Hello, and welcome to what the video title says this is. Enjoy.
Over the six months, a dynamic had completely changed.
Rwanda's economy in ruin, the FAR was weak, and the RPF was strong.
They arrived at the gates of Kigali in days, leaving a path of destruction behind them.
Abuse and rape was rampant.
The targeting of educated and political Hutu not uncommon,
and their massacres not unheard of.
Over a million Hutu fled for their lives.
The French doubled their efforts, and the Hutu of Kigali prepared to die fighting.
And so Kagame did not attack.
Instead, this would be a message to his enemy,
now that the peace talks had resumed.
The international community pressured Kagame to withdraw from his new gains
and so a large DMZ was opened between the two sides.
The threat of the RPF less imminent, Habyarimana felt the Akazu breathing down his neck.
And as a counter, made many concessions to the Tutsi rather than these radicals.
This gave way for the signing of the Arusha Accords in August.
Power sharing, a unified armed forces, and more was set for the republic.
The United Nations would deploy a new mission: UNAMIR,
under the command of Canadian general Romeo Dallaire.
And with a strong, mostly Belgian force.
It seemed Rwanda's future was bright.
But given the title of the video, you can guess it wasn't.
Bagosora had left the accords to, in his words,
"Prepare for the apocalypse."
Hutu power rallies became common.
Interahamwe openly antagonized Tutsi,
and weapon caches of guns, explosives, most noticeably machetes,
were finding their way to the militias.
Courtesy of the Akazu.
The red flags were clear, and members of UNAMIR began overhearing much talk of a "final solution."
The security council however only kept reiterating, "You are to keep peace, not make it."
And so their hands were tied.
On April 6th, '94, President Habyarimana's plane was shot down outside Kigali Airport.
Was it the RPF? Was it the Akazu? Was it the Jews?
Probably not the last one, but the answer today remains a mystery.
What is known as "peace" was currently burning up in the wreckage of that plane.
Immediately after the crash, Bagosora and other high-ranking military met together as the Crisis Committee.
It was a blatant attempt at seizing power.
General Dallaire knew it, and knew what this meant for the true successor to Habyarimana.
Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana.
Pronunciation's not my forte.
The Prime Minister was a moderate through and through,
and was a clear target for the Akazu.
And so she quickly had a U.N escort assigned to her, to protect her in this chaos.
The chaos was at first a very aggressive presidential guard,
but soon became something far more than that.
Far worse than that.
The Thousands Hill free radio would let out a code word that the Interahamwe knew well:
"Cut the tall trees."
The militia moved through the streets and organized bands,
attacking and butchering all Tutsi immoderates they found.
All the friends, neighbors, family, didn't matter.
The FAR at best did nothing.'
And at worst, assisted them.
Meanwhile, UNAMIR's rules of engagment still kept them out.
Belligerency was to be avoided at all cost.
The memories of the Battle of Mogadishu in '93 haunted the security council.
19 U.S. soldiers died, and the political fallout was immesuarble.
Compromising neutraltiy was a threat to all international bodies in Rwanda,
and so the U.N's peace keeping had them only keeping to themselves.
The FAR were one step ahead of the U.N. anyways.
They wanted them gone, and knew how to do that.
Thekr rogue soldiers would overwhelm the prime mininster's escort and force their surrender,
killing the woman and taking ten Belgian soldiers hostage.
They'd be brutally tortured before being hacked to death with machetes.
And Dallaire couldn't do anything.
The first night had been a nightmare,
but the international community would finally respond on April the 8th.
French, Belgian, and U.S. forces landed in Rwanda and began the evacuation of...
expats, and expats only.
All Rwandan refugees were turned back, and only foreigners saved.
Well actually, France took some Rwandans.
Members of the Akazu.
And they may have also left supplies for the FAR.
With their departure left the force that could have stopped this genocide.
And shortly after that, the Belgians and many others of UNAMIR left.
In the face of ten dead men, they gave up.
Dellaire and the Ghanaians stayed to do what they could,
walking a fine line of being court-marshaled.
It was a thankless job, if ever there was one.
The genocide would run rampant for 100 days.
Packs of civilians armed with often not much more than machetes
were brutally efficient.
And the massacres held the company of mass rape and looting.
The radio told them what to do, and the FAR helped them do it.
They all believed that the ends justify the means.
The Tutsi were violent oppressors. They had to be erradicated for a peaceful Rwanda.
But the streets piling up with bodies don't scream "peace" to me.
Kayame had resumed the civil war almost immediately after the president's departure.
The FAR was too fixated on genocide to be any real fighting force.
And the RPF had a very easy time painting a grim picture of the enemy.
Every time UNAMIR demanded a ceasefire, it was ignored.
Lucky Tutsi refugees were able to flock behind the lines of the RPF,
and in late June, that line had surrounded Kigali.
Using elements of both traditional and psychological warfare,
the better-equipped and outnumbering FAR was defeated by July 4th
and the RPF took the capital.
The genocide ended shortly after Kagame's victory,
and 800,000 were left dead from the genocide alone.
FAR, Interahamwe, Akuzu, and really, any fearing Hutu
fled in the millions to Zaire,
where they'd live as refugees across the border.
After the civil war, the former regime and its followers
would find themselves like the Tutsi of the 1960s,
and would carry out attacks and raids across the border just like they had done.
In the reborn republic, Kagame styled himself as a vice president.
But fact was, he did hold the real power.
RPF propaganda quickly spread, and the evil of the genocide and the heroics of the RPF
was to be known to all, and repeated again and again.
Rwanda became about peace and reconciliation, and Kagame made sure you didn't forget it.
What was made to be forgotten, though, was the RPF's own crimes.
And today, very little has been done to bring justice in these cases.
Rwanda was a shell of its former self, the decades of tension, violence, and distress
had left a country with 40% of its population gone
and everyone traumatized.
The genocide had not only scarred Rwanda, it had become Rwanda.
The international community came out to pay respects and lament about how "it didn't know and was sorry."
It was too little, too late, and the dynamic of Central Africa had shifted dramatically.
And the road was paved for the worst conflict Africa would ever suffer:
The Congo Wars.
At least, so far.
A nod of the head to the patrons, and a more exaggerated one to Oliver Hunt,
David Kendle, Ay, Thomas Kerley, and Anal_Scrubs.
Toodles!