Assassination of Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana and Moderate Hutus
During the nighttime from 6 April to 7 April, the members of the Forces armées rwandaises, under the leadership of Bagosora, engaged in heated discourse with General Roméo Dallaire, then commander of the UNAMIR. UNAMIR served as the military and legal force behind the Prime Minister of Rwanda, in addition to its other peacekeeping duties.
Madame Agathe Uwiligiyimana, the Rwandan Prime Minister, planned to launch an appeal for calm over the radio the following morning. General Dallaire sent an armed escort of five Ghanaian and ten Belgian peacekeepers to Uwiligiyimana to accompany her to the radio station. However, the presidential guard took control of the state radio station that morning and Madame Uwilingyimana had to cancel her speech. Later that day, the presidential guard assassinated her along with 10 Belgian UNAMIR peacekeepers. At 9pm, Daillaire learned that Belgians had been killed and Ghanaians brought to safety by Hutu forces.
Many powerful, moderate Hutus, who favored the Arusha Accords, were later assassinated. An attempt was made on the life of Faustin Twagiramungu, the prime minister of the Transitional Broad Based Government under the accords, but it failed thanks to the efforts of the UNAMIR.
Read more about this topic: Initial Events Of The Rwandan Genocide
Famous quotes containing the words assassination of, prime, minister and/or moderate:
“I cannot be indifferent to the assassination of a member of my profession, We should be obliged to shut up business if we, the Kings, were to consider the assassination of Kings as of no consequence at all.”
—Edward VII (1841–1910)
“The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.”
—Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960)
“Just let him be minister if that’s what he desires, but without his brother and his brother-in-law.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“I belong to the fag-end of Victorian liberalism, and can look back to an age whose challenges were moderate in their tone, and the cloud on whose horizon was no bigger than a man’s hand.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)