As ICTR investigator Hourigan identified Kagame and the RPF as responsible for the April 6, 1994 assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana – Louise Arbour gagged him.

By David Peterson, Dec. 5, 2013

Michael Hourigan

Michael Hourigan, you may recall, was an Australian national who in 1996-1997 served as an investigator for the Office of the Prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  Established in late 1994 by UN Security Council Resolution 955, the ICTR was charged with “prosecuting persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda and Rwandan citizens responsible for genocide and other such violations committed in the territory of neighbouring States, between 1 January 1994 and 31 December 1994…”(para. 1).

Hourigan and his “National Team” of roughly 20 investigators found three members of Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front who had volunteered the information that it was in fact Kagame’s RPF that on April 6, 1994, shot-down then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s jet as it approached the airport in Kigali, assassinating Habyarimana as well as President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, along with 11 others. Both Habyarimana and Ntarymira were Hutu; Kagame, to this day still the president of Rwanda, is Tutsi. The shoot-down was the incident upon which Kagame’s RPF launched its final military campaign to seize state-power in Rwanda. In less than 100 days, Kagame’s RPF succeeded.

In early 1997, Hourigan presented ICTR Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour with his evidence that the RPF was responsible for the shoot-down. But to his shock and surprise, Arbour quashed the investigation and buried the evidence. Read more by David Peterson

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NOTES FROM BARAKA BOOKS
Michael Hourigan was a courageous man devoted to finding out the truth about one of the worst tragedies of the 20th century. His  interviews and affidavit are absolutely crucial to understanding the Rwandan tragedy. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the shamelessly trivialized assassination of the two African heads of state, his interviews and affidavits are essential documents that deserve to be widely circulated.

Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction is also available in all formats thus providing more information to counter the misinformation campaign that has been conducted since 1994 and that will be deafening in coming months.