Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Antoine Nyetera's Testimony Before The European Parliament About The Rwandan Genocide

About Nyetera:

Mr. Nyetera is not a simple Tutsi: he is a Tutsi from the royal family. He has lived in Rwanda during all regimes that have succeeded each other during the century i.e. the monarchy, the two republics: the Kayibanda and Habyarimana regimes. Mr. Nyetera fled the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army. He currently lives in Belgium.

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Honourable Ministers,
Honourable Members of the European Parliament,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour for me to be here today and especially to take this speech. The present speech is, to my great desire, about the value of the African spirit expressed through its culture, as I had the opportunity to outline it at numerous occasions. To my great regret, I am compelled to speak about African misery.

It is painful to note that for some years now, Africa has become the stage of all kinds of tragedies at the end of the twentieth century. It is for this reason that I humbly ask you to keep a tiny minute of silence in memory of all victims of these horrors, men, women and children without distinction of nationality, ethnicity, social and religious groups.

Excellencies,
Honourable,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am invited to give evidence of certain facts relating to the events referred to above, given my experience over the past few decades and from various functions. The time seems too short, however, to speak about contemporary Africa in general and Rwanda in particular.

I should tell you about the pre-colonial, then the Colonial Rwanda, the Social Revolution of 1959, the independent Rwanda, the 1st and Second Republics and importantly the war of October 1990 to 1994. The topic is vast. I've often found that some people prefer to hear about the nearest past and the latest events and news. That is why I am compelled to talk briefly about events of the African Great Lakes that started in Rwanda. I do not speak as a politician, but as an observer, a witness to the history of my country.

All periods of time listed above have a common bond between them, each period leaving fingerprints onto the following one. Any historian would agree with me that no people can live a spontaneous socio-political, economic and social situation, without any link to his past history. Thus, to go straight to the point, the situation in which Rwanda has been (and is still) engulfed has a direct relationship with its pre-colonial, then colonial history, with the Social Revolution of 1959 and even with the 1st and 2nd Republic.

As many of you already know, Rwanda gained its independence 2 years after the Social Revolution. Under the 1st Republic, the country has suffered the aftermath of the so-called revolution. Since it was the Hutu-Tutsi problem, they were regarded with a watchful eye, for indeed, as so aptly said Mao Tse-Tung, the revolution is not prepared like a banquet. Once it starts, it continues to the completion, that is, when it reaches its target. It would have been a lack of objectivity to allow the Tutsi to regain power that they had monopolized for over 3 centuries. History shows us examples of countries that have made the Revolution.

In short, the advent of the Second Republic was the beginning of another era of development of a nation shaken by its history and global economic conditions, an era of social and cultural development. I do not think it is necessary to tell you now about social and economic achievements since the advent of the Second Republic led by Habyarimana and his government. It is very easy to read reports of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and those of the cooperation between Rwanda and European countries.

It should be noted here that all Tutsis, members of the RPF or not, know that none of them has ever been persecuted because of his/her ethnicity during the Second Republic. However, in October 1990 Rwanda was subject to aggression of an army of the RPF from Uganda and supported by President Museveni and some European and American countries, in a flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity.

The RPF was formed by a group of Tutsi refugees from 1959 to 1972 and some opportunistic Hutus who had personal accounts to settle with Habyarimana. These Hutus absurdly called "moderates" gave as an explanation of the attack: "The Tutsi refugees were refused the right to return home and ethnic segregation against the Tutsis in Rwanda”. This is a very poor explanation because it was hiding something else. He who does not know Rwanda would still believe that all Tutsis were outside the country, while 2/3 of the Tutsi population were inside the country and only a 1/3 were outside the country.

The report of the High Commissioner for Refugees has presented the figure of 500,000 Tutsi refugees. The census funded by UNDP in 1991 whose results were published by the Ministry of Planning in 1992 shows the figure of 1,300,000 Tutsi living in Rwanda. Again, those who ignore the economic development of Rwanda and who believe the media campaign that the Tutsi had no access to anything should know that most traders were Tutsis who have returned to the country during the Second Republic !

How then can we dare say that the regime of the Second Republic has closed its borders to refugees? Certainly refugees who lust for power would not return to the country; they would rather prevent others from returning. In short, a few months later, the RPF has changed their language and adopted democracy as the grounds for the attack, a language that the West and Americans readily accept! And Rwanda was described as a chaotic country, ravaged by dictatorship!

I confess that I did not know that democracy is fed by human blood! To my surprise, the international community saw this and did not react and as an approval of the action of the RPF, Rwanda was forced to introduce a multiparty system as a condition not to be deprived of any help! Consequently, Rwanda had recorded 17 political parties only in a period of two years while the RPF remained a war party. This was not enough for the international community: there were also Arusha peace negotiations! The Rwanda will gladly participate; the result was the power-sharing: 45% for RPF whose members do not even represent 20% of the total population.

In January 1994, President Habyarimana signed the agreements according to the protocol to establish the transitional government. Despite its presence in Kigali, the RPF refused to take part in the establishment of government. And on April 6, 1994 Habyarimana was assassinated! Hostilities resumed, and the result is well known with the meaning we gave to these massacres.

Habyarimana was accused of supervising or initiating the genocide that took place after his death! Equally, his brothers were accused of being instigators of the genocide while some of them were not even on the spot and another died in the same plane with Habyarimana. As regards the latter's death, some have gone so far to speculate that Mrs. Habyarimana paid for the missiles that shot down the plane. Others accused the Rwandan army!

The reality is that Rwanda was at that time struck with embargo and had no weapons nor ammunitions, while the RPF was supplied with heavy weapons and ammunitions via Kampala!
After the takeover by the RPF and before even organizing the affected country, the Kigali government launched the attack on the neighbouring Zaire (now Congo), on the grounds to track down the enemy and to extend its safety zone to Kinshasa.

I'll leave the analysis of this problem and you know where things stand now. Mr. Museveni, President of Uganda is omnipresent in this conflict: the European community sees this but keeps silent, the silence, which is an obvious complicity. This conflict is not only in Rwanda and Congo.

Burundi still faces ethnic conflict since the death of President Ndadaye assassinated by Tutsi soldiers a few months after his inauguration, and President Ntaryamira who died in the same plane as Habyarimana. The Mututsi Buyoya has self-proclaimed President of the Republic, despite the fact that he had been ousted by the 1993 election! The international community is silent forever! In light of these facts, we can ask some questions:

1) In the case of Rwanda, how can we erase the footprints of the Revolution in 1959, knowing that those massacres forenamed genocide have occurred in the circumstances explained above in direct link with that revolution?

2) Equally, how can one qualify those massacres as genocide while, so far, nobody has been able to establish the plan of genocide that would date from before Habyarimana’s death? Increased killings don’t suffice to prove the existence of a predetermined plan.

3) How can we forget the death of Habyarimana which ignited it? How and why the international community has never thought to investigate the death of two Presidents, even when the media tell us the origin of the missiles.

4) How do we close eyes to the massacres perpetrated against Hutu refugees in Congo (former Zaire) and in Rwanda till today, despite pressing reports from NGO’s?

5) How can we close ears and make the blind eye to the Kigali regime which ignores any form of democracy, whereas the same people went to war claiming to fight for Democracy?

6) How and why the international community or the European community has never made allusion to the thousands of Hutus died since the beginning of the attack on 1 October 1990 until the resumption of hostilities in April 1994, to over 600,000 displaced persons who have lived in plastic tents for 2 years, but only talked about Tutsi killed?

7) Therefore, how can you dare talk about reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi, while some are demonized and other sanctified? Can there be agreement between Angels and Devils? Where did the idea to establish an International Tribunal to sue and accuse Hutus who were attacked and formed a civil defence leaving alone Tutsis who assaulted the country?

A word to the European Community

Gentlemen, since African countries gained their independence, the European community has continued to provide assistance to the development of those countries: economic infrastructure, high schools and colleges, scholarships in European countries, pay to teachers in African Universities, all this was very expensive for countries members of the community.

Sadly, with the left arm, the same countries provide weapons and ammunition to destroy all the infrastructure and human lives! All graduates from universities are here in European countries, others are dead. How can we even think of economic and scientific development in Africa whereas productive heads are cut and others are reduced to inactivity? And these refugees are here to receive welfare just to survive and not go out begging.

Gentlemen, have you thought of your people who, one day or another might pose the question to find out how you have managed their money? For it is the peoples' money you spend to build and destroy! Have you thought for one moment that your countrymen are going to invest in these African countries and that at one point they are told to pack up and leave the country for their safety, leaving everything and go back empty handed! They also will ask you the question.

You will probably answer that Africans are crazy! They are mad indeed, because they accept the weapons to destroy.

I recently had an interview with a European guy who told me that for the West, the era of a darling Africa is exceeded; that it is now time to look towards Asia which does not ask for help but instead appeals to Western investors! It would be very sad to see the West after obtaining huge profits from Africa, abandoning it in the hands of Americans who, we know well, have never wanted to enter a home without breaking into and whose reign never happens peacefully!

Honourable, Africa still needs you, you know quite well and she knows you well. Even if the colonisation may have been a fatality, its impact was not always negative.

Despite the shortcomings of each other, there is a friendship that has developed between Africa and Europe. It would be even more interesting for the two continents to have Africa as a client for airplanes and television, for example, and not for weapons!

One word to the African Community

In my speech in October at the University of Louvain La Neuve, I asked Africans to be quiet! to refrain in the war, because war is a negative response. I asked them to stay quiet to reflect, to ask their intelligence to give them a good solution for peace, because intelligence will respond without undue delay. Indeed, intelligence gives satisfactory responses in all areas!

Look at modern houses you live in, transport and ultra modern communication, the progress in medicine and so forth! All this is the answer given by the intelligence. The same Intelligence is able to give us the best answer for the sustainable peace.

These war donors who once called themselves funds donors have given up war in their home countries as a response to peace.The day you'll be able to say NO to war, neither the West nor the America, will impose war on you, because you will have gained the strength of mind more powerful than the atomic bomb.

Thank you.

Antoine Nyetera
November 27, 1998

Related Materials:

ICTR Testimony of Antoine Nyetera during Ndindiliyimana's trial

Nyetera's testimony to the ICTR during Semanza's trial (Kinyarwanda transcript)

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:45 PM