Dallaire & Rusesabagina: 2 men who witnessed the Rwandan Genocide first-hand, reflect on incidents 3 decades ago

On April 7, 1994, one of the dastardliest crimes in human history began just 121 kilometres south of the Equator, in the very heart of Africa. 

Just the day before, an airplane had been shot down as it descended onto Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, “the land of a thousand hills”. On board were Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira. They, along with everyone else, were killed.

Habyarimana and Ntaryamira were both Hutu, the ethnic majority of Rwanda and Burundi, both countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region. The countries are also home to the Watutsi or Tutsi people, as well as the Twa or Batwa (known earlier by the pejorative term ‘Pygmy’).

Blood feud

Rwanda was once ruled by a Tutsi monarchy. In the mid-20th century, it became a Hutu-led Republic.

The ethnic divide between the Hutu and Tutsi has been analysed in scholarship, more so since the genocide occurred. A major theme in research was and is whether Europeans accentuated the divides between the two when they colonised the Great Lakes.

David L Schoenbrun writes in his work, A Past Whose Time Has Come: Historical Context and History in Eastern Africa's Great Lakes:

Beginning in the 1890s, the Germans and British jockeyed for control of the Nile headwaters. After the German defeat in World War I, the Belgians entered Rwanda and Burundi and the British took over in Tanganyika.

In Post-genocide identity politics and colonial durabilities in Rwanda (2021), Andrea Purdeková & David Mwambari wrote that “the way social identity and subjecthood was structured under colonial rule is considered to have had profound impact on conflicts in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region more broadly”.

They added that the German and Belgian colonial powers did not ‘invent’ ethnicity in the Great Lakes region, even though this is the dominant official narrative in Rwanda today.

“Yet both the German and (subsequently) the Belgian colonial powers did have a clearly discernible and powerful impact on the evolving social categories of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa.”

The cattle-herding Tutsi (among the tallest people on Earth) were considered as ‘Hamites’, or descendants of Ham, a son of the Biblical figure, Noah.

Ham, according to Genesis 9:24-25 (New King James Version), had seen his father drunk and naked. Noah, in turn, felt so humiliated that he put a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, condemning his descendants to perpetual slavery, Paul Ham wrote in The Conversation this year.

“Since the 15th century, religious leaders have cited the passage as the justification for the enslavement of all African people,” Ham further wrote.

Purdeková & David Mwambari note that as Hamites, Europeans considered the Tutsi to be “a distinct and superior race – descendants of an ancient Christian peoples related supposedly to people of old Palestine”.

“Tutsi were said to have migrated from the North of Africa into the Great Lakes region where they subjugated the agriculturalist Hutu. Based on these racial hierarchies and myths of origin, the colonialists discriminated in favour of the Tutsi, who they believed to be the natural leaders. The Hamitic Myth and the invention of the ‘Hima’ race then underpinned a new racialised distribution of power and privilege,” they add.

Read Genocide uncovered

Cut to early April 1994.

The main radio station of Kigali blamed the downing of the plane carrying Habyarimana and Ntaryamira on the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi rebel group that had been fighting a guerilla war with the Rwandan government for some time as part of the Rwandan Civil War.

The station encouraged Hutu to take up arms against the Tutsi, so as to prevent a return to the old days of the Tutsi monarchy.

The resulting bloodbath starting on April 7 and lasting for 100 days saw Rwandan Army, police, the Interahamwe militia and Hutu civilians hack through 800,000 Tutsis, moderate Hutu and Twa men, women and children. A million Tutsi women were raped.

But the horror also saw ordinary people demonstrating humanity of the highest order. The moderate Hutu were killed because they refused to kill their Tutsi compatriots. Many Hutu also saved Tutsi.

Two of the most well-known and oft-cited examples from Rwanda 1994 are Paul Rusesabagina and Romeo Dallaire.

Rusesabagina, the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, helped save 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe by buying their lives. He was feted as an ‘African Oskar Schindler’ and his story was recreated on celluloid as Hotel Rwanda in 2004, where he was portrayed by Don Cheadle.

Roméo Antonius Dallaire, a Canadian military officer, was the commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994.

He is noted for his efforts to try and stop the genocide. Dallaire is also the author of Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, a 2003 book he wrote chronicling his experiences while serving in Rwanda.

A 2004 documentary film based on the book, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, won several awards including the Audience Award for World Cinema at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

30 years later

Both, Rusesabagina and Dallaire have remained connected to Rwanda in the 30 years since the genocide.

Dallaire, who suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and even attempted suicide due to the horrors he witnessed during the genocide, is a global human rights advocate, author and a former senator from Quebec.

He has been outspoken on several issues including child soldiers and PTSD’s impact on war veterans.

But it is Rusesabagina whose life has seen several dramatic developments. He is today a prominent critic of the Government of Rwanda led by President Paul Kagame, the Tutsi commander of the RPF who won the Rwandan Civil War after the genocide and has ruled Rwanda since.

Rusesabagina, a Hutu married to a Tutsi, was arrested by the Rwandan government in 2020 on charges of terrorism as he was associated with the FLN (National Liberation Front) and its political wing, PDR-Ihumure, both of which are opponents of the RPF and are primarily Hutu in composition.

The Rwandan Government holds the FLN responsible for attacks in southern Rwanda in 2018 which killed nine people.

Rusesbagina was sentenced to 25 years in prison on September 20, 2021 after being convicted on terrorism charges. However, his sentence was commuted last year by President Kagame after he had served two years in prison. He is now back in the United States, where he holds a Green Card.

In the run-up to the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Down To Earth contacted both, Rusesabagina and Dallaire, requesting interviews with them. While we could not get an audience with either, their offices did share statements released by both men on the solemn occasion.

“On April 7th, we will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, one of the worst events in human history. I join my fellow Rwandans around the world in grieving those terrible events. 800,000 people were killed during those horrific three months, family and friends, and all Rwandans were deeply wounded,” noted Rusesabagina.

Read Is it time to rethink the definition & concept of ‘genocide’?

However, he added that “given the current conditions in Rwanda, I am sad and deeply disappointed in the Biden administration’s decision to send a high-level US delegation — led by former President Bill Clinton — to Kigali”.

He added that in his greatest moments of desperation while sheltering 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees in the Hôtel des Mille Collines in 1994, “when armed mobs came to kill us, I called President Clinton at the White House and pleaded for help. He didn’t pick up the phone because it was easier to look the other way while Africans were being killed”.

Rusesabagina added that “Clinton later offered an apology for American inaction during the genocide”.

“He (Clinton) said, “Never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence.” To Mr. Clinton, I say, all you have to do is open your eyes and the evidence of ongoing human rights atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwandan troops and proxy forces will be there, confirmed by American satellite intelligence,” said the activist.

By sending a delegation to Rwanda now, President Biden was offering the killers in Rwanda a great gift on a platter, according to him.

If the US was serious about learning a lesson from the 1994 genocide, they would condemn Rwanda’s ongoing violence and human rights atrocities, both inside that country and in the DRC, no matter the political inconvenience.

Meanwhile, Dallaire, in his statement noted that many Rwandans he met during his trip last year were positive about the future.

“…I met with many Rwandans who were born after 1994. These beautiful, positive, luminous young adults were so joyful and enthusiastic, and I quickly realized why: they had been blessed with an extraordinary gift from the previous generation — the gift of Unity. The gift of Peace,” said the Lt General.

The past thirty years in Rwanda had stood as the most profound example of noble and brave peacemaking Dallaire had ever witnessed.

“The level of forgiveness and grace demonstrated by the Rwandan people has been glorious, and will stand for all time as an example to the rest of the world. What once stood as a symbol of the depth of humanity, now stands as its height,” he concluded.

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