Leading ICTR defendant Colonel Théoneste Bagosora began giving testimony on October 24 for the period leading up to the fateful date of April 6, 1994 - the day the Rwandan genocide began. The former directeur de cabinet in the Defense Ministry denied responsibility for disseminating a "definition of the Tutsi enemy" within the army in 1992. He especially denied being the colonel of the "apocalypse." After delivering some sensational statements during the first two days, during which he denied the existence of the Tutsi genocide, Bagosora began to relate the facts in a calmer tone. In December 1991, President Juvénal Habyarimana appointed ten officers to a military commission, including colonel Bagosora and Rwanda's current Minister of Defense, General Marcel Gatsinzi. Bagosora, who presided the commission, said that its aim was to "assess the military situation" after a year of fighting with Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels. He stated right away that no one had appointed him to chair the commission, but that he had become its de facto leader since he was the "oldest and highest-ranking officer" of the group.

Ancestral warmongering

The commission's report included a chapter on "the definition of the enemy." According to the report's authors, the main enemy was the "extremist Tutsi at home and abroad, nostalgic for power [...] who wants to take back power in Rwanda by any means, including through arms." On September 21, 1992, the new army chief of staff, Colonel Déogratias Nsabimana, disseminated this definition among the units. Bagosora was appointed directeur de cabinet of the Ministry of Defense. According to the indictment, the distribution of this document "encouraged and promoted ethnic hatred and violence." Did the directeur de cabinet circulate this document in spite of Habyarimana's strict ban on its distribution? The accused says he only learned of the existence of the letter in his cell at the ICTR detention facility. He also maintains that the report's overall context was "well understood, [and that] the text could not have provoked an ethnic conflict." Though he continually denied hating the Tutsis, he later raged about their "ancestral warmongering." "The history of Rwanda shows that the Tutsi nature is to want to fight all the time [...]. They still have not changed."

In his new capacity as number two at the Defense Ministry, Bagosora was to participate in the Arusha (Tanzania) peace negotiations with the RPF. However, according to the prosecutor, he stormed out of the discussions saying he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare for the apocalypse." The only prosecution witness to support this allegation, a senior RPF official, places the event in October 1992. "In October 1992, I was not yet part of the government delegation to the negotiations," retorts Bagosora, swearing that he "never spoke those words." Brandishing his original passport as proof, he said he did not come to Arusha until December 2, 1992.

Regardless of when he entered the negotiations, one thing is sure: Bagosora never got along with the head of his delegation, Boniface Ngulinzira, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and an opponent to Habyarimana. He admits having left Arusha on December 26, 1992 despite the Minister's insistence. He explained that President Habyarimana had recalled the military team to Kigali because the military portion of the negotiations had just been postponed indefinitely. "I had a choice between following the orders of the delegation leader or those of the president," said Bagosora. The following day, in a letter addressed to the president, Ngulinzira nevertheless accused the colonel of "abandoning the mission" and called for sanctions. At the end of May 1993, the Rwandan delegation broke up. The strategy commission, chaired by Bagosora, criticized Ngulinzira in writing for making too many concessions to the RPF on the distribution of soldiers within the future united army. "I'll say it again. He was an RPF accomplice," insisted Bagosora, still furious with the Hutu leader who was killed at the beginning of the 1994 massacres.

Eliminate the Tutsis

According to the prosecutor, Bagosora reaffirmed on April 4, 1994 that "the only solution to the political impasse is to eliminate all the Tutsis." On that day, the accused was a guest of the Senegalese contingent of the UN mission in Rwanda, UNAMIR. He spoke about the application of the peace agreements with some of the other guests. Two of them, UNAMIR commander General Roméo Dallaire, and his Belgian second-in-command, Luc Marchal, mentioned this in their reports. "In an intoxicated voice, he [Bagosora] claimed that the only way to take care of the Tutsis was to totally eliminate them by wiping them off the map," wrote Dallaire. Marchal wrote in his report that Bagosora, who was "in top form that night, lashed out at the RPF. The only way for Rwanda to find peace one day is to eliminate it [the RPF]," he allegedly shouted out. Bagosora says that Marchal's account is more accurate. "I said something to that effect. I talked about the RPF and not the Tutsis," he said as his testimony started into the genocide period.