Rwanda: An Agenda for International Action

8/7/2019 Rwanda: An Agenda for International Action

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An

Agenda forInternational Action

Guy Vassall-Adams

Oxfam Publications


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Oxfam (UK and Ireland) 1994

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 085598 299 3

Published by Oxfam (UK and Ireland)274 Banbury Road, Oxford 0X 2 7DZ, UK(registered as a charity, no. 202918)Available in Ireland from: Oxfam in Ireland, 19 Clanwilliam Terrace,Dublin 2; tel. 01 661 8544.Co-published in Australia by Community Aid Abroad, and availablefrom them at 156 George Street, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065, Australia(tel.+61 3 289 9444; fax +61 3 419 5318/5895).Community Aid Abroad are co-publishing this book, and invitereade rs to consider its conclusions, as a contribution to discussion anddebate on events in Rwanda and their implications for internationalpeace and development.

Designed and typeset by Oxfam D esign, O X13 40/M J/PK/94Printed by Oxfam Print Uniton environment-friendly paperSet in 10/12.5 point Pa latino w ith Franklin Gothic Book and DemiThis book converted to digital file in 2010


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ContentsForeword 2Summary 4Part One: The Regional Context 7

Rwanda and Burundi before Indepen dence 7Rwanda since Independen ce 11The Rwandese diaspora 14Burundi since Independence 18

Par t Tw o: W ar and W ai t ing 211990: the first RPF invasion 21Abuses of hum an rights 25Arming the Rwandese regime 27The Arusha Accords 29The UN reviews its role 31

Par t Three: The Resp onse to Genocide 32The killings escalate 32The UN response 35The massacres 37Refugee crises in Tanzania and Burund i 39The case for a new UN force 41The French intervention 45The refugee crisis in Zaire 47

Part Four: Con clusions and R eco mmen d a t i o n s 53Prospects for the future 53Lessons from the international response 56Recommendations 62

Appendix: Oxfam's programme in the Great Lakes region 67Acknowledgements 68Notes 69


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Rwanda: An Agenda for International Action

Foreword

The campaign of genocide and the refugee crises which havedevastated Rwanda since April 1994 have stunned the world.They pro mpted Oxfam (UK and Ireland) to und ertak e one of thelargest emergency operations in its 50-year history. They havealso prompted the most generous respo nse from the British andIrish public that Oxfam has ever been privileged to witness.We are all responsible for ensuring that suffering on such a vastscale never hap pen s again. But if Rwanda is to have any hop e ofrecovering from the catas trophe which befell it in 1994, the worldcommunity must attempt to understand what made thatcatastrophe possible.The tragedy of Rw anda has dem onstra ted more clearly than everbefore that the international community lacks the capacity torespond effectively to such crises. The political will to act is invery short sup ply; and radical reforms need to be undertaken ifthe world is to be ready to take effective action. This bookattem pts to shed light on the initiatives that could help Rw andato recover, and the reforms that could prevent another suchdisaster, in Rwanda or elsewhere.

In Part One, events in 1994 are situated in the context of Rwanda'shistory, and that of Burundi. Because Burund i's political historysince Independ ence has been almost amirror image of Rw anda 's,events in one country h ave had a major impact upon events in theother. This is true of the recent past, wh en the October 1993 coupin Burundi, dash ing hopes of Hutu majority rule, played directlyinto the hands of President Habyarimana in Rwanda, as hesought to stall power-sharing w ith his oppon ents, the Rw andesePatriotic Front. It is also likely to be true for the future.But an un dersta nd ing of the regional refugee situation beforeApril 1994 is also essential to an assessment of the challenges


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Foreword

which confront Rw anda. The history of the Rw andese diasporaillustrates man y of the issues which Rw anda and the Great LakesRegion now face in a much starker form, following the refugeecrises of 1994. If the world is to assist the region in its efforts tomeet these challenges, it must und ersta nd the issues raised by thepresence of nearly two million Rwandese people living inneighbouring coun tries.Part Two of the book deals with the political developments andhuman rights abuses which preceded the campaign of genocide.It shows that, far from being ignorant of wh at w as going on, theinternational community was well aware of the situation inRw anda, but tha t there was insufficient political will to face up toits implications. Hence the continuing arms supplies to theRw andese governm ent, and the desire of mem ber states to reducethe size of the UN 's presence.Part Three describes the campaign of genocide and the refugeecrises, and the international community's response to both. Itdescribes the failure of UN member states to protec t civilians fromgenocide, and the international response to the refugee crisis inGoma.Part Four draws conclusions from this account, and makesdetailed recommendations to the government of Rwanda, theregional powers, and the wider international community. Thechallenge is for governm ents to dem onstra te that an 'inter-national community' actually exists, by mustering the politicalwill to act in the name of comm on hum anity.

David BryerDirectorOxfam (UK and Ireland)September 1994


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SummaryWhen the Hutu ethnic majority gained power in Rwandafollowing Independence from colonial rule in 1962, they over-turned centuries of political and economic dominance by theminority Tutsi. But tensions fostered by Rwanda's colonialexperience found expression in rising levels of violence, whichprom pted thousands of Tutsi to flee to neighbouring countries.The question of the refugees' right to return began to dominateRwanda's political agenda when a rebel army representing therefugees (the Rw andese Patriotic Front RPF) invaded Rwandain 1990. The international comm unity sponsored a 'peace process'which aimed to bring about pow er-sharing.But in 1991 and 1992 there was increasing evidence that theRwandese government was violating with impu nity the hu ma nrights of its political opp onents and of ord inary Tutsi citizens. Atthe same time, some Northern governments continued to armPresident H abyariman a's m ilitary forces. In August 1993, a peaceaccord was signed, with the backing of the internationalcom mun ity, and UN forces w ere sent to Rw anda. But the w arningsigns were largely ignored , as UN mem ber states tried to reducethe size of the UN force, in order to save money.In April 1994 the President of Rwanda was assassinated, andHutu extremists embarked on a campaign of genocide in anattempt to eliminate their political opponents. The UnitedNations Security Council abandoned the Rwandese people totheir terrible fate by withdrawing most of the UN force, andfailing to send a new contingent to protect civilians und er threat.

As the killings escalated, the RPF advanced across Rwanda, andduring July established control over the country. By then, how-ever, genocide had claimed an estimated one million lives, and


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Summary

much of Rwanda had been depopulated by the catastrophicexod us of refugees into Tanzania and Burund i.During July 1994, a refugee crisis of even greater dimensionsdeveloped, w hen nearly one million Hu tu fled to Goma in Zaire.The international response was far less effective than it mighthave been, had there been better planning, preparation,consultation, and co-ordination. Thousands of Rwandese liveswere needlessly lost.Rwanda now faces the huge challenges of reconstruction andrehabilitation, and the task of forging a political solution that w illsecure a peaceful future for all its citizens. A real and lastingcommitment to these tasks is vital, not only from the newgovernment of Rwanda, but also from regional powers and thewider international community. And if such tragedies are to beprevented from happening again, the UN will have to be giventhe means to respond effectively.


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PARTONE: THE REGIONAL CONTEXTRwanda and Burundi beforeIndependenceFour hundred years ago, a group of people called Tutsiestablished feudal kingdom s in the lands now called R wand a andBurundi. They formed a land-owning and cattle-owningaristocracy, ruling over the Hutu, a larger group, who werefarmers. In return for their labour, Hutu were granted the use ofland and cattle, and the protection of their overlords. The Twa,who lived as hunter-gatherers, made up a tiny fraction of thepopulation and lived a marginal existence.Tutsi controlled the three main sources of power: the cattleeconomy, the monarchy, and religious life. Their rule wasreinforced by an oral mythology which taught that Tutsi wereinherently superior and that their dominance was ordained byGod. The T utsi mwami (king) stood at the apex of this complexsocial order, which encompassed three different sets ofchieftaincies over land, cattle, and the military. But despite thehierarchical nature of this society, it was unusually unified. Tutsiand Hutu lived together, shared the same language (Kinya-rwanda) and , in most important respects, the same culture.The colonial era: Tutsi dominance endorsedThe German colonialists who first encountered this way of life inthe 1890s identified with the Tutsi and pronounced them to be anelite of nilo-ham itic origin. This racialist theory, widely challengedtoday, became the ideological justification for the colonialists'decision to govern Rw anda and Burundi through indirect rule, viathe Tutsi monarchy. In practical terms, indirect rule wasopportunistic, because it required few German administrators andwas therefore very cheap. The Germans administered Rwandaand Burundi as a single state, Rwanda-Urundi.


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The imposition of indirect rule changed the character of thesystem of patronage and protection. The feudal system, exploit-ative as it was, had none the less established reciprocal obligationsand allowed for a degree of social mobility. The ruling class hadclear responsibilities towards their underlings, and Hutu couldrise to the sta tus of Tutsi by acqu iring w ealth, in the form of cattle.Indirect rule, unde r first the G ermans and then the Belgians, wh otook over Rwand a an d Burundi at the end of the First World W ar,destroyed the checks and balances of the feudal system anddeprived Hutu of all their social entitlements. The Germansbegan this process by replacing R wa nda 's only Hutu chiefs, in thenorth-west, with Tutsi chiefs. This prompted a short-livedpopular uprising in 1910, which was swiftly crushed by colonialmilitary forces.The Belgians introduced forced labour, appointing Tutsiadministrators to supervise Hutu labourers, who were nowcompelled to work for nothing in return. During the 1930s theBelgians conduc ted a census which declared the Tutsi to form 14per cent of the popu lation and the Hu tu 85 per cent; how ever, theydecided to classify any individual with fewer than ten cows as aHutu. Identity cards were introduced, specifying the ethnicgro up of the ow ner.People classified as Tutsi were systematically favoured in theeducation system and the colonial administration. Hutu werelargely denied access to education, with the major exception oftraining for the Catholic priesthood . The majority were, in effect,assigned the status of a perm anen t underclass, excluded from thepow er structures of their country.After the Second World W ar, Rw anda-Urun di became a TrusteeTerritory of the United Nations. During the 1950s, the UnitedNations put pressure on the Belgian authorities to grant thecountry independence and introduce elected advisory structures.The Belgians were already beginning to suppo rt Hu tu aspirationsfor a greater role in their coun try's affairs, believing tha t m inority8


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The Regional Context

rule was unsustainable, and fearful of the pan-Africanisttendencies which they discerned among the Tutsi ruling class.Now , developments in what were to become separate countries Rwanda and Burundi began to diverge.The end of colonialism: power sh ifts to the HutuIn Rw anda, the Belgians began to replace Tutsi chiefs w ith Hutuchiefs, and actively encouraged the nascent H utu opposition . Butthe Tutsi were loath to accept that the days of minority rule w ereover, while the Hutu aggressively asserted their new-foundpower. The run-up to Rwanda's first local elections in 1960 wasmarred by violent conflict between supporters of the new Hutuparty, the Party of the Movement for Hutu Emancipation(PARMEHUTU), and supporters of the pro-Tutsi party, theNational Rwandese Union (UNAR). Several hundred peoplewere killed and some 220,000 were internally displaced .M any of the new H utu mayors wh o came to pow er in 1960 usedtheir positions to persecute Tutsi, thousands of whom wereforced to abandon their homes and flee abroad. Their flightinitiated a new pattern of violence. Tutsi refugees in neighbo uringcountries (Uganda, Burundi, Zaire, and Tanzania) organisedthemselves into militias, in the hope of returning by force andrestoring Tutsi rule. But their attacks upon Hutu officials inRw anda provoked retaliatory k illings of Tutsi civilians still livingin the cou ntry.The violence unleashed in the run-up to Independence continuedduring the 1960s. Tutsi refugees, referred to as the Inyenzi(cockroaches), made repeated attempts to restore Tutsi rule bylaunching military attacks from abroad. In December 1963, Tutsirefugees launched an attack from Burundi, after which 10,000Tutsi were massacred by Hutu gangs. Every attack and thesubsequent reprisals created new waves of refugees; by 1964 theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)estimated that over 150,000 Rwandese had fled to surroundingcountries.


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The refugees abandoned their raids in 1967, despairing ofrestoring Tu tsi rule. But many did not abandon their hopes of oneday returning to their homeland. Rwanda's Hutu-dominatedgovernments, however, feared that permitting the refugees toreturn w ould jeopardise their newly-won pow er. General JuvenalHabyarimana, who came to power in a military coup in 1973,argued that their return was simply impossible. Populationpressu re was already too great, he argued ; there was already toolittle land, too few jobs, and too little food.Un der international law, refugees have the right to return to theircountry of origin, bu t for the following fifteen years Habyarimanawo uld consider only individu al applications for repatriation. O neof the conditions he laid dow n w as that applicants had to be ableto sup port them selves after the ir return. The result was that onlya handful of refugees returned each year; for 1986 the figure isbelieved to have been 14. The refugees, however, continued toassert their 'right to retu rn', regardless of wealth.

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Rwanda since IndependenceRw anda had become independ ent on 1 July 1962. Hutu majorityrule, which was to last for more than thirty years, had finallybegun. During this time Rwanda made significant progresstowards developing its economic potential; between 1965 and1980, Rwanda's Gross National Product per capita grew by anannual rate of 1.6 per cent.1 The combination of a generally well-managed econom y and pragmatic development policies resultedin an influx of aid from Northern donors. Together thesetransformed the road network, gave clean wa ter to 70 per cent ofRwandese, created a peasants' bank, and established the best-trained civil service in the region.The hunger for landBut for ordinary Rwandese, daily life continued to be aremorseless struggle for survival. Over 90 per cent of Rwandeseworked as subsistence farmers, growing their own crops on smallplots of land. But with 7.2 million people in a country about thesame size as Belgium, Rwanda had the highest populationdensity in Africa. With a rapidly growing population, theshortage of land becam e ever more acute. Between 1966 and 1983,Rwanda achieved impressive increases in food p roduc tion anannual average increase of 4.3 per cent mostly by bringingmargina l land s into cultivation. But betw een 1984 and 1989 foodproduction increased by only one per cent per annum,2 as thesupply of new land began to run out. Rwanda was finding itincreasingly difficult to feed itself.Rwanda's economic development was inhibited by its lack ofnatu ral resources, and its landlocked location, 1,500 km from thenearest sea-port at Mombasa in Kenya. Rw anda's internal marketwas tiny, but the country had little to export to the outside world.Its major export crops were coffee and tea, accounting for over 80per cent of exports in 1992. This high degree of depend ence on the

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two commodities made the country extremely vulnerable tofluctuations in their world m arket prices. W hen the InternationalCoffee Agreem ent collapsed in 1987, the price of Rw andese coffeefell to half its 1980 level. The government was forced to cut theprice paid to produ cers, and to devalue the Rwandese Franc by 67per cent. This had a major impact on the living standards ofproducers, on the economy generally, and on social Welfareprovision, as the governm ent w as forced by declining revenues tocut back its expenditure.On the margins of survivalCentral and local gove rnment were Rwanda 's largest employers,giving work to 7,000 peo ple in the former sector and 43,000 in thelatter during the 1980s. But with m any thousa nds of you ng peoplejoining the job market each year, the disparity betweenoppo rtunity and dem and was huge . In a country without socialsecurity, to be unemployed is to exist on the very margins ofsurvival; most Rwandese could not expect to live more than 46years. Ever since Indep endence, thousan ds of Rw andese have lefttheir cou ntry every year in a despera te search for opportun ities inneighbouring countries.The lack of opportunities was exemplified by the educationsystem. Only six per cent of Rwandese went to secondary school;less than one per cent to university. As employm ent opportunitiesdwindled during the 1980s, even the highly qualified minoritycould not be sure of a job. Taken as a whole, the 1980s saw adram atic decline in Rw and a's economic fortunes: between 1980and 1991, GNP per capita fell by an annual rate of 2.4 per cent,3and the nation's total debt stocks jum ped from US$189 million toUS$844 million.4 In the late 1980s, Rwanda's economy worsenedin every key area: growth rates, indebtedness, balance ofpayments, and terms of trade. According to the UN's HumanDevelopment Index, which takes into account life-expectancy,educational attainment, and standard of living, Rwanda wasamong the world 's poorest countries in 1992:153 out of 173 on thepov erty scale.5

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The Structural Adjustment Program me introduced at the behestof the World Bank in 1990 coincided with the start of a civil warinitiated by the invasion of a rebel army, the Rw andese PatrioticFront (RPF). The program me w as in place for a very short periodof time, so it is hard to assess its overall impact. There is evidence,however, that the introduction of higher fees for health andeducation ('cost-sharing') ad ded to the bu rdens of the poor.The war had a devastating effect on Rwanda's economy. First, itdisplaced hundreds of thousands of ordinary farmers in thenorth, which had a dramatic impact on coffee and food prod-uction. Secondly, it cut the road to Mombasa, Rwanda's mainland rou te to the outside world. Thirdly, it destroyed Rw and a'sfledgling tourist industry, which had been the nation's third-biggest earner of foreign exchange. Finally, it prompted thePresident, General Haby arimana, to increase the size of the a rmedforces dramatically, consuming precious resources that weredesperately need ed for health care and education.

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The Rwandese diasporaThe refugee situation in the Great Lakes Region is complicated bythe fact that, before the immense refugee crises which havedepopulated much of Rwanda since April 1994, there werealready three distinct groups of people who originated fromRwanda but lived in neighbouring countries. Together theynumbered some two million people. They are often referred to asBanyarwanda, which means they are speakers of Kinyarwanda,Rw anda 's native language. In addition to these two m illion, about500,000 w ere officially recognised as refugees, w ith the legal rightto return to Rwanda.6The first group- of Banyarwanda found themselves outsideRwanda when the colonial powers determined its boundarieswith Uganda and Zaire in 1910. They are now Ugandans orZaireans who speak Kinyarwanda. Although they are ethnicallyclassed as Banyarwanda, un til an agreement in 1991 (see sectionbelow on the Dar es Salaam Declaration) they had no legal right toreturn to Rwanda. Both Hutu and Tutsi, they are believedoriginally to have numbered about half a million people in Zaireand 200,000 in U gan da.The second group of Banyarwanda in neighbouring countries areeconomic migrants. In the early years of the twentieth centurythey left Rw anda to work on the plantations in Uganda and Zaire.More recently, many Rwandese left in search of land, joiningrelatives who had already established themselves. There arebelieved to be several hundred thousand such people in Uganda,Zaire, and Tanzania. Most of the economic migrants w ere H utu .The third group of Banyarwanda living in neighbouringcountries are Tutsi refugees who left as a result of the post-Independence violence. Most of these people fled to Uganda , anduntil 1994 they were believed to num ber some 200,000 people. The14


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UNHCR , how ever, registered 80,000 as refugees in 1991, becausemany w ere self-settled.UgandaIn Uganda, two separate developments during the 1980s dram-atically heightened the need to resolve the issue of the refugees''right to return'. In 1982 and 1983, 80,000 Banyarwanda livingthroughout Uganda were driven from their land and homes bylocal police and militias, under the direction of politicians andlocal officials. Many of these people were from the first group ofindigenous Banyarwanda described above. They had been bornin Uganda, had lived there for the whole of their lives, and nowfound themselves being treated as enemies.This violence had a profound effect upon the outlook of allBanyarwanda living in neighbouring countries. The conclusionthey drew from the violence in Ugand a w as that, no matter howwell-established they became in other countries, they wouldnever be free from the threat of violence. Rather than continuingto be scapegoats for other countries' domestic ills, they assertedwith renewed vigour and determination their right to return toRwanda.7President Habyarimana 's policy on this issue changed du ring the1980s. Many of the second-generation Banyarwanda in Ugandahad joined Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army in itsbid to oust President Milton Obote from power. These young,well-educated Tutsi had thereby acquired military expertise, andHabyarim ana realised that,, unless he began to address theirdem ands, they might try to fight their way hom e.In 1988, therefore, H abyarimana began talks with the U gand angovernment on the refugees 'right to return'. During thefollowing two years, the talks m ade progress on technical issues,but Habyarimana appeared unwilling to accede to the refugees'dem ands for political reforms that would assure them a sufficientshare of civil and military pow er to protect their interests.

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TanzaniaUntil the refugee crises of 1994, most of the Rwandese refugees inTanzania were Tutsi who had fled from Rwanda sinceIndependence. Initially they became established at a camp atMuyenzi in the Ngara district, and later at a camp at Mwesi,farther south . Until April 1994, there were believed to be a rou nd50,000 such people in Tanzania. In addition there was a largenum ber of mainly H utu people wh o had m igrated illegally to theKagera region of north -west Tanzania in search of land .The refugees benefited from the relative peace and stability inTanzania, and from the Tanzanian government's willingness tomeet its obligations towards refugees under international law.The refugees were initially reluctant to become settled, fearingthat to do so would be to surrender their right to return toRwanda. But the Tanzanian authorities were anxious to see therefugees settled and self-sufficient.In 1978 they decided to offer mass naturalisation to refugeeswishing to take Tanzanian nationality. Many took up this offer,but its implementation proceeded slowly, and by the late 1980smany had still not received their naturalisation certificates. Thosewho did become naturalised citizens, however, appear to havebecome fully integrated into the life of their new country and tohave been treated the same as other Tanzanian nationals in everyrespect.8In 1990 the governments of Rwanda and Tanzania signed anaccord under which illegal migrants who had entered Tanzaniabefore 1985 would be naturalised, but those who had arrivedmore recently, abou t 30,000, would be returned to Rwanda.ZaireUntil 1994, Zaire was host to members of all three groups ofBanyarwanda refugees described above: indigenous Banya-rw anda , economic migrants, and recent refugees. In parts of Kivu16


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province, Banyarwanda outnumbered the ethnic groups whoconsidered them selves 'true Zairean s' by four to one. They had areputation for hard w ork and enterprise; some built up extremelysuccessful businesses and acquired large areas of land, on whichthey raised cattle.Partly because of this success, their status as citizens was a matterof contention. Since the 1960s a series of laws had awardedZairean nationality to these groups, and then withdrawn it. In1990, the authorities established a programme to identifyforeigners, bu t it was suspen ded after violent pro tests. Electionswere twice annulled in Kivu, because the 'true Za ireans' fearedthe loss of political pow er to B anyarwanda .In March 1993 several Banyarwanda were killed by Zaireans,prompting retaliations and escalating violence over the followingmonths w hich cost an estimated 6,000 lives and left about 220,000people displaced from their homes. Dozens of villages weretotally destroyed, livestock w as looted, and crops were burn t.BurundiBefore April 1994, the vast majority of Rwandese refugees inBurundi were Tutsi who had left Rwanda since Independence.Their number was recently estimated at about 250,000. A largenumber of these refugees had settled in Bujumbura, Burundi'scapital, and established themselves as teachers, entrepreneurs,and white-collar workers. This success in part reflected thefavourable political climate for Tutsi in Burund i.

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Burundi since IndependenceIn Burundi, the Tutsi, who are in the minority, have dominatedpolitical life since Independence. Burundi's first political party,the Union for National Progress (UPRONA), formed in the run-up to Independence, was led by Prince Louis Rwagasore, a Tutsiwho enjoyed the support of both ethnic groups. It won a com-fortable victory in legislative and local elections held in 1961.However, in October of that year the prince was assassinated.Thereafter, political rivalries increasingly found expression inethnic tensions and violence.The Hutu-Tutsi power struggle in reverseLegislative elections in 1965 gave Hutu the majority of seats in thenational assembly, but the king appointed a Tutsi as PrimeMinister and began to replace elected local officials with his ow nsupp orters. This prom pted a coup attem pt by Hutu a rmy officersand a mutiny by Hutu soldiers. The Tutsi-dominated armycrushed the revolt with extreme severity: most of Buru ndi's H utupoliticians, police, and arm y officers were k illed. In 1966, MichelMicombero, a Tutsi army officer, formed a military governmentand declared Burundi a republic.

For the following 26 years Burundi w as ruled by a succession ofTutsi-controlled military governments, backed by the Tutsi-dominated army, and willing to crush Hutu opposition with theruthless use of force. As in Rwanda, the government's policiescreated h un dreds of thousan ds of refugees (this time Hutu ) an d,as in Rwanda, some of these refugees launched military attacksfrom neighbouring coun tries, prom pting retaliatory attacks upon(Hutu) civilians by the army.9The most notorious episode took place in 1972, when BurundeseHutu from the refugee community in Tanzania launched anattack on Tu tsi families in Burund i, killing u p to 2,000. The arm y18


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responded with a retaliation of genocidal proportions. Between80,000 and 300,000 Hutu were killed, while hundreds ofthousand s fled from the country. Attacks by H utu insurgen ts andviolent reprisals by Burundi's army also took place in 1988 and1991. In 1991, how ever, President Pierre Buyoya embarked on aseries of dramatic political reforms. Power-sharing began inearnest, and presiden tial elections were announced for June 1993.The presidential elections in 1993 resulted in victory for theopposition Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), led byMelchior Nda daye , a young H utu banker. With 65 per cent of thevote, Ndadaye had decisively defeated President Buyoya.Hisvictory was reinforced in the legislative elections, held severalweeks later, in which FRODEBU cand idates received 71 per centof votes cast. N dada ye did his best to allay Tutsi fears, installing agovernment of national unity with a Tutsi Prime Minister andnine Tutsi among the 23 ministers. However, on 21 October 1993elements within the army launched a coup, killing PresidentNdadaye and briefly re-imposing military rule. The coup wasimmediately condem ned by No rthern and African gove rnm ents,and foreign donor nations began announcing the withdrawal ofdevelopment assistance to Burundi. Although a civilian govern-ment was soon re-appointed, the coup had rekindled violentconflict.Hutu had taken revenge against Tutsi civilians, prompting thearmy and police to retaliate. The violence is estimated to have costbetween 50,000 and 200,000 lives, from both ethnic groups . It alsoprom pted 700,000 mainly H utu refugees to flee to neighbouringcountries, with the majority seeking refuge in southern Rwanda.Some 250,000 people were displaced within Burundi itself.The October 1993 coup dealt a devastating blow to the hopes ofordinary Burundese, who had been enjoying the prospect ofpeaceful majority rule for the first time in their history. It alsoended the repatriation of Burundese refugees from Tanzania,which had been proceeding since 1991, on the basis of anagreement between the two countries.

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PART TWO: WAR AND WAITING1990: the first RPF invasionFollowing the end of the Cold War, No rthern gove rnments beganto declare their reluctance to sup port African gove rnm ents whichfailed to meet their insistence on 'good governance'. In July 1990President Habyarimana respond ed to international and dom esticpolitical pressures by announcing the imm inent introduc tion ofmulti-party politics. He had dismissed the suggestion onlymonths before.10In October 1990, however, 4,000 Rwandese deserters fromMuseveni's army entered northern Rwanda from Uganda. Mostof these young fighters were Tutsi refugees, but they alsoincluded a number of prominent Hutu opponents of Habyar-imana. Calling themselves the Rwandese Patriotic Front, theyaccused the Habyarimana regime of corruption, and demanded'democracy'. Their tactic was to use military means to increasepressure on the governm ent to accede to their dem ands forpower-sharing.Unlike the Tutsi militias of the 1960s, the RPF expressly stated tha tits aim was not to re-impose Tutsi hegemony. This claim wasdisbelieved by most of Rwanda's Hutu majority, despiteconsiderable sympathy among southern Rwandese with theRPF's political analysis.On first entering Rw anda, the RPF attempted to drive directly toKigali. W ithin days Kigali was in panic, but once the governm entreceived the supp ort of French and Belgian troops (brought in to'protect their nationals') and Zairean troops, they managed toturn the tide. By the end of October the RPF app eared defeated,driven back into Uganda without its original leaders, who hadbeen k illed.

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In fact, the scattered rem nants of the RPF regro uped and workedtheir way through southern Uganda to the volcanoes that formthe border with Rwanda. From this isolated base, allegedlysupported by the Ugandan military, the RPF dem onstrated theircontinued effectiveness with a spectacular attack on Ruhengeri,in which they took the prison and released all its prisoners.The Dares Salaam DeclarationThe RPF's military gains, combined with p ressure from regionalpowers and Northern governments, succeeded in persuadingPresident Habyarimana to enter discussions to address therefugee question. These talks involved the Presidents of Zaire,Tanzania, Burundi, and Uganda, the Organisation of AfricanUnity (OAU), and the UNHCR. The result was the 1991 Dar esSalaam Declaration, which gave Rwandese refugees the choicebetween returning to Rwanda, opting for Rwandese nationalitybu t rem aining in their host countries, and becoming nationals oftheir host countries, subject to the laws and policies of thesegovernments.For his part, General Habyarim ana committed the government ofRwanda to 'finding a definitive and durable solution' to therefugee problem ; acknow ledged the 'legitimate righ t' of refugeesto return; and gave his government's undertaking, 'within thespirit of its policy of political opening towards all politicalgroupings, to remove all obstacles which impede the return ofRwandese refugees to their country and to guarantee their fullparticipation in the democratic political process of the coun try'.11

The changing po litical c limateUntil the invasion of the RPF in 1990, the main political issuewithin Rw anda had been the no rth/ sou th divide. Since coming topow er in 1973, President Habyarimana had consistently favouredhis home region of the north-west. The north received a disprop-ortionate share of resources, and northerners enjoyed bettereducational opportunities and were over-represented in22


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War and Waiting

government and state companies. The leading advocates ofchange within Rwanda were H utu from the south, wh o felt theywere entitled to a greater share of the coun try's resou rces.During 1991 and 1992 there was a gradua l open ing u p of politicallife within Rwanda. President Habyarimana's MRND (Move-ment for Reconstruction and D evelopm ent) still held a monopolyon political power. But new opposition parties began to springup, including the Social Democrats, the Liberal Party, and theM ovement of Democratic Republicans (MDR), which a rticulatedthe concerns of southern Hutu, drawing support from the oldPARMEHUTU constituency. It represented the main politicalthreat to the ruling party.Following the RPF's invasion, however, the political climateunderwent a significant change. Suddenly, Tutsi found them-selves being accused of collaboration with the RPF, simplybecause they were Tutsi. Hutu from the south, perceived ashaving closer links to Tutsi and as opponen ts of the g overnm ent,also began to be branded as 'the enemy w ithin'. It was at this stagethat President Habyarimana helped to establish a new party, theCoalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), which advocateda policy of Hu tu supremacy.In practical terms, the RPF's invasion prom pted Habyarimana toincrease the size of the Rw andese arm y very significantly. BeforeOctober 1990 the army had comprised abou t 5,000 men; but by theend of October 1991 it had risen to 24,000, and would continue torise to over 30,000 during 1992. At the same time, frequentviolations of hum an rights were occurring indiscriminately inthe case of Tutsi citizens, more selectively in the case of politicalopponents of Habyarim ana's government, both Hutu and Tutsi.In addition to increasing the size of the army , the government alsoencouraged the formation of militias allied to the ruling MRNDparty and to the extremist CDR party. The militia allied to theMRND was called the Interahamwe (Th ose w ho attack together');the militia allied to the CDR was known as the Impuzamugambi

2 3


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War and Waiting

Abuses of human rightsWhile the talks continued at Arusha, there was growing inter-national awareness of the human rights abuses perpetrated byHabyarimana's regime against Tutsi. In February and May 1992the human rights non-governmental organ isations (NGOs) AfricaWatch12 and Amnesty International drew attention to violationscommitted by the regime since 1990. Amnesty noted theextra judicial execution of more than 1,000 T utsi, the use of tortureagainst detainees, 'dozens of disappearan ces', and the imprison-men t, withou t charge or trial, of m ore than 8,000 people.13Although the governm ent subsequently released nearly all of thedetainees, no one was prosecuted for these abuses, and in March1993 an International Commission on H um an Rights, consistingof experts from several hum an rights NGO s, and co-ordinated byAfrica Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights(Paris), produced more disturbing findings. The Commissionfound that the Rwandese government had killed about 2,000Rwandese between October 1990 and January 1993, most ofwhom were Tutsi or Hutu belonging to opposition parties, andthat 'authorities at the highest level, including the Presiden t of theRepublic, consented to the abuses'.14The International Comm ission also found that the President andgovernment of Rwanda had 'tolerated and encouraged theactivities of arm ed militia attached to the political parties, in clearviolation of Rw andan law '. According to the Commission, by late1992 these militia had 'taken the lead in violence against Tutsi andmembers of the political opposition, thus "privatising" violenceformerly carried ou t by the state itself. Like the reports which hadpreceded it, the Comm ission also found the RPF guilty of hu m anrights abuses such as sum mary executions; the vast majority of itsfindings, however, incriminated Habyarimana's government.

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The Commission's findings prompted the UN to launch its owninvestigation. Bacre Waly Ndiaye, the Special Rapporteur onExtrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions for the UNCommission on Human Rights, published his report in August1993.15 His findings endorsed those of the Commission. He notedwith concern that, following the RPF invasion, governm ent propa-ganda had created a situation in which 'all Tutsi inside the countrywere collectively labelled accomplices of the RPF'. This linkage, heconcluded, combined with 'the ensuing climate and the directiveswhich followed... [and] triggered the massacres of civilians'.The Special Rapporteur even w ent so far as to note that 'there is acertain elite which, in order to cling to pow er, is con tinuing to fuelethnic hatred'. Again, in addition to the armed forces, the partymilitias allied to the ruling MRND and the CDR were found to havebeen guilty of 'incitement to violence against the Tutsi, of massacresof civilian populations and of political assassinations'. He notedreports that 'these militias have been trained by members of thePresidential Guard and by m embers of the armed forces'.In addressing the question of the role of ordinary civilians, theSpecial Rap porteur found that 'such outbreaks were planned andprepared, with targets being identified in speeches by repres-entatives of the authorities, broadcasts on Rwandese radio, andleaflets. It is also notew orthy that a t the time of the violence, thepersons perpetrating the massacres were under organisedleadership. In this connection, local government officials havebeen found to play a leading role in most cases.' Both the centralgovernment and the local authorities were found to havedistributed w eapons amon g civilians.The Special Rapporteur made a number of specificrecommendations addressed chiefly to the Rwandese govern-ment. These included measures to protect civilians againstmassacres; support for Rwandese hum an rights NG Os; reform ofthe media; reform of the judicial system; new identity cardscontaining no reference to ethnicity; and the dismantling of all'violent organisations', includ ing party m ilitias. Not one of theserecomm endations wa s acted up on.26


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War and W aiting

Arming the Rwandese regimeAt the same time that this evidence of hum an rights abuses wasemerging, several Northern powers were continuing to armHa byariman a's regime. The USA had been supp lying a relativelysmall quantity of arm s since the early 1980s; for the 1993 financialyear, US military sales were estimated to be wo rth $600,000. ButSouth Africa was revealed to have supplied arms worth $5.9million to the Rw andese government.16France was revealed to have enabled the Rw andese gove rnmentto buy Egyptian arms worth $6 million. These were suppliedduring 1992, when evidence of human rights abuses by theRwandese government was already in the public domain andwhen France was an observer at the Arusha 'peace talks'. Thepurchase included 'autom atic rifles, mortars, long-range artillery,shoulder-fired rocket launchers, munitions, landmines, andplastic explosives'.17French support for Habyarimana's gove rnmen t dated back to the1970s, when the two countries signed their first militaryassistance agreement. But following the RPF invasion in 1990,France had sent its own soldiers and m ilitary advisers to R wanda.The contingent m ore than doub led from 300 soldiers to over 600,following an RPF offensive in February 1993, and was observedproviding artillery support to Rwandese government forces,manning armed checkpoints, and advising the Rwandese armyduring combat situations.18

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The Arusha AccordsThe Arusha Accords were eventually signed by GeneralHabyarimana and A lexis Kan yarengw e, the leader of the RPF, on4 August 1993. The combined pressures of the RPF's militarygains and international expectations had eventually forcedHabyarimana's hand. The Accords committed the Rwandesegov ernm ent to a series of radical reforms: the creation of a trans-itional governm ent of 22 ministers, of who m five would be fromthe RPF; the creation of a commission to oversee the return of therefugees, and to ensure their security; the establishment of newarm ed forces, with the RPF contributing 40 per cent of new troopsand 50 per cent of the high command; and the organisation oflegislative and pa rliam enta ry elections in 1995.The UN Secretary-General argued that the UN could play animportan t role in assisting the imp lemen tation of the accords. Herecommended the establishment of a greatly increased UNpresence called the United Nations Assistance Mission forRwanda (UNAMIR). U N AMIR was app roved b y the UN SecurityCouncil, which passed Resolution 872 on 5 October 1993. Thisgave the UN force a mandate which included monitoring theceasefire, general responsibility for security, and the repa triationof refugees; clearing mines and coordinating humanitarianassistance; and investigating non-compliance w ith the agreem entto integrate the arme d forces.UN troops arriveThe first UN forces arrived in Kigali in October 1993. By that timeit was already clear that the implementation of the ArushaAccords wou ld be fraught with difficulties. The Accords includeda timetable for implementation, according to which thetransitional governm ent and national assembly should have beenup and runn ing by mid-September. But by Novem ber neither thenew gove rnment nor the new parliamen t was in place.1928


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War and Waiting

The UN force came under the command of General RomeoDallaire of Canada. By December, UNAMIR consisted of 1,260personnel, with troops from 19 countries, with by far the largestcontingents from Bangladesh (564) and Belgium (424). The U N'smost evident achievement during December was to accompany600 RPF troops to Kigali; their presence, designed to ensure thesecurity of RPF officials, had been agreed in the Arusha Accords.French troops finally left Rwanda in December 1993, against thewishes of the President. From the outset the participation of theBelgians in UNAMIR had been opposed by the MRND and theCDR, who accused them of favouring the RPF. They claimed thatan earlier w ithd raw al of Belgian troops from northern R wanda in1990 had been designed to allow the RPF to make military gains.20

Extremists hinder progressThe CDR made no attempt to conceal its opposition to power-sharing with the RPF. Radio/T V Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM),run by the CDR and part-owned by Habyarim ana's family, wenton air in autumn 1993, declaring that the RPF had returned torestore Tutsi hegemony, branding all Tutsi as RPF supporters,denouncing the Arusha Accords, and exhorting listeners to killTutsi civilians. The President did not stop the broadcas ts.The hands of the extremists were strengthened by the October1993 coup in Burundi. Ever since Independence, H utu in Rwandahad pointed to the fate of Hutu in Burundi in their attempts tojustify excluding Tutsi from pow er and resisting the return of Tutsirefugees; while conversely in Burundi, Tutsi have used therepression of their fellows in Rw anda to justify continued minorityrule and the suppression of Hutu aspirations. Now the Hutusupremacists in Rwanda claimed that the coup in Burundi provedthat Tutsi were unwilling to share power, and they characterisedthe RPF as the vanguard of renewed Tutsi dom ination.General Habyarimana benefited from divisions within theopposition, some of which he had fostered, but all of which hewould skilfully exploit, playing off one personality against

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another, and factions against their own parties. First the MDRsplit between supp orters of rival would-be P rime M inisters. Thenthe Liberal Party was riven by internal divisions over nomin-ations to the transitional government and national assembly.Justin M ugenzi, one of its most prom inent leaders, was accusedby m any in his party of being a covert supporter of the P resident.He w as part of wha t became know n as the 'pow er factions', pro-Ha byarim ana groups in each of the divided opposition parties.21With Haby arim ana insisting on his nom ination lists for the futuregovernment and the opposition parties squabbling amongthemselves, the implementation of the Arusha Accords wasfurther delayed. By February 1994 only one of the maininstitutions agreed at Arusha the presidency yet existed.Neither the new national assembly nor the transitional govern-ment was functioning. Habyarimana's 'divide and rule' strategywas successfully und erm ining the move to pow er-sharing.The purges beginAmid the growing confusion, attacks on human rights activistsand opposition politicians increased. In Novem ber 1993 Aphonse-Marie Nkub ito, the attorney general and president of CLADH O(Collectif des Ligues et Associations de Defense des Droits del'Homme), narrowly escaped death in a grenade attack.22 InFebruary 1994 Felicien Gatabazi, a member of the SocialDemocratic Party, was assassinated, as was Martin Bucyana, thepres iden t of the CDR. Mr Gatabazi had publicly claimed that themilitias were being trained in two camps, Gabiro (Byumba) andBigogwe (Ruhengeri), and were being armed by the cabinetsecretary of Augustin Bizimana (the Defence Minister).23At the same time it was widely know n that the militias possesseddeath lists. The possible existence of such lists had been alluded toby one h um an rights organisation as early as February 1992, butby early 1994 the lists were so readily available that individualscould pay the m ilitias to have their names removed.24 Thus therewere numerous unmistakable signs, for anyone who cared toobserve them, that violence on a terrifying scale was imm inent.30


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War and Wa iting

The UN reviews its roleThe UN Security Council was fully aware of what was takingplace. No t only did they have access to the information containedin the reports by human rights NGOs, but the presence ofUNAMIR ensu red that the Security Council was fully briefed ondevelopm ents throu gh regular repo rts by the Secretary-General.As early as December 1993, Dr Boutros-Ghali had referred toattacks upon civilians in the demilitarised zone in northernRwanda, and stated that 'a well-armed and reportedly ruthlessgrou p w as operating in the area, with a view to disrupting or evenderailing the peace process'.25By March 1994 UN AM IR's strength had risen to 2,539 personnel.There were now 24 participant countries, although the vastmajority of the increased force were Ghanaians (843) andadditional soldiers from Bangladesh (the new total was 942). ButDr Boutros-Ghali was fully aware that, despite UNAMIR'sincreased size, violence was on the increase. His report of 30March 1994 noted that since December, 'the security situation inRwanda, and, especially in Kigali, has seriously deteriorated.While most incidents can be attributed to armed banditry, wh ichhas been growing as a result of the ready availability of w eapons,ethnic and politically motivated crimes, including assassinationsand m urde rs, have also increased.'UNAM IR's original mandate w as due to last for six months fromOctober 1993, and was therefore already up for review in April.However, despite Dr Boutros-Ghali's recommendation that itsmandate be extended for another six months, UN SecurityCouncil member states had from the outset tried to scale downtheir comm itment. Even Resolution 872 had invited the Secretary-General 'to consider ways of reducing the total maximumstrength of UNAM IR' and requested him to 'seek economies and... report regularly on w hat is achieved in this rega rd'.

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PART THREE: THE RESPONSE TO GENOCIDEThe killings escalateOn 6 April 1994 an aircraft bringing President H abyarim ana andPresident Ntariyamira of Burundi back from talks in Arushacrashed as it came in to land at Kigali airport. Everyone on boardwas killed. When UNAMIR troo ps wen t to investigate, they weredenied access to the crash site by Rwandese governm ent forces.The Rwandese government immediately accused Belgian UNtroops of having shot the plane down, but in the light of eventsduring previous months, and events after the crash, it appearshighly likely that the plane was shot down by forces allied to theMRND and CDR, who were intent on sabotaging the ArushaAccords.Within the hour following the crash, and prior to its officialannouncem ent over the radio, Interahamwe militiamen had begunto set up road-blocks in Kigali. During 6 and 7 April, the young menchecked the identity cards of passers-by, searching for Tutsi,members of opposition parties, and hum an rights activists. Anyonebelonging to these groups was set upon with machetes and ironbars. Their bleeding bodies lined the road-sides of the city.By 8 April hundreds of Tutsi civilians and several of Rwanda'smost important opposition politicians had been killed. Amongthe politicians to have lost their lives were Agathe Uwil-ingyam ana, the Prime M inister (MDR); Joseph Kavaruganda, thePresident of the Constitutional Court; Edouard Ntatsindwa, theMinister of Labour (LP); Frederic N zamuram baho, the Minister ofAgriculture (PSD); and the chairman and vice-chairman of theLiberal Party.26 Many of the murdered politicians and humanrights activists were H utu .Anne Mackintosh, then Oxfam's Regional Representative basedin Kigali, was staying with colleagues at a Catholic mission in32


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The Response to Genocide

Gisenyi on 8 April. At about mid-day government soldiers cameto the mission and threatened to kill three Rwandese peopleunless they were given some money. They were given money andthen left, but later that afternoon a group of about 100 young men,some of them wearing the party caps of the CDR, swept throughthe out-buildings. This is Anne Mackintosh's testimony:27They sought out and killed seven mem bers of the Tutsi nurse's familywho had been hiding, unknown to us, somewhere in the missionbuildings. Those killed included a three-year-old boy, his skull split openwith a machete blow, and a pregnant woman whose belly was slit openand the unborn baby exposed. I did not examine these bodies, but twoPolish missionaries, who were among those staying at the mission, did.However, we all witnessed the elderly mission cook being beaten to deathin the courtyard outside the kitchen .One of the m issionaries, Father Richard, tried to reason with members ofthe crowd. Even tually, I went out to join him. We talked with a couple ofyoung men who spoke French, and appeared to be the group's leaders,although they admitted they couldn't exercise much control. Theyexplained their 'mission': Tutsi had murdered the President and weretrying to take over the country by force, so Tutsi had to die.After about an hour and a half, the mob left, looting mattresses, beer-crates, and other items as they went. Father Richard and another of themissionaries who was a trained nurse went to see whether any of thosewho had been attacked were still alive and could be helped. Three of thewounded were still moving, but their injuries were so appalling theirskulls had been split open by machete blows, and the brain tissue exposed that there was no point in trying to save them. However, a girl ofabout 14 who had been left for dead was found to be alive, though barelyconscious. I helped the nurse lay her down on cushions and dress herwounds.Later that evening more militiamen arrived, and searched all therooms. Having failed to find anyone else, they stole some morepossessions and left. The following day Belgian soldiers arrivedand rescued all the guests at the mission; these people would laterleave Rwanda altogether. Anne Mackintosh's testimonyillustrates the speed at which the killings began; the role of

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Rwanda: An Agenda for International A ction

militiamen and soldiers; the way in which governmentpropaganda was adduced to account for the killings; and theplundering m ade possible by the threat and use of violence.The RPF advance and the government flees KigaliOn 9 April 1994 a new administration was announced by theremnants of the Rwandese government. It was dominated bymembers of the MRND, CDR, and the 'power factions' of theMRD and Liberal Party. Key members included TheodoreSindikubgabo as President, Augustin Bizimana as DefenceMinister, and Jean Kambanda as Prime Minister. The 'interimgovernment' also included Joseph Mugenzi and Agnes Ntama-bya liro, from the Liberal Party.28The outbreak of violence in Kigali prom pted RPF soldiers in thecity to begin fighting forces allied to the 'interim government'.The bulk of the RPF's armed forces, however, were in thedemilitarised zone in northern Rwanda. The fighting in Kigaliprom pted these RPF troops to begin their advance south towa rdsth e city. The first RPF soldiers from the north ar rived in Kigali on13 April, the day on which the 'interim government' fled west toGitarama.

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The UN responseTen Belgian peacekeepers had been killed in an a ttem pt to protectthe Prime Minister. With all Belgian UNAMIR soldiers nowblamed for the assassination of General Habyarimana, and allfacing death threats, Belgium announced the withdrawal of itsentire UNAMIR contingent. Henceforth, UNAM IR confined itselfto rescuing foreign nationals, as did the French para troopers whoarrived on 10 April.Television pictures and new spaper reports of UN forces rescu ingforeigners but abandoning Rwandese provoked outrage abroad.Among the fiercest critics of UNAMIR's mandate were aidagencies like Oxfam (UK and Ireland), whose expatriate staffwere leaving, bu t whose Rwandese staff were being refused help .The killings in Kigali and the withdrawal of the Belgiancontingent from UNAM IR led the UN to review UNA MIR's role.In his 20 April report to the Security Council, Dr Boutros-Ghaliargued that UNAMIR's mandate was no longer relevant, thatthere was 'no prospect' of a ceasefire, and that the SecurityCouncil must choose between three options: an 'imm ediate andmassive' reinforcement of UNAMIR, with a new mandate toimpose a ceasefire, restore law and order, and prov ide security forhum anitarian aid deliveries; cutting UNAMIR to 270 troops, witha limited m and ate to attemp t to secure a ceasefire ag reement a ndto assist in humanitarian relief operations 'to the extent feasible';and sanctioning UNAM IR's complete w ithdrawa l.As the Security Council reviewed UNAM IR's role, Oxfam (UK/I)argued that the UN had a moral imperative to respond to thecrisis. Oxfam drew a distinction between the fighting between theRPF and the 'interim government', and the massacres beingcarried out by lightly armed militias against unarmed civilians.Even if the UN could not bring the fighting to an end, Oxfamargued, it could protect thou sands of people at risk, by giving UN

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troops a man date to protect civilians under threat and providingsecurity for the delivery of humanitarian relief. Many other aidagencies backed the dem and for a strengthened UNAM IR, as didthe Ugandan government.But on 21 April the Security Council cut the UN force from 1,700to 270 personn el. The United States took the lead in advoca tingthis decision. Un der Resolution 912, UNAM IR was given a newmandate to 'act as an intermediary between the parties in anattempt to secure a ceasefire'; 'assist in the resumption ofhumanitarian relief operations to the extent feasible'; and'monitor and report on developments in Rwanda, including thesafety and security of the civilians who sought refuge withUNA MIR'. In practice this decision was never fully imp lemented,with th e result that 444 UN troops stayed on in Kigali.29The decision was im mediately condem ned by aid agencies andgovernm ents. David Bryer, director of Oxfam (UK and Ireland ),described it as a 'short -sigh ted, callous decision', while the Britishdevelopment agency Christian Aid argued that the decisionmeant that 'fighting will spread unchecked and thousands morewill be murdered'.30 Salim Ahmed Salim, the OAU's Secretary-General, deplored the decision 'to abando n the people of Rwanda... in spite of the appeals from Africa' and stated that manyAfricans would interpret it as a 'lack of sufficient concern forAfrican tragic situations'.31

The reduction of UNAMIR at first appeared to pu t in jeopardy thelives of the 15,000 Rwandese in Kigali who had sought refugewith the UN, although the rum p UN force which stayed b ehinddid succeed in protecting these people. But the UN's reductionsent a signal to those perpe trating the massacres that, despite itstough talk, the UN was not willing to offer any protection toRwandese outside Kigali whose lives were in imminent danger.Under these circumstances, the militias were able to carry outtheir campaign of genocide unopposed (with the exception ofareas gradually captured by the RPF).

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The massacresAs the UN deliberated over how to respond to the crisis, theextremists' campaign to exterminate their political opponentsbegan to spread through out the country. After 12 April 1994, bywhich time the massacres in Kigali had claimed an estimated10,000 lives, journalists and aid agencies began to reportmassacres to the east. By 19 April the massacres had spread to thesouth and west, following the removal of the moderate Hutuprefect in Butare and his replacem ent by an extremist.The pattern of events over the following tw o mon ths was alreadyclear by the end of April. In those areas controlled by the 'interimgovernm ent', genocide was proceeding with ruthless efficiency.At the same time, a conventional w ar was being fought betweenthe RPF and soldiers loyal to the 'nterim government'. The RPFadvanced quickly, meeting little opposition from 'interim gov-ernm ent' forces, who w ere ill-disciplined, poorly motiva ted, andunu sed to fighting a determ ined enemy.But the RPF's advance simply could not match the pace at whichthe militiamen and soldiers were massacring civilians. AcrossRwanda, the story was the same. Defenceless men, women, andchildren were being cut across the neck with machetes, andbeaten to death with hoes and iron bars. There are severalaccounts of victims pleading to be shot, rather than face the ter rorand agony of being cut to death. Those in danger did their best toflee, but the killers respected no sanctuary; militiamen sough t outvictims in churches and hospital w ards.Such slaughter took place in home after home, village aftervillage, and region after region. Sometimes the entire Tutsipopu lation of an area fled in terror to a church, in the vain hop ethat there was safety in numbers. But the militias were activelyencouraging Tutsi to gather together, because it made their taskeasier. As in Rukara,32 they would surrou nd the church and start

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Rwanda: An Agenda for Interna tional Action

by throwing grenades in through the windows. Withindiscriminate gunfire, they could kill hundreds of people in amatter of min utes. The militiamen would then move in to finishoff their victims with machetes and clubs, returning onsubseq uent day s to ensure that no one had escaped alive.Most of the killers were known to their victims. They came fromthe same villages, had attend ed the same schools, and farmed thesame hillsides. The frenzy of killing is inexplicable within anyconventional frame of reference. But these young men wereconvinced that in no other way could they ensure the survival ofHutu ; they believed that unless all Tutsi were physically elimin-ated, they would return to reclaim their powers and privileges.They had been told this not only by RTLM (Radio/TelevisionLibre des Mille Collines), but also by some Hutu intellectuals.They were also told that if they did not cooperate, they werecollaborators, and could expect to die. Many of those courageouseno ugh to act according to their consciences paid w ith their lives.Many of the massacres were organised. This is the testimony ofClaude Sonier, who fled from Butare with his Tutsi wife andfamily. He describes what happened in Butare at the end of April:Every thing was quiet... Then a new prefect was appointed, a Hutu fromthe north. Soon afterwards planes landed with members of thePresidential Guard. The killings began early the next morning. Thesoldiers and m ilitias started w ith the men, then wen t on to massacrechildren ... Mostly they picked on Tutsi, but Hutu were also targeted.The soldiers got the Interahamwe to dig pits, which they lined withflaming tyres. Men, women, and children were thrown in alive. Mymother-in-law, a woman in her sixties, died in this way.33The names of the countless towns and villages where such killingstook place will probably be forgotten by the outside world: placessuch as Butare, Kibuye, Cyangugu, Gisenyi, Kabgayi (GitaramaPrefecture); Kibungo, Kibeho (Gikongoro Prefecture); C yahinda(Butare Prefecture); and G ikongoro. But they will not be forgottenby Rw andese, wh o will have to return to their former hom es to re-build their lives, surrounded by the evidence of carnage. Theirmem ories will outlast even the mass graves.38


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Refugee crises in Tanzania andBurundiAs the RPF advanced south and east through Rwanda in Apriland May 1994, tens of thousa nds of people fled before them. Thevast majority of these people were ordinary Hutu, long-timetargets of government propaganda, which had succeeded ininstilling the belief tha t the rebels we re intent on killing them . Tothese people, the RPF's assurances to the contrary m eant nothing.They left with whatever food and possessions they could carry,and sometimes with their cattle. In their midst were militiamenresponsible for the massacres.Displaced people fled from eastern Rwanda into Tanzania. On 29April over 200,000 people crossed the Rusumo Falls bridge overthe Kagera river into Ngara District in Tanzania the fastest flowof refugees that aid agencies had ever witnessed. Over the comingweeks the number of refugees in Tanzania w ould swell to 470,000.The main refugee camp in this area, at Benaco, would becomehom e to 250,000 people, making it the largest refugee cam p in theworld. The UNHCR and several other aid agencies workedtogether to provide food, equipment, and health care. Oxfam(UK/I), which has particular expertise in the provision of safewater, is the lead agency supp lying w ater to these refugees.Thousands of people were also leaving eastern Rwanda farthernorth, crossing into the K aragwe district of Tanzania, and in thesouth, into Burundi. In Burund i, they arrived in camps wh ere theUNHCR and other aid agencies, including Oxfam, were work ing.In subsequent weeks the number of refugees would continue toescalate. But, while those who had become refugees receivedassistance, over one million displaced people within Rwandafaced a desperate struggle for survival; wh ile the true figure maynever be known, it seems likely that thousands died fromexhaustion, starvation, and disease.

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The agency with legal responsibility for the refugees' welfare wasthe UNHCR, which co-ordinated the relief w ork in the camps. TheUN's Department of Hu manitarian Affairs set up an em er-gencyoffice in Nairobi (UN Rwanda Emergency Office UNREO) topool information on the wo rk of all the UN agencies and N GO s,and sent an assessment mission to Kigali. How ever, the insecuritywithin Rw anda preven ted most of them from working there. Onlythe International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), MedecinsSans Frontieres, and a numb er of mission N GOs actually carriedon working in Rw anda. They struggled valiantly unde r despera teconditions, while gangs periodically roamed hospital wards atwill, killing patients and Rwandese staff alike.

UGANDA10,000

850,000Goma

KigaliRWANDA

NgaraTANZANIA

Bukavu450,000

164,000Uvira Bujumbura

BURUNDI Mo vem ents and numbers ofrefugees since April 1 9 9 4

(estimates)(Source: UNHCR, 3 1 August 19 94)

Lake Tanganyika

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The case for a new UN forceThe rump UN force in Kigali, under the command of GeneralDallaire, succeeded in protecting 15,000 civilians, by deliveringrelief supplies and negotiating with their attackers when theywere under threat. These people were scattered at a number oflocations in Kigali, in hosp itals, the Hotel des Mille Collines, andthe Amahoro stadium. UNAMIR also evacuated groups inparticular danger, including orphans.34The UN also tried to negotiate with the RPF and the 'interimgovernment' to secure a ceasefire. The RPF refused to haveanything to do with the 'interim go vernm ent', who m it dismissedas 'a clique of killers'. The RPF declared that it would not talkabout a ceasefire until the 'interim g overnm ent' had called a haltto the massacres; the 'interim government', for its part, assertedthat the main problem was the rebel advance. No progresstow ards a ceasefire was achieved.By the end of April 1994 aid agencies feared that 200,000 peoplehad been killed in Rw anda; well over one million were kn ow n tobe internally displaced, and hu ndreds of thousand s had becomerefugees in neighbouring countries. As the scale of the crisisbecame ever more apparent, the UN came under increasingpressure to send a new peacekeeping force to protect civiliansunder threat. As the Secretary-General began to reviewResolution 912, governments, aid agencies, and journalists beganto exert pressu re for a speedy UN resp onse.Among those calling for a new UN force were the OAU andAfrican countries such as Tanzania. Ali Hassan Mwinyi,President of Tanzania, argued that 'Where the very survival ofhumanity is at stake, where the outbreak and level of violencereaches enormous proportions to threaten the very fabric ofhuman civilisation and where ethnic conflicts might threateninternational peace, the United Nations must be able to act

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prom ptly and decisively.' He urged the UN to take 'firm ac tion' tostop the 'senseless killings'.35

Oxfam (UK /I) asserted the case for vigorous UN action. Throug ha series of vigils and ad vertisem ents, Oxfam raised public aw are-ness of genocide in Rwanda, and lobbied decision-makers withspecific proposals for a new UN force, designed to save civilianlives and enable aid agencies to provide humanitarian aid. Inpursuance of Oxfam's advocacy, David Bryer and Ed Cairns,policy adviser, met Dr Boutros-Ghali on 5 May to put the agency 'scase directly.On 13 May Dr Boutros-Ghali recomm ended a new UN force to theSecurity Council, which w ould consist of 5,500 troops (UNAMIRII), with a mandate to protect civilians under threat and help toprovide humanitarian aid to the displaced. He stressed that theforce should be sent to the interior of Rwanda, as well as to itsbord ers, because there were five times as many d isplaced peop lein the interior itself. He also stressed that the longer the troo ps'deployment w as delayed, 'the greater the prospect of the missionnot achieving its pu rpo se in operational terms'.36Dr Boutros-Ghali's plan envisaged UN troops first taking controlof Kigali airpo rt and then fanning out across Rw anda to establishprotected sites for the displaced. His timetable would have seenthe Ghanaian battalion brought u p to its full strength of 800 menwithin a week of the Security Council's authorisa tion; and the restof the 5,500 troops establishing their presence within 31 days. If theSecurity Council swiftly approved the plan, and countries quicklysupplied troops and the means to put them in place, a revitalisedUNAMIR could be saving lives in Rwanda by the beginning ofJune, and throughout the country by the middle of June.The response of the Security CouncilFrom the outset, the Permanent Five Members of the SecurityCouncil ruled out sending any of their own troop s. The questionthen was whether other countries would offer troops, and thenatu re of the ma nda te that the Security Council would give them.42


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Just as it had taken the lead in advoca ting UNA MIR's reduction,the USA took the lead in pressing for a plan that would confineUNAMIR to the borders of Rwanda. The United States alsosought to play down the scale of the crisis, by instructing itsofficials to use the ph rase 'acts of genocide', rather than acknow-ledge that a deliberate policy of genocide was being implem-ented.37 The alleged reason for this word-play was that the USgovernment feared that acknowledging this would oblige it toundertak e more vigorous action unde r the UN 's Convention onGenocide.

Un der the terms of Article II of the Conven tion on the Preventionand Punishment of Genocide (1948), genocide is defined as:any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or inpart, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killingmembers of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to membersof the group; delibera tely inflicting on the group conditions of lifecalculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; andforcibly transferring children of the group to another group.That the killings in Rwanda met this definition was laterconfirmed by R. Degni-Segui, the Special Ra ppo rteur on Hum anRights, in a report to the UN . He had been appo inted by a SpecialSession of the UN Comm ission on Hum an Rights which had metin May. The Genocide Convention commits parties to the Con-vention to 'prevent and pun ish' genocide, wh ether comm itted intime of peace or war. All five permanent m embers of the SecurityCouncil have ratified the Genocide Convention.The mandate of UNAMIR IIDr Boutros-Ghali's efforts to get Security Council backing for anew initiative eventually met with success. On 16 May theSecurity Council passed Resolution 918, adopting the plan w hichthe Secretary-General had advocated in his report. UNAMIR II,when it arrived, would 'attem pt to assure the security of as ma nyassemblies as possible of civilians who are under threat' andwould 'provide security, as required, to humanitarian relief

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ope ration s'. According to Dr Boutros-Ghali's original time table, itwould still be possible to see all 5,500 troops carrying out theirmandate by the middle of June. The resolution also imposed anarms embargo on Rwanda, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.At abou t the same time, several African countries indicated theirwillingness to provide troops. They were Ethiopia, Ghana,Senegal, Malawi, Mali, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Tanzania andZaire also offered troops, but the OAU's rules prevent memberstates from sending troops to neighbouring countries. However,the troops lacked the equipment and logistical support to mounta speedy operation.Having refused to send their own troops, Security Councilmembers now failed even to deliver the means by which Africantroops could be sent. Their response, the US offer to loan 50armoured vehicles, and the UK offer to supply 50 trucks, wastotally inadequa te, coming as it did from governm ents w ith two ofthe best-equipped military forces in the world. But some Africangovernm ents also failed Rwanda, by making 'exorbitant d em and sfor their battal ions ', instead of making reasonab le requests.38These failures delayed the deployment of UN forces still further.By the end of May, with not a single extra UN soldier in Rwanda,Dr Boutros-Ghali boldly criticised UN member states. Hedeplored the fact that the international community 'appearsparalysed in reacting', almost two months after the start of thekillings, 'even to the revised mandate' given by the SecurityCouncil:We must all recognise that... we have failed in our response to the agonyof Rwanda, and thus have acquiesced in the continued loss of humanlives. Our readiness and our capacity for action has been demonstratedto be inadequate at best, and deplorable at worst, owing to the absence ofcollective political will.39

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The French interventionBy mid-June 1994 aid agencies estimated that genocide had costover 500,000 lives; about two million people were internally dis-placed, and over half a million had fled to neighbouringcountries. This was a catastrophe unprecedented in Africa, andthe massacres continued, unabated and unchecked. By this timethe entire UN AMIR II force should have been in place, bu t still nota single extra peacekeeper had arrived.In mid-June, France suddenly announced its intention to send2,500 troops to Rwanda a strictly humanitarian mission,according to the French government. The soldiers' objectivewould be to save civilian lives, by establishing a 'safe zone' in thesouth-west. M any countries, aid agencies (including Oxfam), andjournalists expressed concern, argu ing that, as France had armedthe former governm ent and helped to train its soldiers, it was ill-placed to launch a humanitarian mission. If France genuinelywanted to help, they argued, it should provide the Africansoldiers already offered to UNAMIR with the means to do so.The RPF was implacably op posed to the French initiative, seeingFrance as partly responsible for the massacres, and intent onpro pp ing u p the rem nants of the old regime, to boost its positionat future negotiations. Suspicion was fostered not only by Frenchactions in the past, but by reports that in May the French hadturned a blind eye to arms bound for 'interim governm ent' forcesarriving in Goma, Zaire,40 and were using deniable agents tosupply arms to the 'interim governm ent' as late as June.41By mid-June, the RPF had secured the who le of eastern Rw anda.In most areas (but notably not Kigali), the Rwandese army andallied militias had simply fled. The rebels now planned to con-solidate their gains in the south and west, precisely the area intowhich the French proposed to send troops. If French soldiersresisted its advance, the RPF threatened that it would fight them.

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Operation TurquoiseFrance, however, was determined that 'Operation Turquoise'would go ahead. By drawing on its forces in the Central AfricanRepublic, France had mobilised over 1,000 soldiers within days;they were ready and waiting on the border with Rwanda, in basesat Bukavu and Goma in Zaire. France declared, however, that itwanted the Security Council's endorsement, which it dulyreceived on 22 June. Ten out of the fifteen Security CouncilMembers had backed the plan; none of the Permanent Five hadused its veto, bu t China had abstained, as had four non-perm anentmem bers: Brazil, New Zealand, N igeria, and Pakistan.From their bases in Zaire, the French sent m issions into w esternRw anda, starting with Cyan gugu in the south and Kibuye farthernorth. Over the coming days the French troops rescued thousa ndsof people: nuns who had hidden in terror, orphans who hadwa ndered in aimless desperation, and men w ho had hidd en forweeks in the forests. But the soldiers swiftly discovered that theyhad come too late to save most of the vu lnerable: the majority ofthe region's Tutsi had already been killed.42The area around Gishyita (Kibuye Prefecture), for example, hadbeen home to 10,000 Tutsi; now, estimated Eric Nzabih imana, alocal schoolteacher, there were fewer than l,000.43 Nothing hadprepared even the soldiers for the scenes of horror that awaitedthem. But they w ould also witness rem arkable acts of courage, asin Gikongoro, wh ere a Hutu family had hidden 21 Tutsi in theirhome since the start of the fighting.The 'safe area' also reassured the 1,500,000 displaced peopleliving there tha t it was safe to stay, thus p reventing a mass exodusinto Zaire. The anticipated conflict between the rebels and theFrench soldiers never materialised. In practice, the rebels largelyignored the safe area, and concentrated on capturing the fewremaining areas of Rwanda under 'interim government' control.In early July they finally took Kigali, and then Butare, the second-largest city, in the south. Now the only area denied them w as thenorth-west; this wou ld be the focus of their final push for victory.46


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The refugee crisis in ZaireAs the RPF advanced across the north-west, reports began toemerge of hund reds of thousan ds of Hutu fleeing w estwa rd. On 9July, Maurice Herson, an Oxfam Emergencies Officer on anassessment mission in western Rwanda, reported that 'the entirepopulation is being squeezed west... We have no idea how man ypeople stay behind apart from those incapable of moving, thevery old, the handicap ped , any young aband oned or lost children nor wh at hap pen s to them if they do stay. The important pointis that they believe they will be massacred. T hus they run.'44Despite numerous RPF assurances that they had nothing to fearfrom a rebel victory, Hutu were convinced that the rebels wou ldexact reprisals. These fears were deliberately exploited byremnants of the 'interim government' and their soldiers andmilitias, living am ong the displaced. They gave chilling accountsof RPF massacres, for which little evidence existed, and exhortedtheir terrified listeners to flee before they were slaughtered. Theextremist radio station, RTLM, reinforced this message withbroadcasts urging people to show solidarity with the 'interimgovernment' by fleeing with it.On 9 July, some newspapers began to cover the story.45 Aidagencies working in Rwanda had been aware for a number ofweeks that a rebel push in the north-west would result in massivedisplacement, but no one could predict with confidence thedirection in which people wo uld go. UNHCR, with its manda te toaddress the relief needs of refugees, was not responsible formeeting the needs of the displaced; as long as people stayedinside Rwanda, other agencies were expected to cater for them.UNREO, the UN office nominally co -ordinating th e relief effort,was not an operational agency; rather, its function was to poolinformation so that the aid agencies were aware of what wasgoing on and could act accordingly.

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Rwanda: An Agenda for International A ction

A calamity without precedentWhen the RPF took Ruhengeri, and the 'interim government'forces decam ped to Gisenyi, NG Os began to report a hum an tide,greater even than that which had descended upon Tanzania.Some 10,000 people were crossing the border into Goma everyhou r, the fastest exodus ever w itnessed by aid agencies. JohannaGrombach, head of the ICRC in Gom a, described the situation on14 July as 'a hum anita rian catastro phe'. 'The needs are just toomuch,' she said. 'We cannot feed all these people. The medicalneeds are also enormous.'46One million Rw andese d escended on Zaire in the space of a fewdays. They had arrived after day s of walking across moun taino usterrain, exhausted and dehydrated, and desperate to eat, drink,and rest. Many simply lay down and died. In subsequent days,cholera would claim many lives; but the biggest killers appear tohave been dysentery and d iarrhoea, combined w ith exhaustion,dehydra tion, and m alnutrition. Soon, two thousand people weredying every day:

47one person every minute, of every hour. Thedeath rates were without precedent in aid agencies' experience,far higher tha n any tha t had been faced elsewhere.

Aid agencies unpreparedThe Goma crisis found aid agencies unprepared. Those withteams already in place were the International Committee of theRed Cross, MSF-H olland, Oxfam (UK and Ireland), Caritas, andthe UNHCR; but no agency had predicted the sheer scale of thecrisis, nor planned and prepared accordingly. The lack ofpreparedness meant that immediate needs went unmet; pre-positioned food stocks were enough for only a small fraction ofthe refugee population, and there was no equipment in place toprov ide safe water.48But the state of unrea diness also led to decisions being taken thatexacerbated the already despera te situation. The choice of sites forrefugees w as one such example. Because Goma tow n was so over-crowded, refugees had to be sent elsewhere. Tragically, people48


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were directed northwards towards Katale, where there was nosurface water on their route , rather than west, which would havegiven them access to water (from Lake Kivu) on their journey . Asone journalist wo uld pu t it, 'It was a decision tha t was effectivelyto pass a dea th sentence on man y people.'49There was further confusion over whether refugees should beencouraged to return to Rw anda, or wh ether the situation in Zaireshou ld be stabilised first. Different agencies disagreed with eachother, and the UN's policy appeared to change several times.What was clear to all the agencies was that their combinedcapacity w as too small for their enorm ous task; on 18 July Oxfamargued that only a massive and immediate airlift could hope toimprove the situation.The problem of co-ordinationUNHCR, having taken over responsibility for those in need oncethey had crossed into Zaire, allocated different tasks to differentagencies. By 20 July, many NGOs had established a presence, butmost of the work was carried out by ICRC (food supplies), MSF(health care), Oxfam (water supplies) and CARE (non-fooditems). Later, the World Food Program me took the lead in truck-ing and flying food to Goma. As the news m edia began to coverthe situation in Goma, more and more governm ents offered fundsand practical help, including the USA, the UK, France, Germany,the Netherlands, and New Zealand.While these offers were widely welcomed, the operationaleffectiveness of these initiatives was compromised by theunwillingness of some governments to consult and co-ordinatewith the aid agencies already in place. Nicholas Stockton,Oxfam's Em ergencies Co-ordination M anager, gave one exampleof two different approaches:

The build-up of the international relief response is moving w ith extremerapidity, although unco-ordinated bilateral decision-making in manynational capitals and the headquarters of international aid organisations

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is causing enormous confusion on the ground.... From our discussionshere with GTZ [German technical aid department], it appears that theirinterpretation of 'tasking' implies that they take full responsibility forthe water and sanitation sector, a role which will include fundingexisting work ofNG Os, as well as adding new operational componentsof their own. In contrast, the officer in charge of the US water project in

Documents

Rwanda: An Agenda for International Action