Global Policy Forum

By Daniel Wallis

A former Canadian general has described a Rwandan army officer as the "kingpin" behind the country's 1994 genocide and has accused the suspect of threatening to kill him with a pistol. Romeo Dallaire, who was in charge of U.N. forces in Rwanda during the genocide, was taking the stand on Monday as a prosecution witness for the first time at a tribunal for leaders accused of organising the killings of 800,000 people. Dallaire, who was so traumatised by his failure to halt the slaughter that six years later he tried to commit suicide, said former Rwandan army colonel Theoneste Bagosora was the key figure exercising government authority during the massacres. "The last time I saw him he threatened me with his pistol and told me that if he saw me again he would kill me," Dallaire told the tribunal in Arusha, northern Tanzania, describing an encounter with Bagosora in late June or early July 1994. Dallaire said that Bagosora had threatened him at a hotel in the Rwandan capital Kigali after accusing him of undermining a plan to transfer people fleeing the massacres. Dallaire said he had objected to the scheme on the grounds that such a move would expose people to attack by the same gangs of killers Bagosora is accused of organising. Dallaire was testifying against Bagosora and three other military commanders standing joint trial on charges of ordering ethnic Hutu militia to butcher minority Tutsis and politically-moderate Hutus during 100 days of bloodshed. Bagosora and fellow former officers Anatole Nsengiyumva, Aloys Ntabakuze and Gratien Kabiligi have all pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

"FALLING ASLEEP"

"What I found incredible to witness was I had never found someone so calm and so at ease with what was going on," Dallaire told the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), describing Bagosora's conduct. "He shuffled some papers and signed some documents. General Ndindiliyimana was sometimes falling asleep," he said before a packed public gallery. "It was like they were totally on another planet, or something was going as to plan." General Augustin Ndindiliyimana is currently being held in detention by the ICTR, but his trial date has not been set. "At no other time did I see anyone other than Bagosora as the leading body. It was surreal. They were implementing a plan we had heard from so many sources," he said. Prosecutors hope Dallaire's testimony will provide more evidence that the killings were officially sanctioned by hardliners in the ethnic Hutu majority to maintain their dominance over the Tutsi minority. "All fingers pointed to the hardline elements in the government," Dallaire told the court, where security was tight. Prosecutors say Bagosora was so opposed to concessions made by his government to Tutsi rebels at 1993 peace talks that he said he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare the apocalypse". They say he seized control after President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed when a plane carrying him was shot down on April 6, 1994. The genocide began hours later.

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