You wanted to exterminate Tutsi uninterrupted but in vain! Agathe, a hero we honour

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Although there remains much doubt about who gave the order to shoot down President Habyarimana’s plane, there is none about who directed the horrific events of the days and weeks that followed. The resolute Colonel Bagosora called his comrades to an urgent meeting two hours after the plane crash. To assure that the outside world understood what was happening, he also invited General Dallaire.
Guests arrived to find Bagosora sitting at the center of a large horseshoe-shaped conference table. When they were seated, he made a simple announcement. Military commanders had decided to take control of the country ‘‘because of the uncertainty caused by the crash of the president’s plane.’’
‘‘Bagosora looked at me with a straight face and said he didn’t want the Arusha process jeopardized,’’ Dallaire wrote in his account of this meeting.  ‘‘I didn’t trust him for a minute . . . I stressed that Rwanda still had a government, headed by Prime Minister Agathe. All matters should now be under her control. Bagosora snapped back that Madame Agathe didn’t enjoy the confidence of the Rwandan people and was incapable of governing the nation.’’ Colonel Bagosora emerged from that late-night meeting as Rwanda’s new strongman. His first act was to order the army to reinforce roadblocks around Kigali. Then he set out to consolidate his power.
Minutes after the plane crash, Madame Agathe had called Radio Rwanda and announced that she would arrive at its studio early the next morning to address the nation. Then she called Dallaire. He agreed to send fifteen peacekeepers to guard her through the night and then escort her to the studio.
The peacekeepers, ten Belgians and five Ghanaians, were maneuvering through roadblocks and marauding gangs of drunken youths while Dallaire was in his chilling meeting with Colonel Bagosora. It took them several hours to make the crosstown trip from Amahoro Stadium to Madame Agathe’s home. They arrived at dawn and began taking re immediately. Inside, the prime minister was on the telephone with a foreign radio correspondent when she heard the shooting.  ‘‘I have to leave my house now,’’ she said into the phone. ‘‘They are coming to kill me and my family. Please tell the world to help us against these murderers.’’


Madame Agathe and her five children, dressed in pajamas, tried to flee over a wall and seek safety with Joyce Leader, an American diplomat who lived next door. They could not make it over, but managed to climb another wall and jump into an adjacent compound where the UN Development Program had its headquarters. The children hid themselves and were later picked up by a brave UN peacekeeper who spirited them to the Mille Collines Hotel. Madame Agathe was not so lucky. Soldiers of the Presidential Guard surrounded the peacekeepers who had come to protect her and ordered them to surrender their weapons. After radioing back to UNAMIR headquarters, and in accordance with UN protocol, the peacekeepers agreed. They were put aboard a minibus and driven away. Soldiers then smashed into the UN compound. They found Madame Agathe, ordered her to strip, and violated her with a beer bottle. ‘‘We heard her screaming,’’ Joyce Leader recalled. ‘‘Suddenly, after the gunfire, the screaming stopped and we heard people cheering.’

This note is excerpted from Stephen Kinzer's book '' ‘‘A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who dreamed it’’ on page 140



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