Genocide in Rwanda? Massacre in Burundi? It's Business as Usual for Israel
Twenty years before Hutus slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda, Tutsis massacred Hutus in Burundi. Records about Israel's military assistance to Rwanda remain top secret, but declassified Foreign Ministry correspondence about Burundi hints at indifference to ethnic massacres.
Nyamata, Rwanda, April 5, 2024. Coffins holding the remains of newly discovered victims of the 1994 genocide await funerals in a Catholic church. Credit: Brian Inganga/AP
May 2, 2024
Thirty years ago, in April 1994, the genocide began in Rwanda. There is no disputing that. Twenty-eight years later, it was even confirmed by Israel Supreme Court justice Isaac Amit. Genocide researcher Prof. Yair Auron has appealed to the court requesting it order the Ministry of Defense to reveal the extent to which Israeli weapons had been used by Hutus in Rwanda to murder their Tutsi fellow citizens. In his decision, Justice Amit agreed that a frenzy of murder took place in Rwanda in 1994 that "raged over a period of 100 days... these were 'One hundred days of solitude' from the point of view of the Tutsi, as the world stood by and watched while hundreds of thousands of their people were murdered, most of them with machetes."
Yet, after writing these things, Amit went ahead and accepted the Defense Ministry's refusal to reveal to the public its documents regarding the shipments of ammunition and weapons prior to the genocide and even when it was in its midst, for fear of doing damage to Israel's foreign relations and state security. According to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the process of extermination was carried out not only with machetes, but also, in certain cases, with Uzi-type submachine guns. Two months after Justice Amit's ruling, State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan and Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit refused to open a criminal investigation, on the grounds that there was no indication that Israeli officials were aware of the murder of the Tutsi taking place, or that any Israeli official aimed to assist the Hutu regime in the commission of genocide against the Tutsi.
Thus documents on Israel's involvement in the genocide in Rwanda remain classified. Nevertheless, documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs related to Israel's relations with Rwanda's neighbor to the south, Burundi, that became available to the public over the past two years, shed light on Israel's ability to be indifferent to oppression and massacre on ethnic grounds.
In December 1962, the king of a newly independent Burundi visited Israel and agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the two countries. A joint statement to the press, issued by the king and Israel's then-president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, declared that both "expressed their satisfaction with the great progress made in Africa towards the elimination of colonialism... They reaffirmed their adherence to the United Nations declaration on the right to independence of all peoples and their opposition to any manifestation of racial, religious or political discrimination."
The solemn announcement contradicted the fact that at the time, racist regimes were operating in both countries: In Israel, the Arab population was subject to a military regime, while in Burundi the Tutsi minority (about 15 percent of the population) ruled over the Hutu majority. (In Rwanda, with a similar tribal breakdown, the political hierarchy had been reversed in 1959, and a Hutu majority oppressed and persecuted the Tutsi minority).
In Burundi, repeated Hutu rebellions were answered with extensive repression by the Tutsi. The main waves of killings, which took place successively in 1965, 1969 and 1972, were documented in dozens of telegrams sent to Jerusalem by Israeli diplomats.
Thus, against the background of an attempted coup in October 1965, the first secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Bujumbura (at the time Burundi's political capital), Michael Bar Yehuda, wrote to the Foreign Ministry how, "In terms of organized party power, Burundi is currently in a state of complete disintegration. Both parties have been almost completely eliminated, with their leaders arrested or executed."
In a cable from November 1965, Bar Yehuda wrote, with regard to numbers, that in districts outside the capital alone, the "official version" reported 200-300 dead. However, he went on, "According to an unofficial estimate, the number of casualties is approaching 3,000. This number was confirmed to me by a highly qualified source." In a telegram from the following month, he described how Hutu prisoners had been massacred: "A prisoner escape was staged. About 150 were gathered in one place and given the opportunity to escape, while the escape was directed by the authorities. As the [prisoners] began to flee, they were channeled into an open area, where they were ambushed by the armed forces, who killed everyone."
Already in the summer prior to the coup, in August 1965, Aryeh Levin, the chargé d'affaires in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, reported to Jerusalem that the situation in Burundi was deteriorating and that "in Bujumbura and the surrounding area ... There are explosions and assassinations, fires in Hutu and Tutsi houses, murders and the like."
Two years later, Bar Yehuda reported to the Foreign Ministry about the continuing violence in Burundi in a series of telegrams. In April 1967, he reported how "murders, probably on political and ethnic grounds, have recently been committed in the interior of the country." The following month, he reported that, "The regime eliminates dissidents by putting them in prison." In December of the same year: "The opposition was put under arrest."
After another failed coup against the Tutsi regime, in September 1969, another wave of killing and repression erupted. In late October, Israel's non-resident ambassador in Burundi, Aharon Ofri, reported to the ministry in a telegram how, "On the night of the arrests, various Hutu were arrested, and as part of the investigation there were of course also those who died as a result of beatings." In a telegram from January 1970, Ofri wrote, "The mass executions affect the atmosphere of Bujumbura. The people talk less, shut up, and expect that the next day will not be worse than the preceding one."
And as if there were no connection, dozens of telegrams reveal how it was clear to Israeli diplomats that the key to promoting relations with Burundi lay in security assistance. Thus, after several years of cold relations, in 1968, against the backdrop of an internal economic, political and security crisis in his country, the chief of staff of Burundi's army turned officially to Israel in a request to buy weapons. Commenting on this development to the ministry in June 1970, Meir Yufa, the first secretary of Israel's embassy in Kigali, wrote how the ensuing deal "really melted the ice." According to the telegrams, the turnaround occurred in May 1968, when paratroopers from Burundi began training at an Israeli training base in Congo. In addition, negotiations took place over the sale of weapons, ammunition and additional training by Israelis in Burundi itself.
To this end, the head of the IDF delegation in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was sent to conduct a survey of Burundi's military needs. In October 1969, the Foreign Ministry approved a gift of 40 Uzi submachine guns to Burundi; they were delivered the following June. On October 31, 1969, Ambassador Ofri presented a gift of an Uzi to the military dictator Michel Micombero, "on which a dedication is engraved and it can be noted that he was very pleased."
In November 1969, Ofri visited Bujumbura again and reported on another meeting with Micombero, who ruled the country from 1966 to 1976. The latter, wrote Ofri, "considers himself a friend of Israel," who always reminded the Arabs about Burundi's "relations with Israel, because Israel has a right as a sovereign state," and added, "We oppose genocide of your people, that's what I said to the Arabs." According to the report, Micombero "ended with a heartfelt thank-you for the assistance in Congo in training paratroopers and said that 'this is a big thing for his country' and he also thanked us for agreeing to sell ammunition." Ofri was referring to a shipment of 300,000 bullets for Lee-Enfield bolt-action rifles.
About 120 Burundian paratroopers trained at the Israeli training school in the DRC, and in July 1968 they participated in a military parade and parachuting demonstration back in Bujumbura. In his report back to the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Ofri noted that he had been present at the event and "it is clear that those who need to know that the paratroopers were trained in Congo by Israeli instructors." Ofri wrote that the training was for domestic purposes, "The paratroopers will never parachute, because you may not know, but Burundi does not have an airplane. They are the president's SWAT unit and their commander, the major, is the head of his personal guard and the soldiers are members of the 'right' tribe, and there is no difference in this method between him and other presidents." According to a telegram sent in July 1969 by diplomat Meir Yufa, after a visit to Burundi, Micombero admitted during their meeting that the paratrooper unit was intended to "maintain security and order within the country."
In November 1970, Israel agreed to send military instructors to continue training the paratroopers in Burundi itself and to train a unit of VIP bodyguards. The following month, the Israeli military delegation in Kinshasa reported to the Foreign Ministry that a representative had visited Bujumbura, and learned that the Burundians had begun building training facilities, based on the Israelis' instructions. In March 1971 another training course for 206 Burundian paratroopers concluded at the Israeli school in the Congo. The ambassador to Burundi, Shimon Mort, reported in September of that year on a conversation with the Burundian foreign minister, who told him that Israel-Burundi relations were good and friendly and that "they appreciate our part in paratroop training."
Following another rebellion that began at the end of April 1972, the Tutsi military regime in Burundi began a series of massacres of Hutus throughout the country – acts that some researchers say qualified to be defined as genocide. According to estimates, 80,000-300,000 people were murdered, most of them members of the Hutu. On June 11, 1972, The New York Times reported on Hutus having been taken in trucks from the capital, Bujumbura, to be murdered, followed by burial in mass graves. The paper even published testimonies from people who said they heard the passengers screaming. In a review prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January 1973, it was written, "The Hutus' last attempt in 1972 to seize power ended in a massacre of the Hutu, and their brutal repression."
Nonetheless, that same month, in a telegram from January 1973, Ambassador Mort reported to Jerusalem on a meeting he had had with Burundi's foreign minister, who requested additional military assistance, and also noted that "the chief of staff invited me to his home, on his initiative. He received us cordially and reminded us of our promise of a long time ago that we would provide them with a gift of 500 Uzis and personal equipment." In a response to Mort's message, his predecessor, Aharon Ofri, wrote in February 1973 to the Africa Department at the Foreign Ministry, that at most, the commitment had been for another shipment of 40 Uzis.
The massacres in Burundi did not stop the training and arms shipments from Israel. And though Israel's Ministry of Defense chose to conceal its records, there is no reason to believe that in Rwanda Israel demonstrated a different level of morality.
Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer, represented Yair Auron before the Tel Aviv District Court and the Supreme Court in the proceedings that failed to obtain the release by the Defense Ministry of its records on Rwanda.
