Page 44 - Coespu Magazine 2018-2

military campaign intensified support for the so-called “Hutu Power” ideology, which portrayed the
RPF as an alien force who were non-Christian, intended on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and
enslaving Hutus. Many Hutus reacted to this prospect with extreme opposition: in the lead-up to the
genocide the number of
machetes imported into Rwanda
increased.
On 6th April 1994, an airplane
carrying Habyarimana and
Burundian President Cyprien
Ntaryamira was shot down on
its descent into Kigali. At the
time, the plane was in the
airspace above Habyarimana’s
house. The assassination of
Habyarimana ended the peace
accords.
Genocidal killings began the
following day. Soldiers, police,
and militia quickly executed key
Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders who could have assumed control in the ensuing
power vacuum. Checkpoints and barricades were erected to screen all holders of the national ID card of
Rwanda (which contained ethnic classification information introduced by the Belgian colonial
government in 1933), in order to systematically identify and kill Tutsi. These forces recruited and
pressured Hutu civilians to arm themselves with machetes, clubs, blunt objects, and other weapons to
rape, maim, and kill their
Tutsi neighbors and to
destroy or steal their
property. The breakdown
of the peace accords led
the RPF to restart its
offensive and rapidly seize
control of the northern part
of the Country before
capturing Kigali in mid-
July, so bringing an end to
the genocide. During these
events and in the
aftermath, the United
Nations (UN) and other individual Countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Belgium, were criticized for their inaction and failure to strengthen the force and the mandate of the

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