The god of weapons that has aided genocides in Africa and other conflicts

On April 6, thirty-two years ago, the Great Lakes region was shaken by a plane crash that launched the greatest misfortune of the African continent since colonialism. A plane carrying two presidents, Rwanda’s Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi’s Cyprien Ntaryamira, was taken down, killing everyone on board. In this first instalment of a two-part series, Wellingtone Nyongesa and Canadian journalist Stephen Bandera reveal Russia’s weapons supply that opened doors for the 100-day Rwandan genocide that began on April 7.

One year, eight months before the Rwandan genocide shook the world in 1994, a suspicious deal was inked between the then-Rwandan government and newly fomented Russian Federation for a weapons deal.

The federation comprising 15 republics, which had been declared on December 25 1991, after the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), had elected to continue what the Union was known for across the world; to profit from indiscriminate sale of weapons to fighting groups and governments across the world.

Current Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has prided himself on the good hand that his country has lent the African continent, graciously pushing aside its role in the continent’s recent dark history, one of which is the Rwandan genocide. Responding to a question by Russian television Zvezda, which is run by the department of defense in early December in Moscow, about whether Russia and the Soviet Union had gained a reputation as a reliable guarantor of security across the world, he said  

“A short answer — yes, absolutely. We have said that our products are fully competitive. They are associated with glory, including the glory of the fight against colonialism. The Kalashnikov is a symbol of decolonisation. African states remember very well how their grandfathers and fathers achieved independence with the help of Soviet weapons ….” Lavrov said and added that in more advanced technological circumstances, Russian military products remain part of Russia’s authority on the international front.

It will therefore be an eye-opener for him to recall that among the cache of arms that Russian officials sought to supply Rwanda’s department of defence between 1992- 1993 in the ethnically torn country ruled by Juvenal Habyarimana were thirty pieces of portable anti-aircraft complex (SAM-16) shoulder-launchers. The weapons have been cited as the ones used against Falcon 50, a presidential plane with Habyarimana and Burundi’s Cyprien Ntaryamira on board. The April 6 attack opened a bloodbath that has come to be considered by the United Nations among the great genocides of the 20^th century.

Details of that deal only became known in 2010, sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, following a decision by President Paul Kagame to appoint a 7-member committee of experts led by late Rwandan Jurist Jean Mutsinzi into the killing of the two presidents soon after Easter holidays in 1994. The result of the investigations has come to be known as the Mutsinzi Report.

The source of weapons used, however, has not been contested.

Meanwhile, data drawn from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) run by the University of Maryland (USA), Aviation Safety Network and Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives indicate that Russia leads in the supply of weapons that have been used to bring down aeroplanes since World War II.

Initially, the type of missile used in the shoot down was under question, but after more than a decade-and-a-half of scrutiny by numerous investigation committees, the consensus was that two weapons, SAM-16, known in Russian language as IGLA and a twin-barelled anti-aircraft gun 23mm ZU-23 were used to shoot down the plane that was approaching  Kigali International Airport and was being flown by a French crew.

The 1990-1992 deal, in the pre-genocide Rwandan government’s correspondence were provided on page 137 of the Mutsinzi report that was completed and handed over to Kagame in 2010. The report said that on 13 July 1992, the Russian embassy to Rwanda sent a positive memorandum to the Rwandan foreign affairs minister Casimir Bizimungu with a copy to the defense minister James Gasana, informing him that “the Government of the Russian Federation has given its agreement for a delivery to Rwanda, during the years 1992-1993, of military equipment, a list of which is attached, for the amount of USD 26 million.

The correspondence says payment was to be made during the same year as delivery in convertible currencies. Part of this sum would be paid in Rwandan merchandise.  To carry out negotiations and sign an agreement for the delivery of this equipment, the Russian Party was prepared to send a government delegation to Rwanda or to receive a Rwandan delegation in Moscow within the time frame accepted by the two parties.

The list of military equipment that Russia agreed to deliver to the Rwandan government at the time included anti-aircraft weapons identified as a Portable anti-aircraft complex (otherwise known as SAM-16, in local Russian IGLA), 30 pcs - Twin-barreled anti-aircraft gun 23 mm ZU-23 (‘Shield’), and ammunition for the equipment.

Upon receiving this letter, the Foreign Affairs Minister Bizimungu contacted his counterpart at the defence ministry, Gasana, who replied immediately in a letter dated 27 July 1992. In the letter, he specified that: “we are ready to receive a Russian delegation in Kigali as soon as possible to discuss the equipment to be obtained in Russia, and the terms of repayment for credit which will be granted to us in this respect.

The weapons were supplied and received. The report is, however, not clear on who was responsible for bringing down the plane, as it lists three conspiracy theories, one of them touching on extremist Hutu elements close to President Habyarimana. Others cited Kagame’s RPF, a theory dismissed by some since the Arusha Accord that Habyarimana had agreed to fully implement benefited the RPF, placing the Hutu power enclave at a disadvantage.

The extremist elements, led by then commander of the Rwandan army’s anti-aircraft battalion Colonel Theoreste Bagosora, now deceased, disapproved of the president's acceptance to fully implement the Accord that had been signed in July 1993. As Habyarimana flew back into Kigali from Arusha that fateful day of April 6, he had made up his mind to implement the deal, which was to set up a transitional government in Rwanda, intended to be in place until multi-party elections could be held.

This meant that power would be shared between the Hutu population of Rwanda and the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Hutu extremist members of the president’s inner circle viewed the agreement as an existential threat to a Hutu-dominated Rwanda as well as their own political and economic standing. These men were not simply opposed to a reconciliation process; they were committed to the wholesale extermination of Tutsis.

At the top of the extremist group was Colonel Bagosora, a man intimately familiar with the president’s travel schedule and sufficiently powerful that the night before the summit, he was able to change the composition of the Rwandan delegation to ensure that Army Chief of Staff General Daogratias Nsabimana -who opposed Bagosora’s genocidal plans- would be on the president's plane.

Using a proprietary radio network, Bagosora was in direct contact with elements of the presidential guard, the para-­commando battalion, and most importantly, the Anti-­Aircraft Battalion (LAA). These units were located in Kanombe Camp, near Kanombe International Airport in Kigali.  The LAA, which Bagosora personally commanded for several years, was not only responsible for the security of the airport, but had anti-aircraft weapons stationed in the immediate vicinity.

Through their private communication channel, the conspirators tracked the progress of the president's Falcon 50 aircraft from the moment it left Dar es Salaam to return to Kigali. As it flew west toward the airport, the conspirators fired two SAMs from an area just east of the runway and toward the northern part of Kanombe Camp. At least one of the missiles struck the left wing and fuselage, causing the plane to crash into the grounds of the president's Kanombe residence.

The death of President Habyarimana an ethnic Hutu whose oppressive rule had its own semblance of order in Rwanda, triggered a massive wave of genocide in Rwanda that finally ended in July 1994 after the Rwandese Patriotic Front under Paul Kagame took control of the country.

In Part Two of the god of Weapons Aiding Conflicts, read about the effect of weapons supply to Kenya and civilian planes that have been taken down with the help of Russia’s indiscriminate weapons supply.