> What about Rwanda?
Hi Justin,
"As in any genocide, the question of who actually gave the orders is not an easy one to answer. Even in the well-researched case of the German genocide of the Jews, although everyone knows by now relatively well how it was carried out, the precise decision-making mechanism which set the process in motion remains shrouded in uncertainties. But in the case of Rwanda, after a number of political actors have spoken of their roles, doubts are relatively limited and they concern more the 'how' than the 'who.' The same names crop up again and again, whether in the reports of human rights groups or in the testimony of independent observers of various political persuasions.
It seems that, inasmuch as there was a general organiser of the whole operation, this distinction has to go to Colonel Theoneste Begosora, director of services in the Ministry of Defence and behind-the-scenes creator of the 'Provisional Government.' It seems to have been he who coordinated the 'final solution' activities as long as they retained enough coherence to be coordinated. Next in the line of responsibility is the Defence Minister, Major-General Augustin Bizimana, who oversaw the logistics and also influenced the reluctant elements in the FAR so that they would not stand in the way. His military aides were mostly colonel Aloys Ntabakuze, commander of the paratroopers, and Lieut.-Colonel Protais Mpiranya, head of the Presidential Guard (GP). Other military men who seem to have played an essential role in articulating army resources and militia action are Lieut.-Colonel Leonard Nkundiye, the former GP commander, Captain Pascal Simbikangwa who supervised militia killings in Kigali, and his second-in-command Captain Gaspard Hategekimana. All these people acted at the national level. Locally one can mention Gendarmerie Colonel Nsengiyumva who directed the slaughter in Gisenyi and Colonel Muvunyi who did the same in Butare. Many civilians were also directly involved such as Joseph Nzirirera, the secretary-general of MRND (D), who coordinated the Interhamwe operations; Pascal Musabe, a bank director who was one of the militia organisers at the national level; the businessman Felicien Kabuga who financed the RTLMC and the Interhamwe; and Robert Kajuka, leader of the CDR militia, the Impuzamugambi, although he himself was a Tutsi. In the interior, the local organisers of the massacres were almost invariably the prefets, with particular distinction for viciousness going to Emmanuel Bagambiki, prefet of Cyangugu and Clement Kayishema, prefet of Kibuye. In some case the main organiser could be a militant outsider, as with Remy Gatete, formerly a simple bourgmestre of Murambi commune in Byumba, who had moved to Kibungo prefecture by the time of the genocide and who organised the massacres in the east before fleeing to Tanzania and becoming a 'refugee leader' at Benaco camp."
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"... the killers were controlled and directed in their task by the civil servants in the central government, prefets, bourgmestres and local councillors, both in the capital and in the interior. It was they who received the orders from Kigali, mobilised the local Gendarmerie and Interahamwe, ordered the peasants to join in the man-hunts and called for FAR support if the victims put up too much resistance. There was only one case of non-compliance with the killing orders. It came from Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana (no relation to the late President), the only Tutsi prefet in the country who was at the head of the Butare prefecture. Nothing happened in Butare for two weeks till, angered by his 'inaction', Interim Government President Sindikubwabo (one of the rare Butare men in the government) came down and gave an inflammatory speech, asking the people if they were 'sleeping' and urging them to violent deeds. On the 20th the prefet was replaced by the extremist Sylvain Ndikumana, GP elements were flown down from Kigali by helicopter, and the killing started immediately.
The efficiency of the massacres bore witness to the quality of Rwandese local administration and also to its responsibility. If the local administration had not carried out orders from the capital so blindly, many lives would have been saved. This fact will of course cause immense problems for any future government which has to run a country where almost the entire local civil service should be charged with crimes against humanity. In the horror at the behaviour of an administration cold-bloodedly prepared to massacre its own population, there is a mitigating circumstance the mention of which is hardly reassuring. All these administrators were not only civil servants, but also MRND (D) members and as such doubly responsible to the state. As we saw in Chapter 1, there had always been a strong tradition of unquestioning obedience to authority in the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda . This tradition was of course reinforced by both the German and Belgian colonial administrations. And since independence the country had lived under a well-organised tightly-controlled state. When the highest authorities in that state told you to do something you did it, even if it included killing. There is some similarity here to the Prussian tradition of the German state and its ultimate perversion into the disciplined obedience to Nazi orders."
Gerard Prunier, 1995, _The Rwanda Crisis_, C. Hurst & Co., London/Columbia University Press. (Cited at) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/rwanda/reports/prunierexcerpt.html