Colonel Theoneste BagosoraRead this article below:
Major Rwandan Genocidaires Convicted
In 1994, the small African country of Rwanda was the site of one of the most horrific genocides since the Holocaust. In about 100 days, extremist Hutus murdered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, 10% of the nation's population. It has taken 14 years, but at last, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania, has sentenced some of those responsible at the highest level to life in prison. The death penalty is not permitted under the court's charter, but this is one of those cases where it is more than justified.
The man behind it all is Theoneste Bagosora, the chief of staff of Rwanda's Ministry of Defense when the murders began. He walked out of peace talks in Tanzania between the Hutu and Tutsi in 1994 saying he was returning to Rwanda to “prepare the apocalypse.” He took control of the government after President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, the signal for the murders to begin. The Times succinctly explained, “Hours after the president's aircraft came down, the brutal Interahamwe militants set up roadblocks across Kigali and the next day began killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The slaughter, coordinated by Bagosara, eventually ended after Tutsi rebels invaded from neighbouring Uganda and drove out the genocidal forces.”
What is particularly appalling about the events that spring is the way civilian Hutu succumbed to radio propaganda that incited them to genocide. Labeling their fellow Rwandans “cockroaches,” extremist Hutus used Radio Rwanda and Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) to broadcast constant provocation of which Himmler would have been proud. Moreover, these broadcasts pre-dated the genocide by months and months.
Another horrifying part of this dark zone in human history was the general disinterest in the rest of the world. Some of this is certainly due to general ignorance about African affairs, and some of it can only be attributed to latent racism. The Guardian reported, “In 2004, intelligence reports obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act showed that the then US president, Bill Clinton, and his cabinet were almost certainly told about a 'final solution' to eliminate the Tutsi population in the early days of the killing. In 2000 the UN security council accepted responsibility for failing to prevent the genocide. A week earlier, Belgium's then prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, made a public apology for his country's failings.” Yet, no one tried to stop the murders until it was too late. For a depressingly well-written account of the entire disaster, one can do no better than to read General Romeo Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil.
(source: http://www.kensingtonreview.com/2008D/1219/Genocidaire.html)
Continue reading for the article about Bagosora's sentencing.
I went to Rwanda this past summer and I loved it! I went in there with stupid and ignorant ideas, like was the genocide still going on? If people were to look at me, will they think I was Hutu or Tutsi etc etc. But of course the country is very calm, the people are quiet and probably want to be clear of all those past memories. One particular person I won't forget is my aunt's driver. He is Tutsi and everyone in his family but himself was killed - his parents, his siblings, extended family. And it's amazing to see him still love life and smile and just be a nice person. But I bet after the news that Theoneste Bagosora - the mastermind of the genocide - was sentenced to life in prison, he felt just a tad better, like "justice", to a small extent, had been served.
Anyway, that's my take. Read the objective article here.
