Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira

On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda; both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.

Responsibility for the attack is disputed. Most theories propose as suspects either the Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) or government-aligned Hutu Power followers opposed to negotiation with the RPF.

Background

In 1990, the Rwandan Civil War began when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda. Most of the RPF fighters were either refugees or the sons of refugees who had fled ethnic purges by the Hutu government during the Rwandan revolution. The attempt to overthrow the government failed, though the RPF was able to maintain control of a border region. As it became clear that the war had reached a stalemate, the sides began peace negotiations in May 1992, which resulted in the signing in August 1993 of the Arusha Accords to create a power-sharing government.

The war radicalized the internal opposition. The RPF's show of force intensified support for the "Hutu Power" ideology. Hutu Power portrayed the RPF as an alien force intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus, a prospect which must be resisted at all costs. This ideology was embraced most wholeheartedly by the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) who advocated racist principles known as the Hutu Ten Commandments. This political force led to the collapse of the first Habyarimana government in July 1993, when Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye criticized the president in writing for delaying a peace agreement. Habyarimana, a member of the MRND political party, dismissed Nsengiyarmye and appointed 'Madame' Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who was perceived to be less sympathetic to the RPF, in his stead. The main opposition parties refused to support Madame Agathe's appointment, each splitting into two factions: one calling for the unwavering defense of Hutu Power and the other, labeled "moderate", that sought a negotiated settlement to the war. As Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was unable to form a coalition government, ratification of the Arusha Accords was impossible. The most extreme of the Hutu parties, the CDR, which openly called for ethnic cleansing of the Tutsi, was entirely unrepresented in the Accords.

The security situation deteriorated throughout 1993. Armed Hutu militias attacked Tutsis throughout the country, while high-ranking adherents of Hutu Power began to consider how the security forces might be turned to genocide. In February 1994, Roméo Dallaire, the head of the military force attached to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), which had been sent to observe the implementation of the Arusha Accords, informed his superiors, "Time does seem to be running out for political discussions, as any spark on the security side could have catastrophic consequences."

In the United Nations Security Council, early April 1994 saw a sharp disagreement between the United States and the non-permanent members of the council over UNAMIR. Despite a classified February Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysis predicting half a million deaths if the Arusha process failed, the U.S. was attempting to reduce its international commitments in the wake of the Somalia debacle and lobbied to end the mission. A compromise extending UNAMIR's mandate for three more months was finally reached on the evening of Tuesday, 5 April. Meanwhile, Habyarimana was finishing regional travel. On 4 April, he had flown to Zaire to meet with president Mobutu Sese Seko and on 6 April flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for a one-day regional summit for heads of state convened by Tanzanian president Ali Hassan Mwinyi. For the return trip, Habyarimana offered to take Saleh Tambwe, Tanzania's Ambassador to Rwanda, with him back to Rwanda. He then extended the offer to President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira. Ntaryamira accepted, preferring Habyarimana's faster Dassault Falcon 50 to his own transport. Several Burundian ministers joined the president on the flight. As a result of this new arrangement, Tambwe was not brought on board to make room for the Burundian entourage.

According to interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda's testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), President Mobutu of neighboring Zaire (now DRC) had warned Habyarimana not to go to Dar es Salaam on 6 April. Mobutu reportedly said this warning had come from a very senior official in the Élysée Palace in Paris. There was a link between this warning, said Mobutu, and the subsequent suicide in the Élysée of François de Grossouvre, a senior high-ranking official who was working for President François Mitterrand and who killed himself on 7 April after learning about the downing of the Falcon. According to witnesses, president Habyarimana who had been warned that going on the plane is riskful, slowly stepped into the plane, according to some he was unsure and doubting about entering the plane but decided to anyway.