Role of the international community in the Rwandan Genocide

This article details the role of the international community in the Rwandan Genocide.

Belgium

Belgium was the last colonial power in Rwanda, and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda was initially mostly composed of Belgian soldiers, until they were withdrawn. The Belgian General Information and Security Service knew of the genocidal intentions of the Habyarimana regime.Fact|date=August 2008

On January 25 1994 a French DC-8 landed secretly at night in Kigali with a load of arms including ninety boxes of sixty mm mortars originally made in Belgium but coming from France. [ [http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno4-7-01.htm Warnings (HRW Report - Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, March 1999) ] ]

After the attack of 6 April 1994, the Radio des milles collines spread the rumour that Belgian soldiers from United Nations Mission for Assistance in Rwanda were the source. The Rwandan presidential guard captured and assassinated ten Belgian soldiers. That dramatic episode drove Belgium into a depressive consternation which entailed Belgium's disengagement from UNAMIR. As to justify its decision, Belgium carried the UN along with a spiralling number of countries who were leaving UNAMIR. Those who assassinated the Belgian soldiers did not fail their mission. An informer, known as "Jean-Pierre" by General Dallaire, had announced this plan early in 1994 to UNAMIR to blame the Belgian soldiers in order to make them leave.

Starting with 7 April, Belgium demanded an extension from the UN of UNAMIR's mandate in order to evacuate the 1,520 Belgian residents, but not to protect the threatened Rwandans. Rwandan authorities refused to allow an intervention from Belgium, suspected to be the origin of the attack, preferring instead a French intervention. One can read from the report from the Belgian senate the intentions of the Belgian ambassador from 12 April 1996: "We are preoccupied above all with the personnel who have worked for us, of certain people associated with the process of democratisation, with clergymen." The report follows: "Finally, operation 'Silver Back' began on 10 April and will be completed on 15 April, when the last Belgian civilians will have left Rwanda."

After the genocide, Belgium, traumatised, started a parliamentary reflection. The Belgian senate instituted a "Commission d'enquête parlementaire" (English: Parliamentary Inquiry Commission) which enquired and composed a [http://www.senate.be/www/webdriver?MIval=/publications/viewPub.html&COLL=S&LEG=1&NR=611&VOLGNR=7&LANG=fr parliamentary report] .

"6 April 2000, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt attended the ceremony commemorating the sixth anniversary of the genocide in Kigali. He took the occasion to make apologies after six years and to 'take on the responsibility of my country,' according to what we have learnt afterwards 'in the name of my country at of my people, I beg your pardon'" - [http://cec.rwanda2.free.fr/doc/Rapport_OUA/Rwanda-f/FR-15-CH.htm Extract from chapter 15.52] of the [http://cec.rwanda2.free.fr/doc/Rapport_OUA/Rwanda-f/FR-III-T.htm report from the UN]

France

From October 1990 to December 1993, the French army led Opération Noroit, when the president of the French Republic responded to the Rwandan Republic. France openly supported the regime of Juvénal Habyarimana against the FPR rebels: "French presence to the limit of direct engagement" according to the title of a chapter of the report of the French parliamentary mission. This operation allowed the French to organise and train Rwandan troops, who subsequently formed the Interahamwe militias, or even future militiamen.

During this period, France is also accused of having armed and helped the regime which prepared for the genocide and did not hide its genocidal intention in the Rwandan press or French soldiers. French troops have acknowledges to having gone ahead with identity controls on the foundation of the ethnic identity card of the Rwandan Republic which pinpointed if the person was Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa.Fact|date=August 2008 They equally recognised having gone along with interrogations in prisons in Rwanda and to having advised FAR officers in how to combat the FPR. Some witnesses say that French soldiers would have taken part in the fighting.Fact|date=August 2008

Oppositely, France, in agreement with the international community, endorsed the peace process of the negotiations of the Arusha accords between the Rwandan government, their opposition, and the exiles of the FPR.

In December 1993, France officially hid in front of the arrival of the UNAMIR, peace mission from the UN, who had come to the implementation of the Arusha accords. According to diverse sources, it seems that despite everything, some military technicians continued to operate in Rwanda.Fact|date=August 2008 A couple of Frenchmen were notably assassinated, it seems by the FPR, in the hours that followed the attack. This couple set up sophisticated electronic equipment. Other leads of this type exist.Fact|date=August 2008

On 8 April 1994, two days after the attack against president Habyarimana, France launched Opération Amaryllis in order to permit the secured evacuation of 1500 residents, essentially westerners. The Rwandan survivors have strongly criticised that operation which, according to numerous testimonials, did not include the evacuation of the Rwandans threatened with the massacres, even when they were employed by the French authorities.Fact|date=August 2008 France also evacuated dignitaries from the Habyarimana regime, and on 11 April, 97 children from the orphanage protected by Madame Habyarimana were evacuated. According to several sources, several dignitaries close to the Habyarimana family were also evacuated.Fact|date=August 2008 Operation Amaryllis terminated on 14 April.

UNAMIR's Kigali sector commander, Belgian Col. Luc Marchal, reported to the BBC that one of the French planes supposedly participating in the evacuation operation arrived at 0345 hours on 9 April with several boxes of ammunition. The boxes, about 5 tons, were unloaded and transported by FAR vehicles to the Kanombe camp where the Rwandese Presidential Guard was quartered. The French government has categorially denied this shipment, saying that the planes carried only French military personnel and material for the evacuation. [ [http://www.reliefweb.int/library/nordic/book2/pb021g.html Chapter 3 ] ]

France was very active at the UN in the discussions about the reinforcement of the UNAMIR in May 1994. In front of the inertia of the international community, France obtained the backing of the UN to lead Opération Turquoise from 22 June to 22 August 1994. The declared goal was to protect the "threatened populations," both by the genocide and by the military conflict between the FPR and the temporary Rwandan government. No hierarchy between the two types of threatened people was established. The two parties of the military conflict assimilated them and the system was organised to remain neutral between the two different groups. This system was humanitarian in some cases, notably during a cholera epidemic in refugee camps in Zaïre, the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, however it was the source of many distinct controversies surrounding the French role at the time of Operation Noroit and the criticism of having facilitated the desertion of those responsible for the genocide and a massive refugee movement of the population to Congo (around two million people). France has accused the FPR of having provoked half of these movements by refusing the advice of French authorities to not get involved in the north west of the country.

France, one of the five permanent members of the Security Council of the UN, has been accused of a role that some of those answerable to France refute and who claim that Operation Turquoise was an exemplarily humanitarian intervention. Some use as context that in supporting a group that would become genocidal, and who, according to the French parliamentary report, did not hide their genocidal intentions, France would have favoured the launching of the genocide.Fact|date=August 2008

As the outgrowth of a press campaign, especially the articles written by the journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry which appeared in 1994 and in 1998 in the French newspaper "Le Figaro", the French parliament decided to examine the actions of France in Rwanda using a parliamentary information mission for Rwanda [ [http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dossiers/rwanda/rapport.asp Rapport : Mission d'information sur le Rwanda ] ] . Some French NGOs who specialise in Rwanda would have preferred a parliamentary enquiry mission whose judicial powers would have been more extensive in order to find the truth.Fact|date=August 2008 After several months of work, the president of the parliamentary mission, the former Defence Minister Paul Ouilès, concluded that France was "not guilty" (December 1998).Fact|date=August 2008

Ten years later, during the year 2004, books, films, radio programmes and television shows have brought the controversies surrounding France's role in Rwanda back to life. Unsatisfied by the conclusions of the report from the parliamentary mission for Rwanda, some citizens and NGOs have formed a [http://www.enquete-citoyenne-rwanda.org citizens' enquiry commission] . After a week of work in Paris, their "provisional conclusions" were read on 27 March 2004 at a conference that they organised the enclave of the French Assemblée nationale in the presence of one of two of the original people who had publicly stated the findings of the parliamentary mission, the former deputy Pierre Brana. On 7 April 2004 a serious diplomatic incident took place between France and Rwanda during the commemoration of the genocide in Kigali. In the course of the ceremonies, the Rwandan President publicly accused France of not having apologised for its role in Rwanda while desiring to participate in the ceremonies.

In July 2004, the ministers of Foreign Affairs from the two countries convened in order to "share the work of a memory piece " about the genocide. Rwanda announced several days later, according to a dispatch from Agence France-Presse from 2 August 2004, that "the council of ministers has adopted the organic law project to aid in the creation of the independent national commission charged with assembling proof of the implication of France in the genocide perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994." The French minister of Foreign Affairs "took action" for the creation of the Rwandan commission.

On 22 October 2004 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda officially demanded that the "Republic of France" allow former ambassador Jean Michel Marlaud and one of his military representatives, officer Jean Jacques Maurin] to respond to the demand of the defence of the presumed mastermind of the genocide: Colonel Bagosora pending judgement. Colonel Bagosra was the first Rwandan officer to have graduated from the French École des Officiers. [ [http://www.ictr.org/ENGLISH/cases/Bagosora/decisions/221004.htm International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ] ]

On 27 November 2004 in a televised debate on France 3, after the showing of the French film "Tuez les Tous" (English: "Kill Them All"), created by three students of political science, the president of the parliamentary mission for information for Rwanda, a Mister Paul Quilès stated for the first time that "France asks to be pardoned by the people of Rwanda, but not by their government".

Rwandan report of 2008

On 5 August 2008, an independent Rwandan commission said France was aware of preparations for the 1994 Rwanda genocide and helped train the ethnic Hutu militia perpetrators. It accuses France of training Hutu militias responsible for the slaughter, helping plan the genocide, and participating in the killings. The report accused 33 senior French military and political officials on Tuesday of involvement in the genocide. Among those named were François Mitterrand (the president at the time), Dominique de Villepin (the prime minister), Alain Juppé (the foreign minister), and his then chief aide, Dominique de Villepin. “French soldiers themselves directly were involved in assassinations of Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis,” said the report, which was compiled by a team of investigators from the Justice Ministry. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7542418.stm] [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/world/africa/06briefs-FRENCHACCUSE_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper]

The United States

After events surrounding the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, the US refused to provide requested material aid to Rwanda. ["Evidence of Inaction: A National Security Archive Briefing Book," ed. Ferroggiaro)] France, China and Russia opposed involvement in what was seen as an "internal affair". Dallaire was directly "taken to task," in his words, for even suggesting that UNAMIR should raid Hutu militants' weapons caches, whose location had been disclosed to him by a government informant. The UN "failed" to respond adequately to Dallaire's urgent requests. ["Report of The Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the UN During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda"; "Statement of the Secretary-General on Receiving the Report" [1999] )] cite web| title = Frontline: interview with Phillip Gourevitch. | url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/gourevitch.html | accessdate = 2007-04-09]

The role of the United States is directly inspired by their defeat that they underwent during their intervention in Somalia in 1993. For two months, from April to May 1994, the American government fought over the word "genocide" which is banned by the [ [http://cec.rwanda.free.fr/documents/CVN-1948.htm Convention Pour La Prévention Et La Répression Du Crime De Génocide ] ] Convention for the prevention and the repression of crime and genocide (adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948).

In the US, President Bill Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright refused to take action.cite web| title = Frontline: the triumph of evil. | url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/ | accessdate = 2007-04-09] Clinton and Albright would both later express regret for their inaction. President Clinton provided major funding for the Rwandan genocide memorial in Kigali, and visited Rwanda in 1998 and 2005. He apologised both times, and "expressed regret for what he says was his 'personal failure' to prevent the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people there in 1994." cite web | title = Clinton Global Initiative. Voice of America. August 1 2005 | url = http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=504&srcid=406 | accessdate = 2007-04-09] He has attempted amends by sponsoring initiatives to help rebuild Rwanda through the Clinton Foundation.

In 2001 the government of the United States declassified documents, which confirm the attitude of the United States of not having taken into account the reality of the situation starting in January 1994 [http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/press.html] .

This attitude was perceived very negatively in the world and more specifically by the survivors of the genocide which led President Clinton to present his reasons for not acting on the matter to the Rwandan people. The French political class also vigorously underlines it when France's responsibilities in the events are evoked.Fact|date=August 2008

These elements of inaction tempered the information according to which the United States would have armed the FPR of Paul Kagame. If it is undeniable that Paul Kagame followed the military training of the United States in his capacity as an Ugandan officer, it is probable that he would have benefited from Anglo-American aid via Uganda, this endorsement does not appear to be as large or determined as that that was received from the outside of those who he fought: the army of the regime of President Habyarimana and then the interim government which led the genocide.Fact|date=August 2008

The Organization for African Unity and other African countries

The OAU, which has today become the African Union, created a [http://cec.rwanda2.free.fr/doc/Rapport_OUA/Rwanda-f/oua.htm report on the genocide] in 2000. Before the UNAMIR mission led by Gen. Roméo Dallaire (military) and Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh (civilian), the OAU had indeed sent a Neutral Military Observation Group, known by its French initials as GOMN..

The UN

The role of the United Nations has been criticised, especially by France and Rwanda. The UN did not make an enquiry into the attack. For several weeks, the international community let the killers act without intervening. UNAMIR, the mission of the United Nations in Rwanda, had to figure things out during this period in conditions that UNAMIR's commander, General Roméo Dallaire described in great detail in his book "J'ai serré la main du diable" (Published in English as: "Shake Hands With The Devil") The UN created a report on the genocide. [ [http://www.un.org/french/peace/rwanda.htm Rapport de la Commission indépendante ] ] In January 1994, Rwanda obtained a representative in the Security Council. For the duration of the genocide, the Rwandan representative, from the government which was leading the genocide, attended the debates of the security council.

A quote from Roméo Dallaire's book ::"Let there be no doubt: the Rwandan genocide was the ultimate responsibility of those Rwandans who planned, ordered, supervised and eventually conducted it. Their extremism was the seemingly indestructible and ugly harvest of years of power struggles and insecurity that had been deftly played on by their former colonial rulers. But the deaths of Rwandans can also be laid at the door of the military genius Paul Kagame, who did not speed up his campaign when the scale of the genocide became clear and even talked candidly with me at several points about the price his fellow Tutsis might have to pay for the cause. Next in line when it comes to responsiblitiy are France, which moved in too late and ended up protecting the genocidaires and permanently destabilizing the region, and the U.S. government, which actively worked against an effective UNAMIR and only got involved to aid the same Hutu refugee population and the genocidaires, leaving the genocide survivors to flounder and suffer. The failings of the UN and Belgium were not in the same league. (p.515)"

The Guardian on April 12th 1994 [ [http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1186808,00.html UN troops stand by and watch carnage] ] stated that when viewing a woman "being hauled along the road by a young man with a machete"::"none of the troops moved. 'It's not our mandate,' said one, leaning against his jeep as he watched the condemned woman, the driving rain splashing at his blue United Nations badge. The 3,000 foreign troops now in Rwanda are no more than spectators to the savagery which aid workers say has seen the massacre of 15,000 people"

Arms shipments

From France

In the early morning of January 22, 1994, a DC-8 aircraft loaded with armaments from France, including 90 boxes of Belgian-made 60 mm mortars, was confiscated by UNAMIR at Kigali International Airport. The delivery was in violation of the cease-fire clauses of the Arusha Accords, which prohibited introduction of arms into the area during the transition period. General Dallaire put the arms under joint UNAMIR-Rwandan army guard. Formally recognizing this point, the French government argued that the delivery stemmed from an old contract and hence was technically legal. Dallaire was forced to give up control over the aircraft."Arms Shipments and the Rwandan Genocide". Online posting. " [http://neveragain.epov.org/Arms_shipments_and_the_Rwandan_Genocide Never Again] ".]

From Mil-Tec Corporation Ltd (UK)

A UK company, Mil-Tec Corporation Ltd, was involved in arms supplies to the Hutu regime at least from June 1993 to mid-July 1994. Mil-Tec had been paid $4.8 million by the regime in return for invoices of $6.5 million for the arms sent. The manager of Mil-Tec, Anoop Vidyarthi, was described as a Kenyan Asian who owned a travel company in North London and was in business with Rakeesh Kumar Gupta. They both fled the UK shortly after the revelations. ["Brokering Arms for Genocide." [http://www.nisat.org/publications/armsfixers/Chapter3.html Chap. 3] in " [http://www.nisat.org/publications/armsfixers/default.htm The Arms Fixers: Controlling the Brokers and Shipping Agents] ", by Brian Wood and Johan Pele man.]

* 6 June 1993 ($549,503 of ammunition from Tel Aviv to Kigali);
* 17 - 18 April 1994 ($853,731 of ammunition from Tel Aviv to Goma);
* 22 - 25 April 1994 ($681,200 of ammunition and grenades from Tel Aviv to Goma);
* 29 April - 3 May 1994 ($942,680 of ammunition, grenades, mortars and rifles from Tirana to Goma);
* 9 May 1994 ($1,023,840 of rifles, ammunition, mortars and other items from Tirana to Goma);
* 18 - 20 May 1994 ($1,074,549 of rifles, ammunition, mortars, rocket propelled grenades and other items from Tirana to Goma);
* 13 - 18 July 1994 ($753,645 of ammunition and rockets from Tirana to Kinshasa). ["Arms shipments and the Rwandan Genocide." Online posting. " [http://neveragain.epov.org/Arms_shipments_and_the_Rwandan_Genocide Never Again International Niki] ".]

Notes and references

External links

* [http://www.afrik.com/article7185.html "Tous complices du génocide au Rwanda"]
* [http://www.voicesofrwanda.org Voices of Rwanda ] The Rwanda Testimony Film Project