Le professeur Prunier a estimé devant notre commission que le FPR s’était rendu coupable de massacres à grande échelle.

À cet égard, Amnesty International a publié un rapport sur les assassinats et les enlèvements par l’Armée patriotique rwandaise pendant la période d’avril à août 1994.

" Amnesty International has known for several years that the RPF closely monitored and controlled movements of foreigners in areas under its control. Journalists and representatives of humanitarian organisations rarely talked to Rwandese citizens under RPF control without an RPF official being present. This ensured that before the new government came to power on 19 july 1994 very limited information about abuses by the RPA could be gathered or made public by independent observers. However, Amnesty International has received numerous reports of human rights abuses committed by the RPA since the war in Rwanda began in october 1990. These have included hundreds of deliberate and arbitrary killings or possible extrajudicial executions and " disappearances " of captured combatants and unarmed civilians suspected of supporting the former government. There have also been reports of civilian supporters of the RPF being allowed to kill opponents (77c) ".

Le rapport poursuit :

" Many of these killings by the RPA, which appear to have gone largely unreported, have taken place in north-eastern Rwanda in mid-April 1994. Others have occurred in southern and western Rwanda once the RPA took control of these areas in May and June 1994. (...) Several dozen witnesses reported that members of the RPA arrived in Kagitumba on 12 April 1994. At first the fighters were reportedly very friendly to the local population and promised that the RPA was determined to protect the local people who were then summoned to a public meeting at Gishara. On 13 April unarmed civilian men, women and children gathered at Gishara in Kagitumba. RPA officials reportedly began addressing the crowd and suddenly without provocation or warning they opened fire on the crowd and threw grenades in the crowd.

It is unclear how many people were killed. However, from accounts of eye-witnesses, dozens are likely to have been killed in the incident ".

Ces faits ait été portés à la connaissance de l’ONU par le rapporteur spécial de la Commission des droits de l’homme.

Le secrétaire général lui-même s’en faisait l’écho en communiquant le rapport de la Commission d’experts " established pursuant to Security Council resolution 935 (1994) " :

"b) Crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law were committed by individuals of both sides of the conflict, but there is no evidence to suggest that acts committed by Tutsi elements were perpetrated with an intent to destroy the Hutu ethnic group as such, within the meaning of the Genocide Convention ; the Commission recommended, however, that investigation of violations of international humanitarian law and of human rights law attributed to the Rwandese Patriotic Front be continued by the Prosecutor of the recently established International Tribunal for Rwanda (78c). "

Quant aux massacres imputables au FPR, le rapport transmis par ce courrier précisait :

" 95. The Commission of Experts has concluded that there exist substantial grounds to conclude that mass murders, summary executions, breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity were also perpetrated by Tutsi elements against Hutu individuals and that allegations concerning these acts should be investigated further.

96. As it was finalizing its preliminary report, the Commission of Experts received reports of violations of the right to life in Rwanda perpetrated in the period from August to early September 1994. The Secretary-General asked the Commission to investigate these reports (79c) ".

Source : Sénat de Belgique