At the same time that the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was being committed, its planners and their accomplices did everything they could to deny their crimes. Through a campaign of lies and falsification, orchestrated by the interim government and those who supported it, they blamed the RPF for the genocide. The central claim of this campaign was that the war with the Rwandan Patriotic Front was an invasion unjustly imposed by Uganda under the leadership of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. ALSO READ: How RPF stopped the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi The campaign sought to exploit public anger and blind obedience to conceal a meticulously planned genocide. The death of President Habyarimana created a sense of surprise and shock among the Rwandan population, as well as fury among certain soldiers who spontaneously reacted by attacking individuals suspected or alleged to be responsible for, or accomplices in, the presumed assassination of the Head of State. ALSO READ: Habyarimana's role in planning, implementing 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi Unable to restrain themselves, a number of soldiers from the genocidal regime’s army attacked the alleged accomplices of the RPF, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and three members of her government. The population, terrified and outraged by the presumed assassination of the Head of State, organized itself to ensure its self-defence. ALSO READ: Inside the RPA's rescue mission to stop the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi The RPF countered this denial of the truth about the genocide through vigorous diplomatic and media efforts. RPF representatives travelled to major European and North American cities, as well as several African capitals, to explain that what had happened in Rwanda constituted genocide. It was necessary to persuade the international community to recognize the genocide and take action to stop it. ALSO READ: We are misreading the FDLR threat: It is dangerous incubator of genocide ideology, not just an armed group During April, May, and June 1994, an RPF delegation focused its efforts at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York and in Washington, D.C. In fierce competition with representatives of the interim government, the delegation advocated for recognition of the genocide, campaigned against what it viewed as the French army's biased military intervention, called for the restoration and reinforcement of UNAMIR to help address the chaos caused by the genocide, and urged the creation of an international criminal tribunal to prosecute those responsible for crimes against humanity and genocide committed in Rwanda. The RPF delegation eventually prevailed before the Security Council. Before addressing the Security Council, several delegations insisted on meeting with the RPF delegation. In several UN resolutions adopted on Rwanda during the genocide, the RPF's views were at least taken into consideration. In June, the UN Secretary-General finally used the term genocide. In the United States, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (comprising 20 members) highlighted the existence of a planned campaign of genocide in Rwanda and called for immediate intervention: We believe that the ongoing genocide in Rwanda justifies, indeed requires, an urgent response pursuant to the Genocide Convention.... Hundreds of thousands of lives still hang in the balance. The Committee also called for the representative of the interim government to be denied a seat on the Security Council. In early June 1994, Claude Dusaidi, a diplomat and close adviser to President Paul Kagame during the 1990s, acting on behalf of the RPF, called for the establishment of a tribunal to prosecute the planners of the Genocide against the Tutsi. He urged the Security Council to formally declare the atrocities in Rwanda to be genocide and to establish a war crimes tribunal to try those responsible for these heinous crimes. Separately, Jean Birara and Augustin Munyaneza appealed to the OAU for the swift establishment of an ad hoc tribunal, describing it as a new Nuremberg. This campaign to secure recognition of the genocide went hand in hand with exposing the planners of the genocide and their spokespersons in international forums. Dusaidi requested that the representative of the interim government no longer be allowed to sit on the Security Council. RPF leaders also sent numerous letters to several African heads of state urging them to prevent the interim government from participating in the OAU Summit in Tunis. The writer is a historian based in Kigali.
