Title
À 500 mètres de l'aéroport huit personnes ont été tuées en fin de matinée, au moment même où passait un convoi d'évacués encadré par des militaires français en armes. Lorsqu'une femme tutsi a été assassinée à coups de machettes sous leurs yeux, les soldats n'ont pas bougé
Abstract
- The repatriation of the 600 French people who resided in Rwanda, in the grip of a savage and deadly civil war, is about to end. There would be 70 people left to evacuate today. And a certain number have already arrived last night at Roissy airport after a stopover in the Central African Republic.
- Kigali airport yesterday morning [April 10]. Under the protection of French soldiers, foreign nationals prepare to leave the country. We will have to content ourselves with just these initial scenes to talk about Rwanda this morning. No image for the moment of the fighting that has bloodied the country for four days.
- Belgians, Germans, Americans, French, all foreign nationals living in Rwanda are in the process of leaving Kigali, most often evacuated by plane to the neighboring capitals, Bujumbura or Bangui.
- The first French evacuees from Rwanda pass through Bangui before returning to Paris. Last night, arrival at Roissy airport. The emotion and the joy of finding his family. All are tired but all are relieved. A French national testified: "We spent the night from Thursday [April 7] to Friday [April 8] which was under shellfire, mortar fire. We slept nothing all night, we were very scared".
- A hundred other French and Belgians fled Rwanda by road. This morning they are refugees in Zaire. A Belgian national testifies: "They took everything from us. Me, they put the machete in front of my nose to take my papers. But what especially scared us was when they knew that we were Belgians . They are angry with the Belgians".
- Philippe Boisserie: "This morning in Kigali the evacuations of foreigners, and in particular of the 70 French people still in Rwanda, are continuing. At the same time, violent fighting is taking place in the streets as well as summary massacres. 500 meters from the eight people were killed at the end of the morning, just as a convoy of evacuees flanked by armed French soldiers passed. When a Tutsi woman was murdered with machetes before their eyes, the soldiers did not have not budged. Their mission clearly specifies that they must not take sides with any of the belligerents. It is moreover this passivity which excites the anger of many foreigners on departure, and in particular those of international organizations. […] A Spanish Sister told us how 17 Rwandans from her congregation had been murdered: assembled in a room, the soldiers of the presidential guard threw a grenade before finishing the religious with gunfire. al of Kigali there are still 650 corpses. Other testimonies mention numerous mass graves. It is therefore in a very tense atmosphere that the military aircraft continue their rotations".
- This civil war which drags on in Rwanda deserves some explanation as to its origin. It does not go back to the mists of time but at least to the end of Belgian colonization. Two ethnic groups are fighting over the country and the conflict is spreading to a neighboring nation: Burundi, from where many refugees returned last year, changing the balance of power in this country.
- Horror image, inter-ethnic civil war images. These corpses which rest in the morgue of Kigali belonged to the Tutsi ethnic group, a minority, 10% of the seven million inhabitants of Rwanda with a Hutu majority. A tiny state in Central Africa. Like its neighbour, Burundi, five million inhabitants, 80% Hutu too. For 30 years, these two former Belgian colonies have acted as communicating vessels on either side of their border with their minorities. 600 to 900,000 refugees according to sources.
- In Rwanda the RPF guerrillas defend Tutsi and pro-democratic interests. Facing them, the soldiers of the Republican Guard who embody the radical wing of Hutu intransigence, supplier of volunteers for the anti-Tutsi death squads.
- But these soldiers don't just inflame inter-ethnic rivalries. They are also accused of the assassination last Wednesday [April 6] of their own President, Juvénal Habyarimana. Politically cornered, he declared himself in favor of the political integration of the Tutsi. The manhunt in the streets of Kigali hides badly the dictatorial will of the Hutu soldiers who totally refuse the multiparty system and the democratization of Rwanda.