Digital Commons @ George Fox University David Rawson Collection on the Rwandan Genocide Archives and Museum 11-1994 Genocide in Rwanda: Documentation of Two Massacres during April 1994 Virginia Hamilton Koula Papanicolas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/rawson_rwanda Recommended Citation Hamilton, Virginia and Papanicolas, Koula, "Genocide in Rwanda: Documentation of Two Massacres during April 1994" (1994). David Rawson Collection on the Rwandan Genocide. 86. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/rawson_rwanda/86 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Archives and Museum at Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in David Rawson Collection on the Rwandan Genocide by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Genocide in Rwanda: Documentation of Two Massacres during April 1994 November 1994 This report is based on a U.S. Committee for Refugees site visit to Rwanda in August-September 1994. The documentation was gathered, and this report was written, by David Hawk, an expert on documentation of genocide. Hawk is former U.S. Executive Director of Amnesty International, and Associate of the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. He has had years of experience documenting Khmer Rouge massacres of civilians in Cambodia, and has led efforts to bring those responsible to justice. He was assisted by Joan Kakwinzere, professor of history at Makerere University, a human rights professional, and long-term member of Uganda's Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Abuse. This report was edited by Virginia Hamilton and produced by Koula Papanicolas of the U.S. Commitee for Refugees. Preface How do you massacre a million people in three weeks? Rwanda gives a real life answer. Those in authority plan and oversee. Those in the ranks butcher. Both together are guilty of ana­ tionwide matrix of nearly simultaneous local Hutu actions to extenninate their Thtsi neighbors and compatriots in April1994. I saw the results of genocide up close, in nwnerous locations such as Nyamata and Musaza I've seen a lot in my professional life; I've never seen anything that remotely looks like this. The UN, the United States, the entire world failed Rwanda and Rwandans in their most fate­ ful hour. To this very moment, many continue to whitewash what happened in the most effective genocide since the Holocaust. To this very moment, the world stands back from the victims and sur­ vivors while pouring aid into the hands of refugee camp leaders who are the criminal perpetrators of genocide, pledged to return to Rwanda to finish the job. The international machinery for holding at least some accountable, to break the cycle of impunity that has infected Rwanda, is now beginning to creak into operation. The jury is still out on the seriousness of the effort. In the world's eyes, Rwanda is not a very important place. This report attempts in a small way to summarize the dynamics of genocide in two specific locations. It names names. It is illustrative of the kind of documentation that needs to be produced at sites all over Rwanda. It is the only way to retain an accurate moral compass, to clarify the vic­ tims and the victimizers. Every young soldier in Rwanda's new anny has seen the genocide up close. Most have lost all or most of their own families. If there is ever to be a coherent Rwanda again, this kind of docu­ mentation must be acted on, and all those found guilty punished. If this does not happen soon, vigi­ lante justice will reign, repatriation of the innocent will be impossible, and additional, perhaps re­ gional, war will be inevitable. Roger P. Wmter, Director U.S. Committee for Refugees A Genocide in Rwanda INTRODUCTION The U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) has to Rwanda in August and September to under­ long monitored the situation of Rwandan refu­ take an in depth documentation of two massacre gees and reported on the explosive political siru­ sites and to assess the adequacy of measures be­ ation in Rwanda that threatened even larger ing taken to monitor human rights and initiate refugee outflows. 1 Following the post-April 6 legal proceedings at the international level for eruption of massive and systematic massacres those responsible for the Rwanda genocide and against the Thtsi ettmic minority in Rwanda, USCR other grave violations of international humani­ published a series of advocacy Action Alerts on the tarian law. Rwanda crisis. The main difficulty encountered by The second Action Alert, on June 27, USCR researchers was in deciding which victim 1994, stressed the importance of imposing ac­ and survivor accounts to record. The killings countability for the massacres. That Alert noted took place throughout the country and every­ that "thorough documentation of the atrocities where there were witnesses and/or suiVivors. in Rwanda is required to begin the difficult pro­ Behind the front-lines in the civil war between cess of healing Rwandan society and to educate the Rwandan government and the rebel the world that genocide occurred while the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), political kill­ world watched." That report warned that ''fail­ ings and massive slaughters against members of ure to impose accountability in a public manner Rwanda Tutsi ethnic minority were carried out will allow many culpable military, political, and by anny units, civilian police, and mobs or mili­ militia leaders to escape and will send a danger­ tia organized by the government These killings ous signal worldwide-particularly to Burundi, took place in neighbmhoods throughout where the potential for organized violence re­ Rwanda, as government-directed militiamen at­ mains high" and recommended that the "inter­ tacked the homes of Tutsi residents. Killings national community should accelerate efforts to took place at police- and militia-manned road­ document the massacres and identify the main side checkpoints where ethnicity-specific, state­ planners and leaders of the killings in order to issued identity cards were used to identify mi­ bring them to justice." nority groups members. Larger scale massacres Subsequent USCR testimony to the took place at public buildings (churches, stadi­ Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcom­ ums, hotels) to which the Tutsi had fled in hopes mittee on African Affairs again stressed the ur­ of finding safety and protection. This USCR re­ gency of documenting the Rwandan genocide in port describes the sequence of events at two dif­ order to bring guilty individuals to justice and ferent churches, chosen virtually at random, to send a warning that such acts will be punished which neighborhood Tutsi had sought sanctu­ by the world community. That testimony noted ary: one in the capital of Kigali and another in a Administration support for a tribunal to pros­ rural area in eastern Rwanda ecute the perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda, These investigations were conducted and urged U.S. officials to assist this process by under difficult logistical circumstances. Neither providing immediate diplomatic, financial, and the capital city of Kigali nor the provincial logistical support to human rights investigators.2 towns or villages visited by USCR had electric­ To contribute to international account­ ity, telephones, or running water. Securing ability for those responsible for the Rwandan transportation, finding food, were time consum­ genocide, USCR sent two human rights experts ing and remarkably expensive. Once the inves- A Genocide in Rwanda tigators located the survivor of a particular mas­ ings of the Rwandan genocide sacre, he or she would identify another wimess Our purpose, rather, is to publish the who could be interviewed. But it took days, and stories these survivors, none of whom spoke En­ often several trips, to track down and locate that glish, told us. Their narratives show that these wimess. killings were conducted openly, in broad day­ All wimesses were interviewed sepa­ light, by Rwandans who had been organized by rately. Other than examining the consistency of the State to kill their neighbors. As a result, we multiple sources of information for the same have frequently included the names of perpetra­ event, USCR investigators had no way to verify tors recognized and identified by their intended independently the information provided by the victims. survivors and eye wimesses interviewed. Nor This report describes the measures cur­ was our purpose to undertake the kind of in­ rently underway to brwg remedy and redress for vestigations required of a national or interna­ these terrible crimes, and the still urgent neces­ tional prosecutor. The massacres we are re­ sity for ongoing monitoring of the human rights porting on will undoubtedly appear as situation in Rwanda-one of the measures nec­ one-line or one-sentences items, along with essary to enable the vast numbers of new hundreds of other massacres, in official account- Rwandan refugees to return home. Victims ofthe massacre at Gahini, a jew miles from Rukara parish, where the USCR team did documentation. The photograph was taken only days after the massacre. Photo: Father Oswald Rudakemwa • Genocide in Rwanda I. THE APRIL MASSACRES IN A Survivor's Account GIKONDOCHURCH,KIGALI ~~~~~~------------- According to Mr. Emmanuel Musonera, a 37- The June 28, 1994, Report of the UN Commis­ year-old Thtsi, one of the two known survivors sion on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on of the massacre inside the church, the situation Rwanda, Mr. Degni-Sequi, cited a massacre out­ in Gikondo sector was already tense prior to the side the parish church at Gikondo, an industrial April 6 plane crash that killed Rwandan Presi­ section of the capital of Kigali, where ''the street dent Habyarimana. Several weeks earlier, there was covered with corpses the length of a kilo­ had been random killings of Tutsi in Gikondo meter."3 following the assassination of M.