson - Getty)
21
REFERENCES
Figure 4: Liz Gilbert, Civil war in Rwanda: atmosphere in Kigali, 11 April
1994, Corbis.
Figure 5: France 2, April 12, 1994, 7:30 a.m.
22
REFERENCES
Figure 6: France 2, April 12, 1994, 7:30 a.m.
Figure 7: United Nations soldiers maintain security during evacuations April
13, 1994 in Kigali, Rwanda. Following the apparent assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a massive wave of Hutu-inflicted revenge
killings has rocked the African nation, leaving thousands of Tutsi civilians dead
and renewing the civil war between the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front and
the Hutu-backed government. (Photo by Scott Peterson/Liaison)
