A confidential 12-page statement by a former close aide of Rwandan President Paul Kagame has sparked the reopening of a formal investigation into one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century: the assassination that triggered the Rwandan genocide. The document, obtained by The Globe and Mail, accuses Mr. Kagame of direct involvement in the 1994 missile attack that killed former president Juvénal Habyarimana, leading to the genocide in which an estimated 800,000 people died.
The sworn statement has been submitted to French investigating magistrates, who have decided to reopen their probe. The decision has provoked fury from Mr. Kagame, who told military and judicial officials on Monday that he is ready for a “showdown” with France, including a freeze in diplomatic relations, if the investigation continues.
More than two decades after the assassination, nobody has settled the question of who fired two surface-to-air missiles into the Dassault Falcon 50 private jet that carried Mr. Habyarimana and Burundi president Cyprien Ntaryamira, along with seven other officials and a three-man French crew, as their jet approached Kigali’s airport on the night of April 6, 1994, after peace negotiations in Tanzania.
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Immediately after the assassination, Hutu extremists began slaughtering Hutu moderates and Tutsis in the violence that became known as the Rwandan genocide. Various inquiries have reached different conclusions on whether the assassination was carried out by Hutu extremists or the Tutsi rebel army, led by Mr. Kagame.
Canadian general Romeo Dallaire was the commander of a small United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. The United Nations force, which also included about a dozen Canadian troops, was credited with saving thousands of lives during the genocide by securing a few places of shelter. Gen. Dallaire asked the UN to send reinforcements after the mass killings began, but his request was turned down, and the peacekeepers were unable to prevent the genocide. FULL STORY
