The information in this post was actually how I started investigating this topic. I found it interesting in that it showed that the Hutu regime was supplied with weapons from France that made the massacre possible (we were told that the Tutsi population was chopped up with machetes).
In retrospect it isn’t so strange that the Hutu regime was arming itself as it was invaded by the RPF army. It was only later that I dug deeper and found the more damaging information on the international community supporting the murderous RPF (that was instrumental in orchestration the genocide)…
With an invasion of Rwanda in mind, the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was formed in 1987.
France, Egypt and South Africa supplied the majority of weapons to arm the huge expansion of the Rwandan army.
France was the largest arms supplier to Habyarimana’s regime in Rwanda. Between February 1990 and April 1994, it exported 136 million French francs worth of weapons to Rwanda.
Immediately after the RPF launched its offensive on 8 February 1993, the number of French soldiers swelled to at least 680. Sources in Rwanda told the Arms Project that French soldiers provided artillery support for Rwandan infantry troops both before and during the February 1993 offensive.
While France claimed that these French soldiers were protecting French citizens, French troops were also deployed at locations were no French citizens or other western expatriates were living.
France also sent military advisors to provide training, preparing them for the massacre, to Rwandan troops.
France was “
directly responsible, through arming and training, for the exponential growth of the Rwandan Government Army (FAR)”.
France also played a major role in securing the arms from South Africa and Egypt.
The $6 million in Egyptian weapons were paid for with a bank guarantee from the French Crédit Lyonnais bank.
France, who had been secretly supplying the apartheid regime for a long time, also acted as an intermediary for the South African arms:
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6a7fc8.html(
http://archive.is/JxKeX)
The follow-up selected for UN Secretary-General after Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan, was also involved in letting this genocide happen…
Kofi Annan was head of UN peacekeeping in 1994 and as such responsible for ignoring repeated warnings that the genocide was coming. Roméo Dallaire warned of the plan to kill 1,000 Tutsis every 20 minutes in Rwanda (while he was really supporting the RPF).
When the order came to take the UN “peacekeepers” out of Rwanda, UN political adviser in Kigali, Shahryar Khan, didn’t agree: “
Ten Belgians are dead, so you don't give a damn that thousands of Africans are about to be slaughtered”.
The Belgian commanding officer in Rwanda Colonel Luc Marchal later recalled the pull out: “
We were perfectly aware of what was about to happen. Our mission was a tragic failure. Everyone considered it a form of desertion. Pulling out under such circumstances was an act of total cowardice”.
Lieutenant Luc Lemaire was in command of a contingent of Belgian troops ordered to abandon a school with about 2,000 Tutsis in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. As the Belgian soldiers drove off, Tutsis rushed their vehicles for help. The Belgians fired into the air to drive them back. The Tutsis were caught by the Hutu militia and diverted to a gravel pit, with very few survivors.
Even where Tutsis were able to climb on board UN lorries, the interahamwe pulled them off at roadblocks and butchered them in front of French or Belgian soldiers, who said they had no “mandate” to intervene.
Once the UN abandoned Rwanda, the killing spread rapidly.
Dallaire later said he could have stopped the genocide in Kigali with 5,000 troops and could have prevented it spreading.
Representative of the RPF Gerald Gahima, tried to lobby UN ambassadors to take action, including Britain's representative on the Security Council Sir David Hannay, and said “
I didn't get the impression he cared at all. We might have been talking about slaughtering chickens”:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/dec/19/theobserver3(
http://archive.is/a1r5a)