SOCIALSCI JOURNAL

Involvement of RwandanGovernment Officials in The Massacres of Tutsi in GisenyiFormer Prefecture Prior 1994

Abstract

Mafeza Faustin

This paper explores the role of Rwandan government officials in the massacres of Tutsi prior 1994. It focuses on the massacres of Tutsi in different communes in the former prefecture of Gisenyi during the Habyarimana regime, and specifically examines the events between October 1990 and August 1993. Since October 1990, Rwandan government officials were either directly involved in the massacres of Tutsi, by encouraging, planning, directing or participating in the violence; or indirectly involved through their negligence or deliberate inaction. Local government officials (prefects, sub-prefects,mayors, assistant mayors, sector leaders, cell leaders), and security forces (gendarmes, police communal, ForcesArmées Rwandaises) played a crucial role in the massacres of Tutsi in the commune of Kibilira, Satinsyi, Ramba, Gaseke, Giciye, Karago, Mutura, Kanama and Kayove. This paper thus shows that the intent of killing Tutsi as an ethnic group did not begin in 1994. Rather, the Genocide against the Tutsi that occurred in April 1994 was the culmination of events that had been initiated in the years preceding.