Tag: HomeIrambuye

Speaking at the international diplomacy forum underway in Antalya, Turkey, Nduhungirehe highlighted Africa as the continent with the richest natural resources and a youthful population that could drive sustainable development.

“We have countries that are inexplicably poor, yet we are a rich continent. We have youth, with a majority under 18. I believe that by 2050, one-third of the world’s youth will be African,” he said.

He pointed out that persistent conflicts continue to hinder Africa’s development and are often rooted in poor governance, lack of job opportunities for youth, and discrimination.

“As you know, the root causes of conflict on this continent are the same, bad governance, lack of opportunities for young people, youth unemployment, and discrimination. We must solve these problems now, because if we don’t, they’ll return in five or ten years,” he emphasized.

Nduhungirehe explained that many of these conflicts have their origins in colonial-era borders and stressed the importance of regional cooperation to resolve them.

“We have committed to working together, investing, adding value to what we produce, and reaping the benefits of our collaboration.” He warned that without such cooperation, external forces, intent on keeping African countries dependent, will succeed in dividing the continent.

“Otherwise, there are indeed external forces that want to turn Africa into a battleground, dividing us from all sides so we remain dependent, instead of self-reliant.”

The minister stated that it is up to African nations to recognize the wealth they possess and facilitate movement and trade through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

According to Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi, after the Belgian authorities killed King Musinga, Rudahigwa desperately pleaded with them to release his father’s body for a dignified burial.

Despite offering a substantial sum of money, Belgium callously refused his request and instead transported the remains to Europe.

Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi shared these historical details on February 10, 2025, during a commemoration event for the employees of the National Bank of Rwanda who were tragically killed in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

He provided context by explaining Belgium’s initial colonial strategy in Rwanda, which involved fostering ethnic divisions. Initially, the Belgians favored the Tutsi population as the dominant group but later shifted their support to the Hutu, a manipulative tactic to consolidate their control.

Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi emphasized that this shift in Belgian allegiance coincided with the growing aspirations for independence in the 1960s, a sentiment echoing across the African continent at the time.

Consequently, the Belgians began to champion the Hutu, portraying them as the ascendant group.

Rudahigwa’s ascension to the throne following his father King Musinga occurred during this period of transition.

Musinga, known for his staunch opposition to Belgian rule, faced conflict with the colonizers, ultimately leading to his exile and death in Moba, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1944.

Following his father’s dethronement and exile, Rudahigwa became king, largely due to his ability to engage and negotiate with the Belgian administration.

Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi recounted Rudahigwa’s determined efforts after Musinga’s death in 1944 to repatriate his father’s body for a proper burial in Rwanda.

He revealed Rudahigwa’s pleas and his offer of a significant payment to the Belgians.

“When Musinga died in Moba in 1944, Rudahigwa did everything he could to bring his father back, saying, ‘I want to return my father’s remains; given you will no longer be affected by his actions since he passed away.’ They told him, ‘The money required is too much, you won’t be able to get it.’ He replied, ‘Just let me try, maybe I will fail to raise it but I can at least try,’ and they said, ‘Then get the money’,” Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi stated.

He further explained Rudahigwa’s efforts to secure the necessary funds, stating that the king approached leaders of various territories to request financial assistance to bring his father’s remains home. Despite successfully raising the required amount, the Belgians still refused to release the body.

“He eventually got the money and paid them, but instead of giving him his father’s remains, they transported it over the sky of Rwanda and sent it to Europe,” Lt Col (Rtd) Nyirimanzi continued.

The historian also highlighted that beyond the denial of his father’s burial, Rudahigwa himself faced increasing hostility from the Belgians due to his leadership in the growing independence movement.

This resistance ultimately led to Rudahigwa’s assassination in 1959. He was lured to Bujumbura under the pretense of preparing for an overseas trip, where he was poisoned through a conspiracy involving his personal Belgian doctor.

Rudahigwa’s assassination was part of a broader strategy by Belgium to maintain their control over Rwanda by eliminating influential leaders who opposed their colonial rule.

In 2017, former Vice President of the Senate, Gakuba Jeanne d’Arc, publicly called upon relevant authorities to actively work towards the repatriation of King Yuhi V Musinga’s remains to Rwanda.

King Musinga reigned from 1896 to 1931 and was succeeded by his son, Mutara III Rudahigwa, who played a pivotal role in Rwanda’s struggle for independence.

Musinga’s reign was characterized by his resistance to Belgian colonial authority, which ultimately resulted in his deposition and exile. Rudahigwa was later succeeded by his brother, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, the last monarch of Rwanda.

During the commencement of the 100-day commemoration of the 31st anniversary of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi on April 7, 2025, Rwanda’s Minister of Unity and Civic Engagement, Dr. Bizimana Jean Damascène, underscored Belgium’s significant and detrimental role in Rwanda’s history, which ultimately contributed to the Genocide.

Dr. Bizimana emphasized that Belgium’s actions in promoting ethnic divisions and suppressing Rwandan leaders, including the assassinations of both King Musinga and his son Rudahigwa, constituted a profound betrayal that deepened the suffering of the Rwandan people.

Dr. Bizimana lamented that no other African nation had witnessed the killing of two successive monarchs, a father and son, by colonizers in such regrettable circumstances.

Following Rudahigwa’s death, Belgium further entrenched ethnic divisions by supporting the creation of the Hutu-dominated political party, Parti démocratique de l’unité et du progrès (Paremehutu), which played a significant role in fueling the ethnic tensions that tragically culminated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

Instead, he turned his attention to eliminating the commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), Major Paul Kagame. To carry out this plan, Habyarimana turned to Captain Paul Barril, a former French gendarme and an official envoy of French President François Mitterrand.

Barril, already close to the Rwandan regime, was tasked with a covert operation called “Insecticide,” a code name that revealed its brutal intentions; to weaken the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and assassinate its top leadership, particularly Kagame.

Barril had begun working with the Rwandan government in 1990, shortly after the RPF launched its liberation war. He helped facilitate weapons deals and provided military training, support that would later prove critical in preparing state forces and militias for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

In a 2004 interview with filmmaker Raphaël Glucksmann, Barril admitted that one of his earliest assignments was to “infiltrate and spy on the RPF down to its roots.”

According to a 2013 report by the French NGO Survie, Barril was hired in early 1993 to carry out the “Insecticide” operation, receiving $130,000 for his efforts. His priority target being Kagame.

Although the exact details of the assassination plot remain unclear, Survie notes that Kagame was to be killed at his base in Mulindi. It was not the regime’s first attempt. Back in 1991, a woman had been sent to poison Kagame but was caught before executing the plan. Barril’s attempt also failed.

With the assassination plan unsuccessful, Barril refocused his efforts on reinforcing the regime’s military capabilities. He helped train elite units at the Bigogwe military camp in today’s Nyabihu District.

These soldiers were tasked with undermining RPF operations and accelerating the extermination of Tutsi civilians.

His efforts complemented those of CRAP (Commando de Reconnaissance et d’Action en Profondeur), a French-trained unit established in 1992 to obstruct RPF advances. Despite this foreign-backed support, the Rwandan army continued to lose ground.

As the genocide escalated in mid-1994, Barril was again called upon. The then Minister of Defense Augustin Bizimana wrote to him, requesting for 1,000 French mercenaries to assist the struggling Rwandan military.

Barril received $1.2 million for the mission. The mercenaries were sent, but they failed to prevent the fall of Kigali or stop the RPF.

In September 1994, an increasingly desperate Bizimana wrote again, this time demanding a refund for services Barril had failed to deliver, a moment that captured the crumbling authority of the genocidal regime.

In the years following the genocide, Barril sought to distance himself from his role. He spread the false claim that the genocide would not have occurred had President Habyarimana not been assassinated, ignoring his own direct involvement in preparing the structures that carried it out.

Barril’s testimony has been consistently inconsistent, often marked by contradictions and falsehoods. He also falsely claimed to be in possession of the black box from Habyarimana’s downed plane, a statement later debunked.

Though he failed to carry out his most notorious mission, his contributions to the arming and training of genocidal forces remain part of the historical record. His legacy is not one of success, but of complicity.

He had just wrapped up a regional summit in Arusha, Tanzania, where heads of state from Rwanda, Burundi, and neighboring countries had gathered to discuss regional security. The meeting dragged on, and Ntaryamira was in a rush to return home.

His own jet, a sleek Falcon, was out of commission, undergoing repairs in Switzerland. Instead, he had made the trip to Arusha in a painfully slow Beechcraft he had borrowed, what one might call a flying tractor by presidential standards.

Desperate to avoid a late-night arrival in Bujumbura, Ntaryamira decided to pull strings. According to his former security chief, Déo Ngendahayo, the Burundian president made an unplanned request to his Rwandan counterpart Juvénal Habyarimana and asked, quite literally, for a “lift”.

“He stood up and said, ‘I’m going to ask President Habyarimana for a ride. I’m running late. It wasn’t something we had planned. There was no time to discuss security. He made the decision on the spot,” Ngendahayo recalled.

Habyarimana agreed, but only had three extra seats; one for Ntaryamira himself, one for his minister, and one for his aide-de-camp. Ngendahayo, who was in charge of the president’s security, didn’t make the cut, an opportunity that would turn out to be a twist of fate that saved his life.

Earlier that day, Habyarimana had visited Gbadolite in Zaire to meet Mobutu Sese Seko. Intelligence had reportedly warned him that if he went to the summit in Arusha, his plane would be shot down. Still, he went, perhaps thinking he could outfly fate.

At 8 p.m., as the Dassault Falcon 50 approached Kanombe Airport, two missiles struck it from the sky. The plane exploded midair and crashed into the garden of Habyarimana’s own residence in Kanombe. Everyone on board died instantly, including Ntaryamira, the man who had begged for a faster ride home.

Ngendahayo has since denied any conspiracy suggesting Habyarimana brought Ntaryamira aboard to shield himself with another head of state. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “He just asked. And Habyarimana said yes.”

A rushed decision, a borrowed seat, a fatal shortcut. In the end, the president of Burundi didn’t just miss his ride, he hitched one straight into history’s deadliest turning points.

These narratives argue that the genocide was a reaction by Hutu civilians, enraged by the downing of President Habyarimana’s plane, prompting them to lash out and begin killing Tutsi across the country overnight.

But beyond the lists of names, the pre-dug mass graves, and the early massacres that occurred throughout Rwanda, irrefutable evidence had already been gathered by the international community showing that Habyarimana’s regime was planning to exterminate at least 700,000 Tutsi.

France, a staunch ally of President Habyarimana, learnt of this plot as early as October 1990, just days after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched its liberation struggle.

At the time, Colonel René Galinié, then the French military attaché at the French embassy in Kigali, had served in Rwanda for three years.

On October 8, 1990, he sent a report to his superiors in Paris warning that Tutsi civilians in Kigali were being arrested and killed. This came in the wake of a crackdown on alleged RPF collaborators that began on October 5.

Five days later, Galinié sent another dispatch. He reported that organized Hutu groups were hunting down Tutsi in the hills, and that killings had already begun in Kibilira commune (now in Ngororero District).

A 1998 report by the French Parliamentary Commission later confirmed that between October 11 and 13, 1990, 348 Tutsi were massacred in Kibilira, and more than 500 homes were burned down. None of the victims were RPF fighters or affiliated with the movement, they were killed simply for being Tutsi.

When asked by journalists about the massacre in Kibilira, President Habyarimana dismissed it, saying, “There’s nothing serious, all the people respect the authorities.”

By October 9, 1990, just over a week after the RPF launched its offensive, the Rwandan Ministry of Justice announced it had arrested over 3,000 alleged collaborators, while other reports estimated the number of detainees to be over 10,000.

Galinié continued to send telegrams to Paris, reporting the ongoing killing of Tutsi and emphasizing that President Habyarimana supported the violence. It’s important to note that this was in 1990, four years before the genocide actually began.

In his reports, Galinié warned that unless the RPF was stopped from reclaiming territory, Habyarimana’s government would intensify attacks on Tutsi civilians. He argued that France might feel compelled to intervene militarily.

In a telegraph dated October 24, 1990, Col. Galinié wrote, “Based on my analysis and the information received over recent days, a plan is underway to eliminate around 700,000 Tutsi inside the country.”

“The government will not agree to give up parts of the country through [peace] negotiations if it means handing them over to Tutsi who want to reclaim the power they lost in 1959. They fear that the RPF will establish a Tutsi monarchy in those areas. Whether done openly or secretly, this could lead to the killing of between 500,000 and 700,000 Tutsi, carried out by Hutu,” he continued.

Despite these alarming warnings, France did not act to stop the genocide plans. Instead, when the RPF captured Umutara, France deployed troops to Rwanda under Operation Noroît, officially claiming the mission was to evacuate French nationals, but effectively providing military support to Habyarimana’s regime.

French troops not only remained in Rwanda but also continued training Habyarimana’s army and assisted them in battle, even after warnings that a genocide was being prepared.

Rather than pressuring Habyarimana to stop the killings, France praised his handling of the so-called “accomplices” in late 1990, a move widely condemned by human rights organizations, who accused the Rwandan government of continuing to kill and persecute innocent people under the pretext of arresting collaborators.

Even Radio France Internationale (RFI), funded by the French government, failed to report the scale of the atrocities, despite overwhelming evidence. Instead, it downplayed the events in Rwanda, ignoring the reality unfolding on the ground.