Government denies links with Habyarimana’s death

The Rwandan government on Tuesday denied having any links with the shooting down of the aircraft in which former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed. “The position of the Rwandan government on this issue has always been clear. The Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), and President Paul Kagame, had no hand in the downing of the plane,” a statement from the office of the president said. The government was reacting to a report which referred to a UN investigator’s memorandum, now under seal at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is said to implicate President Kagame in the downing of the aircraft. The aircraft carrying Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ndadaye, was shot down on 7 April 1994 as it approached to land at Kigali airport. The incident has been linked to the start of the country’s 1994 genocide.

“In the interests of truth and to finally put the matter to rest, the government of Rwanda supports a full investigation conducted by the ICTR involving all political and military groups that were present in Rwanda in 1994,” the statement said. The statement also observed that it should be recalled that the government of Rwanda had been instrumental in setting up the ICTR and had cooperated with the organisation at various levels since its inception. “In case there are human rights violations on the part of the RPA which the ICTR feels need to be investigated, the Rwandan government will cooperate, as it has done in the past,” the statement said. “Finally, the report makes a number of references to ‘Tutsi army officers’. There is no such group or category of officers within the RPA. The RPA only has Rwandan officers and men,” it stressed.