General Paul Kagame
The Deluge is the title of a fillm in preparation by the investigative journalist Keith Harmon Smith. It focuses on the myths and realities of genocide in Central Africa. The producer is looking for financial contributions to finalize the project. To make the public understand more the issues at stake in the film, we have decided to publish scripts of short interviews or extracts of speeches of some identifiable people who are shown in the film. In this first note, we have four people: former US president Bill Clinton, Donatille Niragire, wife of officer who died on president Habyarimana airplane, Jean Luc Habyarimana, son of the latter, and Philippe Meilhc, lawyer for Madame Agathe Habyarimana.
Bill Clinton:
From Kibuye in the West to Kibungo in the East, people gathered seeking refuge in churches by the thousands, in hospitals and schools and when they were found, the old the sick the women and the children alike, they were killed. Killed because their identity card said they were tutsi, or because they had a tutsi parent, or because someone thought they looked like a tutsi. They slandered thousands of hutus because they protected tutsi or wouldn’t countenance a policy that sorts to wipe out people who just the day before or for years before had been their friends and neighbours.
Donatille Niragire:
I am very sad. In fact when I start talking about Rwandan recent history I remember how they killed my husband. The people who killed him were never asked any questions or brought to justice. Everybody is talks about the tutsi victims but nobody asks who shot down the president’s airplane. The shooting down of that plane was one of the main reasons so many people died.
Jean Luc Habyarimana:
In the night of April 6th, 1994, at the end of the afternoon I was with two of my cousins at the pool of our private residence. When it started getting darker we continued relaxing at the pool. When we were ready to get out of the pool this between 20h30 and 20h35, and walking to the house, at that particular moment we heard the sound of an airplane. My father’s airplane had its own particular sound. I recognized it. At that time there were no other airplanes arriving in Kigali. I told my cousins, “That’s my father’s airplane!” We waited for it to pass over the house. As his airplane was approaching, we saw missiles being shot at the airplane. They hit the airplane. The airplane exploded in the air and the pieced fell over our house.
Philippe Melhac:
Some say Madame Agathe Habyarimana was behind the coup. They claimed she wanted to get a divorce. But one thing is clear. The evidence shows that President Habyarimana was assassinated. The plane fell over the family home where it was found by Mme Habyarimana and her children.
TO BE CONTINUED
