BAGOSORA WAS AGAINST THE ARUSHA PEACE ACCORD

Arusha, January 20, 2004 (FH) – The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was on Monday told that former director of cabinet in the Rwandan ministry of defense, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora was against the Arusha peace accord. The information was given during the testimony of the former commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) during the time ofthe genocide, General Romeo Dallaire, the 37th prosecution witness in the Military I case.

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“Bagosora held it that the Arusha peace accord bamboozled his team” and that the accord would be against the interest of the government and against the interest of the Hutu population in general”"This accord was really in favour of the RPF", continued Dallaire, adding that Bagosora and his team felt frustrated by the situation. The UNAMIR was to supervise the implementation of the Arusha peace accord. The prosecution maintains that Bagosora, who took part in the Arusha talks, "made clear his opposition to the concessions made to the RPF by the representative of the government, Boniface Ngulinzira”. Bagosora allegedly Arusha before the end of the talks, "declaring that he was going back to Rwanda to prepare the apocalypse. "In April 1994, Boniface Ngulinzira was killed by Rwandan soldiers. The indictment mentions that Ngulinzira's death was announced on Radio-télévision libre des mille collines (RTLM) as such: "We have exterminated all RPF accomplices. M. Boniface Ngulinzira will no longer sell the country to the RPF in Arusha. The peace accord is just a piece of paper, as had predicted our papa Habyarimana"The document adds that during the talks, several officers, including Bagosora and two of his co-accused lieutenant-colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva and major Aloys Ntabakuze, "encouraged the soldiers to express their disagreement with the Arusha accord. "Bagosora and others, including brigadier general Gratien Kabiligi, the fourth co-accused in this trial, "publicly stated that the extermination of the Tutsis would be the inevitable consequence of the resumption of the war by the RPF, or of the implementation of the Arusha accord". Nsengiyumva was in charge of the Gisenyi military area (western Rwanda), while Kabiligi was responsible for military operations at the headquarters of the army and Ntabakuze in charge of the Kanombe para-commando battalion. This trial for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes is taking place in Chamber one of the ICTR, presided by Norwegian judge Erik Mose, assisted by judges Serguei Egorov from Russia and Jai Ram Reddy from Fiji. SV/CE/FH (ML0120e)