Interahamwe

The Interahamwe, abbreviated MDR, ( Kinyarwanda: "those who stand together " or " fight together " ) was originally a military organization of the MRND ruling party in Rwanda, which was, in the reign of the Heads of State Habyarimana founded about 1990. Soon, however, she became one of the main forces of Hutu Power, which advocated the murder of all Tutsi.

In 1994, this 30,000 -strong Hutu militia in Rwanda together with the smaller Impuzamugambi to a considerable extent the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. It was supported by the Army of Rwanda, where the actual training of the Interahamwe lasted several years, carried out with the objective planned by the former Rwandan government genocide. After 1994 they went up in armed guerrilla groups of Hutu Power, without ever having been formally dissolved.

The Interahamwe has hundreds of thousands of people killed and maimed during the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda mainly with machetes and clubs. The Interahamwe set up roadblocks at all major locations where they killed all Tutsi who tried to flee.

After the 1994 genocide, the Interahamwe fled with substantial portions of the Hutu population in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where they built bases in the refugee camps. From there, they took action against Tutsi and Banyamulenge and was responsible for several massacres of them.

In these camps, where many of those responsible for the genocide survived from the ranks of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR ), the génocidaires reorganized. The new organization in which rose the Interahamwe, the Rassemblement Démocratique was initially pour le Rwanda, which was after the intake of larger contingents of Hutu from the Congo the name Armée de Libération du Rwanda ( Alir ).

Leader of the Interahamwe at the time of the genocide was Robert Kajuga. While his mother was a Hutu, Tutsi as can be born father change his identity to Hutu had. Kajuga died in late 1994 due to illness in exile in the Democratic Republic of Congo. His deputy Georges Rutaganda was genocide, crimes against humanity and murder guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on multiple charges and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003.

Bernard Munyagishari is considered one of the founders and leaders of the Interahamwe.