For the first time in 30 years, President Paul Kagame opened up on a personal story of how his cousin – Florence, who worked in the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), was heinously killed by the Interahamwe militia in Camp Kigali in 1994, despite Kagame’s efforts to save her through the then commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire.
The president said, that Florence was an employee from United Nations Development Programe(UNDP) for more than fifteen years during the Genocide
When the massacres started, Florence, her niece and other neighbors she has accommodated were stuck in her house near Camp Kigali, a renown military camp in the capital Kigali.
“Her phone was still working and I used to call her using my satellite phone. Each time we spoke, she was more desperate, but our force could not reach the place to rescue her,” Kagame said during Kwibuka30 message.
“When Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN peace keeping mission came to see me at Mulindi where I was, I asked him to rescue Florence, and he said: I will try.”
A couple of days latter, Kagame followed up to see if Florence got a help, and asked if anyone came to her rescue, but the answer was shocking.
“She said no and started crying. Then she said: Paul, You should stop trying to save us we don’t want to live anymore anyway,” Kagame quotes the late Florance.
“I quickly understood what she wanted to mean and she hang up. At that time, I had a very strong heart because I understood what she was trying to tell me. On the morning of May 16, following a month of torture, they well all killed except one niece who managed to escape thanks to a good neighbor.”
Like for other cases, information around the death of Florence and other people who were with her did not remain obscure.
President Kagame said: “It latter emerged, that a Rwandan working at UNDP betrayed his colleagues Tutsi and offered a list of them so that they could be killed. Witnesses say that they saw that colleague rejoicing that Florence was killed.”
Other news however had it that this traitor continued to work with UNDP even when these evidences behind his criminal activities emerged.
“He is still a free man, now living in France,” Kagame said.
Meanwhile, President Kagame asked Dallaire what would have happened about Florence, and he learnt that his soldiers went to her rescue, but were blocked by Interahamwe who had mounted a roadblock near her house.
Florence’s death is a new testimony that could be a new reminder how the United Nations failed Rwanda during the Genocide and their contradiction in rescuing people in need.
“He also conveyed to me an order from the United States ambassador to protect diplomats and foreign civilians and rescue them via road to Burundi, the things that happened at the same time,” Kagame recalls.
What the president could not understand is how militia could afford to stop the UN peacekeepers who were up for the right cause. He however, does not blame Dallaire, whom he said, is a good man who tried to do the good things in the worst circumstances one can imagine.
The president in earlier message congratulated the UN peacekeepers and the countries that sent them to Rwanda during the Genocide and said that, while they were not able to save people, the blame cannot be placed on them, but the international community which did not offer them the requirement to do the right thing.
