The Rwandan Genocide began on 6 April 1994, when a plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali. This sparked one hundred days of brutal massacres throughout the country, and as the violence and fear escalated, the UN was called on to take action. The Triumph of Evil details the events that took place both in Rwanda and inside the UN that allowed over 850,000 people to lose their lives in one of the most horrifying genocides of the twentieth century.
The book is based on the eye-witness account of Charles Petrie, a UN official called in to assist in the region, and it documents what he believes were the failings of the UN when it came to protecting its own staff. In particular, Petrierelates the sinister events that led to the murders of a number of Rwandan nationals who were working for the UN, and were due to be evacuated.
Focusing on individual stories and experiences, he highlights how quickly terror can reign when disenfranchised groups are incited to violence under an oppressive system, and how even our most respected institutions can fail when political motivations muddy the waters.
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Charles Petrie
Spike Zephaniah Stephenson
Charles Petrie is a former UN official who rose to the rank of Assistant Secretary General before resigning from the organisation in 2010. He has had close to thirty years' experience working in contexts of conflict and famine, some of it with Médecins Sans Frontières and Care International (Mali and areas under the control of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) and much of it with the UN system (Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda (during the 1994 Genocide), the Middle East, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Afghanistan).
In 2014, he was made an OBE for services to international peace, security and human rights.Upon his request, he received the award in Mogadishu.
Even after resigning from the UN, Charles Petrie continued to be invited to participate at the highest levels of UN policy-making. In March 2012, he was designated by the UN Secretary General to lead an internal review of the UN’s actions in Sri Lanka during the last phase of the conflict. This mission allowed him to highlight the same systemic failings that had led to the inaction in the case that is the essence of the Triumph of Evil.
Spike Zephaniah Stephenson is an illustrator and writer from Portsmouth. His work crosses into many art forms including animation, poetry and sculpture, but visual storytelling is his raison d'etre. He has illustrated comics, children's books and storyboards for film, as well as writing and illustrating his own graphic novels. His freelance work has taken him into schools, prisons and The Houses of Parliament and he has produced artwork for The O2, British Council and Amnesty International.
Characters are always Spike's focus and he specialises in conveying the complexities of human expression through traditional draughtsmanship, whether with quick sketches or intricate studies. His other speciality lies with monsters and the macabre, tackling life's horrors with a somewhat Gothic approach. This book will be an opportunity to deal with the very darkest corners of humanity much more directly and to tell these harrowing true stories in a way no other medium could.
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The Triumph of Evil will be officially launched on 5 August. It has been a long journey and I am profoundly grateful for your support. Many Many Thanks!
I hope you will enjoy the way the story has been written. The writing went through many iterations. The different drafts benefited from various editorial inputs, and I have acknowledged this critical support at the…
18th July 2019The Triumph of Evil – July 18
I was not to know that the end of the genocide would actually be the beginning of my own nightmare. I use the word advisedly; my petty troubles were nowhere on the scale of Rwanda.
Rwanda, in the first weeks after the genocide, was a country devastated. Vast parts of it were totally empty. The reason was simple. After the fall of Kigali, faced with increasing military…
5th July 2019The Triumph of Evil - July 5
Though the Genocide officially ended on 18 July 1994, it was on July 4 that the RPF captured Kigali and the killings more or less stopped. By that date, more than eight hundred thousand Tutsi and fifty thousand moderate Hutu lives had been sacrificed to the genocide.
Only remaining to be murdered were a few thousand Tutsis who had been hiding in the areas that fell under French control…
28th June 2019The Triumph of Evil –June 28
By now, more than eight hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed. Another fifty thousand were still to die before the genocide was finally brought to a halt.
The United Nations expected to complete the first phase of the UN military operation in week one of July 1994. But the Security Council were informed by the Secretary General that a date couldn’t be set for…
21st June 2019The Triumph of Evil –June 21
As we walked into the undergrowth, Rwandan Rebel Lieutenant Fiacre asked me: “Why are you here? Why didn’t you leave with all the others?” …
The others?I pointed out that a number of us had remained behind.
“But for what purpose?” Fiacre insisted. “So you can witness the results of your cowardice? So your conscience can be cleared simply by being present? At…
17th June 2019The Triumph of Evil – June 17
By day seventy of the Genocide seven hundred and fifty thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed.
In mid-June 1994, the Security Council adopted resolution 925, which endorsed the deployment of a UN military force under a mandate expanded and extended until December 1994. Member states were urged to respond promptly to a request for resources. The Council noted that the expanded…
11th June 2019The Triumph of Evil –June 10
By day sixty day of the Genocide more than seven hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed.
In the very first days of June the Security Council was presented with the conclusions of the special mission that the Secretary General had sent to the region between 22 and 27 May, under the leadership of his Chief of Staff, Iqbal Riza. The report, the…
3rd June 2019Triumph of Evil – June 3
On the very last day of May, Captain Mbaye was driving back to UN headquarters, when a mortar shell landed behind his jeep.
Shrapnel entered through the back window and hit Mbaye in the head, killing him instantly. The mortar had been one of the many fired by RPF forces at the Rwandan Army checkpoint.
Gromo made it to UN headquarters just as Captain Mbaye’s body arrived…
27th May 2019The Triumph of Evil – May 27
By day fifty of the Genocide some six hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed, and many others were in hiding.
On returning from his mission to Rwanda, the High Commissioner for Human Rights sent a report to the Security Council. He had travelled to Kigali and Byumba, and had spoken to representatives of both the interim government and…
20th May 2019Triumph of Evil – May 17
By day forty, while the world body argued over semantics, close to half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed. More than a million people had been made homeless.
The efforts to produce a Presidential Statement in April had highlighted the differing positions on Rwanda and the political interests behind them. After the Presidency passed from New…
15th May 2019The Triumph of Evil – May 15
Florence was now sheltering eighteen people, and the conditions in her house had become intolerable. She made desperate telephone calls to the U.N. for help. And finally, in mid-May, Gromo Alex got the go-ahead from the UN to dispatch an armed personnel carrier to evacuate her. The operation was scheduled for the morning of 16 May. In total secrecy,…
7th May 2019The Triumph of Evil – May 7
By day thirty, approximately 300 thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had already been murdered.
It is only towards the last days of April that the UN Security Council received from the UN Secretariat the much-anticipated report on options for the UN mission. Following the withdrawal of the Belgian contingent, the UN mission was down from its initial 2500 men to 1700…
28th April 2019The Triumph of Evil - April 28
By day twenty of the genocide more than one hundred thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus - men, women and children alike - had been murdered.
Within the UN Security Council the mass killings were a continuing subject of discussion[1]. The picture was confused. The long-awaited report from the UN Secretariat had yet to appear. The only information provided by the UN Secretariat…
21st April 2019The Triumph of Evil – April 21
Working closely with Captain Mbaye, Gromo moved those Tutsi UN staff and their families who were located in the most isolated parts of the capital to the households of other UN staff. Florence took in a great many. Gromo was at pains to ensure that the houses were adequately supplied.
And then one morning, Gromo came to see Florence. He had trouble holding back his tears…
17th April 2019The Triumph of Evil – Florence Ngirumpatse
The days turned into weeks but the violence was far from dying down. The targeted political killings that dominated the first hours were supplemented by the frenzied involvement of the Hutu population in the murder of all Tutsis, whatever their politics. Day and night, there was the unrelenting sound of whistles, screams and shouts. It was now impossible…
14th April 2019Triumph of Evil – April 14
Between day one and day ten of the Genocide more than thirty thousandpeople -Tutsis and moderate Hutus - had been killed.
In April 1994 the UN Security Council consisted of five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US), five members who were starting their second year (Brazil, Djibouti, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Spain), and five new members…
10th April 2019Triumph of Evil – April 10
In those early days of the genocide, it couldn’t have been a simple matter to induce individuals to kill. Those many involved in the killings in Kigali were city dwellers, who would have had few opportunities to participate in the preparatory phase of the genocide. Interahamwe militia leaders would have had to keep a close eye on their men to ensure…
7th April 2019Triumph of Evil – April 7
The event that triggered the Rwandan Genocide occurred between 20h00 and 21h00 on the evening of 6 April 1994. A Dassault Falcon plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was struck just as it was making its final approach onto the runway of Kigali airport. The first surface-to-air missile tore off a wing. The second missile hit the tail. The plane burst into…
