BALLISTICS REPORT ON THE 1994 ATTACK ON THE RWANDAN PRESIDENT JUVENAL HABYARIMANA’S AEROPLANE

SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

1. PRESENTATION OF REPORT

2. EVIDENCE CONTRIBUTED BY EXPERTS

3. REACTIONS OF THE RWANDAN OPPOSITION

4. PUBLICATION OF THE REPORT

5. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS SINCE THE REPORT

INTRODUCTION

On January 10th of this year, the French judges Trévidic and Poux sent an expert report to the parties involved in the investigation of the shooting down of the Rwandan presidential aeroplane on the 6th April 1994, an event which triggered the Rwandan Genocide. This was not a judges’ report, but an important addition to the investigation file containing many other pieces of information. Unsurprisingly, the lawyers of those under investigation, seven officers from the Rwandan army, highlighted the elements of this report which seemed the most favourable to their clients during a press conference, reading selected parts of the report and affirming that “the truth has prevailed.” It was equally to be expected that the Rwandan government would welcome the report with open arms, claiming that the “scientific truth” put an end to the accusations made against them.

Something decidedly less normal is the way in which the press and certain other commentators immediately jumped to premature, definitive conclusions without having read the report themselves, as it was declared confidential while the trial was still ongoing. These commentators based their conclusions on little more than what they heard from the lawyers of the soldiers under investigation, and perhaps also on their own personal convictions. They gave new meaning to the report by insinuating things that were not really there, such as that the attack was carried out by Habyarimana’s FAR forces. Harsh, damning words were spoken. Those who dared to suggest that the RPF themselves could have been behind the attack were accused of negationism, and those who didn’t subscribe to what had suddenly become the politically correct norm were violently admonished, or even intimidated.

 

1. PRESENTATION OF THE REPORT

The technical expert ballistics report on the 1994 attack on the Rwandan president Habyarimana’s aeroplane was presented to the families of the claimants (the crew and passengers of the Falcon 50 shot down in Kigali on April 6th 1994) and lawyers from all parties, and focused the investigation on the missiles fired from the military camp of Kanombe, then under the control of the FAR, the Rwandan Armed Forces, the former executive army. “The firing of two missiles, the second of which struck the aircraft, could have originated in the Kanombe camp, near the houses of Belgian volunteers. The firing zone we are favouring includes the cemetery (…) and, more probably, the area below the cemetery” – this extract of the report can in fact be read on the Twitter account of independent journalist Frédéric Helbert. But the report does not mention who may have been responsible for the attack.

 

Team sent to reconstruct the conditions of the attack

In April 2010, Judges Marc Trévidic and Nathalie Poux, who had taken over from the anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, nominated a team of five experts in surveying, ballistics, explosives and incendiaries, followed by an acoustician at a later stage. This team was to establish the possible provenance of the shots which brought down the presidential plane. Judges Marc Trévidic and Nathalie Poux travelled to Rwanda with the team of experts in September 2010 to attempt to reconstruct the conditions of the attack. The judges asked the experts to reconstruct the trajectory of the Falcon 50 presidential plane, to analyse its position at the point at which it was struck, to determine the type of missile used and the possible operating procedures, and to study everything in terms of the witness statements given and the topographical data present.

 

Kanombe military camp named as the most likely point of origin of the missiles.

According to the specialists, the missiles fired were most likely Russian-made Sa-16 missiles, which struck the aircraft below the left wing, close to the reservoirs. The Falcon burst into flames upon impact. Ballistics technicians studied the possible trajectories, identifying four possibilities and retaining two of these, both from the Kanombe camp. The acoustician also played a predominant role in the investigation, studying the environment and the diffusion of sound onsite to bring extra precision to two witness statements. The first is the well-known account of Dr. Massimo Pasuch, a Belgian military doctor who claimed to have heard a rush of air and to have seen an orange trail. The second came from a French soldier, Colonel Saint-Quentin. This officer was staying at the Kanombe camp, and has always insisted that he heard shots being fired quite distinctly. According to the expert, the Massaka farm, the other site named as the potential provenance of the attack, is too far away for the Colonel to have been able to hear the noise so clearly. If the missiles had been fired from the Massaka hill, they could not have been heard distinctly from Kanombe and the noise would have been heard by the witnesses after they had first seen the explosion of the aircraft. Therefore, the projectiles can only have been fired from inside or nearby the camp.

 

Initial statements by the lawyers of each party

The lawyers of the seven close associates of the current Rwandan president Paul Kagame who are under investigation in this case interpreted the report as putting their clients in the clear and called for the investigative judges responsible for the trial to dismiss the case in their favour.

However, Mr. Jean-Yves Dupeux, the lawyer representing President Habyarimana’s two children, stated that “what the experts are saying is that in face of the evidence, the shots could not have been fired from Massaka, which does not rule out the camp lying opposite” – the camp controlled by Hutu extremists. Philippe Meilhac, the lawyer representing the President’s widow, also remained cautious regarding the conclusions drawn from the expert report on the identity of the perpetrators. “We have received new information concerning the spot from which the missiles which struck the plane are likely to have been fired, but a great deal of information which we already knew has also been confirmed,” he noted. Such as, for example, the conclusions drawn as to the model of missiles used. These were SA-16 missiles produced by the Soviets. “SA-16s are easy to transport and can be fired from the shoulder, but their operation requires a high level of expertise which no one in the FAR [Rwandan Armed Forces, troops loyal to the President] would have possessed,” added Mr. Meilhac.

 

Initial reactions of the Rwandan government

As far as the Rwandan government was concerned, the expert report “does justice” to Rwanda. “Now it is clear to all that the attack on the aeroplane was a coup d’état led by extremist Hutus who took a dim view of Habyarimana’s efforts to reinstate dialogue with the Tutsi rebels back then. These Hutu extremists were aided by their advisers who controlled the Kanombe military camp,” remarked the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, in a press release, adding that the country was expecting the dismissal of the case against the close associates of the head of the Rwandan state, Paul Kagame, who are still accused of the murder of ex-president Habyarimana by the French investigation.

The inquiry is not over yet.

The inquiry is not over yet: Judge Trévidic now knows where the shots were fired from, but he still has to find those responsible for the attack and find out exactly who was inside the camp of the Presidential Guard on the night of April 6th.

The report concludes that, for technical reasons, the shots could not have originated from the bases surrounding the airport then occupied by the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of Paul Kagame. However, it does not formally point to the soldiers of the government army at that time either. The specialists believe that the perpetrators were very experienced gunmen, reopening the hypothesis that they may have been a specialist missile team from abroad, whether secret agents or mercenaries. For the lawyers of the associates of the current president (Paul Kagamé) currently under investigation, Maingain and Forster, it is also possible that a small group of FAR militants could have been sufficiently well-trained to fire the missile projectors. But they also believe that the most probable explanation is that the perpetrators were soldiers or foreign mercenaries.

 

Two conflicting theories.

On the evening of April 6th 1994, the Falcon 50 carrying the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down during landing at Kigali by surface-to-air missiles. This attack is considered to have been the main trigger of the Rwandan Genocide, which caused at least 800,000 deaths.

In 2006, the inquiry led by Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière turned its attention to a commando unit of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Tutsi rebellion movement of 1994 headed by the current president Paul Kagame, which provoked Kigali to cease diplomatic relations with France. According to this investigation, the RPF members, mainly Tutsi rebels who fought for four years against the Habyarimana regime, may have infiltrated Massaka hill by making their way from the Rwandan parliament through the Rwandan Armed Forces system (FAR, loyalists). The hill overlooks the airport to the east of the runway.

On the contrary, a Rwandan report dated 2009 confirms that shots were fired from the military camp of Kanombe, a major FAR base, adjoining the airport and the president’s residence to the south east, an area it was “impossible to imagine” the RPF managing to infiltrate. The Rwandan theory attributes the blame for the attack to Hutu extremists within the FAR who wanted to remove President Habyarimana, deemed too moderate, and make way for a coup d’état.

 

Breakdown and reprisal of diplomatic relations between Kigali and Paris.

The presence of a French crew onboard the aircraft led to an inquiry being opened into the case in France. This investigation was led by the anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who issued nine indictments against members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 2006, all close associates of President Kagame.

These indictments led to the breakdown of relations between Kigali and Paris. Diplomatic relations were only renewed after a presidential aide was charged by the French judge in 2008, followed by six more in 2012, and the arrest warrants were lifted. French arrest warrants are still in place for two further people, one in hiding and the other probably deceased.

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy visited Kigali in February 2010, initiating a reconciliation process which was then consolidated by Paul Kagame’s visit to Paris in September 2011. This symbolic and strategic rapprochement between the two countries seems to serve the interests of both parties: the Rwandan issue was blackening France’s image across the whole African continent while, on the other hand, the decline in confidence from English-speaking countries was threatening Rwanda with international isolation.

In February 2010, Nicolas Sarkozy recognised a “form of blindness” upon France’s part for not having recognised the “genocidal nature” of the Habyarimana regime which Paris had continued to back until the end. In return, as Paul Kagame professed that he was not expecting “an apology” from France during an official visit to Paris in September 2011, voices accusing high-ranking French officials of involvement in the genocide were silenced in Kigali.

 

2. EVIDENCE CONTRIBUTED BY EXPERTS

Emmanuel Neretse supplied the following precisions concerning the term Kanombe:

1. Kanombe – District: This is the district of Kanombe, one of the 144 districts of the Rwandan Republic up until 2002.

2. Kanombe – Sector: The district of Kanombe was itself subdivided into a dozen administrative sectors, one of which was named Kanombe.

3. Kanombe – Military domain: In the Kanombe sector, a large area of land of around one hundred hectares had been set aside as military property in the 1960s. This area bordered on the Massaka sector to the east, separated by a marsh approximately 1 km wide, and the Busanza sector to the south, while immediately to the west was the airport. To the north, the boundary was marked out by a road along the length of the runway. Up until April 1994, the area contained:

a) – A military barrack with administrative buildings, shops, workshops, garages, non-commissioned officer quarters and troops

b) – Officers’ quarters and residences

c) – A hospital

d) Fields and woods reserved for community development projects (Umuganda). This land extended from the officers’ quarters dipping down slightly towards the marshland separating the Massaka-Kanombe and Busanza sectors. None of these areas (marshland, fields and woods set aside for Umuganda) were fenced off or guarded.

e) A firing range for light weapons: this was set up in the valley separating the sectors Kanombe and Busanza.

f) A military cemetery, located on the side of Busanza Hill to the south of the barrack. This was accessible to the south via the road running alongside the airport runway. The cemetery was not fenced off or guarded.

4. Kanombe: military camp.

The group of buildings described in 3 a). This was the only part fenced off, with guarded entrances.

Only upon careful study of the technical report, noting the exact coordinates from which the missiles were thought to have been fired, is it possible to find out whether the experts were referring to the barrack, the land set aside for Umuganda, the shooting range or the cemetery.

Even after a quick skim-through of the report, it becomes clear that the spot in question was located within the Military Domain of Kanombe, but not within the military camp: rather, at the far east of the area on the side of the Busanza hill, more precisely in the bushes situated between Massaka hill, the officers’ quarters, Nyarugunga Valley and the military cemetery of Kanombe.

Now that it has been established that the missile which hit the Falcon 50 presidential plane was shot from inside the Military Domain of Kanombe, and that the same report recognises that two SAM 16 missiles were shot, only one of which struck its target, it is to be hoped that the investigators will find out why the two launch tubes were discovered 3 kilometres further away, on Massaka Hill, separated from the first site by open, boggy terrain. The highly anticipated answer to this question will also answer the main question here: “Who shot down President Habyarimana’s aeroplane on April 6th 1994?”

Judge Trévidic is highly renowned for his integrity and professionalism; it is therefore hoped that the answer will be found one day, as long as personal agendas and politics do not put a spoke in the works of the Chariot of Justice.

The four facts ascertained by experts

According to the initial information received by Jambonews, the experts working on the case have ascertained four facts.

The first certainty is that the aeroplane was struck by a Soviet-made SA-16 (SAM 16) missile.

The second certainty is that two shots were fired, one of which missed the plane and one of which hit.

The third certainty is that the aircraft’s reactors were not hit by the missiles and remained intact.

The fourth certainty is that the aeroplane was struck on the left wing. The analysis of the debris of the aircraft shows that the missile struck the reservoir in the left wing.

Using these various elements, the experts aimed to determine the location from which the missiles were fired.

In total, 6 sites were identified as being potential points of origin of the missiles by the experts, who then used a process of elimination to narrow down their search to the single most probable site.

The ideal position for an experienced marksman was, according to experts, Massaka (either the farm or the valley). However, the experts decided that this missile course had to be eliminated due to two elements deemed crucial.

The first of these elements was the account given by three eye-witnesses, one French soldier and two Belgian military physicians present on that particular day at the Kanombe camp, who confirmed having heard the blast of the missiles. The acoustics expert found that it would have been impossible to hear the missiles being fired from Massaka, which was over 3 kilometres away. He believed that, given the distance, the plane would already have touched down before the noise was heard.

The second element is the missile impact and the fact that the missile struck the left wing of the aircraft. According to the team of experts, the missiles seek the heat emanating from their target. At the moment when the aeroplane was struck, it had already passed the Massaka hill, which meant that if the missile arrived from behind the craft (and therefore from Massaka), it would have hit the reactor and not the left wing. Experts concluded here that the missile must have come from the front and then hit the left wing.

In light of these elements, judged crucial factors by the experts, it was declared that the missiles “probably” originated from one of the two positions located within the military camp, Kanombe.

A further point illuminated by the experts was that the SAM 16s used to attack the plane had been deployed by specialists, as their handling required an advanced training of at least 50 to 60 hours, and they were equally positive that there had been two gunmen.

Following the presentation of the report, Judge Marc Trévidic, who read the experts’ conclusions in turn with Nathalie Poux, announced that each of the parties now had three months to make their observations about the expert report and, if needs be, to request a second opinion.

After having gathered all of the observations, Judges Trévidic and Poux must judge the expert report with respect to the other elements making up the dossier, in particular the many witness accounts. Until the judges have drawn their official conclusions on the investigation, no one will be considered either exonerated or accused, as this is not the role of the experts. This role belongs to the judges, Trevidic and Poux, who will submit a full report following the investigation, on the implication or otherwise of the RPF members accused of being at the origin of the attack and, if not, may go on to charge other suspects.

Colette Braeckman examines the blasting noise made by the missile launch

Doctor Massimo Pasuch, a Belgian anaesthetist-resuscitator and military volunteer in Rwanda, was living in the Kanombe camp. Lieutenant Colonel Pasuch’s memories of the incident have always been vivid; “the bay window of my dining room looked out across a valley which sloped down towards boggy ground, criss-crossed by the arms of the river Nyabarongo. This was a little-frequented area, and the soldiers had forbidden us entry to it for the last two months.” The doctor remembers that dinner on the evening of April 6th had been interrupted by a strange noise: “I heard the blast of a missile being launched. We all saw two red trails streaking across the sky. A few moments later came the sound of a huge explosion and we saw a ball of fire; it crashed 400 metres from my house. It was the plane of President Habyarimana.” Pasuch continued, “For my part, I was sure that the shot had come from this marshy zone where nobody was allowed to go, where the commando unit had been completely at their leisure to get into position and prepare. The officer believes that “this was a carefully planned operation, extremely technical, as they were shooting at an aeroplane in mid-flight, just as it prepared to land. Only true professionals could have made such a shot.”

The French Lieutenant Colonel Grégoire de Saint Quentin, whose house was situated in the Kanombe camp, near the Belgian lodgings, also confirmed that he heard the blasting sound indicating the launch of the missiles.

It would seem that this blasting noise accompanying the missile launch represented a crucial part of Judge Trévidic’s inquiry. At the site itself, the acoustician reconstructed the conditions of the evening of April 6th, finding out amongst other things the direction and strength of the wind that night. He was thus able to retrace the perimeter within which it would have been possible to hear the missile launch and concluded that, while several witnesses in camp Kanombe could remember hearing this mysterious blasting noise, the sound was inaudible from Massaka Hill, long considered as the site from which the shots were fired.

 

3. REACTIONS OF THE RWANDAN OPPOSITION

 

Faustin Twagiramungu, president of RDI-Rwanda Rwiza, rejects the hypothesis of a direct cause-effect relationship between the spot from where the missiles were fired and the automatic conclusion that Hutu extremists were responsible for firing them. According to him, it is now up to Judge Trévidic to shed some light not only on the point of origin of the shots, but also on the identification of those responsible for this crime which sparked the major crime of the Rwandan genocide.

Théogène Rudasingwa, former Secretary General of the RPF and former head of Paul Kagame’s cabinet, first repeated his statement of October 1st 2011 – that is, that Paul Kagame told him in person that he himself was responsible for the shots which hit the plane on April 6th 1994, and then went on to note that the report confirms the following:

that a) experts are now tending towards the version of events in which the missile which hit the plane came from the Kanombe area of Kigali and b) the missiles were Russian-made and had been provided by the former Soviet Union. Taking this into consideration, he goes on to say the following: 1. the fact that the missiles were fired from the area surrounding Kanombe does not categorically rule out the possibility that Kagame committed the crime and 2. The fact that the missile were of Soviet origin is an essential clue in helping to track down those responsible.

He reiterates that on many occasions, he has denounced Kagame as the individual behind the attack and that he has the proof to back this up, but is still waiting to be summoned by a judge to give his testimony. He hopes that Judge Trévidic will make the most of the three months he has to gather his witness statement and add it to the investigation dossier as a further addition to the inquiry.

The Rwanda National Congress (RNC), led by former comrades-in-arms of President Paul Kagame, and the United Democratic Forces (UDF), first pointed out that the technical report had investigated six potential launch points for the missiles, and went on to confirm that they still believe the RPF was responsible for the April 1994 attack. “Considering the amount of infiltrations and deployments of rebel secret agents in the city of Kigali and the surrounding area, we do not doubt for a second that the RPF were in a position to carry out such an operation in most of the six sites investigated” by the experts, they affirmed. According to the two organisations, there have been several contradictory reports in the past about this terrorist attack and only an international inquiry composed of experts from different countries can bring true justice.

 

5. THE PUBLICATION OF THE REPORT

Now that the experts’ report is available on the Internet, an analysis can be proposed. It leads to much less clear-cut conclusions than those we have been hearing over the last few weeks.

The expert report was made as part of the investigation begun in France on 27th March 1998 following a complaint lodged by the family of the deceased French pilot, Jean-Pierre Minaberry, about the “destruction in mid-flight of the Falcon 50” belonging to Juvenal Habyarimana. This report established the probable origin of the shot and confirmed the type of missile deployed on the 6th April 1994. On the other hand, this expert report of 328 pages never identified the perpetrators of the crime.

The experts identified six potential launch sites for the missiles. Three of these zones are in the sector of the Kanombe military camp, which housed most notably the parachutist battalion and adjoined the villa of Juvenal Habyarimana. The fourth zone, the so-called “pig-sty,” is also close to the Presidential Residence. Two zones are located on the plain of Massaka, which was then also situated in the territory controlled by the FAR.

During their trip to Rwanda, the expert team heard twelve witness statements and carried out the geometrical, topographical and acoustic surveys necessary to test out their different hypotheses. The expert panel led to the following conclusions:

– Determining the weapon used: beginning with 53 possibilities, the experts used a process of elimination. Certain weapons were eliminated for the date upon which they first came into use, others because they did not correspond to the kind of impact found on the aircraft debris, or because they were not suitable for night-time use. Finally, the only possibility left was the surface-to-air missile SA16 of Soviet fabrication. The experts also maintained that there were two marksmen, around 20 metres apart, each of them firing one missile. Finally, the experts recalled that “the deployment of this surface-to-air material requires serious preparation and training. No amateur or novice could have used these missiles correctly. To fully understand this arms system and become an operational marksman, 70 training shots, or 50 to 60 hours of training, would be necessary.”

– Determining the most probable firing zone: experts estimate that the firing positions in Massaka are the ideal spots. “From these two positions, the probability of a hit was most likely from all firing positions studied,” they note. The positions in Kanombe are less likely: “The probability of a direct hit is lower than at the positions in Massaka. Nevertheless, it was sufficient that out of the two shots fired, one could have hit the aeroplane.” However, Massaka was eventually ruled out: a shot from this spot would have ruptured the left reactor and would not have hit the underside of the wing, because, launched from behind, the missile would have been drawn to the heat emanating from the three reactors to the back of the aeroplane, decided the experts. What’s more, the shot would not have been heard in the same way as described by the witnesses in the dossier, notably a Belgian couple and their guests who were dining at home that evening, situated inside the military camp Kanombe.

The report concludes: “A combination of several points of consistency which have been revealed during the studies we have conducted allow us to favour the Kanombe site as the most probable firing zone. Positions 2 and 6 (…) lie within this zone; that is to say, the current cemetery and the lower end of the cemetery, in an area between the back walls of the three houses of the Belgians, including the Pasuchs’ property, and the summit of the hill overlooking Nyagarongo Valley. The fact that we have narrowed our investigation down to these two positions does not mean that the missiles could physically not have been deployed from within a wider perimeter. We believe that the zone which should be taken into consideration stretches about a hundred metres or more towards the east and the south, permitting an unobstructed stretch of land between it and the aeroplane’s approach path.” This degree of scope is important, allowing for the possibility that the shooters could have been posted outside the boundary of Kanombe military camp.

According to Filip Reyntjens, professor at the University of Antwerp, the expert report attempts to provide answers to two main questions: the point from which the missiles were fired and the type of missile used. Two pieces of technical information permitted the experts to designate the most likely shooting points: firstly, the impact point of the missile which hit the aeroplane and secondly, the acoustic data obtained about the noise made by the missile launch as heard by the witnesses. It should be noted that the acoustics expert did not visit the sites himself, but set up a simulation exercise on military grounds in France. As for the site of the plane crash itself, the experts based their report on a normal approach, when in fact the aeroplane could have been deviated from its course by the first missile, or the pilot might have carried out a manoeuvre to avoid it. On the basis of these two pieces of data, the expert opinion points to two positions inside the Kanombe military domain, the cemetery and a spot at the end of the cemetery, while noting that the Massaka zone is located in the extension zone of the points favoured by the experts.

The experts also believe that the Massaka position is the best amongst those studied and the points they favoured actually offered a lower probability of striking the aircraft, but it would nevertheless have been possible that, from the two missiles shot, one of these could have hit the aircraft. Several points should be noted on this subject. Firstly, contrary to what numerous commentators have claimed, these points are not located inside the military camp of Kanombe (as the FAR would probably state) but on the outskirts of a vast area of military land measuring a hundred hectares. This area was neither fenced off nor guarded. What’s more, experts believe that the firing range could extend further to the east or south by a hundred metres or more, which would place the origin point of the shots outside of the military domain.

Furthermore, two crucial witnesses cited in the report saw missile trails through the bay window at the back of the house situated at the edge of the domain, facing Massaka Valley. Giving evidence before the Belgian military prosecutor on April 13th 1994, one week after the event, the doctor Colonel Daubresse declared that when “looking to the east (that is, in the vicinity of Massaka),” he had seen “a projectile propelled by a red-orange flame climb from right to left” at a maximum distance of five kilometres and a minimum distance of one kilometre (the two sites favoured by the experts were located 116 and 203 metres respectively from the house). This observation was confirmed on the same day by his colleague, Dr. Colonel Pasuch. The two witnesses therefore do not place the missile launch inside of the military domain, but rather towards the Massaka Valley.

Finally, since the spot known as “La Ferme” (‘the farm’) in the valley beside Massaka had been cited as the missile launch site, it is astonishing that no witness from Massaka was heard by the experts, not even after their statements had been verified from an acoustic point of view. In October 1994, witnesses from Massaka even said that they had seen missiles leaving “The Farm” area, and this was at an early stage when it was not yet clear how crucial the issue concerning the point of origin of the missiles would be. It can therefore be remarked that technical expertise does not necessarily correspond with observations made by eye-witnesses, and it is up to those leading the inquiry to evaluate the evidential value of these contradictory findings.

As for the missiles used, the expert report concludes that, by process of elimination, it is probable that the missiles were SA16 weapons of Soviet origin. The experts stress that their conclusion was not influenced by the discovery made close to “the Farm” a few weeks after the attack of two SA16 missile launching tubes. The experts noted that 50 to 60 hours of training would be necessary to be able to handle these weapons, and that a novice could not have operated such a system. The former FAR did not own surface-to-air missiles (despite having tried in vain to obtain some), but the RPF had used them during the war. Judge Bruguière had already established that the missiles which came from the missile launchers found near “The Farm” had been sold by the Soviet Union to Uganda. High-ranking officials in the Ugandan army confirmed that they were part of a series which were later ceded to the RPF.

These few remarks show that those who claimed that the export report meant that “the truth is out there,” are looking at things in black and white. Filip Reyntjens concludes: “Even though I still think that the evidence is leaning more towards the RPF than the FAR as the perpetrators of the attack, I do not claim to know the truth. It is up to judges Trévidic and Poux to decide, following their investigation, based on all elements of the dossier and, most importantly, independently, whether or not it will be necessary to refer the case for further legal measures.”

 

6. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS SINCE THE REPORT

André Guichaoua is of the opinion that, after the report was published, a great deal of the ensuing discussions seemed rather misguided, given that in fact, the report itself did not indicate who might have been responsible for the attack, and neither did it exonerate any of the accused. This does not mean that the investigation will not go on to do so, but for the moment this is not the case, and the rhythm and natural procedures of the judicial system must be adhered to.

Several questions linger on in his mind even following the publication of this report. Even if the idea that the Hutus were at the origin of the 6th April 1994 attack were to be accepted, there would still remain several grey areas. Two theories are generally advanced on this subject. The first is that the president’s in-laws were behind the attack. However, the only person who could have been capable of orchestrating such an attack, Colonel Elie Sagatwa, half-brother of Habyarimana’s widow, died with the president in the crash. It is therefore difficult to sustain this idea. The second is that extremist officers were responsible: however, the Chief of Staff also died in the attack. These were not ‘jihadists’ as he puts it: it is hard to imagine that they would have sacrificed themselves for the cause. Therefore, more precise information must be provided to back up these theories, and he awaits this information with impatience.

According to Hervé Cheuzeville, the theory according to which the act was carried out by “Hutu extremists” was always considered as the most credible and largely vaunted by the international media throughout the entire late 1990s and up until the early 2000s.

Only little by little did a further possibility surface: an act carried out by the members of the RPF upon the orders of Paul Kagame. It is true to say that this version became widespread following the investigation carried out by Judge Bruguière, the predecessor to Judge Trévidic.

To try to visualise things more clearly, it is prudent to revisit a certain number of important elements in the case.

1. According to the theory blaming “Hutu extremists,” President Habyarimana was assassinated because he had made too many concessions during the Arusha negotiations. The extremists, fearing that the RPF might join the transition government, allegedly decided to seize power. In order to do so, it was necessary to eliminate the president. All on-site witnesses attest to the panic and disorganisation which reigned following Habyarimana’s death. Those who were expected to take the reins the following day were visibly caught off-guard by the event, and left in a total state of unpreparedness and disorganisation. Evidently, such an operation would not be left to improvisation. It would have had to have been planned weeks, even months in advance. The organisational hierarchy of a new power is normally prepared before the coup d’état even takes place. This was not the case in Rwanda on April 6th, 1994. The state’s top leaders had been wiped out by the attack, and those of secondary importance found themselves propelled to centre-stage before they had time to prepare, for instance Colonel Bagosora, who had only been chief of staff at the Ministry for Defence beforehand.

2. However, the general offensive launched by the RPF on the evening of the attack itself was far from improvised. A general offensive must also be meticulously prepared, months in advance. Logistics in particular must be in place (fuel, ammunition, transport and communication methods). Coordination between the various units and different services had to be scrupulously arranged. Finally, the men had to be ready to assemble at the given points at the precise moment they were needed. This RPF general offensive cannot therefore have been a decision made in reaction to the death of President Habyarimana, but long before, in anticipation of it.

3. For months, elements of the RPF had been living in Kigali, in accordance with the Arusha agreements. They had been stationed at the CND, the Rwandan parliament, and were only permitted to come and go into RPF-occupied territory in the north of the country and to the capital if escorted by a UN convoy. Therefore, it is not impossible to imagine that RPF soldiers, probably disguised as government troops, could have managed to approach the airport in order to fire missiles at the plane as it landed.

4. Missiles: it has been established that these missiles were of Soviet origin. While the Rwandan army did not possess this type of weapon, the Ugandan army did. Remember at this point that the RPF was a branch of the NRA, the army of Ugandan president Museveni. It was a faction of this army, composed of soldiers and officers of Rwandan origin but wearing the Ugandan uniform and using weapons provided by Ugandan armouries, which had attacked Rwanda from Ugandan territory on October 1st 1990, thus beginning the war which was to bring the RPF into power. During the entire war, the RPF held bases in Uganda, recruited in Uganda and received arms, equipment and supplies from this country. Is it inconceivable to think that the surface-to-air missiles which attacked the aeroplane of President Habyarimana could have been supplied to the RPF by Uganda?

5. The conclusions drawn by Judge Trévidic’s team of experts indicate that the missiles might have been shot from the military camp of Kanombe.

6. According to the topographical configuration of Kigali, Kanombe is not only a military camp. It is primarily a neighbourhood of Kigali located on a hill named Kanombe, in close proximity to the airport. Although it may be difficult to imagine that the RPF soldiers could have shot the missiles from the military camp of Kanombe, it is altogether possible that they could have operated from the hill of Kanombe. This would not in the slightest contradict the expert report.

According to Bernard Lugan, this technical report carried out by experts (ballistics, acoustics, etc.) commissioned to find out where the missiles which struck President Habyarimana’s aircraft in mid-flight were fired from, represents just one element of the lengthy dossier concerning the assassination of the head of the Rwandan state. Being just one step in a complex process, it does not allow for any extrapolation because it does not state who did, or who did not, attack the presidential plane.

Let us examine the actual facts.

On April 6th 1994, around 20:30, just as it was preparing to land in Kigali, the aeroplane of Hutu president Juvénal Habyarimana was shot at by two portable SAM 16 missiles bearing the serial numbers 04-87-04814 and 04-87-04835 respectively; as has already been established before the ICTR, the Rwandan army did not possess any such missiles.

The traceability of these devices was reconstituted: produced in the USSR, they were part of a lot of 40 SA 16 IGLA missiles delivered to the Ugandan army a few years earlier. Just as a reminder, Paul Kagame and his main deputies were superior-ranking officers in the Ugandan army before the Rwandan Civil War and from 1990 to 1994, Uganda was not only the rear base but also the arsenal of the RPA.

Since the attack, two conflicting theories have arisen:

1) That of an attack carried out by “Hutu extremists” who assassinated the president on board the aeroplane in order to trigger the genocide they had planned and prepared for in advance.

2) The main weak point in this theory is that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) clearly established that an agreement to commit genocide was never made and that the genocide had not been planned in advance. This was established in all decisions concerning the “main perpetrators of the genocide,” from the initial hearing to the subsequent appeals.

3) That of an attack carried out by the RPF by order of General Kagame to decapitate the Rwandan state and create an excuse to take power by military force. Ethno-mathematically speaking, the upcoming elections, overseen by the UN, were going to give the Hutus a more or less automatic victory (+/- 90% of the population) over the Tutsi (+/- 10%), despite internal divisions amongst the Hutus. Note that Judge Bruguière also subscribed to this theory.

4) Does the document presented to all parties concerned by Judges Trévidic and Poux on the 10th January cast doubt upon this summary of the investigation?

5) No, because the only new information it contained concerns the site from which the two missiles were shot. According to the expert report, this site was “probably” in the Kanombe area, a distance of two to three kilometres or less from the farm in Massaka which had been identified according to several witness statements as being the firing point by Judge Bruguière.

As for the Kanombe camp, it was not the “sanctuary” of the presidential guard, who were mainly stationed at the billet in the centre of Kigali, opposite the CND which had housed the barrack of the RPA since the signing of the Arusha agreements. This was a vast area, partly surrounded by two rows of barbed wire, open towards Massaka looking out onto wasteland and shrubbery. It was easy to enter the area unless you tried to go through the main entrance. This meant that in practise, a group of RPF commandos could have gained access.

Judges Trévidic and Poux are now going to have to compare this expert report with the other elements belonging to the case. This means in particular that they will have to answer the question of the missile cases found at Massaka. They will also have to compare the expert report with witness statements from Judge Bruguière’s file which gave extremely precise, comprehensive details about the site from which the missiles were fired – Massaka, the names of the two shooters and their escorts, and exactly how the attack unfolded.

Only at the end of the inquiry, in several months’ time at the very earliest, will the judges submit their final report. Until then, everything said on the subject is just speculation, misinformation, and propaganda or, in a nutshell, “smoke screens.”

Johan Swinnen, Belgian Ambassador to Rwanda during the tragic years (1990-1994), agreed to give Le Vif/L’Express newspaper his own analysis.

– Question: This report seems to incriminate the Hutu extremists, more so than the Tutsi rebels of the RPF, currently in power. What do you make of that?

– Answer: It’s just an intermediary report. Certain people have already begun to speculate by naming the shooters, which is unacceptable. Yes, perhaps Hutu extremists were responsible. But I don’t rule out the possibility of a scenario organised by the RPF. Did this organisation want to take total control of the country? As a minority group, they did not want to hear about an election, even though this had been foreseen in the Arusha agreements of 1993. The problem today is that the debate has been cut short. Anybody who adds a simple nuance or poses a question is accused of revisionism or negationism. I’ve had enough of all of these disagreements between Rwandan and European experts, politicians or diplomats, most of which are more ideological than factual. The best way would be an objective inquiry mandated by the international community.

– Q: Do you believe that the genocide was planned in advance?

– A: In my reports from the beginning of 1994, I never used the term “genocide.” However, I did often comment on the risk of a tragic destabilisation caused by the militia, by the distribution of weapons, the devastation caused by the RTLM radio station, not to mention the radicalisation which sprung from the 1993 assassination of the Burundi president Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu ever to be democratically elected.

– Q: So how do you explain the magnitude of the massacres then?

– A: Tensions were at their highest ever. The RPF rebels had provoked the displacement of more than a million people who were now living in indescribable conditions. They all fell into the trap of turning to radicalisation and extremism. This hatred was shared by both Hutu and Tutsi! I was the only diplomat to go to Mulindi to tell Kagame that he should also try to silence his radio Muhabura if I was going to have any success in the measures I was taking to stop RTLM. Muhabura was also a deadly radio station. But at the time, human rights movements were only looking at one side of the story. It is important not to make any mistakes here, and especially not to trivialise anything. Hutu extremists committed genocide. How did they get to that point? To what extent was the RPF responsible? We must be allowed to ask these questions.

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This English translation has been possible thanks to the project Mondo Lingua: Free translation of websites for NGOs and non-profit-making organisations. A project managed by Mondo Services. Translator: Philippa Criddle – www.mondo-lingua.org