Documentation for Interahamwe Militia
Oct. 28, 1992
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
This time, the armed militia of the party of the President of the Republic has devised traps aimed at exterminating the youth
July 6, 1993
The Boston Globe
were massacred in northwestern Rwanda in late January 1993 by private militia at the direction of local and central government authorities. In February and March, smaller-scale attacks claimed the lives of at least 30 others. Rwandan soldiers have also attacked Tutsi and opposition party members, and since January have killed, beaten, detained or made to disappear hundreds of civilians."
Dec. 3, 1993
IPS-Inter Press Service
The local authorities described the attackers -- armed with pangs, spears, and grenades -- as bandits.
But the president and his supporters blamed the atrocities on the RPF forces. Some local newspapers, however, accused the government's militia and some elements within the army for being behind the incident.
April 13, 1994
The Guardian (London
A UN-brokered ceasefire, due to come into effect at midday yesterday, fell apart. Belgian UN troops, who have continued to search for foreigners, came under fire from pro-government militia. An RPF spokesman said later that his organisation had no knowledge of a ceasefire.The Guardian (London
April 15, 1994
The Times
six injured civilians were shot dead in the back of a vehicle belonging to the National Rwandan Red Cross.
The victims shot dead in the van were said to have been killed by government soldiers or militiamen manning one of the numerous checkpoints in the city.
The majority of the killings are carried out by militias, trained at the instigation of Juvenal Habyarimana, the Rwandan President, who was killed when his aircraft was shot down last week. The militiamen belonged to two political parties which are opposed to sharing power with rebels from Rwanda's minority Tutsi tribe, who now control northeastern areas of the city.
April 21, 1994
The Independent (London
The organisation said the campaign of killing was planned weeks before Habyarimana's death ''when army officers trained, armed and organised some 1,700 young men into a militia affiliated with the president's political party''.
April 29, 1994
The New York Times
United Nations troop reinforcements and armored vehicles were guarding a hotel against pro-Government militiamen who had threatened to slaughter 300 civilians taking refuge inside
April 29, 1994
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Elements of the Rwandan presidential guard went on a rampage, killing
opposition politicians, Tutsis and Hutus alike. Human-rights groups say it
is clear that Tutsis are now being targeted.
Paramilitary youth militias - their members frequently drunk on banana
beer - seem to be responsible for most of the killing.
May 2, 1994
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
These massacres are part of an extermination plan prepared long ago by senior officials of the dictatorial regime of the late President Habyarimana. To this end, arms, ammunition, military training and all sorts of preparations were given to the MRND-CDR [pro-Habyarimana parties] militias backed by the presidential guard.
May 15, 1994
The Observer
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and the militias paid and gave a sense of purpose to thousands of Hutu youths with no land or prospect of employment. The militias, encouraged by the radio, took the lead in periodic massacres. 'Violence was privatised,' des Forges said.
May 15, 1994
The Observer
Sources say the presidential guard gave the militias three-week training courses in the northeast of the country.
The militias were under the control of the Akasu or Small House, an ancient Kinyarwanda word for royal court, which came to signify the circle of family and friends round the President.
A Rwandan government source has admitted that senior officials armed and trained the militias. But he added: 'After killing and looting, the militias have tended to become autonomous. They don't heed any orders because they have tasted the power of the gun.'
June 18, 1994
The Times
Starting in 1991, members of the now-notorious interahamwe militia were mobilised from every community in the country.
June 18, 1994
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts
The French troops in Rwanda together with government forces trained the dreaded Interahamwe [pro-government militia], armed them to the teeth and posted them throughout the whole country in preparation for the present day holocaust.
June 22, 1994
The Ottawa Citizen
"At the camp I saw the French show Interahamwe how to throw knives and how to assemble and disassemble guns. It was the French who showed us how to do that during a total of four months' training between February 1991 and January 1992. "In early 1992 we did our first killing. Around 70 of us went to Ruhengeri to kill Tutsis from the Bagogwe clan. We killed about 10,000 over one month from our base at the Mukamira military camp at Ruhengeri. Two weeks later we went to Bugosera, where we killed about 5,000 people, mostly people who seemed to be Tutsi.
The militiaman said he was at a meeting of militia leaders Sept. 1, 1992 at which the president and his wife ordered that their opponents be weeded
July 2, 1994
The Age (Melbourne, Australia)
Mr Degni-Segui also said the interim Government was "fully liable" in that it failed to implement efficient measures to forestall atrocities by armed militias.
He also said he held "some foreign states" responsible and called for their interference in Rwanda's politics to be clarified.
Mr Degni-Segui noted the orchestrated nature of the massacres: a radio and television campaign inciting violence, distribution of arms to civilians and militias at year-end, military training of militias between November 1993 and March 1994 and lists of opposition leaders to execute.
April 10, 2006
BBC Monitoring Africa - Political
". Rwanda says it has evidence depicting how the French trained and armed Interahamwe militias who are directly responsible for the atrocities, whose far-reaching socio-economic and political consequences continue to be felt twelve years after the genocide. The development came five months after a French Military Prosecutor left Rwanda after gathering preliminary evidence with regard to a case filed by six genocide survivors, who accuse the French army for aiding the former genocidal regime in Kigali.
Dec. 12, 2009
The Straits Times (Singapore)
THE 100-day genocide started after Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated on April 6, 1994.
[...]
July 18: Rwandan Patriotic Front announces end of war, names Pasteur Bizimungu as president.
April 29, 2010
BBC Monitoring Africa
In a cross-examination by Prosecutor Takeh Sendze, Rugambarara further conceded that the pro-Hutu Interahamwe militia was a youth wing of the then ruling party MRND.
June 1, 2013
BBC Monitoring Africa
When the former Rwanda government army (Ex-FAR) and Interahamwe militia, (who spearheaded the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi that claimed over a million lives) were defeated and fled to DRCongo, they regrouped under several names to camouflage their genocidal credentials.
They created an organization known as Rally for the Return of the Republic (RDR; they later replaced the word "republic" with refugees to sound more legitimate), it later morphed into Liberation Army of Rwanda (ALIR).
When ALIR was blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the US after it killed American tourists, they again changed names to become Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), but their ideology remains the same to date.
