Rwanda’s 1000 Hills have eyes: The Genocide story spinning three decades between Arusha and Kigali

The Rwanda Genocide which shocked the history of humanity when it occurred in the year 1994, had a lot to do with Arusha, the Northern Tanzanian City which during that time it was simply a tiny hamlet.

As it happens, on the sixth day of April 1994, President Habyarimana Juvenal the former Rwandan politician and military officer who served as the second president of Rwanda flew to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania where President Ali Hassan Mwinyi had convened a summit.

Also in attendance was the then President of Burundi, Cyprian Ntayamira.

The two leaders travelled to Tanzania for attending the summit and specifically also meeting Paul Kagame of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF).

They got to sign the commencement of the previously signed Arusha peace accord, which was supposed to end the conflict in the country and have a power sharing form of government.

The Arusha Accords, was the Peace Agreement between the Government of the Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

It was also known as the Arusha Peace Agreement or Arusha negotiations, comprising of set of five protocols signed in Arusha, Tanzania on 4 August 1993, by the government of Rwanda and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front under mediation, to end a three-year Rwandan Civil War.

The initiative was coordinated by the Organisation of African Unity and the African Great Lakes region’s heads of state.

The negotiations started on 12 July 1992 and completed on 4 August 1993, the day when the accords were finally inked.

During the Dar-es-salaam meeting of April 1994 power sharing was among the steps to be taken in ending conflicts in Rwanda.

However, observers say the power-sharing deal was very much opposed by Hutu politicians.

That evening Habyarimana boarded his plane together with Ntayamira, ready to depart from Tanzania.

The shared flight was due to the fact that Ntayamira’s plane could not fly by night.

Now just as the plane was getting ready to land at Kigali Airport in the suburb of Kanombe, it was shot down.

Rockets are suspected to have hit the presidential plane killing the two leaders on the spot.

It is believed that following the crash, Hutu militia took over the country and started attacking Tutsis, moderate Hutus and the Twa.

Led by Lieutenant Colonel Thoenoste Bagasora, Falicien Kabuga and journalist Ngeze Hassan, the editor of the pro Hutu journal, Kangura, the Hutu rebels reportedly unleashed gruesome killings across the nation.

Within just 24 hours, over 100,000 refugees crossed the Kagera River, at Rusumo and entered Tanzania.

A month later it was reported that over a million Rwandan citizens had been killed.

Many others crossed to Tanzania, DRC Congo, Burundi and Uganda, with a few capable ones making it as far as Kenya.

In the bid to try and rescue the situation the Rwanda Patriotic Front soldiers led by Paul Kagame swung into action and after over three months of serious battle, the RPF reached the capital at Kigali and succeeded to liberate the city and eventually the whole country.

While Genocide was tough, heart breaking and nerve shattering, building the badly fragmented nation was even tougher.

All the same Rwanda in the course of April 2024 Rwanda is observing 30 years of the Genocide.

The country has several genocide memorial sites including Kigali and Kibuye.

Rwanda has managed to come out of ashes due to the strict law and order in the country by its law-abiding citizens, currently it has got the fastest growing Gross Domestic Product in East Africa.

Back to Arusha again from where it all started.

In the aftermath of the Genocide the United Nations set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UN-ICTR) at the Arusha International Conference Center to try the perpetrators of the genocide.

After completing its mandate, the Tribunal works have been taken over by the International Residue Mechanism.

Felician Kabuga was recently arrested in connection with arming the Interhamwe, others are serving long jail terms.