Rwandan genocide defendant says he was 'ordinary citizen'

May 12, 2016

It is the second trial for genocide by a special Paris court

A former mayor of a small Rwandan town on Wednesday told a Paris court he was just "an ordinary citizen" who played no role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Tito Barahira, 64, portrayed himself as a mild-mannered public servant who fled Kabarondo with his family on April 17, 1994, four days after hundreds of minority Tutsis were murdered at the town's church.

Barahira and his successor as mayor are accused of orchestrating "massive and systematic summary executions" during the genocide that claimed at least 800,000 lives, with their trial opening in Paris on Tuesday.

It is the second trial for crimes against humanity and genocide by a special Paris court that was set up to pursue Rwandan genocide suspects who fled to France.

Barahira, who suffers from kidney disease, remained seated while testifying, mostly in his native language Kinyarwanda, punctuated by French.

"The rebels of the (now ruling) Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) were advancing towards Kabarondo. There were massacres, mainly of Tutsis," said Barahira, who by then was no longer mayor but working for a gas company.

After he stepped down as mayor he returned to being "an ordinary citizen", Barahira said.

The defendant was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living, nine years after he fled Rwanda via neighbouring Tanzania and then Kenya.

He showed little emotion when he recalled that two of his brothers were shot dead by the FPR. 

'We built schools' 

Barahira said he had had a "happy" childhood with "loving parents" living in one of the few stone houses of his village, eastern Cyinzovu.

He started out as a teacher before going to work at the youth and sports ministry in the capital Kigali.

Then in 1976 he was named mayor of Kabarondo, a post he held for nearly a decade.

He showed a sudden flush of pride when he said: "What made me glad was that we built schools, we had three banking co-ops that helped the people, and electricity came to Kabarondo" before any of the neighbouring villages.

When asked about his role in the MRND, the sole political party permitted following the 1973 coup led by Hutu General Juvenal Habyarimana, he said: "When someone was appointed mayor, he automatically became a party leader."

When challenged by the court about his rise to power, Barahira said: "Yes, I had friends."

He added that he was childhood friends with a youth minister who would have been well-placed to assist his political ambitions and that a senior army officer probably intervened on his behalf.

But he told the court that his political influence ceased when he stopped being mayor.

"I became an ordinary citizen again," he said.

And on the issue of the genocide, he said: "They called those 'massacres'. I learned after I fled that it was called 'genocide'. I can't deny it was a genocide, but at the time I didn't know the word."

The trial is set to last about eight weeks.

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