French judges have reportedly dropped a long-running investigation into the killing of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, which triggered countrywide violence and genocide in 1994.
A legal source on Wednesday told AFP news agency that investigative magistrates in France had decided not to pursue a case against nine Rwandan officials accused of involvement in Habyarimana's assassination.
The probe caused diplomatic tension between Rwanda and France, with President Paul Kagame's close aides charged in the French investigation.
In October, French prosecutors requested the probe be dismissed due to insufficient evidence against the suspects. Habyarimana's widow had called the French prosecutor's move to drop the probe "unacceptable" and "largely politically motivated."
France had launched the investigation into Habyarimana's killing in 1998 at the request of relatives of the French crew who died when a missile downed Habyarimana's plane.
Read more: Rwanda trial: A victory for international law?
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
A signal to extremists
On April 6, 1994, unidentified attackers shot down a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana as it was about to land at Kigali airport. President Habyarimana, his Burundian counterpart and eight other passengers died in the crash. The next day, organized killings began. Massacres continued over the course of three months, and at least 800,000 Rwandans lost their lives.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Targeted killings
After the assassination of the president, Hutu extremists attacked the Tutsi minority and Hutus who stood in their way. The murderers were well-prepared and targeted human rights activists, journalists and politicians. One of the first victims on April 7 was Prime Minister Agathe Uwiringiymana.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Foreign nationals rescued
As thousands of Rwandans were being killed every day, Belgian and French special forces evacuated about 3,500 foreigners. On April 13, Belgian paratroopers also rescued seven German employees and their families from Deutsche Welle's relay transmitting station in Kigali. Only 80 of 120 local staff members survived the genocide.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Appeals for help
As early as January 1994, UNAMIR commander Romeo Dallaire wanted to act on information he had received about an "anti-Tutsi extermination" plot. The warning he sent to the UN on January 11, later known as the "genocide fax", went unheard. And his desperate appeals after the genocide began were rejected by Kofi Annan, who was Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations at the time.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Hate media
The Mille Collines radio station (RTLM) and Kangura, a weekly magazine, stoked ethnic hatred. In 1990 Kangura published the racist "Hutu Ten Commandments." Mille Collines radio, which was popular for its pop music and sports programs, fuelled the genocide by urging Hutu civilians to hunt down and kill Tutsis. Director Milo Rau devoted his film "Hate Radio" to these appalling broadcasts (photo).
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Refuge in a hotel
In Kigali, Paul Rusesabagina hid over 1,000 people in the Hotel Des Mille Collines. Rusesabagina had taken over the position of the hotel's Belgian manager, who left the country. With a great deal of alcohol and money, he managed to prevent Hutu militias from killing the refugees. In many other places where people sought refuge, they were not able to escape the slaughter.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Massacres in churches
Churches were no longer sanctuaries. About 4,000 men, women and children were murdered with axes, knives and machetes in the church of Ntarama near Kigali. Today the church is one of the country's many genocide memorials. Rows of skulls, human bones as well as bullet marks in the walls are a reminder of what happened there.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
France's role
The French government maintained close ties to the Hutu regime. When the French army intervened in June, it enabled soldiers and militiamen responsible for the genocide to flee to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and take their weapons with them. They still pose a threat to Rwanda today.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Streams of refugees
During the genocide, millions of Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus fled to Tanzania, Zaire and Uganda. Two million of them went to Zaire alone. They included former members of the army and perpetrators of the genocide, who soon founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia that is still terrorizing the population in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Capture of the capital
On July 4, 1994, rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) patrolled the area around the Church of the Holy Family in Kigali. By that time they had liberated most of the country and routed the perpetrators of the genocide. However, human rights activists also accused the rebels of committing crimes, for which no one has been held accountable to this day.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
End of the genocide
On July 18, 1994, the RPF's leader, Major General Paul Kagame, declared that the war against the government troops was over. The rebels were in control of the capital and other important towns. Initially, they installed a provisional government. Paul Kagame eventually became Rwanda's president in the year 2000.
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100 days of slaughter — the genocide in Rwanda
Lasting scars
The genocide went on for almost three months. The victims were often slaughtered with machetes. Neighbors killed neighbors. Not even babies and elderly people were spared, and the streets were strewn with corpses and body parts. Not only the physical scars on the bodies of the survivors remind Rwandans of the genocide. There is also a deep trauma.
Author: Andrea Schmidt / gu
Genocide and diplomatic row
During the 100-day rampage, which followed the assassination of Habyarimana — an ethnic Hutu — Hutu extremists killed more than 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis.
The bloodshed in Kabarondo, near Rwanda's border with Tanzania, lasted until late April 1994.
Read more: Rwandan genocide survivor helping refugees heal: "We can grow from trauma"
It took until July of that year before Tutsi fighters of the now ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) led by President Kagame prevailed over Hutu extremists in the former Belgian colony.
A Rwandan court in 2009 found Hutu extremists guilty of killing Habyarimana.
Kigali has long accused Paris of complicity in the genocide by supporting the Hutu regime and training the militias that carried out attacks on Tutsis.
Diplomatic ties between Rwanda and France were broken off in 2006 in a row over who killed Habyarimana. Ties were restored in 2009.
In 2016, a court in Paris court jailed for life two former Rwandan mayors over a massacre in their village of Kabarondo in 1994. Some 2,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed while seeking refuge in a church — some by machetes.
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shs/kms (AFP, Reuters)
