{"id":55416,"date":"2025-08-29T16:22:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/agathe-habyarimana-france-s-useful-victim-of-genocide\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T16:21:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T16:21:59","slug":"agathe-habyarimana-france-s-useful-victim-of-genocide","status":"publish","type":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/opinion\/agathe-habyarimana-france-s-useful-victim-of-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Agathe Habyarimana: France\u2019s useful \u201cvictim\u201d of Genocide?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The judges, in their boundless wisdom, wrote: \u201cThere are insufficient charges against Agathe Kanziga (Habyarimana) to show she could have been an accomplice to genocide\u201d or that she could have participated in \u201cconspiracy to commit genocide.\u201d And then, with a straight face, they concluded: \u201cTo date, Agathe Kanziga appears not as the perpetrator of genocide, but as a victim of the terrorist attack\u201d that killed her husband and relatives.<\/p>\n

Seriously? The French court seems to have a flavor for tragic wit. To call Agathe Kanziga a \u201cvictim\u201d of the downing of her husband\u2019s plane is like calling Joseph Goebbels a \u201cvictim\u201d of Adolf Hitler\u2019s suicide, or Adolf Eichmann a \u201cvictim\u201d of Argentina\u2019s warm climate in a summer. If this jurisdictional reasoning were not so laughable, it would almost be funny. But it is not comic\u2014it is an insult to history, to truth, and to the bones of over a million slaughtered Tutsi.<\/p>\n

Let us recall the \u201cscraps of paper\u201d and uniforms of death. If the French judiciary had even a grain of historical curiosity, it would have turned its gaze toward one key date: November 15, 1992\u2014in Ruhengeri town. That day, President Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana addressed a rally of his party, the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND). His speech was one long outburst against the Arusha Peace Talks, especially the October 1992\u2014protocol on power-sharing. The language he used is haunting\u2014and damning.<\/p>\n

On the Arusha Peace Agreements, he mocked: \u201cThey keep telling us that peace has been signed in Arusha. But I ask you, my brothers and sisters, is peace a piece of paper? Can peace be written on a page? These so-called agreements from Arusha are nothing but scraps of paper. Peace is not made by signatures in a faraway place; peace is made here, among us, in Rwanda, with Rwandans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScraps of paper.\u201d That was Habyarimana\u2019s dislike for peace. That was his declaration that he had no intention of honoring the accords. And when he spoke of defending Rwanda against these \u201cscraps of paper,\u201d he had no misconceptions about who his soldiers were: not the national army, not the constitution, not the law\u2014but the Interahamwe.<\/p>\n

Habyarimana declared: \u201cAnd when the time comes, if these people continue to provoke us, I will send for the Interahamwe and we shall come down together. The Interahamwe will stand firm for our cause, because they are the youth who defend our movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was not a president appealing to a political youth wing. This was a head of state announcing, in broad daylight, that his personal militia would defend him against the very idea of sharing power. He did not stop there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want the Interahamwe to have their own uniforms. The party will provide them, so that when we are out in public, they are recognized and respected. They must be seen and known as the strength of our movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes! He was talking about uniforms, visibility and status. He wanted them paraded not as criminals and thugs\u2014 but as an official arm of his rule. He unambiguously tied his political future to the Interahamwe: \u201cI know very well that the ones who will campaign for me the most, the ones who will defend me the most, are the Interahamwe, because we are together. They are my strength, they are your strength, they are the strength of Rwanda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely, \u201cthe strength of Rwanda.\u201d Rwanda, in Habyarimana\u2019s wordlist, was not a nation of Tutsi and Hutu citizens but a fortress of Hutu Power, with the Interahamwe as its godparents. His speech in Ruhengeri was a declaration of war\u2014not against the Arusha peace process, but against coexistence, against democracy, and against the Tutsi.<\/p>\n

{{Enter the First Lady of death}}<\/p>\n

Now, who was sitting immediately at his right-hand side during this rally? None other than Agathe Kanziga, the First Lady. And not in ordinary attire. She was the only high-ranking figure wearing the Interahamwe uniform.<\/p>\n

Of course, the judges in Paris tell us that Agathe is a \u201cvictim.\u201d A widow. Portrayed as an unfortunate bystander to history. But picture the scene: the president roaring that the Interahamwe are the strength of Rwanda, that they will have uniforms, that they will march to defend him. And right there, to his right, is his wife, already in uniform. A living embodiment of his words. A mannequin of militancy and combativeness. Habyarimana\u2019s bedmate turned billboard for genocide.<\/p>\n

This was not a symbolic accident. This was a deliberate, frightening message: The First Lady herself consecrated the Interahamwe. She gave them social legitimacy, elite approval, and the aura of untouchable power. Agathe Kanziga was not merely attending a usual political rally\u2014she was mobilizing. She was advertising. She was saying, \u201cThis is not just the president\u2019s militia; this is the family\u2019s militia, the household\u2019s soldiers of fortune, the Hutu nation\u2019s militia.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Interahamwe were the killing machine, then Agathe was its poster girl. One does not wear the uniform of genocidaires by mistake. One does not sit beside a man spitting venom against peace accords while dressed in the very costume of his militias and later claim to be nothing more than a \u201cvictim.\u201d Unless, of course, one is being tried in Paris.<\/p>\n

Kanziga was the mobilizer in chief. The Interahamwe would later prove their \u201cstrength of Rwanda\u201d by hacking men, women, and children with machetes, by setting up roadblocks, by stuffing bodies in rivers. But the spirit of their violence was not born in 1994\u2014it was rehearsed in 1992, when the president himself exalted them. And his wife, Agathe, clothed herself in their image.<\/p>\n

The symbolism cannot be overstated. Her status as First Lady meant that her actions reverberated throughout the elite and down to the grassroots. When she donned that uniform, she was sending a message: \u201cI am with the killers. I am above the law. I am the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

And just a week after this rally\u201422 November 1992, another loyalist, Dr. L\u00e9on Mugesera, was inspired enough to declare publicly that the Tutsi would be sent back to Abyssinia through the River Nyabarongo. Words that would become a prophecy soaked in blood.<\/p>\n

The significance and consequences of that Ruhengeri rally were immediate and bloody. Killings of Tutsi erupted in Gisenyi and Kibuye prefectures. Interahamwe did not wait for 1994\u2014they sharpened their blades early, encouraged by the President\u2019s speech and legitimized by the First Lady\u2019s symbolic uniform.<\/p>\n

At the same time, criminal fanatics of the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) party openly attacked the Arusha peace talks, declaring them a betrayal of Rwanda. Their statements, saturated with venom of hatred, created an atmosphere where compromise became treason and where Tutsi extermination became patriotism. More shocking still, it is around this time\u2014Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, openly declared that he was going to prepare for the apocalypse. And indeed, he did.<\/p>\n

The symbolism of a First Lady in Interahamwe attire was the direct endorsement of these killers\u2019 actions. The stage was set. The hate speeches were made. The uniforms were worn. The massacres followed. This was not mere rhetoric\u2014it was mobilization in blood.<\/p>\n

One cannot discuss this era without mentioning the creation of RTLM, the so-called \u201cradio of a thousand hills.\u201d This was not just a media project; it was a weapon. Habyarimana himself and his in-law Felicien Kabuga were among its founding members, and the airwaves soon carried the poison of Hutu Power ideology into every home.<\/p>\n

RTLM called for extermination with the same casual tone one might use to announce weather forecasts. And Agathe\u2019s silence\u2014her complicity\u2014spoke volumes. She stood not as a grieving wife but as an active enabler of a genocidal orchestra where RTLM provided the soundtrack and the Interahamwe provided the dance.<\/p>\n

Even her personal actions betray the narrative of \u201cvictimhood.\u201d When her husband\u2019s plane was shot down in April 1994, Agathe did not stay to organize a dignified funeral for her husband or her brother Colonel Elie Sagatwa. No, she left immediately, boarding a French air force plane. She did not weep in Rwanda; she vanished into French protection. A heartless departure that linked her directly to the machine of genocide. Kanziga saw the death of her husband not as a personal tragedy requiring mourning, but as the opening act of the mass slaughter to come.<\/p>\n

{{Judicial amnesia}}<\/p>\n

But of course, this is France. The same France whose political and military elites indulged, armed, and diplomatically shielded the Habyarimana regime, then launched Operation Turquoise as a cover for genocidaires to escape into Zaire, now DR Congo. The same France that has hosted several genocidaires on its soil while dragging its feet on extradition requests. The same France where denial of the Holocaust will land you in prison but denial of the Genocide Against the Tutsi will earn you book contracts and polite debates on television.<\/p>\n

And so, in this grand tradition of selective memory, French judges now declare Agathe a \u201cvictim.\u201d It is almost whimsical. After all, some French citizens who are friends of genocidaires insist that France was a \u201cvictim\u201d of circumstances in Rwanda. That their country merely tried to help, that its soldiers were misunderstood, that its intentions were noble. Victims all around! The only problem is the million dead Tutsi whose silence cannot be cross-examined.<\/p>\n

Let us return to the judges\u2019 own words: \u201cTo date, Agathe Kanziga appears not as the perpetrator of genocide, but as a victim of the terrorist attack in which her husband, brother, and relatives were killed.\u201d To grant her this status is to weaponize widowhood as a shield against complicity. Yes, her husband died in the downing of his plane\u2014but so did over a million Rwandan Tutsis in the genocide that followed. Kanziga\u2019s personal tragedy does not erase her political agency.<\/p>\n

Was Agathe Kanziga sitting beside her husband in Interahamwe uniform in 1992 a \u201cvictim\u201d of the tailor who stitched the cloth? Was she a \u201cvictim\u201d of bad lighting that made her look militant? Was she a \u201cvictim\u201d of her husband\u2019s script? This is the absurdity that Paris asks us to believe.<\/p>\n

If the Interahamwe did not commit genocide, then perhaps Agathe is a victim. If the August 4, 1993 Arusha Peace Agreement was not sabotaged, then perhaps she is a victim. But history records otherwise. And survivors bear witness otherwise.<\/p>\n

The dismissal of her case is more than a judicial decision\u2014it is a performance. A performance of European justice, where genocide is a tragedy until it implicates European allies. Where widowhood is innocence, especially when the widow resides in Paris. Where evidence is insufficient when the accused is a well-connected octogenarian sipping wine in some French outskirts, but irresistible when the accused is an impoverished African refugee.<\/p>\n

One marvels at what kind of evidence France would accept. A video of Agathe Kanziga distributing machetes, AK-47s or grenades at roadblocks? A selfie in front of mass graves? Perhaps even then, the judges would find \u201cinsufficient charges,\u201d noting that she looked exhausted and therefore was almost certainly a victim.<\/p>\n

France may not judge Agathe Kanziga, but history will. Survivors will. And history will remember her not as a widow in mourning but as the First Lady of Interahamwe, the woman who gave her face, her status, and her authority to the machinery of genocide. History will recall that when her husband mocked peace as \u201cscraps of paper,\u201d she was at his side, personifying the militia that would shred those scraps with machetes and hand grenades.<\/p>\n

The court may dismiss her case, but it cannot dismiss the truth: she was there, in uniform, at the rally where genocide was rehearsed. She was not the victim of terror; she was terror in uniform.<\/p>\n

In the end, this French ruling is itself a \u201cscrap of paper.\u201d To survivors, it is worth no more than the Arusha Agreement was worth to Habyarimana. It is the judiciary\u2019s way of saying that peace, justice, and accountability are optional when the accused is sheltered under the French flag. It is Paris performing once more its old Fran\u00e7ois Mitterand\u2019s era dance: absolve the killers, dismiss the victims, and pretend neutrality.<\/p>\n

History already taught us what happens when leaders call accords \u201cscraps of paper.\u201d The phrase has been an indication of destruction. We remember the German Kaiser dismissing Belgian neutrality as a \u201cscrap of paper\u201d in 1914, unleashing the First World War, to Habyarimana contemptuous words at Arusha in 1992, unleashing rivers of blood. When MRND and CDR called peace a scrap, it is Tutsis who were shredded.<\/p>\n

So let France celebrate its judicial cowardice. Let it crown Agathe a \u201cvictim.\u201d Survivors know better. History knows better. And Rwanda will never forget.<\/p>\n

{{Farewell to French Justice}}<\/p>\n

So here we are: Agathe Kanziga, the First Lady of Interahamwe, the woman in uniform at Ruhengeri, the enabler of RTLM, the cold-blooded widow who fled on a French plane without so much as an honorable funeral for her husband and brother\u2014now transformed, courtesy of Paris, into a fragile, innocent \u201cvictim.\u201d It would be laughable if it were not drenched in blood.<\/p>\n

One cannot help but imagine the French judges writing their verdict with a straight face, pausing only to drink their Bordeaux wine. \u201cInsufficient charges,\u201d they murmur, as though genocide were a misplaced parking ticket. Perhaps they believe machetes need notarized receipts, or that RTLM broadcasts must be accompanied by sworn affidavits before they can count as evidence.<\/p>\n

France, which criminalizes Holocaust denial, has become the spa resort of Tutsi genocide denial. Here, genocidaires enjoy croissants, trials drag on for decades, and widows of mass murderers are declared victims.<\/p>\n

But history is not fooled. History has a longer memory than the archives of Paris. It remembers Agathe Kanziga in Interahamwe costume, remembers Gisenyi and Kibuye\u20141992-3 in flames, remembers Bagosora\u2019s apocalypse, remembers the Nyabarongo prophecy, remembers the \u201cscraps of paper\u201d that turned into shreds of lives.<\/p>\n

French judges may dismiss her case, but history does not dismiss hers. The record is sealed not in legal documents but in graves, in testimonies, in scarred survivors. That is the final verdict, and it is irreversible.<\/p>\n

Rwanda\u2019s history has the truth. And that truth, unlike France\u2019s rulings, will never be dismissed.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 20, 2025, investigating judges in Paris declared that they were dismissing the case against Agathe Kanziga, widow of Rwanda\u2019s former president Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana. The octogenarian, who has lived in France since 1998, has long been wanted by Rwanda and genocide survivors for her alleged role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. But thanks to this ruling, she will likely never face trial in a French court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":2000093382,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[75],"byline":[271],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-55416","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-homenews","byline-tom-ndahiro"],"bylines":[{"id":271,"name":"Tom Ndahiro","slug":"tom-ndahiro","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":271,"name":"Tom Ndahiro","slug":"tom-ndahiro","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000093382,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/whatsapp_image_2025-08-29_at_2.27_27_pm.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/55416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/55416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000093382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55416"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=55416"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=55416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}