Understand the event

The figure of the enemy and the genocide project

A symbol of the failure and inability of the international community to take measures that could have prevented the genocide, Dallaire’s fax provides very precise information on the course of the coming genocide.

On 11 January 1994, three months before the genocide began, 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 alerts his superiors of the preparation for the extermination of the Tutsi. He reports the words of an informant, "Jean Pierre," hired by the MRND to train the Interhamwe.
Jean-Pierre claims to have organized a demonstration targeting the deputies of the opposition parties, with the explicit aim of triggering an armed reaction from the RPF and starting a civil war. According to the established war plan, 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 training and arming militias in FAR camps outside the city, this leader Interhamwe received a mission to file all the Tutsi from Kigali, and suspects that it is with a view to their extermination. He claims that his troops are capable of eliminating 1,000 Tutsi in an hour. He proposes to reveal to the UN the location of arms caches provided to militias by the Rwandan Armed Forces (G3, AK47, grenades...) in exchange for protection from 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 terms of the peace process. The UN instructs him in return to consult government leaders related to Interahamwe.