Butare & Murambai

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Sorry I didn't get a chance to make a post yesterday; we were very busy.

Yesterday we drove down Butare along with a journalist from Boston who is here to do a story on the genocide and Rwanda's reconciliation. Along the way the mountains gave way to wide valleys with large rolling hills.

Butare is Rwanda's second-largest city and was the former colonial captial of the Belgian territory of Rwanda-Urundi. In 1962 the capital was moved to Kigali because of its central location. Butare was the largest city at the time, but today Kigali is many times larger.

After walking around and having lunch in Butare, we drove another hour back north to the Murambi Genocide Center, formerly Murambi Technical School.

As word of the violence in Kigali spread out, Tutsis all around the country began takign shelter in churches and the like in many towns around the country. The Hutu chief of Ginkongoro ordered those gathering at the town's church to move to the recently completed Murami Technical School two miles out of town so that no Hutus would be mistaken for Tutsis when the killing started (this chief is now a member of the FDLR in the DRC).

On April 16th, French forces arrived at Murambi along with a small band of Interahmwe. The French moved into the makeshift refugee camp, which had swelled to 65,000 to take a census, telling the refugees that they were doing it for the UN to help figure out what supplies should be sent. As the French reported the numbers to the Interahamwe, the Interahamwe cut the water and electricity to the compound and sent out a call for more Interahamwe to gather around the compound. Meanwhile the UN, believing the government to be nonsupportive of the genocide and unaware of the Interahamwe surrounding the camp, continued to fend off the RPF from advancing further south. At 1:00 PM on April 21st, the French forces left Murambi as part of the foreign troop pullout agreement. By 3:00 PM, the 5,000 Interahamwe who had amassed around the compound attacked. Over two days they murdered 65,000 Tutsi civilians. There were four survivors.

In mid-May when the French forces returned to Murambi as part of Operation Turquoise, the brought with them bulldozers and backhoes, along with thousands of pounds of lyme. The French covered the piles of bodies left by the Interahamwe with the lyme and then buried them in an attempt to hide the evidence of the massacre. Throughout Operation Turquoise, Murambi was one of the main French bases in southern Rwanda.

Due to being covered with lyme prior to their burial, many of the bodies at Murambi were mumified. Today over 2,000 of these bodies sit on display in three of the classroom buildings at the school. The rusting cement mixers left behind by the French remain on a hill between some of the buildings. The bodies are slowly being reburied in a set of modern crypts currently under construction.

Our tour guide at Murambi was one of the four survivors. He was shot in the head during the first day of the attacks and managed to escape the compound during the night between the two days of killing. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital in Burundi, where he spent four months. He still lives in Ginkongoro and says his life is often threatened by Hutus in the surrounding community.

Many Rwandans fear another genocide. Emanuel, our guide at Murambi is one of them. Currently President Kagame rules the country with an iron fist and is very strict about inter-tribal relations. The problems, many say, will come when Kagame dies. Many feel a hidden animosity simmers deep in the hearts of many Rwnadans and that in the power vacuum that will be left after Kagame dies, violence may again erupt. It is almost certain that the FDLR will attempt a full-scale invasion of Rwanda after Kagame is gone, and it is almost certain that the RDF (RPF) could stop them. The real question is whether or not there is enough hate left within Rwanda to rekindle the genocide. Every Rwandan that we have talked to about the issue has had a very different opinion on that matter, and very few are willing to talk. Emanuel was the most open; he says he no longer fears death and that he would be happy to die in the place where his family died, teaching about his family's death. Rwanda needs more Emanuels.

A little about the RPF, because I feel that I may have painted the RPF & Paul Kagame in a bit too bright a light...

The RPF is/was a militia formed in the mid-1960's by Tutsis who fled discrimination and violence in Rwanda to Uganda immediately following Habyarmana's election. In response to increased anti-Tutsi violence in 1990, the RPF invaded northern Rwanda. The civil war raged in northern Rwanda up until 1993. UNAMIR was estamblished to keep peace between the RDF (Habyarmana's government army) and the RPF (led by Kagame), as well as to help with the humanitarian crisis. In 1993 the Tanzania and UN brokered peace agreement, the Arusha accords was signed and peace came to the country.

April 7, 1994. President Habyarmana's plane was shot down by a French-made missile on approach to Kigali international. The attack was carried out by Hutu Power extremeists with the suppport of the French government. These extremists were members of Habyarmana's government who were dissatisfied with the terms of the Arusha accords. It was a fals-flag operation that blamed the RPF. The genocide started that night, and the Arusha accords were shattered at the RPF smashed through the RDF lines and into Rwanda. The UN, not seeing the genocide and beleiving the story of the RPF assassinating Habyarmana, attempted to beat back the RPF while the French trained and armed Interahamwe began the killing of the Tutsis. By the time the UN realized what was going on (and the French pretended to realize it), over 1,000,000 were dead. The RPF took control of the country and chased the Interahamwe into the DRC (then Zaire). Habyarmana's government feld to Kenya, while the lower-level organizers fled with the Interahamwe to the DRC.

The Interahamwe mixed in the civilians in refugee camps in the eastern DRC, living off of international aid, disguised among the 3,000,000 Rwandan civilians in the camps. Meanwhile, Kagame established his government, "cleansed" the RDF of genocidaires, and merged the DRF with the RPF.

When the camps were cleared out in the late 1990s, the Interahamwe were faced with going back to Rwanda to face certain death, or to stay in the DRC. Those that stayed formed the militant group the FDLR, which is still active today.

The corrupt government of the DRC did nothing to stop the FDLR, which killed over 300,000 Tutsis in the DRC. So in 2002, Rwanda invided the DRC (then Zaire) and together with other militant groups in the DRC that had wanted to overthrow the DRC governemtn for a logn time, they established a new government and fought the FDLR. However, this new government was still not doing a very good job of controlling the northeastern portion of the country, so Rwanda fought a proxy war with the FDLR through other militant groups, furthering the problems in the eastern DRC.

In December 2008, Kagame reached an agreement with the DRC that he would turn in the rebel groups that Rwanda was sponsoring and Rwanda would in turn be given permission to carry out military operations against the FDLR in northeastern DRC.

The RPF has been accused of looting and pillaging in the DRC in both of their invasions. They also massacred several thousand Hutu civilians in 1999. They don't do much power sharing with Hutu leaders, and thus tensions in Rwanda remain, although they are quelled by Kagame's strong police rule.

The RPF isn't the ideal government. They have committed many atrocities. But thank god they exist to hold this country together.

Agh, much more to say, but I've got to go. I'll try and write another to finish this later today.

Until next time,
Drew

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