The RPA strategic offensive of April 1994 saw additional forces coming to reinforce the final campaign with foreign troops. Ugandan and Ethiopian troops were part of the force that captured Rwanda. An additional 19,000 troops were incorporated into the force in April. I have evidence to support that.
Take RPF people claims for evidence at your own risks. This was not just a military confrontation but also a psychological one. Public claims were part that war.
The RPA/F under Kagame has never tried to gain support of Hutus in its areas of operation. Never. In fact, they rather made sure that they fled those areas. They never tried to reproduce the NRA Luwero triangle tactics you mentioned. Their support base was the Tutsis residing OUTSIDE Rwanda (Uganda, Burundi, Zaire and Tanzania in that order). I have evidence to support this.
The area they controlled was emptied of any population save for a few small IDP dwellings (at Gishambashayo in Kivuye, and in Rushaki and Bwisige). I visited those places. Under Kagane, it has never been its intentions to win the hearts and the minds of the Hutus of those areas, let alone those in the government controlled areas. Their tactic is scare them and rule them by fear by the means horrendous massacres inflicted on them.
False flag operations took place indeed during and even after 1994. The killings of Bagogwe in Ruhengeri and Gisenyi to blame it on Rwandan infiltrators from DRC and the so-called Iwawa attack are worth mentioning. In fact, the RPA/F wanted to win the support of Tutsis and their external ‘cousins’. The RPA counted on massacres of Tutsis inside Rwanda or in GoR controlled areas to gain and reinforce that support. In that Machiavellean calculation, the Hutu extremists were their best objective allies. They also infiltrated hutu opposition parties and killed their leaders and blamed it on the government forces as a plan of keeping the Hutus divided following regional lines. Emmanuel Gapyisi, Félicien Gatabazi were killed for that purpose.
You consistent use of expressions like the ‘Hutus’ did this or that is inaccurate. Individual or organized Hutus or Tutsis committed massive homicides. We cannot just say, THE Hutus did this or that and THE Tutsis did this or that. That’s not supported by any evidence.
We are Rwandan. We have readopted the culture of writing recently. Much of our sensitive decisions are not consigned in any written plans, reports or minutes or orders.
The RPA leaders communicated by way of written messages in a note book carried by runners from one leader to the other. They used a coded language but it would be possible to decipher a big section of it. I don’t know what happened to those note books after the end of the war. But, it is in my view the only written evidence you may rely on to get a sense of what the RPF leadership thought or agreed upon. One such communication book was used by Chairman Kanyarengwe, Vice-Chairman Kagame and Chief-Coordinator Tito Rutaremara.
A group of each community carried out extermination of members of its adversary’s community. Hutu extremists made no mistery of exterminating Tutsis in their controlled areas and their 5th column within the Hutu community. They were called ‘inyenzi n’ibyitso byazo’. Those who were there know it.
The RPA massacred Hutus as part of their plans of capturing power. In Mutara and Kibungo they even organized an ethnic cleansing and carried out a plan of reoccupying the cleansed area with Tutsi refugees from Uganda and Mushiha long before the April 1994 offensive. In DRC, the RPA (not THE Tutsis) exterminated Hutus chasing them from one end to the other of that vast country.
They committed genocides. Rwandans must stop globalization of guilt or crime.
In both the Tutsi and the Hutu communities, extremists took control and led our country into the abyss we find ouselves in.
Denying this won’t help.
They were used by foreign powers in their global war of influence.
That also we have to recognize it. It’s an old tactic. Even slavery and colonization were possible because some tribal leaders were used by foreign powers. Africans must wake up to this reality.
The US, the UK, and to some degree Canada and Belgium used the RPA/F in their war against the French. Uganda and Ethiopia were also part of this scheme. Ethiopia’s intervention was motivated by racist/sectarian considerations since Rwanda shares no border with her.
Let’s pause and reflect indeed.
What have we learnt from this tragic history? Shall we sit and watch or support the most backward and sold-out to foreign powers amongst us and let them tear our society apart for good?
Yohani Mbera
