Key dates in Rwanda’s genocide and its aftermath
KIGALI: Over 100 days in 1994 in Rwanda around 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were slaughtered in a campaign of killings.
Here is an overview: President killed On April 6, 1994 Rwanda’s president Juvenal Habyarimana, from the Hutu majority, is killed when his aircraft is shot down over Kigali.
He is returning from peace talks in Tanzania with Tutsi rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), who have been waging a rebellion since 1990. Genocide starts The next day soldiers kill the moderate Hutu prime minister, as well as 10 Belgian paratroopers guarding her and other top officials in the Hutu-dominated coalition government.
The genocide begins. Lists of those to be killed, mostly Tutsis but also opposition Hutus, are distributed.
Soldiers and Hutu militiamen set up roadblocks. They go houseto-house to search for their targets.
The Mille Collines radio station spouts propaganda against Tutsis, referringtothemas“cockroaches”. Officials and media outlets incite people to carry out the massacres, to loot and rape.
Men, women and children are killed with machetes, grenades and bullets. UN scales down effort From April 9 French and Belgian paratroopers arrive to evacuate their nationals.
On the 18, as the killing continues, the Red Cross says tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, have died.
A UN peacekeeping operation, unable to stop the massacres, is on April 21 reduced from around 2,500 to 270 men.
A week later Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says a ‘genocide’ is under way.
On June 22 France deploys Operation Turquoise, a UNmandated force tasked with halting the killing.
It has little effect.
On June 30 the UN Human Rights Commission special rapporteur says the slaughter legally qualifies as ‘genocide’ and appears to have been planned. Slaughter stops On July 4 the mainly Tutsi RPF soldiers finally seize the capital Kigali. The 100 days of killings ends.
Hundreds of thousands of Hutus, fearing reprisals, flee to neighbouring Zaire, today’s Democratic Republic of Congo. International court In November 1994 the UN sets up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in neighbouring Tanzania to try the main perpetrators.
In May 1998 Jean Kambanda, prime minister during the killings, pleads guilty to genocide and crimes against humanity.
He is the first to admit responsibility.
In September 1998, the court becomes the first international tribunal to hand down a conviction for genocide, finding a former town mayor guilty of inciting the massacre of more than 2,000 Tutsis.
The court goes on to sentence several dozen people, including some to life in jail. The court closes in 2015. Local courts From March 2005 communityrun courts called ‘gacaca’ begin trials for people suspected of participating in the genocide.
Nearly two million people are brought before the 12,000 courts, with 65 percent convicted. They close in 2012.
Related trials are also held in Belgium and France. Rwanda president RPF leader Paul Kagame is chosen to be president in April 2000, following the resignation of Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu who had served in the post since July 1994.
Kagame remains in power today.
In November 2006 a French judge recommendshisprosecutionbythe UN-backed tribunal for suspected participation in the 1994 killing of President Habyarimana.
Rwanda breaks off diplomatic relations with France.
InJanuary2012aFrenchexperts’ report concludes that the missile that downed Habyarimana’s plane was fired from a base held by the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR).
In December 2018 French judges drop their long-running investigation into Habyarimana killing, which had implicated seven people close to Kagame. — AFP