Africa

by Guy Arnold

  No accurate figures for the genocide of 1994 exist though eventually 800,000 was settled upon as a reasonable estimate for the toll of four months’ slaughter although the total has sometimes been put at one million. A report commissioned by the United Nations and published in 1999 blamed the United Nations for having failed to act on the eve of genocide and then for failing to halt the killings once they had begun. Warrants were issued throughout the year by the ICTR leading to the arrests in several countries of people accused of perpetrating genocide. One such arrest was of Georges Ruggio, a Belgian who had worked as an announcer for the Hutu radio station Mille Collines; he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by the ICTR in Arusha. A life sentence was imposed by the same court on the former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda and upheld on appeal by the UN appeals court in The Hague. These were high-profile cases. Another 125,000 remained in prison or detention centres accused of genocide and awaiting trial. The process of retribution was slow. Arguments about the ‘whys’ will continue for many years. One argument advanced by Hutus was that killing Tutsis, all Tutsis, was not genocide but necessary in a war situation where 90 per cent of the Tutsis sympathized with the invading RPF. According to François Xavier Nkurunziza, a Hutu lawyer, the dilemma was how so many Hutu had allowed themselves to kill. He said: ‘Conformity is deep, very developed here. In Rwandan culture, everyone obeys authority. People revere power, and there isn’t enough education. You take a poor, ignorant population, and give them arms, and say “It’s yours. Kill.” They’ll obey.’ This is too simplistic a view but not to be ignored. During the RPF advances and victories over 1990–93 many thousands of Hutus were displaced. Thus, 89,000 displaced Hutus in 1990 rose to 350,000 by May 1992 and to 950,000 following the RPF February offensive of 1993.8 Robert Kajuga, a founding member of the Interahamwe, said: ‘It’s a war against the Tutsis because they want to take power, and we Hutus are more numerous. Most Tutsis support the RPF, so they fight and they kill. We have to defend our country. The government authorizes us. We go in behind the army. We watch them and we learn.’9 His statement, ‘We have to defend our country’ describes accurately the divide that previous massacres and confrontations had brought about. The invading RPF, though they had originated from Rwanda, were no longer seen as citizens of Rwanda by the Hutus but as foreign invaders. When the genocide is analysed in this way it becomes apparent how easy genocide may become. In 1994 the UN was faced with a clear choice. Lawlessness had increased rapidly from February when people had been killed in front of the UN troops who did not intervene. Then, ‘The slaughter of the prime minister and the 10 Belgian soldiers sent to protect her, right inside the UN compound, presented the UN with a clear choice: either increase the size of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) force and change its mandate, or pull out. The UN chose to all but pull out.’10 In a war the demonizing of opponents makes easier the task of justifying extreme measures against them – that is, atrocities. What was clearly deeply troubling about the Rwanda genocide was that people whose professions are most associated with valuing life such as doctors, nurses, priests and teachers became involved in taking it. The Roman Catholic Church was the originator of the Hamitic hypothesis – that the Tutsi had come from elsewhere and imposed themselves on the Hutus and this view was adopted by the Belgians as the colonial power. The Church provided the lay personnel who permeated every local community and helped distinguish Hutu from Tutsi in every neighbourhood: without the Church there would have been no ‘racial’ census in Rwanda.11 In 1994 Tutsi power replaced Hutu power in Rwanda, at least for the time being, while it was abundantly clear that only an armed peace between the two groups was possible into the foreseeable future. As with all major crimes, the originators seek to implicate as many people as possible in what they are doing. They appear to have had little difficulty in doing this in Rwanda but were greatly helped by a history of massacres stretching back over four decades.

  In his short term as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali faced two especially fraught problems in Africa: the first in Somalia, the second in Rwanda. When the peace agreement had been successfully concluded in Arusha on 9 August 1993, the Security Council was asked by the parties to the agreement to establish UNAMIR to monitor the peace agreement and assist in maintaining the security of Kigali as well as providing humanitarian assistance and help with refugee repatriation. Boutros-Ghali appointed Gen. Romeo Dallaire of Canada as force commander and Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, a former minister of Cameroon, as the Secretary-General’s special representative in Rwanda. In January 1994 Gen. Dallaire sent a cable to the United Nations to report an informant’s claim that weapons were being stockpiled by Hutu forces in preparation for mass killings of Tutsis. Dallaire requested permission to seize the weapons. The request was refused by the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO) because the mandate did not cover such action. However, on 12 January, on UN instructions, Dallaire relayed this information to the ambassadors of Belgium, France and the United States; thus, the powers, which could have acted to stop genocide, had been informed. Then came the deaths of the two presidents on 6 April and two explanations were advanced to cover this event: that they had been killed by Hutu extremists who opposed the concessions they were making to the Tutsis; or, as Hutu leaders claimed, it was the Tutsis. Whichever explanation was accepted their deaths set off the genocide. Following the killing of the 10 Belgian soldiers guarding the prime minister, Belgium panicked and its foreign minister asked Boutros-Ghali to withdraw all UN forces from Rwanda since Belgium had decided to withdraw its entire contingent, which was the biggest part of the UN force at that time. They were, as Boutros-Ghali says, suffering from the ‘American syndrome’. He asked them to leave their heavy weapons behind to be used by the remaining UN troops but they took them all with them. On 13 April Boutros-Ghali sent a letter to the Security Council to say the Belgian withdrawal made it difficult for the UN operation to continue unless they were replaced by another well-equipped contingent. He said he had requested the force commander and his special representative to draw up plans for the withdrawal of the UN mission unless it received additional forces. The United States, Britain and France reacted indignantly to his suggestion. US Ambassador Madeleine Albright suggested a ‘small, skeletal’ operation be left in Kigali ‘to show the will of the international community’ and that ‘later, the Council might see what could be done about giving an effective mandate’. It is difficult to think of a more pusillanimous response to a major crisis than this from the world’s only superpower.

  However, the United States withdrew still further from the possibility of any commitment for on 3 May, as massacres raged in Rwanda, President Clinton signed PDD 13 – Presidential Decision Document (later renumbered 25) which ‘dealt a deadly blow to co-operative multilateral action to maintain peace and security. Entitled “The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations”, the new rules were so tightly drawn as to scope, mission, duration, resources, and risk that only the easiest, cheapest, and safest peacekeeping operations could be approved under them and many current UN operations could not. It was the end of what Madeleine Albright two years earlier had declared to be a policy of “assertive multilateralism”. A headline declared, THE US WASHES ITS HANDS OF THE WORLD.’12

  Following the publication of PDD25, Albright argued with the Security Council that the new Clinton conditions should apply before Resolution 918 of 17 May, which increased the strength and expanded the mandate of UNAMIR, was carried out. This meant a ceasefire had to be in place; the parties agree to a UN presence; and UNAMIR should not engage in peace enforcement unless what was happening in Rwanda was a significant threat to international peace and security. Were troops, funds and equipment available and what was the exit strategy? Thus, the US advanced serious objections to a large peace enforcement mission in Rwanda. Recalling Somalia (a key US consideration) Albright said ‘the parties to the conflict would use force to oppo
se such a mission’. These objections, Boutros-Ghali argued, were hypocritical when, by then, everybody knew that the enlarged mission was to prevent genocide. As the Secretary-General argues in his memoirs: ‘The behaviour of the Security Council was shocking; it meekly followed the United States’ lead in denying the reality of genocide. Although it was a clear case of genocide, US spokesmen were obviously under instructions to avoid the term in order to avoid having to fulfil their treaty obligations under the 1949 Genocide Convention. US representatives simply said that “acts of genocide may have occurred and need to be investigated”.’13 The United States would not even jam the hate radio station Mille Collines because to do so would be too expensive. On 27 May Boutros-Ghali saw Clinton in the Oval Office but he evaded talk of Rwanda. ‘On that same day, May 27 1994, I told the press that Rwanda was a scandal. It is genocide… and more than 200,000 people have been killed, but the international community is still debating what to do.’ Later, Boutros-Ghali said, ‘The US effort to prevent the effective deployment of a UN force for Rwanda succeeded with the strong support of Britain.’14 Boutros-Ghali’s account of the indifference, obstruction and refusal to admit that genocide was taking place on the part of the United States, which was determined not to become involved, ably supported by Britain, makes disgraceful reading. Dallaire complained bitterly at the inaction of the Security Council and pointed out that an early and determined effort to get troops and resources on the ground could have saved so many lives.

  The French initiative, Operation Turquoise, was launched on 23 June 1994, and authorized by Security Council Resolution 929 to continue until 21 August 1994. The French sent 2,500 troops to establish a ‘humanitarian protected zone’ in south-west Rwanda that covered about one fifth of the country’s territory. This French action was controversial since some observers claimed that the French were using their area of operation to provide a refuge for France’s Hutu friends who had launched the genocide. Others pointed out that the French zone served to protect large numbers of civilians threatened by the slaughter. By 1 August UNAMIR was still a long way from the target of 5,500 troops authorized on 17 May. Nineteen countries had originally pledged 30,000 troops but endless wrangles ensued as troops from one country had to be matched to resources from another country. At the beginning of August there were still fewer than 500 troops on the ground as the French began to withdraw. By August the RPF had established control over most of Rwanda. ‘The RPF’s swift advance and inflammatory broadcasts by its radio stations caused masses of Hutus to flee into neighbouring Zaïre.’15 The saga of Rwanda, as told by the UN Secretary-General, revealed both the United Nations and the permanent members of the Security Council at their worst.

  The American journalist Scott Peterson provides a grim picture of genocide in action. ‘No system of genocide ever devised has been more efficient: the daily kill rate was five times that of the Nazi death camps. Extremist Hutu officials, army commanders, and militia thugs conspired to eliminate all Tutsis and moderate Hutus and to draw every Hutu into complicity… The daily death rate averaged well more than 11,500 for two months, with surges as high as 45,000. During this peak, one murder was committed every two seconds of every minute, of every hour, for days; an affliction befitting the apocalypse.’16 Peterson suggests that three pillars upheld the Rwandan genocide: Hutu fear of the Tutsis and consequent detailed preparations to exterminate the ‘Tutsi’ problem; the acquiescence of the Catholic Church as those preparations became irreversible; and the French government role in propping up the doomed regime – even during the genocide – with cash and weapons. French policy was to uphold a pro-French Hutu regime even as it was collapsing, and France had clear complicity in genocide. France, Peterson argues, saw itself losing a cultural battle to the Uganda-UK backed Tutsi. He should have added a fourth condition: the indifference and determination of the United States and Britain to do nothing. Although the world had condemned genocide ever since 1945 and was committed through the United Nations to take action should genocide arise, in the case of Rwanda the major players stood by and did nothing. So determined was Washington not to become involved in another Somalia that ‘The bosses of some Security Council ambassadors received telephone calls from Washington, requesting that they “lay off” the Rwandan issue, and certainly shy away from using the word “genocide”.’17 In the end, all the members of the UN Security Council appeared more concerned to placate Washington and fall in with the US view on Rwanda than take – or try to take – appropriate action, with the UN calling genocide a ‘humanitarian’ crisis. In Rwanda the Secretary-General’s special representative, Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, described the killing as a ‘free for all’ despite the evidence to the contrary. The Washington Post commented at the height of the killing: ‘As terrified UN peacekeepers evacuated Rwanda, other nations consoled themselves with the hope that the butchers would grow weary of the killing. This once seemed to us a likely prospect too, but it does no more. The savagery continues unabated. Anguished international onlookers, including Americans, now comprehend more fully the awful consequences of standing on the sidelines.’18 Fuller comprehension, unfortunately, did not bring more action.

  In compensation for not acting to stop the genocide, the United States did a great deal to succour the huge numbers of refugees who had fled to the neighbouring countries, especially Zaïre, with its ‘Operation Sustain Hope’. Then came the apologies. In May 1998 Kofi Annan, by then Secretary-General, made a visit to Rwanda and admitted that ‘the world failed Rwanda at that time of evil’ and ‘must deeply regret this failure’. Annan had been beaten to the task by Bill Clinton, slickest of all US presidents, who landed at Kigali airport on 25 March 1998 and spent three and a half hours there. He did not leave the airport and the engines of Air Force One were not switched off, presumably in case the President had to leave in a hurry. The President, who had forbidden his diplomats to use the G word during the Rwandan holocaust, now used it 12 times in a speech in which he said: ‘We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide.’19

  BURUNDI

  Burundi may not have indulged in genocide, though that is debatable, but over the years 1993 to 2000 some 200,000 people were killed in its civil war. President Pierre Buyoya held Burundi’s first ever multiparty presidential elections on 1 June 1993. He was defeated by Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu to become president. Tutsis immediately demonstrated against his victory and the army attempted to carry out a coup at the time of Ndadaye’s inauguration. That attempt failed but on 21 October the army carried out a successful, bloody coup in which President Ndadaye was killed. Massacres followed in many parts of the country and by the end of the month, according to the UNHCR, more than 500,000 refugees had fled the country – 342,000 into Rwanda, 214,000 into Tanzania and 21,000 into Zaïre. By mid-November estimates suggested that as many as 150,000 people had been killed. The OAU created a force of 200 soldiers to protect ministers while relief agencies tried to cope with the refugees whose numbers had risen to 800,000 of whom 100 a day were dying. By 21 December 1993 about 1.5 million out of a population of 5.6 million had fled their homes to escape violence and by then up to 150 a day were dying. On 13 January 1994 the National Assembly appointed Cyprien Ntaryamina, also a Hutu, as President. About 100,000 refugees then returned home. The violence continued. According to the findings of an international commission the greater part of the army, which was Tutsi, had been involved, actively or passively, in the first unsuccessful coup attempt and then in the second successful one. Estimates of deaths to this point ranged wildly from 25,000 to 200,000. President Ntaryamina was killed on 6 April 1994 in the plane he shared with Rwanda’s Habyarimana but while that event was the spark that set off the genocide in Rwanda it did not lead to a similar breakdown in Burundi. The speaker of the assembly, Sylvestre Ntibantunganga, became president. However, Hutu extremists in Burundi now began to make contact with their counterparts in the refugee camps o
utside the country, which soon contained many exiles from Rwanda. Burundi experienced a state of low-intensity civil war through 1994 in which unofficial Tutsi militia were supported by the army. Hutu guerrilla groups recruited supporters from the refugee camps and violence increased during the second half of the year so that by the end of the year the United Nations reported that three to four soldiers were being killed daily and about 200 civilians weekly.

  In February 1996 the UN warned that civil war was taking place in many parts of Burundi and recommended that the world should take preventive action rather than wait for another bout of genocide. There were signs that neighbouring countries were prepared to intervene to prevent further killing. On 25 June 1996, at a regional summit in Arusha, Burundi reluctantly accepted the principle of international intervention although the next month Prime Minister Antoine Nduwayo reversed this position and came out against any international peacekeeping operation. Following a massacre of 300 Tutsis at Bugendera in mid-July, another coup was mounted by the army on the 25th of the month and Pierre Buyoya was installed in his former job. He said: ‘We have done this to avoid genocide. We want to restore peace and protect the population.’ In reaction to the coup, Burundi’s neighbours – Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Zaïre – imposed sanctions. In mid-September Hutu rebels claimed that 10,000 people had been killed since the coup. By 1997 Buyoya was carrying on an all-out war against the Hutu rebels and defence expenditure for the year had increased by 70 per cent over 1996. Many Hutu peasants were moved into ‘regroupement camps’ to prevent them assisting the guerrillas. The fighting and massacres continued into 1998. Fighting around Bujumbura, the capital, broke out in January and continued through to April by which time 20,000 people had been forced to leave their homes. On 7 April 1998, Human Rights Watch (New York) published a report accusing both the government and the Hutu rebels of responsibility for ‘a massive campaign of military violence’ which had resulted in thousands of civilians being killed, raped or tortured. By the late 1990s on-off civil war appeared to have become the norm with no solution in sight. Between 1993 and 1999 the Tutsi army–Hutu rebel killings had accounted for some 250,000 lives. ‘The fighting nowadays is low-intensity, but it remains vicious, marked by massacres and arbitrary killings.’