The hazardous route to the Arusha Accords

As the country celebrates Liberation Day for the 19th time, today, some politicians who witnessed the political dynamics in the country, reminisce how stalwarts of the former ruling party, MRND fought tooth and nail to thwart the Arusha Peace Accords. As the Rwandese Patriotic Army continued making considerable gains on the frontline, observers at the time say the government decided to give in to international pressure by opening up for a multi-party system, as well as getting on the negotiating table with the RPF, the political wing of the RPA. A couple of political parties then sprung up in the country, which is when present day parties such as the Liberal Party (PL), Socialist Democratic Party (PSD), Centrist Democratic Party (PDC) and the defunct Republican Democratic Movement (MDR) were formed. These parties, plus other MRND off-shoots such as the Hutu extremist CDR, would later participate in the process that came to be known as the Arusha Accords, with RPF and the ruling party as the main players. However, no sooner had the negotiations kicked off than the ruling party and its factions started frustrating the process, using ethnicity as the main tool. Protais Mitali, the current national leader of PL and Minister of Culture and Sports, was at the centre of the creation of his party. He was head of the party’s youth wing and later named party representative in the strategic Gitarama Prefecture in 1993. “The Arusha negotiations were at first proceeding smoothly, with opposition parties rallying behind RPF’s idea to have a country that espoused the rule of law and democracy,” said Mitali. “But MRND would later introduce the Hutu power movement, thus confusing political parties that the enemy was the minority Tutsis ‘who were about to return and rule over the majority who fought for independence’.” Youth take up extreme approach According to Mitali, most of the parties started to disintegrate which saw the creation of “Power” wings incited by the state machinery. The factions started spearheading assassinations of party members affiliated with the moderate wing of their respective parties. Some of the prominent politicians who spearheaded the splinter groups included Frodouard Karamira, a notorious genocidaire who belonged to the MDR-Power wing and Justin Mugenzi, who was later rewarded with the Ministry of Commerce. He created PL-Power. Mitali said the parties were divided by the ruling party headed by President Juvenal Habyarimana, who wanted to ease the political pressure exerted on him to put in place a democratic system instead of concentrating all the powers around him. “For us (moderate PL), the message to our delegates was clear; we were for the liberation since we wanted justice, development and an all-inclusive government,” he said. Patrick Mazimhaka, one of the key players on the RPF delegation to the Arusha negotiations, said the parties also split because their leadership was not built on a firm foundation, adding that the attitude of the country’s leadership and political parties affected the progress of the negotiations. “When it came to sharing power that was in the sole hands of Habyarimana, the opposition was happy, but you can imagine how upset MRND was,” he said. Mazimhaka, now retired, particularly recalls that discussing two articles on power sharing took two weeks of the negotiations. “We had to split the session on this debate into two clusters, because it was difficult; government delegates were very sure the president would never accept to lose power,” he narrated, adding that it was the toughest part of the negotiations. Despite the conflicts that were inside the country and the splitting of parties, people who talked to this paper commended RPF for having stayed firm from beginning to end, which ended with a peace agreement signed in Arusha, Tanzania, on August 3, 1993. “Habyarimana’s regime ignored it but RPF later (after the Genocide) used the Peace Accords to put institutions in place in respect of a power sharing agreement,” said Pierre Celestin Rwigema, once prime minister in the post-Genocide government, and currently one of Rwanda’s representative in the East African Legislative Assembly. He said the growing popularity of opposition parties created a climate of fear to MRND which was afraid of losing power. “Fear of change and a climate of terror and hatred generated into killings,” Rwigema said. When Habyarimana was assassinated on April 6. 1994–by what is believed to be his inner circle who were against the Accords–a well-planned Genocide was unleashed that lasted until the RPF stopped it and toppled the genocidal regime on July 4 the same year.

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The hazardous route to the Arusha Accords