Unlike newspapers that could only be found in cities, the radio broadcasts were accessible to Rwanda's largely rural population of farmers. The massacre, which left 800,000 people dead in 100 days, was sparked by the shooting down of a plane carrying the Rwandan president. [252], The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) had been in Rwanda since October 1993,[253] with a mandate to oversee the implementation of the Arusha Accords. Kagame in an interview with Jeune Afrique published Monday condemned France and Belgium for their actions surrounding the genocide, accusing both of having done too little to save lives. [220] In late April, the RPF secured the whole of the Tanzanian border area and began to move west from Kibungo, to the south of Kigali. [328] The country's 19 prisons were designed to hold about 18,000 inmates total, but at their peak in 1998 there were over 100,000 people in crowded detention facilities across the country. [114] The idea of a deliberate and systematic genocide, which had first been suggested in 1992 but had remained a fringe viewpoint, was now top of their agenda, and they began actively planning it. [94] The youth militia began actively carrying out massacres across the country. The symbolization was deeply rooted in ethnic hatred, and these terms were consistent throughout Rwanda. For instance, the authors mention imports in the second half of 1992, which do not appear in the summary table. The Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings and massacred them. [114] The CDR and the Power wings of the other parties realised they could use this situation to their advantage. Please enter valid email address to continue. A total of 93 people were indicted and after lengthy and expensive trials, dozens of senior officials in the former regime were convicted of genocide - all of them Hutus. A group of Tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded . Inside Rwanda's Gacaca Courts: Searching Justice after Genocide. [132] Bagosora sought to convince UNAMIR and the RPF[133] that the committee was acting to contain the Presidential Guard, which he described as "out of control",[134] and that it would abide by the Arusha agreement. [8][9] Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the real number killed is likely lower. According to Human Rights Watch, after the embargo, they diverted their arm trade through Goma airport in Zaire. Without this information, it is difficult to hypothesise about the planning of the genocide. We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. VIDEO: Reporting on Atrocity - Centre for International Governance Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genocide spread throughout the country with shocking speed and brutality, as ordinary citizens were incited by local officials and the Hutu Power government to take up arms against their neighbors. [214] The next day, Rwandan government forces attacked the national parliament building from several directions, but RPF troops stationed there successfully fought back. 1994 special report on the Rwandan genocide - YouTube First published on April 7, 2014 / 10:31 AM. Others went to neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi. [289] Israeli officials repeatedly denied this allegation. [32] The colonists favoured the Tutsi over the Hutu when assigning administrative roles, believing them to be migrants from Ethiopia and racially superior.