Juvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana (March 8th 1937 - April 6th 1994) was the president of the Rwanda of 1973 until its assassination in 1994. Juvénal Habyarimana married Agathe Kanzinga.
Biography
Minister for Defense during the presidency of Gregoire Kayibanda, of which the son was his godson, Juvénal Habyarimana directs a coup d'etat and seizes the power on July 5th 1973. This coup d'etat intervenes in a very disturbed context: president Kayibanda in is more and more disputed, however that the massacre of the Hutu elites to the Burundi, in 1972, awakes anguishes in Rwanda. The government of Kayibanda tries to reinforce its base in the population while launching violent campaigns against Tutsis in the schools and the administration. According to Bernard Lugan, “the military coup d'etat of July 1973 stopped a process which could have evolved to generalized massacres and an internal civil war with the Hutu. ” According to the former minister for Defense (1992-1993) James Gasana, “the elite tutsi will be solidarized with the blow of July 5th, 1973”, because feels “avenged” by renvsersement and the imprisonment for its oppressor.Juvénal Habyarimana let die in prison Gregoire Kayibanda and several members of his reversed government.
Juvénal Habyarimana is originating in the North-West of Rwanda and Gregoire Kayibanda of the south. Even if these two presidents recognized themselves like Hutu, the populations of the two areas had few mutual sympathies.
Marked, like its predecessor, by the institutionalization of the administrative categories ethnists at the time of Belgian colonization , it will support the Hutu, from which it resulted, during the twenty years of its presidency, and will support the Hutu majority of the Burundi against the government Tutsi, before the capacity does not return, in this adjoining country of the south, with the parties Hutu in 1993. Habyarimana, introduced ethnic quotas into the administration and teaching to limit the weight of the tutsi. The historian Jean-Pierre Chrétien goes as far as speaking about “tropical Nazism” to characterize the Habyarimana mode. Certain authors took again this expression, others judged that it hardly had “direction”, or that it concerned handling pro-FPR.
On the contrary, the former Prime Minister (July 1994 - August 1995) Rwandan Faustin Twagiramungu indicated that “never President Habyarimana had not been marked the democratic opposition whose Twagiramungu was one of the leaders to be the enemy of Tutsis. One even said on the contrary whom the coup d'etat which it had made had supported them, and whom in any event, it had opened to them the private sector where they had become prosperous”. James Gasana, the Minister for the Defense of J. Habyarimana, from now on installed in Switzerland, nuance and precise that the regional and ethnic quotas in any case supported Tutsis compared to the Hutus of the south, supports of president Kayinbanda until the end of the years 1960 - whereas Habyarimana is north.
At all events, the lawyer and Belgian political economist Filip Reyntjens note as for him which “the catch enters of to be able by the Habyarimana general and the beginning of the war in October 1990, no violence in ethnic matter was deplored” and which “even if it were far from being perfect, the situation of the human rights favorably contrasted with that prevailing elsewhere in Africa” in the years 1970 and 1980. As of the first edition of his work on the Genocide in Rwanda, Gerard Prunier makes comparable analyzes: “One in another, Tutsis did not have the easy life since they were victims of an institutional discrimination, but in the daily life, the situation remained tolerable. In comparison with the Kayibanda years, the things had improved at the point even as certain famous business men tutsis had made fortune and were in very good terms with the mode. The tacit agreement was “you do not interfere policy, it is the prerogative of the Hutus”. As long as Tutsis respected this principle, one generally left them in peace. The system, although authoritative, was somewhat débonnaire and it functioned on the economic plan. ”
One of the arguments which made the Habyarimana mode very popular near the governmental organizations, until 1990, were indeed its stability and its relative prosperity.
To the beginning of the Years 1990, the armed uprising tutsi of the patriotic Face Rwandan , the FPR, integral in its rows the democrats Hutu opponents in Juvénal Habyarimana, carries out military actions against the Rwandan government. After having crossed the ougando-Rwandan border masses of it on October 1st, 1990, the projection continues until Gabiro (to 90 km of Kigali), but following the fatal counter-attacks of the Rwandan army and with the engagement of the French forces of the operation Noroït, the FPR cannot progress further. It continues actions of guerilla to maintain his control on part of the Rwandan territory. At least Zaire and Belgium into 90 and until 91 (for the Belgians) them also helped the army of Habyarimana against the FPR.
Following the speech of La Baule of the French president Mitterrand in 1990, Habyarimana announces a liberalization and a democratization of the mode. In 1991, a new constitution, guaranteeing the multi-party system and public freedoms, is adopted. As from 1992, the government is directed by a member of the opposition.
According to Colette Braekmann, Pascal Krop and Gerard Plum tree, President François Mitterrand maintained a particular relation with Habyarimana, just as their respective sons Jean-Pierre Habyarimana and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, person in charge of the African cell in the Elysium, than the Rwandan ones, like other Africans, called “ dad told me ”. The former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, for its part judged that these relations had never been particular. According to the notes written by J. - CH. Mitterrand and consulted by Pierre Péan, the adviser and father of the president was reserved and stripped of enthusiasm on the French intervention in Rwanda. In a note of October 16th, 1990, he considers “impossible” a direct intervention, decides for “deliveries minimum” of ammunition and weapons, and once judges that this help “would make it possible France to require with force the respect of the human rights and a democratic opening, the calm income”.
Assassination of president Habyarimana
In the evening of April 6th, 1994, president Habyarimana, the president Cyprien Ntaryamira of the Burundi, like several high ranking officials of the Rwanda and the Burundi, are killed aboard plane which brings back them Tanzania, where they had taken part in a top devoted to the crises Burundian and Rwandan. Their Falcon 50 had started its phase of landing on the airport of Kigali, when it was struck by a shooting of Missile ground-to-air. The following day, the extremists Hutu eliminated the elements moderate from the government, before exterminating the civil populations tutsi as well as the Hutu which opposed the genocide.
the exact circumstances and the responsibilities for this attack were not elucidated; some plead that the attack took place on order of Paul Kagamé, chief of the FPR, others that they are the extremists Hutu disappointed by the agreements of Arusha, possibly helped by French soldiers and/or mercenaries.
Inquire in France
An investigation is open in France on the attack against president Juvénal Habyarimana in April 1994. In 1998, the families of the three French team members of the shot down presidential plane carried felt sorry for " assassinations in relation to a company terroriste".
According to testimonys of former members of the FPR, this decision would have been taken at the end of 1993 and at the beginning of 1994 by the chiefs of the Rwandan patriotic Armée, of which Paul Kagame.
The judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere returned, at the end of his investigation, an ordinance of conclusive order to the responsibility for Paul Kagame and several of his principal collaborators. November 21st, 2006, the parquet floor of Paris gave its agreement to Bruguiere judge so that it delivers mandates of international stops against nine close relations of Rwandan president Paul Kagame, of which James Kabarebe, chief of general Staff of the Rwandan Forces of defense and Charles Kayonga, chief of Staff of the Army. The examining magistrate cannot engage of continuations against Paul Kagame because of the immunity granted in France to the Heads of State in exercise. He asked UNO to seize the International penal court for Rwanda (TPIR) in Tanzania to engage against Paul Kagame a legal procedure.
The principal witness of judge Bruguiere, Emmanuel Ruzigana then reconsidered his testimony after the publication of the ordinance. The second witness of the judge, who however affirms to have taken part in the attack, is not concerned with the warrants for arrest.
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