Laurent Bucyibaruta is the highest-ranking Rwandan to have faced trial in France over the 1994 massacre in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in 100 days of mass killings. For some added perspective on Bucyibaruta and the charges he's facing, FRANCE 24 is joined by Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics at SOAS University of London. He describes Bucyibaruta, essentially the governor of a province, as a "central figure in the way that the genocide played out." Professor Clark explains that he "had control of over five or six hundred thousand people. And he was notorious, even in the lead-up to the genocide, for giving these very inflammatory speeches inciting the local population to go out and kill their Tutsi neighbours." Professor Clark asserts that Bucyibaruta is inextricably linked to the mass genocide of Tutsis: "Not only did he incite the local population to do this, but he also had control of the military police and, most notoriously, the Interahamwe which were the Hutus militias that conducted some of the major massacres during the genocide."


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