In the previous article on the role of the interim government in inciting the masses to commit genocide, it was noted that the government, the military, the police, civil servants, and MRND-CDR militia played a determining role. In this piece, the focus is on the bureaucracy and individuals who played key roles in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. ALSO READ: Interim govt incites massacres, presidential guard joins campaign Throughout the genocide, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines and the National Radio called upon the population to erect roadblocks and conduct systematic searches to ensure that no Tutsi escaped the massacres. They provided precise targets and identified specific areas to attack. During this period, Western embassies closed their doors, and the UN reduced the number of troops serving under the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda to a strict minimum. The assailants killed thousands of innocent people, with impunity, in all regions not under the control of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. When the RPF captured Kigali and Butare after defeating the genocidal regime’s forces, more than a million Tutsi had been killed. The MRND-CDR militia and government forces fled to Zaire, now DR Congo. Others escaped to Tanzania and Burundi, taking with them more than two million people. The execution of the genocide against the Tutsi reveals three structures that enabled its rapid spread, generalisation, and efficiency. The bureaucracy controlled the circulation of resources and operated a synthesis between ethnicity and its particular interests. Thanks to its networks of executioners, the genocidal regime put in place an organisation capable of large-scale murder. The resort to killing the Tutsi was considered a definitive means of resolving the problem that threatened the cohesion and security of the Hutu. Among those who initiated the massacres, organised the genocide structures, distributed arms, and issued orders to kill were senior army officers such as Théoneste Bagosora. Many consider him the principal organiser of the massacres. Other military officers also participated in organising and executing the genocide. These included General Augustin Bizimungu, the Minister of Defence; Colonel Tharcisse Renzaho, the Governor of Kigali Province; Lieutenant Colonel Aloys Ntabakuze, the Commander of the Parachutist Battalion, which actively massacred Tutsi; and Lieutenant Colonel Protais Mpiranya, the Commander of the Presidential Guard, notorious for its murder operations immediately after the attack on the presidential plane was announced. Majors Bernard Ntuyahaga and Laurent Munyakazi, as well as Captain Gaspard Hategekimana, were also implicated. Equally significant were the MRND, MDR, and CDR extremist party leaders and their respective armed militias: the Interahamwe, Inkuba, and the Impuzamugambi. Businessman Félicien Kabuga financed the structures of the massacres by helping establish RTLM and purchasing machetes and other weapons that were distributed to various killing squads. Finally, it is important to mention militia leaders and political figures who played significant roles in organising and carrying out the genocide. These included Robert Kajuga, president of the Interahamwe militia; Mathieu Ngirumpatse and Joseph Nzirorera, president and secretary general of MRND, respectively; Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, a senior executive of RTLM; and Georges Rutaganda, second vice-president of the Interahamwe. From the outset, they were involved in pursuing and assassinating the Tutsi in their homes and at road checkpoints established throughout Rwanda. Barayagwiza and Rutaganda were later convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania. Both died while serving their sentences.
