Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Rwanda: Habyarimana Death - Findings Out But Where Are the Black Boxes?

By Michael Wakabi
The East African
January 17, 2010

Nairobi-Even as Rwanda released the findings last week, of an inquiry into the most probable cause of the April 1994 air crash that killed President Juvenal Habyarimana and 11 other people, several questions remain unanswered about the fate of the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder.

Although references to their contents have been made variously by sources who blamed the fatal attack on the Rwanda Patriotic Army led by then Maj. Paul Kagame, no formal investigation conforming to international civil aviation standards was ever conducted. According to the Rwandan probe, both boxes that would have provided crucial evidence were taken by government forces that controlled the crash area.

Equally, people who would have given a more objective assessment, such as the Belgian peacekeeping contingent were denied access to the crash site. Only the French military contingent in the country were let to the site.

The report suggests there was laxity in setting up an inquiry into the matter: "Neither the United Nation's presence in Rwanda at the time, the Rwanda Armed Forces, the interim government nor any other entity made an effort to institute any inquiry into the shooting down of the plane. But a lot of suppositions were put forward by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, Belgium and Rwanda, without really coming any close to putting up a Commission of inquiry."

Access denied

It quotes Canadian Gen. Dallaire who was commander of the United Nations peace keepers in Rwanda as having told the inquiry that on the evening of April 6, 1994 he had asked the head of Unamir in Kigali, Col. Luc Marchal to send military personnel to secure the area of the crash pending an international inquiry but he was denied access by presidential guards. Further, that on the same evening he had been approached by French army instructors in the Para-commando battalion who wanted to carry out an investigation on the crash but he refused them because he doubted their neutrality.

"On May 2 1994, Dallaire informed Jean Kambanda (the interim Prime Minister) that UNAMIR was intending to institute an international investigation commission. In a reply letter dated May 7 1994, Kambanda noted that such a commission should include France, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (led by France)."

Apparently, the regime did not want Belgian involvement because it was being accused by Hutu extremists of complicity in Habyarimana's death.Six days after the crash, Belgium asked the Icao to institute an inquiry. Although Icao subsequently put the request on the agenda of its April 25 1994 council meeting debate, the council president deferred it.

"On August 13 1994, while the Icao regional representative for Southern Africa was on a working tour, Rwandan authorities raised the necessity for an investigation," the report notes. It also cites a public declaration in early 1995, by then Vice president and Minister of Defence, Gen. Kagame that finding the party responsible for shooting down the Falcon 50 was a priority for Rwanda.

But a May 2000 OAU report that implored the International Commission of Jurists to open up an independent investigation was never followed up.Crucially, all documents and the black boxes were apparently in French custody. French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, in his indictment against Rwandan official Rose Kabuye, declared that he had the transcripts of the Kigali Airport control tower recording of the crash. Indicted genocide mastermind Colonel Bagosora confirmed this when during an interview with Judge Bruguiere at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on May 18 2000 explained they had sent Col. Ephrem Rwabarinda to Paris on May 8, 1994 to deliver photos of missiles and tape recordings of the air traffic control communications for the crash so that France could assist them.

Interestingly, Dassault - the French company that manufactured the Falcon - later denied that the plane was equipped with recorders. This position was to suddenly change in 2001 when in a submission to French judicial authorities they said the presidential plane was well equipped with a CVR.

Earlier on June 27 1994, the French minister for Transport had told the Director of Cabinet to the Belgian Vice Prime Minister, Di Rupo that French authorities were in possession of the black box but when Judge Damien Vandermeersch requested to be allowed access to the black box, the French authorities denied having it.

Further, the report notes: "On March 10 2004, Le Monde newspaper revealed that the Falcon 50 black box had been recovered and sent to the UN headquarters. The UN made an internal inquiry and a cockpit voice recorder was discovered in the archives, which was believed to be that of the downed Falcon 50. The expert report, however, showed that conversations and technical parameters point to a recording effected on the ground rather than during a flight and thought that the examined recorder had never been fitted in the plane at the time of the crash."

Related Materials:
Report of the Mutsinzi "Experts Committee" : a collection of distortions of the truth, speculations, lies, paradoxes and antitheses

Paul kagame plotted to kill Habyarimana

A Rebuttal of the Mutsinzi Report on the Rwandan genocide

The Dead and the Undertaker: The Rwandan Dictator Paul Kagame Defies the West

The Mutsinzi Report: A Video Analysis of Habyarimana Plane Crash

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 1:21 AM