The day he won the hate: commemorate the 25 years of machete blows of about 800,000 people in Rwanda

It took three months for about 800,000 people to surrender killed with a machete. It happened in Rwanda 25 years ago and, although reconciliation now reigns, there are open wounds.

It all started today, but in 1994, the president of that country, Juvenal Habyarimana, died when the plane on which he was traveling before landing in Kigali overturned a missile. His death triggered a wave of excruciating violence.

The same day, Hutu extremists accused of murder the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel and Tutsi, with whom the government had negotiated the Arusha Accords to end the civil war.

The RPF, in turn, accused these radicals of the attack by saying that they were looking for a excuse to start the mbadacre. Immediately the first outbreaks of violence in Kigali broke out.

"Tutsis do not deserve to live. You must kill them. Even pregnant women must be cut into pieces and open their belly to get rid of the baby, "said a message broadcast in April 1994 by Radio Televisión Libre. What came next was barbarism.

The convictions

The the horror lived in Rwanda During these three months of 1994, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on November 8 of this year to "prosecute the perpetrators of genocide and other serious violations of the law. international humanitarian law "committed in the African nation.

This was the second time that the Security Council had used the broad powers conferred by the United Nations Charter to create "ad hoc" tribunals of international concern. He had already done so on 25 May 1993 so as not to let unpunished crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, the worst in Europe since the Second World War.

In its 20-year history (1995-2015), the ICTR has accused 93 people, including 62 were convicted – including the Acting Prime Minister of Rwanda at the time, Jean Kambanda; the Minister of Defense, Théoneste Bagosora; and the head of the armed forces, Augustin Bizimungu, were acquitted of 14, 10 were sent to national courts, two died before being tried, two were dismissed and three are still fugitives.

The ICTR has faced the enormous challenge of being the first tribunal to interpret the crime of genocide defined in the 1948 Convention; it is one of the most difficult to judge because it is not enough to authorize the mbadacre but it is necessary to prove totally or partially destroy a national groupethnic, racial or religious. "In spite of the legal complexity, he entered fully and gave birth to legal milestones.