Understanding the event

The figure of the enemy and the genocide project

Symbol of the failure and inability of the international community to take measures that could have prevented the genocide, the Fax by Roméo Dallaire gives very precise information on the course of the genocide to come.

On 11 January 1994, three months before the outbreak of genocide, Roméo Dallaire, Commander of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), sent an urgent fax to the UN headquarters in New York.

In this declassified document, Dallaire alerted his superiors to the preparation for the extermination of the Tutsi. He reports there the words of an informant, "Jean Pierre," hired by the MRND to train the Interhamwe.
Jean-Pierre claims to have organized a demonstration aimed at the deputies of the opposition parties, with the explicit aim of triggering an armed reaction of the RPF and starting a civil war. According to the war plan established, the Belgian troops, once provoked, must also be removed to push Belgium, the main contributor of UNAMIR, to withdraw its troops from Rwanda.
We also learn that in addition to the training and arming of militias in FAR camps outside the city, this leader Interhamwe received the mission to file all the Tutsi from Kigali, and suspects that it is for their extermination. He claims that his troops are capable of eliminating 1000 Tutsi in an hour. He proposes to reveal to the UN the location of arms caches provided to the militias by the Rwandan Armed Forces (G3, AK47, grenades...) in exchange for the protection of UNAMIR for him and his family.

In response to the fax, the UN Security Council rejects his request for authorization to seize weapons despite the fact that they are illegal under the peace process. The UN in turn mandates him to consult with government leaders related to Interahamwe.