A.C.: The war had to continue . . .

J.H.: Yes, in his eyes, the war had to continue. It was out of the question for him to accept a role in the opposition. He knew he could not gain power through elections, him being a Tutsi in a country that is 85% Hutu. He needed an event to trigger the renewal of hostilities that would allow him to change the direction of history. That’s why he ordered the assassination of President Habyarimana, his predecessor. He knew very well that it would provoke a cataclysm.


A.C.: Leading to a genocide of his own ethnic group, you believe?

J.H.: I don’t know if his plan, if his cynicism, went that far. He did know, however, that this event had a high symbolic value and would trigger widespread massacres that would, in turn, legitimate his intervention, the return of the war, his seizure of power and his long-term installation as head of the country, without the international community being able to raise a single objection. His legitimacy was cinched when he presented himself as the one who put an end to the abomination of the massacres, but also as a member of the victim ethnic group. At the same time, in this very cynical way, he was able to get rid of the Tutsis from inside Rwanda, those Tutsis he mistrusted because the had stayed in Rwanda after 1961 and lived under majority Hutu rule. To him, these unfortunate brothers from inside the country were just renegades and traitors to the cause of Tutsi greatness! Kagame is, at once, a strategist, which he has well demonstrated, and a cynic, of which there can no longer be any doubt.   more »