YouSaid · the spoken record

Bicamumpaka

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25
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1994-05-16
most recent
1994-05-16
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “That is the message of the battered and torn people of Rwanda, which desires peace and national and reconciliation and rejects war and enslavement.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  2. “I take this opportunity to reiterate the sincere thanks of the Government of Rwanda to all friendly countries, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and all people devoted to peace and justice who have given their all to help the Rwandese people find peace once again and who have spared no effort, at the risk of their own lives, to ease the suffering of the many refugees and those displaced by war. I should like here to pay a particular tribute to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which deemed it necessary to remain with the Rwandese people. I say "thank you" to them and urge them to stay to continue to do even more, because our needs are immense, faced as we are with over 2 million people on the road to exile because of this absurd and senseless war.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  3. “No one is more tired of the war than the people of Rwanda, but neither is anyone more devoted to freedom and democracy than this people victimized by nearly four years of externally-imposed war. It is to offer relief to this people in its misery and to build a better future that the Rwandese Government remains committed and determined to resume dialogue with the RPF on the basis of the Arusha Peace Agreement, which is the point of departure for reaching a lasting peace and national reconciliation. In this connection, the international community will continue to play a central role, either at the level of the Agreement and compliance with it or at the level of humanitarian assistance and national reconstruction.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  4. “It is upon Uganda that a military embargo must be imposed, and not upon Rwanda. It is not the victim who should be punished but the aggressor. The embargo against Rwanda would be tantamount to direct support for Ugandan aggression. The RPF would continue to receive its weapons and would not stop massacring civilians until it had come to power by force. But what good what it serve to take power against the will of the Rwandese people? An embargo against Rwanda would violate the Charter of the United Nations, which enshrines the principle of self-defence. Thus, the embargo should be considered against the aggressor when the question of Ugandan aggression against Rwanda is considered.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  5. “The Rwandese Government nonetheless welcomes the consensus achieved on certain points relating to the expansion of UNAMIR to allow it to contribute to the security and protection of the civilian population and deliveries of humanitarian assistance. The Rwandese Government is convinced that the cease-fire will not be respected nor the Rwandese conflict resolved until Uganda ends its aggression against Rwanda and stops supplying war materiel and troops to the RPF. The Security Council should ensure that this occurs. In this connection, the Rwandese Government has conveyed to the Council documents clearly showing Uganda's involvement in the Rwandese conflict. To prevent that country once and for all from destabilizing Rwanda and other countries of the region, it is urgent that an arms embargo be imposed upon it.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  6. “For one thing, its leaders have returned to Mulindi, the headquarters of the Inkotanyi; and for another, it has been shown that the battalion participated in the war and in massacring the civilian population of the city of Kigali. The Rwandese Government believes that the only way of ensuring respect for a cease-fire is the establishment in Rwanda of an international buffer force made up of troops from truly neutral countries and excluding Rwanda's neighbours. Such a force would be created by expanding the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and strengthening its means. The Rwandese Government believes that the Security Council should seriously consider this approach in establishing such a buffer force.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  7. “Faced with this intransigence, the international community - especially the Security Council - must shoulder its responsibilities by compelling the RPF to enter into dialogue with the Government so as to bring about an immediate cease-fire. The Rwandese Government is willing to conclude a cease-fire agreement with the RPF immediately. Such an agreement, guaranteed by the international community, and especially the United Nations, should make it possible for the two armies to resume the positions they held before 6 April 1994. Moreover, the RPF battalion that was in Kigali to protect its leaders should not be reconstituted.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  8. “More than 250,000 have found refuge in Tanzania, and there would have been more had the RPF not blocked the bridge over the river at the border. The fate of those who did not flee is well-known. They were gathered together and collectively massacred by machine gun or grenade, as is the custom of the RPF. It is said that some RPF fighters eat the hearts of men they have killed in order to become invincible. Can the RPF exile more than 6 million Hutu? Of course not. But there will be a catastrophe if the RPF does not abandon its logic of war and if it does not agree to enter into dialogue with the Rwandese Government, the sole legitimate representative of the Rwandese people, who fully support it.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  9. “Messages calling for peace were broadcast over the radio. The President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and members of the Government criss-crossed the country, holding meetings calling for peace. It is true that the killing has now stopped in those areas where there is no fighting, but not in areas where the fighting continues. Indeed, the RPF turned down offers of a cease-fire, including offers by the Facilitator, the President of Tanzania, His Excellency Mr. Ali Hassan Mwinyi. Seizing power by force has become an obsession for the RPF, which is systematically massacring people, particularly Hutus, who refuse to support it. The areas it has infiltrated have become killing fields. The people of the districts of Byumba and Kibungo have fled en masse to escape the merciless massacres of the RPF.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  10. “The people of Rwanda carried out a social revolution in 1959 against the autocratic power of the Tutsi minority and the stifling feudal yoke. No people, however docile, can agree to be slaves once again. What the people of Rwanda need now is peace, through an end to war and through national reconciliation. This means that there has to be a candid dialogue between the Rwandese Government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front. It goes without saying that military hostilities and inter-ethnic violence must first cease. One of the prime tasks of the Government of Rwanda is to ensure peace and security for its people. That is why as soon as it took power it appealed to the RPF to accept a cease-fire. The Government also took strong measures to stop inter-ethnic violence which was spreading throughout the country.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  11. “Now the people of Rwanda have been driven into exile, without any hope of returning, for the RPF is preparing to destroy all that they owned. Indeed, the head of the RPF himself gave the order to march on the capital, saying that men and animals, small and large, should stay out of the way or be killed. Where will they go - these men and these animals? Did not some RPF leaders say at the beginning of the war that the Hutu should go into exile for at least 30 years and leave the country to the Tutsi? That is not the solution. The solution to the tragedy of Rwanda is not to impose exile on the Hutu, who constitute 90 per cent of the population. The solution is not to let the Tutsi minority - 10 per cent of the population - seize power. The problem of Rwanda has to be understood so that it can be destroyed at its roots.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  12. “Since the beginning of the war the RPF has massacred more than 100,000 people in the district of Byumba, in October-November 1990; more than 150,000 in the districts of Ruhengeri and Byumba in February- March 1993; and about 1,000 after the signing of the Arusha Agreement, including some 30 in Kinihira, 20 in Mutura and a number of others in the demilitarized zone. More recently, after the assassination of President Habyarimana, the RPF ruthlessly massacred Hutu peasants in the north of the country and in the district of Kibungo. Thousands of people perished, and several areas of the capital were plunged into mourning by the RPF, which pitilessly killed men, women, children and old people simply because they were Hutu and against its hegemonic designs.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  13. “The RPF, strongly supported by Uganda, has taken responsibility for killing the Head of State of Rwanda - high treason in any civilized country - and has resumed the war, a war more savage than the one that began on 1 October 1990. It has carried out systematic, selective massacres of civilians. The RPF shamelessly accepted responsibility for its heinous crimes because it was certain that it could continue to mislead the world and convince the world it was innocent. But can we believe in its innocence? Can we agree that all of these crimes should simply be disregarded because of an unprecedented media campaign to absolve the assassins and assign them the hero's role? Yet even before the crimes of April 1994 the RPF had been guilty of abominable crimes that did not move the world and that the media cavalierly ignored.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  14. “Long-repressed hatred and bottled-up feelings resulting from constant provocation erupted. All of these events, one after the other, unleashed the animal instinct of a people afraid of being enslaved once again. Animal instinct or instinct to survive? This is the explanation of the inter-ethnic violence that followed the tragic death of President Habyarimana and the immediate resumption of war by the RPF. The Government of Rwanda has condemned every massacre, no matter who the perpetrators were. Those perpetrators must be identified and punished. But this applies to the entire duration of the war, that is, since 1 October 1990.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  15. “There were about 4,000 RPF fighters on 6 April 1994, not the 600 accepted in the Arusha Agreement. The assassination of the Head of State of Rwanda on 6 April 1994 and the simultaneous resumption of war were not mere coincidence. These events were part of a carefully prepared plan to seize power in Kigali. That plan was coordinated with the Ugandan authorities, who themselves had carried out a concealed demobilization to make soldiers available to send to the front in Rwanda. The resumption of hostilities by the RPF, along with large-scale massacres of Hutu civilians, was the straw that broke the camel's back, unleashing repressed hatreds and a festering desire for revenge. The apocalypse came in the form of an inter-ethnic war of unbelievable cruelty.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  16. “"Good riddance" said one Head of State in the region, whose unconditional support led the RPF to bring the apocalypse to Rwanda. The RPF took advantage of this moment of shock and grief to send its battalions, reinforced by soldiers of the Ugandan regular army, against the capital of Rwanda and against all the other positions of the Rwandese Armed Forces. Once again, as in March-April 1992 and February- March 1993, the RPF chose to violate agreements concluded with the Government of Rwanda. It has never been said often enough, but it was common knowledge, that as soon as the Arusha Agreement was signed, on 4 August 1993, the RPF began to prepare for war by recruiting and by infiltrating its fighters throughout the country, and particularly into the capital.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  17. “The leaders of the RPF, with their ultra-conservative ideology based on the arrogance of their ancestors, were not able to accept the contradiction facing them. Unable to persuade, they began to threaten - clear threats that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and even the international community were not able to stand up against. It was then that the tragic, cruel and inhuman moment arrived. On 6 April 1994 the Head of State of Rwanda, Major-General Juvenal MHabyarimana, was __ brutally assassinated along with his Burundi counterpart, His Excellency Cyprien Ntaryamira. Two Heads of State died that night at the same time, burned to ashes in the wreckage of their plane, shot down by a ground-to-air missile.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  18. “It wanted power during the transitional period, and at any price. Indeed, the transitional period was to determine the political future of Rwanda. It was during that period that we were to prepare the constitution, the electoral laws and the other laws to establish the post-electoral political system. The RPF, the political organization representing the Tutsi minority - about 10 per cent of the Rwandese population - wanted to be able to win the future elections or simply to avoid them by introducing into Rwanda the bizarre system of a non-party democracy so dear to President Museveni of Uganda. This approach by the RPF was not, however, able to resist the commitment of our people and the political parties to the democratic process, which had already begun. This was the moment of truth.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  19. “Our thanks go to Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, President of the Republic of Zaire, the first mediator to be able to bring together the fraternal enemies so that they could agree on a cease-fire, which was concluded at Nsele-Kinshasa on 29 March 1991. Finally, I should like to thank all the observers at the negotiations, who spared no effort to get the two parties to sign the Arusha Peace Accords. The people of Rwanda, and particularly those displaced in the fighting, had legitimate hopes for those agreements. Everybody came together in saying: long live peace in Rwanda. But alas, how disappointed we were when the moment came to implement the Accords, which had been negotiated with such difficulty. The Rwandese Patriotic Front, the political organ of the invaders, showed its true colours.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  20. “Here I would like to pay tribute to the tireless efforts of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and the outstanding work of his Special Representative in Kigali, to restore peace to Rwanda. I would also pay a well-deserved tribute to Mr. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, President of the United Republic of Tanzania who, with his wisdom and far-sightedness, was able, as facilitator, to ensure the successful outcome of the Arusha negotiations. I take the opportunity of commending the tireless efforts of the Organization of African Unity which, working with successive Presidents and the Secretary- General, has made intense diplomatic efforts to restore peace to Rwanda.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  21. “And yet, they claim to have taken up arms in order to restore democracy and the prosperity of Rwanda. What kind of democracy accepts the systematic killing of its people? What democracy can tolerate the forced displacement of more than a million people? Fortunately, the army and the Rwandese people together were able to stop the revenge-seeking invaders, despite the strong-arm intervention of the Ugandan soldiers, whose notorious Simba battalion was disgraced in the attempt to take the town of Ruhengeri in north-west Rwanda, only 25 kilometres from the frontier with Uganda. The invaders were forced to negotiate because they were unable to attain their objective of seizing power in Kigali in under three days, the target they had set for themselves.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  22. “Deep friendships developed between the Hutu and Tutsi peasants and among the elites on both sides, and mixed marriages were celebrated, many modest but some with great ceremony. The illusion was perfect, but it was still only an illusion, for then came the invasion of 1 October 1990, fomented by the Chiefs of Staff of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda. The wound that we thought had healed was reopened. Many lost their lives simply because they were Hutu. The invaders, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), had taken the name Inkotanyi, that is, implacable killers - an expression taken from one of the 19th-century royal militias notorious for its cruelty. They destroyed everything that could symbolize republican power - roads, bridges, clinics, hospitals, schools and so on.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  23. “The feudal lords did not accept the verdict of history and of the ballot box. But the result of the referendum organized in September 1961 by the United Nations was beyond doubt: no more monarchy in Rwanda, but rather a democratic republic. That was and remains the will of the people of Rwanda. The feudal lords preferred exile to being governed by the former commoners, the children of slaves. They chose exile and counter-revolution. From 1962 to 1967, Rwanda had therefore to cope with interminable wars fomented in particular by Uganda. There were many innocent victims, either assassinated directly by the invaders or in reprisal by the Hutu population against the Tutsi who had remained in the country. Several years of tranquility passed. Some said that ethnic hatred had died down, that national reconciliation had been achieved.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  24. “Yet the actual reality is different, more complex, less easy to grasp from the outside. It is deeply rooted in the subconscious of every Rwandese and in the collective memory of an entire people. The Rwandese tragedy derives from the age-old history of the nation of Rwanda. The hatred that is erupting now was forged over four centuries of cruel and ruthless domination of the Hutu majority by the haughty and domineering Tutsi minority. The hatred was cultivated by four centuries of cultural indoctrination designed to bring about the mental enslavement of an entire people. But too much hatred and too much contempt, too much enslavement, inevitably bring rebellion. That is what happened in Rwanda in 1959, when the Hutu overthrew the feudal monarchy and replaced it with a democratic republic.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source

  25. “Mr. Bicamumpaka (Rwanda) (interpretation from French): First of all, Sir, I should like to congratulate you on your assuming the presidency of the Council for the month of May and on your admirable handling of our work. It is an honour for me to be able to address this august body, which bears the heavy burden of watching over the destiny of the world to preserve it from the catastrophes of war. I speak to you in order to invite you to look more deeply into the tragic events that are currently besetting my country, Rwanda. Many people learned of these events as they happened, unaware of their historical background and origin, or of the motives behind them. However, many have asked why there was so much hatred and cruelty. Some would answer naively that it was the fault of the Rwandese army or of the Rwandese Government.”

    1994-05-16 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.3377 (1994) · source