Washington, London and RPF complicity (by  Helmut STRIZEK)[1]

The most important “black hole” still concerns the decisions made in Washington and London regarding support for the RPF victory and the knowledge these two capitals had about the preparations for the assassination of the two presidents on 6 April 1994. They did all they could to prevent an investigation.

And why doesn’t the French government publish the Bruguière Report? Regarding the UN Security Council’s decision of 21 April 1994 to withdraw the UNAMIR, Madeleine Albright stated in an interview on 25 February 2004 that she merely called in the aforementioned Richard Clarke to the National Security Council but not the National Security Adviser, Tony Lake.

 Why? “I think he probably was busy. I don’t know.” This answer is not very convincing for a person who affirms: “I wish it had been possible for us to do more. (…) I have reviewed the record a lot, and I don’t think actually that we could have done more. (…) It was a secretly planned genocide …and then a volcanic explosion of this horror. This is my firm belief; that even if we had been able to get anybody there, it could not have been stopped because it was just so – volcanic is the only word.”[2]

 After 10 years she just repeats the “official version.”

The number of Hutus killed in the area conquered by the RPF during and after the war still remains a secret. Charles Karemano has described in a very touching way how the RPF systematically killed even those Hutus who had demonstrated their neutrality or sympathy for the “new order” (KAREMANO 2003). Seth Sendashonga, a Hutu and long-standing member of the RPF, was the first Minister of the Interior in the new government formed on 19 July 1994. When he realised that these killings were intended to systematically discourage the return of the refugees from Zaire, he left the government together with Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu in August 1995 and sought exile in Kenya, where he was murdered on 16 May 1998.

Research is also needed in respect of the role played by General Dallaire, since Jacques Roger Booh-Booh, his “political boss” in Rwanda, severely criticized his policy. Before 6 April 1994, Dallaire was accused of not having passed on to New York the information provided by Booh-Booh concerning the RPF’s preparations to resume the war. After the downing of the presidential aircraft, Booh-Booh blamed Dallaire for having interfered politically in favour of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, although he had no mandate to do so[3]. Was her death a few hours later the result of Dallaire’s lack of wisdom in urging her to speak to the nation on Radio Rwanda?[4]

The whole truth about what happened in Rwanda before and after the Tutsi genocide cannot be established as long as all the powers involved in the UN Security Council decision of 21 April 1994 to abandon the Tutsi population are determined to keep the main documents and evidence classified for as long as possible.