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Rwanda
Ten Years after the Genocide
The International
Response to the Crisis
By Gerald Caplan
Around the world,
commemorations of the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide
are about to be launched. The central actors responsible for
allowing Hutu extremists to perpetrate the genocide are well
known: the government of France, the United Nations
Security Council
led by the USA with British backing, the UN Secretariat, the
government of Belgium, and, by no means least, the Roman
Catholic Church. The Organization of African Unity also refused
to condemn the genocidaires and proved to be largely irrelevant
throughout the crisis. As a consequence of these acts of
commission and omission, 800,000 Tutsi and thousands of moderate
Hutu were murdered in a period of 100 days. . . . The following
is a selection of some of those events. ...
1. Time and
again in the months prior to and during the genocide, the
Commander of the UN military mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) pleaded
with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York to
expand his very limited mandate. The only time his request was
ever approved was in the days immediately after the Rwandan
president's plane was shot down, triggering the genocide. UNAMIR
was then authorized to exceed its narrow mandate exclusively for
the purpose of helping to evacuate foreign nationals, mainly
westerners, from the country. Never was such flexibility granted
to protect Rwandans.
2. Heavily
armed western troops began materializing at Kigali airport
within hours to evacuate their nationals. Beyond UNAMIR's 2500
peacekeepers, these included 500 Belgian para-commandos, 450
French and 80 Italian troops from parachute regiments, another
500 Belgian para-commandos on stand-by in Kenya, 250 US Rangers
on stand-by in Burundi, and 800 more French troops on stand-by
in the region. None made any attempt to protect Rwandans at
risk. Besides western nationals, French troops evacuated a
number of well-known leaders of the extremist Hutu Power
movement, including the wife of the murdered president and her
family. All non-UNAMIR troops left within days, immediately
after their evacuation mission was completed.
3. From the
beginning of the genocide to its end, no government or
organization other than NGOs formally described events in Rwanda
as a genocide.
4. From
beginning to end, all governments and official bodies continued
to recognize the genocidaire government as the legitimate
government of Rwanda.
5. The
months of the genocide happened to coincide with Rwanda's turn
to fill one of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council.
Throughout those 3 months, the representative of the government
executing the genocide continued to take that seat and
participate in all deliberations, including discussions on
Rwanda.
6. Almost
all official bodies remained neutral as between the genocidaires
and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the mostly Tutsi rebels in the
civil war that was being fought at the same time as the
genocide. As if they were morally equivalent groups, both the
genocidaire government and those fighting to end the genocide
were called upon by the UN, the Organization of African Unity
and others to agree to a cease-fire. They did not call on the
genocidaires to stop the genocide. Had the RPF agreed to a
cease-fire, the scale of the genocide behind government lines
would have been even greater.
7. Only days
after the genocide began, 2500 Tutsi as well as Hutu opposition
politicians crowded into a Kigali school known as ETO, where
Belgian UN troops were billeted ... the Belgian soldiers were
ordered to depart ETO to assist in evacuating foreign nationals
from the country. They did so abruptly, making no arrangements
whatever for the protection of those they were safeguarding. As
they moved out, the killers moved in. When the afternoon was
over, all 2500 civilians had been murdered.
8. After 10
Belgian UN soldiers were killed by Rwandan government troops the
day after the Rwandan President's plane was shot down, Belgium
withdrew all its troops from the UN mission. So that Belgium
would not alone be blamed for scuttling UNAMIR, its government
then strenuously lobbied the UN to disband the mission in its
entirety.
9. Two weeks
after the crisis had begun, with information about the magnitude
of the genocide increasing by the day, the Security Council did
come very close to shutting down UNAMIR altogether.
Instead, led by the USA and the United Kingdom, it voted
to decimate the mission, reducing it from 2500 to 270.
10. After
the deaths of 18 American soldiers in Somalia in October 1993,
the United States decided to participate in no more UN military
missions. The Clinton administration further decided that no
significant UN missions were to be allowed at all, even if
American troops would not be involved. Thanks mostly to the
delaying tactics of the US, after 100 days of the genocide not a
single reinforcement of UN troops or military supplies had
reached Rwanda.
11. Bill
Clinton later apologized for not doing more to stop the
genocide. However, his claim that his administration had not
been aware of the real situation was a lie.
12. French
officials were senior advisers to both the Rwandan government
and military in the years leading to the genocide, with
unparalleled influence on both. Virtually until the moment the
genocide began, they gave unconditional support as well as
considerable arms to the Hutu elite. ... To this day the French
have never acknowledged their role nor apologized for it.
13. After 6
weeks of genocide, France, which offered no troops to the UN
mission, suddenly decided to intervene in Rwanda. Within a week
of the decision, Operation Turquoise was able to deploy 2500 men
with 100 armored personnel carriers, 10 helicopters, a battery
of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, and 8 Mirage
fighters and reconnaissance planes---all for an ostensibly
humanitarian operation. The French forces created a safe haven
in the south-west of the country which provided sanctuary not
only to fortunate Tutsi but also to many leading Rwandan
government and military officials as well as large numbers of
soldiers and militia---the very Hutu Power militants who had
organized and carried out the genocide. ...
15. The
Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda was the largest and most
influential denomination in the country, with intimate ties to
the government at all levels. It failed to denounce the
government's explicit ethnic foundations, failed to denounce its
increasing use of violence against Tutsi, failed to denounce or
even name the genocide, failed to apologize for the many clergy
who aided and abetted the genocidaires, and to this day has
never apologized for its overall role. The Pope has refused to
apologize on behalf of the Church as a whole.
16. Within
months of the end of the genocide, relief workers and
representatives of the international community in Rwanda were
telling Rwandans they must "Quit dwelling on the past and
concentrate on rebuilding for the future" and insisting
that "Yes, the genocide happened, but it's time to get over
it and move on."
17. George
W. Bush, during the campaign for the 2000 Republican
presidential nomination, was asked by a TV interviewer what he
would do as president if, "God forbid, another Rwanda"
should take place. He replied: "We should not send our
troops to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide outside our own
strategic interest. I would not send US troops into
Rwanda."
18. The new
Rwanda Patriotic Front government inherited a debt of close to
$1 billion, some of it incurred by the previous government in
genocide preparations---expanding its army and militias and
buying arms. After the genocide, the RPF was obligated to repay
in full the country's debt to its western lenders.
19.
Following the genocide, the World Bank was left with a $160
million program of aid to Rwanda that it had extended to the
previous government. . Even though the new government was
penniless, the Bank refused to activate that sum until the new
government paid $9 million in interest incurred by its
predecessor. A Bank official told a UN representative:
"After all, we are a commercial enterprise and have to
adhere to our regulations. " The sum was eventually paid by
some donors.
20. In the
first nine months after the genocide, the donor community
provided $1.4 billion in aid to the Hutu refugee camps in
eastern Zaire and Tanzania. Since, as was universally known,
genocidaires had taken over the camps, a good part of these
funds went to feed and shelter them and to fund their
re-training and re-arming as they planned cross-border raids
back into Rwanda. For Rwanda itself, while donor funds for
reconstruction were generously pledged, in the first year after
the genocide only $68 million was actually disbursed. To this
day, Rwanda has never received reparations remotely commensurate
with the damage that the international community had failed to
prevent.
21. Once the
genocide ended, the UN military mission was finally expanded. As
UNAMIR II, it remained in Rwanda for almost two more years as a
peacekeeping force, costing the UN $15 million a month. But the
main challenge had become less one of peacekeeping and more one
of peace-building -- the reconstruction of a totally devastated
country. UNAMIR had the equipment, the skills and the will to
play a major role in reviving the country's shattered
structures. What it lacked was the mandate and modest funding
from the Security Council to perform such a role. But UN
headquarters never sought such authorization from the Security
Council, nor did the Council ever initiate such a move. ...
22. So far
as is known, not a single person in any government or in the UN
has ever been fired or held accountable for failing to intervene
in the genocide. In fact, the opposite is true. Some careers
flourished in the aftermath. Several of the main actors were
actually promoted. We can consider this the globalization of
impunity.
23. Despite the unanimity of every major
study undertaken and in the face of the testimonies of survivors
and the first-hand accounts of international humanitarian
workers in Rwanda at the time, denial of the genocide persists.
Deniers include Hutu Power advocates, many of them still active
in western countries, as well as lawyers and investigators
working for Hutu clients at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda. Denying the Rwandan genocide is the moral equivalent
of denying the Holocaust.
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[Gerald Caplan was
on the staff of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities
appointed by the Organization of African Unity to investigate
the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and is the founder of
"Remembering Rwanda: The Rwanda Genocide 10th Anniversary
Memorial Project".]
Source:
The full text of this
editorial originally published in Pambazuka News for February 5
is available at
http://www.pambazuka.org *
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updated 3 October 2007 |
