In the last piece of this series, we observed how, in December 1963, the Tutsi were massacred in killing sprees across the country organised by the government of President Kayibanda. In this piece, the chronology of the timeframe of systematic killings will be revealed the more.
In Cyangugu Prefecture, the Tutsi killings began after Christmas Mass. These killing sprees were overseen by the then Minister of Public Sector and Energy, Otto Rusingizandekwe, who Kayibanda delegated to plan with the then Prefect of Cyangugu Ngirabatware Pascal. The killings of the Tutsi in 1963 were executed not only in Gikongoro and Cyangugu but also in Kigali, Gisenyi, Kibungo, Byumba and Kibuye. The killings happened after the armed incursion by Inyenzi in Bugesera. Inyenzi, a derogatory word referring to cockroaches, was used for Rwandan Tutsi exile groups that fought against the repressive government in the 1960s. Kayibanda’s government, though, had been informed about the attacks planned by Inyenzi and had already established lists of the Tutsi in the country to be killed.
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Before the December 1963 armed incursion, lists of targeted Tutsi had been established in every prefecture by ministers and prefects. Across the entire country, between 25,000 and 35,000 Tutsi were massacred.
The 1963 massacres were referred to as Genocide by expatriates who lived and worked in Rwanda during that time. A Swiss national, Denis-Gilles Vuillemin, a teacher at Groupe Scolaire Officiel de Butare who worked for UNESCO, resigned after writing a letter to Kayibanda saying that he could no longer bear the burden of seeing the Tutsi, including some of his students, being killed in a campaign led by the authorities. Some of his students took part in killing their comrades. This was the first time the word Genocide was used in Rwanda’s history.
Foreign media also reported the massacres in Rwanda, referring to them as Genocide. An issue of Le Monde, published on February 4, 1964, explained how Rwandan Tutsi were being killed in campaigns by the government. Le Figaro, published on February 11, 1964, also condemned what it called the "1963 Genocide”. Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Radio Vatican also reported these massacres. On February 10, 1964, Radio Vatican announced, "The most terrible systematic Genocide since the Genocide of the Jews is occurring in the heart of Africa. Thousands of men are killed every day in Rwanda”.
These reports and publications did not please Kayibanda, who threatened to prosecute and expel those who published information about the perpetrated killings and massacres of the Tutsi.
Among those who reported the killings were Catholic priests who were brave enough to do so. However, Andre Perraudin, the Archbishop of Kabgayi, the most senior Catholic church official in Rwanda at the time, pleaded in favour of the government in terms which distorted the narrative describing the killings as Genocide.
Regarding the killings of December 1963, Perraudin wrote, "At the end of December 1963, vast terrorist attacks towards the capital Kigali and, in the north, a campaign of false rumours and extreme tension in the country, the Hutu, realising that they had come close to falling back into a feudal regime, and that among the Tutsi who lived with them, a certain number were complicit, unleashed popular fury.”
During his tenure, Kayibanda delivered a speech on March 29, 1964, in which he warned the Tutsi of the dangers they would face if they attempted to oppose his government. He stated: "Assuming that—by the impossible—you were to seize Kigali by force; how would you contain the chaos of which you would be the first victims? I need not insist; you can imagine the desperation that would follow. As you know, it would mean the total and sudden end of the Tutsi race.”
During the ninth congress of PARMEHUTU, Balthazar Bicamumpaka, one of the party’s founders, declared: "PARMEHUTU is an ideology, a dogma, and an objective to be achieved.” That ideology aimed at the extermination of all Tutsi in Rwanda. The national politics of both the First and Second Republics therefore followed the same pattern of persecuting and killing Tutsi. Policies of regionalism, favouritism, and ethnicity were prioritised.
In February 1973, a campaign to expel Tutsi from schools and the labour market was launched and carried out by a group of students known as the "Committee of Public Safety” (Comité du Salut Public). The Committee was established in every school and operated under instructions issued by the highest national authorities of the PARMEHUTU party.
These groups were supported by Kayibanda and other officials, who met with their representatives at the president’s residence in Kavumu (Gitarama) to review and plan the persecution of the Tutsi. The sessions were held in the presence of additional PARMEHUTU officials, including the Secretary General, Athanase Mbarubukeye. The exclusion of the Tutsi from schools and the labour market was intended to impoverish them.