During the genocide and in the months following the RPF victory, RPF soldiers killed many people, although the number of casualties is disputed.
Alison Des Forges was one of the first researchers to conclude that RPF committed atrocities in a systematic fashion that were directed by officers with a high level of authority. She estimated that RPF killed around 30,000 people considered enemies of the Tutsi.
[12][227] Some witnesses blamed Kagame himself for ordering killings.
[228] After ICTR investigators reportedly discovered two layers of bodies in a mass grave in
Kibuye in early 1996—one of Tutsi victims of the genocide and another left by RPF killings of Hutu civilians—further forensic investigations were prohibited by the Rwandan government.
[229] French scholar
André Guichaoua charged the post-genocide government with deliberate
destruction of evidence regarding killings of Hutu in order to avoid prosecution by the ICTR.
[230] Some critics have suggested that these crimes should have been prosecuted by the ICTR,
[231] or even
amounted to genocide under international law.
[232][233][234] In contrast, the post-genocide regime maintains that killings by RPF soldiers were perpetrated by undisciplined recruits seeking revenge and that all such transgressions were promptly punished.
[235]
The first rumours of RPF killings emerged after 250,000 mostly Hutu refugees streamed into Tanzania at the border crossing of
Rusumo on 28 April 1994.
[236] The refugees had fled before the Tutsi rebels arrived because they believed the RPF were committing atrocities. A spokesperson for the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) observed that "There's a lot of propaganda by the Government radio aimed at the Hutu" which "makes them feel very anti-Tutsi."
[237] After the RPF took control of the border crossing at Rusumo on 30 April,
[238] refugees continued to cross the
Kagera River, ending up in remote areas of Tanzania.
[239] In early May, the UNHCR began hearing concrete accounts of atrocities and made this information public on 17 May.
[240][241][242]
After the RPF took power in Rwanda, UNHCR sent a team led by
Robert Gersony to investigate the prospects for a speedy return of the nearly two million refugees that had fled Rwanda since April. After interviewing 300 people, Gersony concluded that "clearly systematic murders and persecution of the Hutu population in certain parts of the country" had taken place. Gersony's findings were suppressed by the United Nations.
[243] The
Gersony Report did not technically exist because Gersony did not complete it,
[244] but a summary of an oral presentation of his findings was leaked in 2010.
[245][246] Gersony's personal conclusion was that between April and August 1994, the RPF had killed "between 25,000 and 45,000 persons, between 5,000 and 10,000 persons each month from April through July and 5,000 for the month of August."
[86] The new authorities categorically denied the allegations of Gersony,
[247] details of which leaked to the press.
[248] According to an RPA officer, "There was not time to do proper screening. ... We needed a force, and some of those recruited were thieves and criminals. Those people have been responsible for much of our trouble today."
[235] In an interview with journalist
Stephen Kinzer, Kagame acknowledged that killings had occurred but stated that they were carried out by rogue soldiers and had been impossible to control.
[249]
The RPF killings gained international attention with the 1995
Kibeho massacre, in which soldiers opened fire on a camp for
internally displaced persons in
Butare prefecture.
[250] Australian soldiers serving as part of UNAMIR estimated at least 4,000 people were killed,
[251] while the Rwandan government claimed that the death toll was 338.
[252]
