Rwandan genocide 'postponed'

2004-10-12 10:27

Arusha, Tanzania - Rwanda's 1994 genocide was initially planned to start on February 23 of that year but was delayed to ensure that as many Tutsis as possible were slaughtered, Hirondelle news agency has reported a witness as telling the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Witness XXQ, a member of the former Rwandan army, told the court that on February 22, 1994, a telegram announced that "the planned activities for tomorrow are suspended", Hirondelle reported late on Monday.

"These activities would have been killing Tutsis and Hutu opponents," Hirondelle quoted the witness as telling the court.

"The suspension was motivated by the desire to wait for the school holidays, so that no Tutsis, even schoolchildren, would survive," the witness said.

"When the plane carrying then Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was brought down on the evening of April 6, no new date had yet been set for the massacres," the witness said.

The slaughter ran from April 6 to July 1994, during which time up to one million people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, were murdered in a well-orchestrated killing spree.

The witness was giving evidence in the trial of former Rwandan defence ministry cabinet director Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, former head of military operations Brigadier Gratien Kabiligi, ex-military commander of northwest Gisenyi region Lieutenant Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva and former para-commando battalion commander Major Aloys Ntabakuze.

The four accused, whose trial opened on April 2, 2002, have all pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"The four accused were part of a group of officers hostile to sharing power with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), now in power in Kigali," the witness said.

The witness was to be cross-examined by the defence on Tuesday.

- AFP