• Reveals l Hutu extremists killed their own leader

KIGALI - A report into the circumstances sarrounding the crash of the Falcon 50 aircraft carrying former Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994 is slated to be released tommorow.

The report which has taken two years to compile concludes that Hutu extremists, and members of Habyarimana’s inner circle, "Akazu”, of being behind the assasination.

The seven-man committee led by veteran jurist and former president of the Supreme Court, Jean Mutsinzi, analyzed thousands of documents and interviewed nearly 600 witnesses. It also used the services of ballistic experts from the United Kingdom’s National Defence Academy for advice and analysis. 

The team compared witness testimony against ballistic evidence to produce the report.

The conspirators, the report says, had calculated that by killing Habyarimana, they  would torpedo a power-sharing agreement  with the Rwandese Patritic Front (RPF) known as the Arusha accords .

The landmark deal would have ended year s of conflict by creating a broadbased transitional government and an intergrated Rwandan Army.

Members of  Akazu, including Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, "who would later distinguish themselves as some of the 20th century’s most notorious war criminals”,  were not simply opposed to the reconciliation process, but they were also committed to the wholesale extermination of Tutsi.

Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart, Cyprian Ntaryamira died when the plane they were riding in was shot down as it approached Kanombe International airport.

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