Africa: 30 Years Ago, Genocide in Rwanda

Rwanda is marking the 30th anniversary of the genocide, one of the bloodiest of the 20th century, which killed more than 800,000 people, most of them ethnic Tutsis (with moderate Hutus also added to them) who were savagely slaughtered; another 2 million refugees, out of a population of 8 million, were displaced. The Hutus in this African country continued 100 days of terror before rebel militias of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) managed to capture Kigali.

On April 7, as is tradition now in Rwanda, scandalized President Kagame, responsible for relative stability (not without internal repression), lights a memorial flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims of the massacre are buried.

It all started when a plane was shot down on the evening of April 6, 1994, carrying Presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, both of Hutu ethnicity, who were traveling to Tanzania for a meeting of African leaders seeking to establish a peace process between the various factions. This attack was probably wanted by those who didn’t wish this to happen. On the morning of April 7, Prime Minister Agatha Uwilingiyimana (a Hutu moderate, as was the president killed in the plane crash) was also killed along with several UN soldiers assigned to protect her. Tutsis were blamed, and so began a massacre (long planned, according to analysts), which lasted until the Tutsi RPF forces led by Paul Kagame regained control of the situation. Kagame then led an interim government and was further elected in 2003, 2010, and 2017.