FROM RWANDA- APRIL 9, 2014- screams.... why are u letting Syria become another Rwanda United Nations???? It's bad enough that $$$$billion Muslim countries shame themselves by DOING NOTHING... but United Nations u promised- Never Again Another Rwanda- u lie...again... 1 million syrians crowding Lebanon and 500,000 crowding Jordan.... ruining all these nations who have no capacity 2 care 4 these beautiful humans....
UNITED NATIONS SHAME - 1993 and 1994 RWANDA 2014- SYRIA
United Nations was formed on top of the Jewish Holocaust 2 be the saviours of humanity... especially children, women and elders.... and what's worse they cannot be held accountable.... SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
----------------
HEY CANADA-
Canada's Ottawa Citizen
Canada must heed the lessons of the Rwandan genocide
By Kyle Matthews, Ottawa CitizenApril 7, 2014 8:34 AM
Photograph by: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images
Two decades ago, in a remote corner of Africa, far from the eyes of the western media, a massacre was unleashed like no other in modern times.
Within 100 days of violence, an estimated 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda.
Roméo Dallaire, now a senator, led the UN peacekeeping force when the genocide began. While he did everything in his power to protect Rwandans, many countries disregarded their legal responsibility to take action as signatories of the Genocide Convention.
Those responsible for the Rwandan genocide are of course the Rwandans who planned and implemented a nearly successful extermination of the ethnic Tutsi minority. The 20th anniversary offers an opportunity to dispel the myth that knowledge of the genocide did not penetrate the executive branch of government in national capitals across the globe.
Many historians and human rights activists have been critical of how western governments stood on the sidelines in 1994. Much of the blame is directed at the U.S. for not supporting the UN peacekeeping force.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has always remained tight-lipped about Rwanda. At a public speaking engagement in Toronto in 2009, Clinton was caught off guard when asked by Frank McKenna why he didn’t do more to help Rwanda. “It’s one of the two or three things I regret most about my presidency. By the time we thought of doing something about it, it was over... I don’t think we could have saved 800,000 lives [in Rwanda] but I think I might have saved 250,000 to 400,000. And that’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life.” Clinton responded emotionally.
While the U.S. bears the brunt of much criticism because it held a seat on the UN Security Council and had the military capacity to respond, attention needs to be directed at other countries who abdicated their responsibility. Canada is no exception.
In 2009 the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies released a policy report that demonstrated the official narrative that Ottawa “did not know” what was taking place in Rwanda was more fiction than fact.
Former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, as president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, travelled to Rwanda two years before the genocide took place. He was troubled by the hate speech being broadcast by local radio stations in Kigali against the Tutsi minority and upon his return met with officials at External Affairs to press the Canadian government to do something. No evidence was found that Ottawa acted on these early warning signs of genocide.
Canadian aid continued to flow into Rwanda and the country never received a diplomatic scolding. Another year passed before Canada offered up Dallaire to the UN in 1993. External Affairs did not share Broadbent’s warnings with the Department of National Defence.
Once the genocide began in April 1994 Canada moved one aircraft that was serving the UN operations in the Balkans to help ferry supplies between Nairobi and Kigali. Robert Fowler, deputy minister of Defence at the time, followed the situation closely and was the only high level Western official to travel to Rwanda in the midst of the crisis, visiting in mid-May. Upon returning to Ottawa he wrote a memo urging for a change in government policy and warned Canada’s inaction would be “irrelevant to the historians who chronicle the near-elimination of a tribe while the white world’s accountants count and foreign policy specialists machinate.”
The document eventually made its way to the Lester B. Pearson building where a deputy minister wrote across the first page of the memo in red ink “not in Canada’s national interest.” This terminated any possibility of Canadian leadership.
While Rwanda looms large in our national psyche because of Dallaire and his personal story of not giving up in the face of great odds, the simple fact is that Canada, like many other countries, abandoned Rwanda in its greatest hour of need.
The international community failed in protecting Rwandans because of the actions of national governments. While real progress has been made since with the creation of the International Criminal Court and the advancement of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, largely in part due to Canadian leadership, much more needs to be done. Last week, foreign affairs minister John Baird spoke at the International Conference on the Prevention of Genocide in Brussels and reminded everyone in attendance that “states have a solemn duty to defend the vulnerable, challenge aggressors, protect human rights and promote human dignity, both at home and abroad.”
If Canada is serious about heeding the lessons of the Rwandan genocide and becoming an international leader in making “never again” a reality, then it must communicate to Canadians the importance of strengthening national and internationals mechanisms that improve global governance and protect human rights. It is the least we can do to honour genocide and mass atrocity survivors everywhere.
Kyle Matthews is a Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=9706313&sponsor=
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RWANDA- GLOBAL MEDIA SILENCE.... ONLY ROMEO DALLAIRE
HAD THE COURAGE 2 GIVE A SHEET- G7 countries, United Nations and World's media
totally ignored Rwanda.....
Teaching
Sunday School class in 1994 - and dicussion came about on gorillas being killed
and seen in Rwanda- so many dead... then it trickled out... hundreds of
thousands of dead innocents- and the
world kept in the dark.... can u imagine what it was like trying 2 calm 70 kids
at Catechism???? we had the parents in and prayed our rosary and talked
openly.... about the importance of life... and made up letters and cards 2 send
2 Prime Minister Chretien.... and 2 Rwanda.... our children were 11 and 12 years
old...
100
Days of Silence
--------------
UN
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT- UN PEACEKEEPERS NOT ALLOWED 2 PROTECT INNOCENTS ....
unless enemy draws weapons on peacekeepers-
and global media ignored totally.... THE WORLD'S SHAME- OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASSES WEPT IN CANADA...
THEN WE FELT SHAME... which should not have been Canadians or everyday
people....
Shake
Hands With the Devil - Trailer
--------------
During
Rwanda- UN-NATO-G7 stood up 4 white countries... ignoring black
nations
The
failure Of the UN in RWANDA.wmv
----------
Witness
To Evil: Roméo Dallaire and Rwanda
With
more than 800,000 people slaughtered in 100 days the Rwandan genocide stands as
one of the most horrific mass murders of the past century. In the middle of the
horror was a Canadian peacekeeper whose efforts to avert the tragedy were
thwarted by political apathy and incalculable evil. CBC Digital Archives looks
back at this sad chapter in Africa's history and how Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire
managed to survive to become Canada's most famous casualty of war.
-----------
March 8, 2014- Macleans's Canada
Rwanda genocide survivors lament Syria on eve of 20th anniversary
Survivors haunted by the lessons the world has yet to learn from the slaughter of approximately 800,000 ethnic Tutsis
by The Canadian Press
Alain Ntwali poses for a photo in Ottawa on Friday, April 4, 2014. Ntwali's 100-day ordeal of survival began after he watched his parents die. The 10-year-old moved from house to house, two to three times week, in what would ultimately become a successful attempt to stay one step ahead of the marauding, machete-wielding Hutu militiamen ravaging the Rwandan capital of Kigali. On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what's expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Alain Ntwali poses for a photo in Ottawa on Friday, April 4, 2014. On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what’s expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
OTTAWA – Alain Ntwali’s 100-day ordeal of survival began after he watched his parents die.
The 10-year-old moved from house to house, two to three times a week, in what would ultimately become a successful attempt to stay one step ahead of the marauding, machete-wielding Hutu militiamen ravaging the Rwandan capital of Kigali.
On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what’s expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide.
Ntwali will carry the memories of his deceased parents, and dozens of relatives, who were among the estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis killed in the three months of ethnic slaughter. And he will be haunted by the lessons the world has yet to learn from it.
“What’s happening in Syria, it shouldn’t happen at this time, because we’ve had so many examples of war and genocide. It’s so sad to see this happening these days,” said Ntwali, who is now pursuing a university degree in accounting while managing a local convenience store.
“I really don’t understand what’s going on … why this keeps happening. After what happened in Rwanda, that was a big example of what can happen when the UN doesn’t take big action.”
Then, almost apologetically, Ntwali stops, explaining that he has “no big point” to make, even though he just made one.
Liberal Sen. Romeo Dallaire, the retired general who commanded the failed United Nations peacekeeping force during the genocide, says that the world simply hasn’t learned the fundamental lesson from Rwanda: preventing the slaughter of innocents means taking hard political action, not standing idly by.
Dallaire acknowledged the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, forged with Canada’s help in the wake of Rwanda and the massacre in Srebenica in 1995, which sought to codify the international community’s obligation to confront gross human rights violations. But drafting doctrine is one thing, said Dallaire; pursuing it is quite another.
“We’ve learned a bunch of lessons, we’ve produced a whole bunch of new concepts, the Responsibility to Protect as being the primary one, but we don’t seem to have the politicians who have the ability to become statesmen and take the risks of applying it,” he said.
“That’s why Syria festers and we go in half, into Libya, and we’ve still got the Congo.”
History has since recognized that Dallaire tried to sound the alarm on the impending genocide, but his warnings fell on deaf ears at UN headquarters.
Since then, Canada and the world has gradually seemed to retreat from the shared responsibility to protect fellow human beings, Dallaire said, citing in particular the sense that the Conservative government wants little to do with the UN.
“Our push back from the UN, our push back from wanting to engage in complex missions where they need our technology, where they need our skills, they need the competencies that we have, that’s absolutely irresponsible to humanity,” he said.
“What the world should remember is how we abandoned human beings in one part of the world. We just have not established the criteria that all humans count, and not just the ones that meet our self-interest.”
Dallaire’s efforts in Rwanda will be remembered by Monday’s marchers, even though the retired general has been tormented by what he failed to do — stop the slaughter.
In the years that followed, Dallaire suffered post-traumatic stress. He waged a life-and-death battle against his personal demons that he publicly shared — a gesture that helped to lift the stigma associated with mental illness for other Canadian soldiers.
“I think he did the best that he could,” said Ntwali.
He said Dallaire shares the same thing as his fellow Rwandan genocide survivors: the legacy of that feeling of helplessness in the face of dead bodies, literally piling up, before their eyes.
“It’s not an easy thing for him and I hope he will find peace in his heart and he will be able to go forward with all those bad memories.”
Before they were killed, Ntwali remembers his father and mother as thriving business people, happily running a bicycle shop. They died along with 40 to 45 “or even more” extended family — aunts, uncles, cousins. Ntwali’s three brothers and two sisters escaped to start new lives in Rwanda and in Europe.
Ntwali himself came to Canada in 2005 to study at the University of Quebec in Gatineau after graduating high school in Rwanda. He has since married and now has a 22-month-old daughter.
“I’m can say I am a happy man. I’m going to school, I’m working,” he said.
“I’m good. I’m leading my life.”
POSTED ON:
Sunday, April 6, 2014
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/rwanda-genocide-survivors-lament-syria-on-eve-of-20th-anniversary/
-----------------
---------------------
March 8, 2014- Macleans's Canada
Rwanda genocide survivors lament Syria on eve of 20th anniversary
Survivors haunted by the lessons the world has yet to learn from the slaughter of approximately 800,000 ethnic Tutsis
by The Canadian Press
Alain Ntwali poses for a photo in Ottawa on Friday, April 4, 2014. Ntwali's 100-day ordeal of survival began after he watched his parents die. The 10-year-old moved from house to house, two to three times week, in what would ultimately become a successful attempt to stay one step ahead of the marauding, machete-wielding Hutu militiamen ravaging the Rwandan capital of Kigali. On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what's expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Alain Ntwali poses for a photo in Ottawa on Friday, April 4, 2014. On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what’s expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
OTTAWA – Alain Ntwali’s 100-day ordeal of survival began after he watched his parents die.
The 10-year-old moved from house to house, two to three times a week, in what would ultimately become a successful attempt to stay one step ahead of the marauding, machete-wielding Hutu militiamen ravaging the Rwandan capital of Kigali.
On Monday, the 30-year-old man will join a procession of what’s expected to be 200 others as they march silently through the streets from Parliament Hill to Ottawa City Hall in memory of the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide.
Ntwali will carry the memories of his deceased parents, and dozens of relatives, who were among the estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis killed in the three months of ethnic slaughter. And he will be haunted by the lessons the world has yet to learn from it.
“What’s happening in Syria, it shouldn’t happen at this time, because we’ve had so many examples of war and genocide. It’s so sad to see this happening these days,” said Ntwali, who is now pursuing a university degree in accounting while managing a local convenience store.
“I really don’t understand what’s going on … why this keeps happening. After what happened in Rwanda, that was a big example of what can happen when the UN doesn’t take big action.”
Then, almost apologetically, Ntwali stops, explaining that he has “no big point” to make, even though he just made one.
Liberal Sen. Romeo Dallaire, the retired general who commanded the failed United Nations peacekeeping force during the genocide, says that the world simply hasn’t learned the fundamental lesson from Rwanda: preventing the slaughter of innocents means taking hard political action, not standing idly by.
Dallaire acknowledged the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, forged with Canada’s help in the wake of Rwanda and the massacre in Srebenica in 1995, which sought to codify the international community’s obligation to confront gross human rights violations. But drafting doctrine is one thing, said Dallaire; pursuing it is quite another.
“We’ve learned a bunch of lessons, we’ve produced a whole bunch of new concepts, the Responsibility to Protect as being the primary one, but we don’t seem to have the politicians who have the ability to become statesmen and take the risks of applying it,” he said.
“That’s why Syria festers and we go in half, into Libya, and we’ve still got the Congo.”
History has since recognized that Dallaire tried to sound the alarm on the impending genocide, but his warnings fell on deaf ears at UN headquarters.
Since then, Canada and the world has gradually seemed to retreat from the shared responsibility to protect fellow human beings, Dallaire said, citing in particular the sense that the Conservative government wants little to do with the UN.
“Our push back from the UN, our push back from wanting to engage in complex missions where they need our technology, where they need our skills, they need the competencies that we have, that’s absolutely irresponsible to humanity,” he said.
“What the world should remember is how we abandoned human beings in one part of the world. We just have not established the criteria that all humans count, and not just the ones that meet our self-interest.”
Dallaire’s efforts in Rwanda will be remembered by Monday’s marchers, even though the retired general has been tormented by what he failed to do — stop the slaughter.
In the years that followed, Dallaire suffered post-traumatic stress. He waged a life-and-death battle against his personal demons that he publicly shared — a gesture that helped to lift the stigma associated with mental illness for other Canadian soldiers.
“I think he did the best that he could,” said Ntwali.
He said Dallaire shares the same thing as his fellow Rwandan genocide survivors: the legacy of that feeling of helplessness in the face of dead bodies, literally piling up, before their eyes.
“It’s not an easy thing for him and I hope he will find peace in his heart and he will be able to go forward with all those bad memories.”
Before they were killed, Ntwali remembers his father and mother as thriving business people, happily running a bicycle shop. They died along with 40 to 45 “or even more” extended family — aunts, uncles, cousins. Ntwali’s three brothers and two sisters escaped to start new lives in Rwanda and in Europe.
Ntwali himself came to Canada in 2005 to study at the University of Quebec in Gatineau after graduating high school in Rwanda. He has since married and now has a 22-month-old daughter.
“I’m can say I am a happy man. I’m going to school, I’m working,” he said.
“I’m good. I’m leading my life.”
POSTED ON:
Sunday, April 6, 2014
http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/rwanda-genocide-survivors-lament-syria-on-eve-of-20th-anniversary/
-----------------
WANDA- April 7 2014-United Nations/G7/International Media's complete betrayal of r Rwanda-THE FACTS ABOUT RWANDA- I was teaching Sunday School 2 over 70 Grade 5 and 6 kids- it started out about so many dead gorillas in Rwanda- ended with Sunday School writing 2 PM Chretien about the heartbreak of 800,000 innocents slaughtered on UN Watch/Romeo Dallaire and couple UN Peacekeepers n others saved some innocents that world threw away
G 7
NATIONS/UNITED NATIONS AND GLOBAL MEDIA... TOTALLY IGNORED OUR RWANDA.....
Canadians became livid...horrified...
Rwandan Genocide:
Crisis in Central Africa
Crisis in Central Africa
In 1994, during a 100-day period
approximately 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were brutally murdered
in the Rwandan genocide.
Extract From: BBC
Rwanda: How the genocide happened June 07, 2001
Extract From: BBC
Rwanda: How the genocide happened June 07, 2001
Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000
Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days. Most of the dead were Tutsis -
and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.
Even for a country with such a turbulent history as Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left its people reeling.
The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.
Within hours, a campaign of violence spread from the capital throughout the country, and did not subside until three months later. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm
Even for a country with such a turbulent history as Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left its people reeling.
The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.
Within hours, a campaign of violence spread from the capital throughout the country, and did not subside until three months later. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm
An embarrassed United Nations was struggling to
defend itself yesterday following the discovery that a data recorder, that may
have come from an aircraft shot down in 1994 while carrying the presidents of
Rwanda and Burundi, had been hidden in a locked drawer in New York for 10
years.
Called a "first class foul-up" by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the affair surfaced after questions were put to UN officials earlier last week by reporters from Le Monde newspaper of France. The world body initially responded by ridiculing the suggestion it had the recorder. But, by Thursday, it found itself performing a humiliating about-face.
The chief UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, confirmed a recorder that could have come from the aircraft had been found in a drawer in the Air Safety Unit of the UN, in a building across the road from its New York headquarters. He further admitted it had apparently never been opened, nor its tapes analysed.
news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=500710
Called a "first class foul-up" by UN secretary general Kofi Annan, the affair surfaced after questions were put to UN officials earlier last week by reporters from Le Monde newspaper of France. The world body initially responded by ridiculing the suggestion it had the recorder. But, by Thursday, it found itself performing a humiliating about-face.
The chief UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, confirmed a recorder that could have come from the aircraft had been found in a drawer in the Air Safety Unit of the UN, in a building across the road from its New York headquarters. He further admitted it had apparently never been opened, nor its tapes analysed.
news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=500710
The Assassination of former Rwandan President Habyarimana?
March 12, 2004, By Robin Philpot
Extract From: guardian.co.uk
UN investigates 'loss' of Rwanda black box March 12, 2004
Extract From: guardian.co.uk
UN investigates 'loss' of Rwanda black box March 12, 2004
An independent report on the UN role in the
genocide, commissioned by Mr Annan, concluded in 1999 that the organisation and
its member states lacked the political will and resources to prevent or stop
the genocide.
The US, in particular, blunted any efforts to get the security council more deeply involved in the Rwanda crisis in 1994. Mr Annan and then-US president Bill Clinton both apologised to Rwandans in the late 1990s for the failure of will that allowed the genocide to continue unchecked.
According to Le Monde, the six-year investigation led by France's leading anti-terrorism judge concludes that the chief suspect in the fatal attack on the plane is former Tutsi rebel leader turned president, Paul Kagame.
The magistrate has concluded that Mr Kagame gave direct orders to fire two rockets at the plane on April 6 1994, the paper says. Mr Kagame denied yesterday that he or his former rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), were responsible.
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1168183,00.html
The US, in particular, blunted any efforts to get the security council more deeply involved in the Rwanda crisis in 1994. Mr Annan and then-US president Bill Clinton both apologised to Rwandans in the late 1990s for the failure of will that allowed the genocide to continue unchecked.
According to Le Monde, the six-year investigation led by France's leading anti-terrorism judge concludes that the chief suspect in the fatal attack on the plane is former Tutsi rebel leader turned president, Paul Kagame.
The magistrate has concluded that Mr Kagame gave direct orders to fire two rockets at the plane on April 6 1994, the paper says. Mr Kagame denied yesterday that he or his former rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), were responsible.
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1168183,00.html
Timeline: Rwanda - A chronology of key events BBC
Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda hrw.org
Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda hrw.org
History
According to many scholars, Hutus first settled
in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa between five hundred and one
thousand BC. Generally speaking, Hutus were an agricultural people who lived in
large family groups.
The Tutsis, also known as Watutsis, were a nomadic people who began arriving in the Great Lakes region from Ethiopia some four hundred years ago. Eventually, the Tutsis settled amongst the Hutus - adopting their language, beliefs and customs.
But economic differences between the groups soon began to form. The Tutsis as cattle-herders were often in a position of economic dominance to the soil-tilling Hutus. That is not to say that all Tutsis were wealthy and all Hutus were poor, but in many areas, like Rwanda, the minority Tutsis ruled the Hutus.
According to some historians, like Congolese Professor George Izangola, the only difference between the two groups were economic, rather than ethnic. In a 1996 interview with Charlayne Hunter Gault, Professor Izangola explained:
"In Rwanda, the Tutsi and the Hutu are the same people. They are all people--large grouping or communities which go from seven regions of Cameroon to Uganda--all the way to South Africa, in the same culture," Izangola said. "People used to be Tutsi or Hutu, depending on the proximity to the king. If you were close to the king, you owned wealth, you owned a lot of cattle, you are a Tutsi. If you are far away from the king, you are a cultivator, you don't own much cattle, you are a Hutu."
Germans and, after World War I, Belgians colonized the region. A 1934 Belgian census arbitrarily classified anyone owning more than 10 cows as a Tutsi. Roman Catholic schools educated Tutsis and largely ignored Hutus. But after the Second World War, as decolonization began to sweep Africa, the Belgians did an abrupt about-face.
Colonial rule, which began in the late 19th Century, did nothing to bring the groups together. The Belgians, who ruled what would later become Rwanda and Burundi, forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards. The colonial administrators further exacerbated divisions by only allowing Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power.
The modern conflict
Following independence in 1962, Ruanda-Urundi split into two countries: Rwanda and Burundi. In Rwanda, the Hutu majority lashed out at the minority Tutsis - killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Uganda. In Burundi, the minority Tutsis maintained their control of the military and government through a campaign of violence against the Hutus. Although they lost multi-party elections in 1993, two assassinations and a military coup have allowed the Tutsis to remain in power.
When Yoweri Museveni, a rebel leader of Tutsi descent, seized power in Uganda in 1986, it was largely through the assistance of Rwandan Tutsis. With a power base in Uganda, the Rwandan Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and began attacks against the Hutu-led government. After years of fighting, the Rwandan government launched a genocidal campaign against Tutsis living in Rwanda. According to reports, over 800,000 people were slaughtered over a period of 100 days.
Eventually, the tide turned against the Hutus and the Rwanda Patriotic Front defeated the Rwandan Army, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, mostly to Tanzania and Zaire.
From refugee camps in Zaire, Hutus continued the fighting by launching cross-border raids on Tutsis and moderate Hutus living in Rwanda and Uganda. When Zaire's government, led by President Mobuto, was unable or unwilling to assert control over his eastern frontier, the Tutsi governments of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi backed a rebellion that toppled the state. The rebel leader they supported, Laurent Kabila, renamed Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When the Hutu raids continued, the Tutsi-led states encouraged a second rebellion against Kabila.
With Tutsi rebels continuing to fight in the former Zaire and Hutus waging guerilla battles in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, the ethnic strife that sparked the slaughters in Rwanda continue to infect the region.
The main problem is a problem of power. In Rwanda, you had a majority in power. You have these divisions called Tutsi, Hutu, and in Rwanda, you had the Hutu in power, and the minority Tutsi excluded. In Burundi, it was the other way around. You had the minority Tutsis in power, and the majority excluded. And this is--this is the problem we have to deal with, that power, really virtually since independence has been in the hands of the minority, supported by the army. And that is really basically the problem we are dealing with.
The solution will be a reconciliation. We'll have--we will have to negotiate a system under which both the majority and the minority feel reasonably happy.
The biggest obstacle at present is that those who are in power, the minority--the minority is in power--they are like one riding on the back of a tiger. And they really want almost a water-tight assurance before they get off the back of the tiger because they feel if they get off the back of the tiger it will eat them.
The problems we are now handling in Africa, some of the mess we're trying to clean up in the continent we have inherited, the mess of the borders we have inherited.
The colonial powers drew the borders
Yes. The colonial powers and some none colonial powers in Africa have supported regimes which are very corrupt. I think now they should stop backing these corrupt regimes and let Africans in their own way try and establish regimes which can care about people. Some of the governments of the West, including the United States, has really been very bad on our continent. They have used the Cold War and all sorts of things to back up a bunch of corrupted leaders on our continent. I think they should stop now and let the people of Africa sort out their own, their own future.
Crisis in Central Africa
by Ted Grant
London, November 1997
The recent threat of the main G7 imperialist powers to intervene in Zaire "in order to protect refugees" highlights the growing crisis in central Africa.
It was pure hypocrisy. The "protection of refugees" was simply a cover to hide the real intentions: to maintain imperialism's grip on the rich natural resources of the region. However, Western military intervention has been dealt a serious blow by the successes of the Zairean opposition forces in defeating the Rwandan Hutu militias and allowing the mass return of refugees to Rwanda. The pretext for sending imperialist troops to the region has been removed - temporarily.
The bulk of the problems facing the peoples of Central Africa, particularly in Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi, originated through the policy of the former colonial power, Belgium imperialism, which deliberately played off the Tutsis against the Hutus, and granted the Tutsi minority the top administrative posts. Previously, various nationalities lived together and intermarried. It was a classic case of divide and rule, leading to the present devastating conflict. However, Belgian support for the powerful Tutsi minority waned in the 1950s when the Rwandan National Union pressed for independence. The Belgian government set up the Party of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Bahutu, sparking communal strife. In 1959 there was a war in which the Hutus drove out the Tutsis, and Rwanda declared a Hutu republic in 1962. A parallel situation developed in Burundi where the Hutus were suppressed. The Tutsis in Burundi attacked Rwanda in 1963. This resulted in 250,000 refugees, mostly Tutsi, living in Uganda, Zaire and Burundi.
A major part of the refugee problem in eastern Zaire came about when France intervened in Rwanda in 1990 and 1993 to prop up the Hutu government of Juvenal Habyarimana, and finally in 1994 to create so-called "safe havens". Then, the mainly-Tutsi opposition Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded Rwanda and routed government troops and its allied Interahamwe militias, which had engaged in genocide and the murder of more than 500,000 Tutsis.
The success of the opposition forces forced the Interahamwe to flee. This, in turn, resulted in the domination of the army and the militias over the one million refugees, who were forced to flee to Zaire. The Interahamwe dominated the camps and even the food rationing supplied by the international aid agencies. They launched attacks into Rwanda and prevented the return of refugees on pain of death. The Interahamwe's subsequent defeat by the Patriotic Front, freed the refugees to return to Rwanda.
In the 1950s the Belgian imperialists, through the United Nations, moved against independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who was betrayed and murdered by troops under the command of Mobutu - trained and educated by the Belgian regime. Mobutu came to power, backed by imperialism. His authoritarian regime bled the people dry, and Mobutu turned himself into a billionaire.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost. The opposition Patriotic Front wants to establish a more democratic regime in Zaire and has seized control of the eastern part of the country, with the support of the Tutsis, who have lived there for 200 years. The Mobutu regime had been trying to discriminate against them as "foreigners".
What motivates the imperialists, especially French imperialism, is the fear that the Mobutu regime, which is on its last legs, may collapse and open the road to possible revolutionary developments in Zaire, or even precipitate the break up of the country. This is not new. Apart from its intervention in Zaire in the 1960s, using its Moroccan surrogates, France intervened to safeguard Mobutu in 1977 and 1978. They did the same thing in Rwanda to protect the government during the first half of the 1990s.
The Patriotic Front has out manoeuvred the imperialists by attacking the refugee camps and forcing the Interahamwe to flee to the bush, so opening the way for the hundreds of thousands of refugees to return. However, this has not totally defused plans by the imperialists to intervene. France and Canada are still pushing hard for a full scale intervention. "Now is not the time to pause and reflect. We still have to have very direct action," stated Canadian Foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy. The United States and Britain, however, are having cold feet. Overseas minister Baroness Chalker, described the French plan as "daft".
Any foreign intervention would now meet with hostility and even military opposition. This was made clear by both Rwanda and Laurent Kabila, leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. The Canadian advance force had difficulty getting out of Rwanda's capital, Kigali due to the opposition of the government.
The dis-United Nations has played the same baneful role as always. It represents the interests of the imperialists in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The strategic, economic and political considerations are prime. The very last considerations would be the needs and interests of the peoples involved. Britain and the US have pulled back from military intervention, putting pressure on France to do the same. However, it is not excluded that they may intervene again if civil war breaks out in Zaire - in order to protect the economic interests of world imperialism, particularly the enormous natural resources of this huge area. They will want to prop up the same interests as Mobutu represented.
The United States and the other imperialists have been converted to "democracy" in the ex-colonial areas of the world because they find such regimes much more reliable that the dictators that they supported previously. That is why they wanted to abandon Mobutu if they could, and why they came out for elections in Zaire (which were rigged in any case). They made a ghastly mess in Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere in Africa. This is not due to the innate qualities of the Blacks (which was the imperialist's old argument), but the class interests involved. The imperialists interest in the so-called Third World is to bleed these countries economically through adverse terms of trade, where these countries' commodities are sold below their value, while those from the West are sold at high rates. Thus impoverishing these countries and peoples.
Even if "democracy" is established, it will suffer the same fate as all those "democracies" in Africa - all of which were run in effect by one-party states. There is no solution on a capitalist basis. In the long term, on the establishment of a Socialist Federation of Africa, linked to a federation of European socialist states could offer a real way forward. In the immediate period, the Labour movement should argue for the right of self-determination and allow the peoples to decide their own future without outside military intervention from imperialism. This is a principle. Despite all the hypocrisy about humanitarian intervention, what decides the policies of the imperialist powers is the interests of capital. That means that the Labour movement in the West must have a clear idea that the enemy of these countries is the same enemy they face at home - capitalism and imperialism. Only with that understanding can the movement see through the hypocrisy of imperialism and lay the basis for the real emancipation of the peoples of the third world.
Behind refugee crisis is the struggle for control of central Africa
By William Pomeroy
The plight of over a million Rawandan refugees is being used to put a righteous gloss on the call for western military intervention. However, other, less admirable, purposes than the feeding of hungry people are being nourished.
A complex drama has developed in this large strategic region of central Africa with several contending forces involving diverse African ethnic groups that spread across state boundaries as well as rival western imperialist powers that never left the scene despite "independence" and who are now jostling for control of the region's natural resources.
Although bloody warfare between Tutsis and the Hutus which led to the flight of over a million Hutus to Zaire has drawn the most attention, resolution of the problem in those two small countries is not the central principle in the larger drama. That "principle" lies in Zaire, a vast territory with some of the richest mineral deposits in Africa. Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, as is the case with virtually all African countries, is made up of numerous ethnic groups in provinces that have repeatedly threatened to secede. It has been held together by the ruthless dictatorship of General Mobutu Sese Seko, the willing neo-colonial ally, who has literally looted the country to amass colossal personal wealth, while millions of Zairians exist in extreme poverty.
Over time Mobutu, who carried through the CIA plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba at the time of independence in 1960, shifted his loyalty from Belgian interests to an alliance with those of the U.S. and France, the only colonial power to keep armed forces in its former colonies. French troops have been used to intervene not only in Zaire to put down anti-Mobutu and secessionist revolts, but also in Rwanda and Burundi, both former Belgian colonies.
In the up and down struggles to govern these states, the French have supported the Hutus who are the majority group.
In the recent period Zaire has slid toward chaos with rebel movements growing in the provinces, a situation complicated by the presence of the refugees in Zaire's eastern Kivu province.
In 1994 an extremist Hutu militia called the Interahamwe (those who kill together) rose up against the then-coalition government in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus and massacred at least half a million Tutsis. It was the threat of retaliation by the Tutsi-led army that caused the mass flight of Hutus to Zaire. At this point the French army intervened with "Operation Turquoise," enabling the Hutu militia to escape and establish a base in the huge refugee camps in Zaire.
There the refugees established towns and two years elapsed before their plight became front-page news with appeals for emergency international aid, with France taking the initiative on the question.
The reason: the increasing success of a rebellion led by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADLF) which has won control of most of Kivu province, driving out Mobutu's Zaire army and threatening to move against the Hutu militia in the camps. France faced the loss of its foothold in both Zaire and Rwanda-Burundi, and, unable to intervene unilaterally without risking a major war, called for an international intervention force, to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.
The ADLF, a coalition of left and conservative groups from Kivu, Kasai and Shaba provinces, is headed by Laurent Desire Kabila, leader of the People's Revolutionary Party which he founded in the mid-1960s. He was a friend of Lumumba and was together with Che Guevara in 1965 when the latter joined with liberation forces in the Congo.
The ADLF is supported by the Tutsi-led armies in Rwanda and Burundi and has the support of Tutsis living in Zaire who number 400,000. Kabila announced that ADLF forces would regard any French troops as the enemy and would open fire should they intervene.
France accused the U.S. and Britain of dragging their feet over sending in an interventionist force of at least 10,000 that would supervise the delivery of aid to the refugees. It was generally recognized that the chief problem in the camps was the Hutu militia that controlled aid shipments and killed anyone seeking to return to Rwanda and Burundi, which have been ready to receive them. The removal of the Hutu militia was obviously essential, but at French insistence the international force declared that it would not be used for that purpose.
As the question of a joint intervention was argued, some influential voices were raised in France assailing the role of the United States. The man who has reportedly masterminded French policy in Africa for the past 40 years, Jacques Foccart, called the fighting in Zaire an undeclared battle for influence between Paris and Washington, and insists that France's real enemy in Africa is the United States.
On Nov. 6 the leading French paper Le Figaro claimed that the U.S. was responsible for the Tutsi (i.e. ADLF) attacks in Zaire, that there were a number of U.S. military advisers in Kigali (the Rwandan capital) and that "there is a Rwandan-Ugandan plot to destabilize Zaire and Washington is behind it."
The intervention issue was settled when ADLF forces attacked and drove out the extremist Hutu militia from the main refugee camp. Freed from intimidation, half a million refugees poured back into Rwanda and Burundi. It was a move that undermined the French strategy, leaving the anti-Mobutu liberation movement in a commanding position in eastern Zaire.
A theory that a U.S. "destabilization" of Zaire is occurring could be credible in view of what is believed to be the impending demise of Mobutu. In that case a link with the forces capable of assuming power in Zaire is important. For Zaire, the crucial question is the nature and substance of that link.
Warfare in Africa since Independence
By Eric Young
Open conflict between parties, nations, or states in Africa since European decolonization.
Since most of Africa gained independence in the 1960s, numerous conflicts have erupted into open warfare. Most of these wars have been internal, effecting no changes in international borders. Yet many have nonetheless had disastrous consequences, displacing communities, exacerbating poverty, and killing hundreds of thousands. Although warfare has existed in Africa for centuries, the scale and deadliness of armed conflicts has increased dramatically in the past several decades.The exact toll is difficult to measure, however, given the indirect casualties caused by famine, disease, and displacement.
Modern wars in Africa fall into roughly three categories. The first type is a product of postcolonial state formation, which in many African countries has failed to forge a common identity or VALUE SYSTEM. Struggles to write a young nation's political rules and gain access to state power and resources have driven some rebel groups to attempt government takeovers, while others have fought for regional autonomy or even independent statehood. An example of the latter was the secession attempt by Eastern Nigeria in 1967, which led to the Biafran war.
In Angola and Mozambique, the rebel groups National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and RENAMO justified their wars against communist-leaning central governments on ideological grounds. In the long-running civil war in Sudan, religious and other cultural differences fuel southern Christians' and animists' struggle for autonomy from the Islamic government in Khartoum. In Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda, governments and rebel leaders alike have used ethnic identity to mobilize forces against each other. Many observers have noted that ethnic nationalism has become an increasingly common source of conflict in the post-cold war era, while ideology has become relatively less important.
The second type of postcolonial war in Africa arises from competition between states for regional influence and resources. Libyan forces, for example, fought Chad, Sudan, and Tunisia in an effort to access natural gas deposits and expand Libya's influence in the Maghreb. South Africa fought wars and supported insurgents in Angola, Mozambique, and Namibia from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. More recently, Angola has sent its own troops into neighboring countries; one of its chief priorities is to assure control over trade in Angolan diamonds. Nigeria and Uganda have also intervened militarily in regional conflicts. Non-African governments concerned with preserving political influence or access to valuable resources have at times exacerbated internal and cross-border conflicts by supporting one side or the other. Although former colonial powers such as Belgium and France have historically been particularly active on this front, nations ranging from Cuba to China to the United States have also intervened in African territorial conflicts.
The third type of modern African war concerns disputed international borders, most of which were drawn by European colonial powers with little heed to preexisting territorial claims. Some of these conflicts are also over resources — for example, Cameroon and Nigeria have fought intermittently for years over a border defining which country has access to valuable petroleum reserves on the Bakassi peninsula. Violent border disputes have also taken place between Algeria and Morocco, Ethiopia and Somalia, Chad and Libya, Burkina Faso and Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, and Morocco and the Western Sahara. Yet internal pressures and the Organization of African Unity's doctrine on the inviolability of colonial boundaries have almost always prevented the redrawing of borders, with the exception of the border created between Ethiopia and the new nation of Eritrea in 1993.
The Tutsis, also known as Watutsis, were a nomadic people who began arriving in the Great Lakes region from Ethiopia some four hundred years ago. Eventually, the Tutsis settled amongst the Hutus - adopting their language, beliefs and customs.
But economic differences between the groups soon began to form. The Tutsis as cattle-herders were often in a position of economic dominance to the soil-tilling Hutus. That is not to say that all Tutsis were wealthy and all Hutus were poor, but in many areas, like Rwanda, the minority Tutsis ruled the Hutus.
According to some historians, like Congolese Professor George Izangola, the only difference between the two groups were economic, rather than ethnic. In a 1996 interview with Charlayne Hunter Gault, Professor Izangola explained:
"In Rwanda, the Tutsi and the Hutu are the same people. They are all people--large grouping or communities which go from seven regions of Cameroon to Uganda--all the way to South Africa, in the same culture," Izangola said. "People used to be Tutsi or Hutu, depending on the proximity to the king. If you were close to the king, you owned wealth, you owned a lot of cattle, you are a Tutsi. If you are far away from the king, you are a cultivator, you don't own much cattle, you are a Hutu."
Germans and, after World War I, Belgians colonized the region. A 1934 Belgian census arbitrarily classified anyone owning more than 10 cows as a Tutsi. Roman Catholic schools educated Tutsis and largely ignored Hutus. But after the Second World War, as decolonization began to sweep Africa, the Belgians did an abrupt about-face.
Colonial rule, which began in the late 19th Century, did nothing to bring the groups together. The Belgians, who ruled what would later become Rwanda and Burundi, forced Hutus and Tutsis to carry ethnic identity cards. The colonial administrators further exacerbated divisions by only allowing Tutsis to attain higher education and hold positions of power.
The modern conflict
Following independence in 1962, Ruanda-Urundi split into two countries: Rwanda and Burundi. In Rwanda, the Hutu majority lashed out at the minority Tutsis - killing thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to neighboring Uganda. In Burundi, the minority Tutsis maintained their control of the military and government through a campaign of violence against the Hutus. Although they lost multi-party elections in 1993, two assassinations and a military coup have allowed the Tutsis to remain in power.
When Yoweri Museveni, a rebel leader of Tutsi descent, seized power in Uganda in 1986, it was largely through the assistance of Rwandan Tutsis. With a power base in Uganda, the Rwandan Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and began attacks against the Hutu-led government. After years of fighting, the Rwandan government launched a genocidal campaign against Tutsis living in Rwanda. According to reports, over 800,000 people were slaughtered over a period of 100 days.
Eventually, the tide turned against the Hutus and the Rwanda Patriotic Front defeated the Rwandan Army, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, mostly to Tanzania and Zaire.
From refugee camps in Zaire, Hutus continued the fighting by launching cross-border raids on Tutsis and moderate Hutus living in Rwanda and Uganda. When Zaire's government, led by President Mobuto, was unable or unwilling to assert control over his eastern frontier, the Tutsi governments of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi backed a rebellion that toppled the state. The rebel leader they supported, Laurent Kabila, renamed Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When the Hutu raids continued, the Tutsi-led states encouraged a second rebellion against Kabila.
With Tutsi rebels continuing to fight in the former Zaire and Hutus waging guerilla battles in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, the ethnic strife that sparked the slaughters in Rwanda continue to infect the region.
The main problem is a problem of power. In Rwanda, you had a majority in power. You have these divisions called Tutsi, Hutu, and in Rwanda, you had the Hutu in power, and the minority Tutsi excluded. In Burundi, it was the other way around. You had the minority Tutsis in power, and the majority excluded. And this is--this is the problem we have to deal with, that power, really virtually since independence has been in the hands of the minority, supported by the army. And that is really basically the problem we are dealing with.
The solution will be a reconciliation. We'll have--we will have to negotiate a system under which both the majority and the minority feel reasonably happy.
The biggest obstacle at present is that those who are in power, the minority--the minority is in power--they are like one riding on the back of a tiger. And they really want almost a water-tight assurance before they get off the back of the tiger because they feel if they get off the back of the tiger it will eat them.
The problems we are now handling in Africa, some of the mess we're trying to clean up in the continent we have inherited, the mess of the borders we have inherited.
The colonial powers drew the borders
Yes. The colonial powers and some none colonial powers in Africa have supported regimes which are very corrupt. I think now they should stop backing these corrupt regimes and let Africans in their own way try and establish regimes which can care about people. Some of the governments of the West, including the United States, has really been very bad on our continent. They have used the Cold War and all sorts of things to back up a bunch of corrupted leaders on our continent. I think they should stop now and let the people of Africa sort out their own, their own future.
Crisis in Central Africa
by Ted Grant
London, November 1997
The recent threat of the main G7 imperialist powers to intervene in Zaire "in order to protect refugees" highlights the growing crisis in central Africa.
It was pure hypocrisy. The "protection of refugees" was simply a cover to hide the real intentions: to maintain imperialism's grip on the rich natural resources of the region. However, Western military intervention has been dealt a serious blow by the successes of the Zairean opposition forces in defeating the Rwandan Hutu militias and allowing the mass return of refugees to Rwanda. The pretext for sending imperialist troops to the region has been removed - temporarily.
The bulk of the problems facing the peoples of Central Africa, particularly in Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi, originated through the policy of the former colonial power, Belgium imperialism, which deliberately played off the Tutsis against the Hutus, and granted the Tutsi minority the top administrative posts. Previously, various nationalities lived together and intermarried. It was a classic case of divide and rule, leading to the present devastating conflict. However, Belgian support for the powerful Tutsi minority waned in the 1950s when the Rwandan National Union pressed for independence. The Belgian government set up the Party of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Bahutu, sparking communal strife. In 1959 there was a war in which the Hutus drove out the Tutsis, and Rwanda declared a Hutu republic in 1962. A parallel situation developed in Burundi where the Hutus were suppressed. The Tutsis in Burundi attacked Rwanda in 1963. This resulted in 250,000 refugees, mostly Tutsi, living in Uganda, Zaire and Burundi.
A major part of the refugee problem in eastern Zaire came about when France intervened in Rwanda in 1990 and 1993 to prop up the Hutu government of Juvenal Habyarimana, and finally in 1994 to create so-called "safe havens". Then, the mainly-Tutsi opposition Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded Rwanda and routed government troops and its allied Interahamwe militias, which had engaged in genocide and the murder of more than 500,000 Tutsis.
The success of the opposition forces forced the Interahamwe to flee. This, in turn, resulted in the domination of the army and the militias over the one million refugees, who were forced to flee to Zaire. The Interahamwe dominated the camps and even the food rationing supplied by the international aid agencies. They launched attacks into Rwanda and prevented the return of refugees on pain of death. The Interahamwe's subsequent defeat by the Patriotic Front, freed the refugees to return to Rwanda.
In the 1950s the Belgian imperialists, through the United Nations, moved against independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who was betrayed and murdered by troops under the command of Mobutu - trained and educated by the Belgian regime. Mobutu came to power, backed by imperialism. His authoritarian regime bled the people dry, and Mobutu turned himself into a billionaire.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost. The opposition Patriotic Front wants to establish a more democratic regime in Zaire and has seized control of the eastern part of the country, with the support of the Tutsis, who have lived there for 200 years. The Mobutu regime had been trying to discriminate against them as "foreigners".
What motivates the imperialists, especially French imperialism, is the fear that the Mobutu regime, which is on its last legs, may collapse and open the road to possible revolutionary developments in Zaire, or even precipitate the break up of the country. This is not new. Apart from its intervention in Zaire in the 1960s, using its Moroccan surrogates, France intervened to safeguard Mobutu in 1977 and 1978. They did the same thing in Rwanda to protect the government during the first half of the 1990s.
The Patriotic Front has out manoeuvred the imperialists by attacking the refugee camps and forcing the Interahamwe to flee to the bush, so opening the way for the hundreds of thousands of refugees to return. However, this has not totally defused plans by the imperialists to intervene. France and Canada are still pushing hard for a full scale intervention. "Now is not the time to pause and reflect. We still have to have very direct action," stated Canadian Foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy. The United States and Britain, however, are having cold feet. Overseas minister Baroness Chalker, described the French plan as "daft".
Any foreign intervention would now meet with hostility and even military opposition. This was made clear by both Rwanda and Laurent Kabila, leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. The Canadian advance force had difficulty getting out of Rwanda's capital, Kigali due to the opposition of the government.
The dis-United Nations has played the same baneful role as always. It represents the interests of the imperialists in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The strategic, economic and political considerations are prime. The very last considerations would be the needs and interests of the peoples involved. Britain and the US have pulled back from military intervention, putting pressure on France to do the same. However, it is not excluded that they may intervene again if civil war breaks out in Zaire - in order to protect the economic interests of world imperialism, particularly the enormous natural resources of this huge area. They will want to prop up the same interests as Mobutu represented.
The United States and the other imperialists have been converted to "democracy" in the ex-colonial areas of the world because they find such regimes much more reliable that the dictators that they supported previously. That is why they wanted to abandon Mobutu if they could, and why they came out for elections in Zaire (which were rigged in any case). They made a ghastly mess in Zaire, Rwanda, Burundi and elsewhere in Africa. This is not due to the innate qualities of the Blacks (which was the imperialist's old argument), but the class interests involved. The imperialists interest in the so-called Third World is to bleed these countries economically through adverse terms of trade, where these countries' commodities are sold below their value, while those from the West are sold at high rates. Thus impoverishing these countries and peoples.
Even if "democracy" is established, it will suffer the same fate as all those "democracies" in Africa - all of which were run in effect by one-party states. There is no solution on a capitalist basis. In the long term, on the establishment of a Socialist Federation of Africa, linked to a federation of European socialist states could offer a real way forward. In the immediate period, the Labour movement should argue for the right of self-determination and allow the peoples to decide their own future without outside military intervention from imperialism. This is a principle. Despite all the hypocrisy about humanitarian intervention, what decides the policies of the imperialist powers is the interests of capital. That means that the Labour movement in the West must have a clear idea that the enemy of these countries is the same enemy they face at home - capitalism and imperialism. Only with that understanding can the movement see through the hypocrisy of imperialism and lay the basis for the real emancipation of the peoples of the third world.
Behind refugee crisis is the struggle for control of central Africa
By William Pomeroy
The plight of over a million Rawandan refugees is being used to put a righteous gloss on the call for western military intervention. However, other, less admirable, purposes than the feeding of hungry people are being nourished.
A complex drama has developed in this large strategic region of central Africa with several contending forces involving diverse African ethnic groups that spread across state boundaries as well as rival western imperialist powers that never left the scene despite "independence" and who are now jostling for control of the region's natural resources.
Although bloody warfare between Tutsis and the Hutus which led to the flight of over a million Hutus to Zaire has drawn the most attention, resolution of the problem in those two small countries is not the central principle in the larger drama. That "principle" lies in Zaire, a vast territory with some of the richest mineral deposits in Africa. Zaire, the former Belgian Congo, as is the case with virtually all African countries, is made up of numerous ethnic groups in provinces that have repeatedly threatened to secede. It has been held together by the ruthless dictatorship of General Mobutu Sese Seko, the willing neo-colonial ally, who has literally looted the country to amass colossal personal wealth, while millions of Zairians exist in extreme poverty.
Over time Mobutu, who carried through the CIA plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba at the time of independence in 1960, shifted his loyalty from Belgian interests to an alliance with those of the U.S. and France, the only colonial power to keep armed forces in its former colonies. French troops have been used to intervene not only in Zaire to put down anti-Mobutu and secessionist revolts, but also in Rwanda and Burundi, both former Belgian colonies.
In the up and down struggles to govern these states, the French have supported the Hutus who are the majority group.
In the recent period Zaire has slid toward chaos with rebel movements growing in the provinces, a situation complicated by the presence of the refugees in Zaire's eastern Kivu province.
In 1994 an extremist Hutu militia called the Interahamwe (those who kill together) rose up against the then-coalition government in Rwanda of Tutsis and moderate Hutus and massacred at least half a million Tutsis. It was the threat of retaliation by the Tutsi-led army that caused the mass flight of Hutus to Zaire. At this point the French army intervened with "Operation Turquoise," enabling the Hutu militia to escape and establish a base in the huge refugee camps in Zaire.
There the refugees established towns and two years elapsed before their plight became front-page news with appeals for emergency international aid, with France taking the initiative on the question.
The reason: the increasing success of a rebellion led by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADLF) which has won control of most of Kivu province, driving out Mobutu's Zaire army and threatening to move against the Hutu militia in the camps. France faced the loss of its foothold in both Zaire and Rwanda-Burundi, and, unable to intervene unilaterally without risking a major war, called for an international intervention force, to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.
The ADLF, a coalition of left and conservative groups from Kivu, Kasai and Shaba provinces, is headed by Laurent Desire Kabila, leader of the People's Revolutionary Party which he founded in the mid-1960s. He was a friend of Lumumba and was together with Che Guevara in 1965 when the latter joined with liberation forces in the Congo.
The ADLF is supported by the Tutsi-led armies in Rwanda and Burundi and has the support of Tutsis living in Zaire who number 400,000. Kabila announced that ADLF forces would regard any French troops as the enemy and would open fire should they intervene.
France accused the U.S. and Britain of dragging their feet over sending in an interventionist force of at least 10,000 that would supervise the delivery of aid to the refugees. It was generally recognized that the chief problem in the camps was the Hutu militia that controlled aid shipments and killed anyone seeking to return to Rwanda and Burundi, which have been ready to receive them. The removal of the Hutu militia was obviously essential, but at French insistence the international force declared that it would not be used for that purpose.
As the question of a joint intervention was argued, some influential voices were raised in France assailing the role of the United States. The man who has reportedly masterminded French policy in Africa for the past 40 years, Jacques Foccart, called the fighting in Zaire an undeclared battle for influence between Paris and Washington, and insists that France's real enemy in Africa is the United States.
On Nov. 6 the leading French paper Le Figaro claimed that the U.S. was responsible for the Tutsi (i.e. ADLF) attacks in Zaire, that there were a number of U.S. military advisers in Kigali (the Rwandan capital) and that "there is a Rwandan-Ugandan plot to destabilize Zaire and Washington is behind it."
The intervention issue was settled when ADLF forces attacked and drove out the extremist Hutu militia from the main refugee camp. Freed from intimidation, half a million refugees poured back into Rwanda and Burundi. It was a move that undermined the French strategy, leaving the anti-Mobutu liberation movement in a commanding position in eastern Zaire.
A theory that a U.S. "destabilization" of Zaire is occurring could be credible in view of what is believed to be the impending demise of Mobutu. In that case a link with the forces capable of assuming power in Zaire is important. For Zaire, the crucial question is the nature and substance of that link.
Warfare in Africa since Independence
By Eric Young
Open conflict between parties, nations, or states in Africa since European decolonization.
Since most of Africa gained independence in the 1960s, numerous conflicts have erupted into open warfare. Most of these wars have been internal, effecting no changes in international borders. Yet many have nonetheless had disastrous consequences, displacing communities, exacerbating poverty, and killing hundreds of thousands. Although warfare has existed in Africa for centuries, the scale and deadliness of armed conflicts has increased dramatically in the past several decades.The exact toll is difficult to measure, however, given the indirect casualties caused by famine, disease, and displacement.
Modern wars in Africa fall into roughly three categories. The first type is a product of postcolonial state formation, which in many African countries has failed to forge a common identity or VALUE SYSTEM. Struggles to write a young nation's political rules and gain access to state power and resources have driven some rebel groups to attempt government takeovers, while others have fought for regional autonomy or even independent statehood. An example of the latter was the secession attempt by Eastern Nigeria in 1967, which led to the Biafran war.
In Angola and Mozambique, the rebel groups National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and RENAMO justified their wars against communist-leaning central governments on ideological grounds. In the long-running civil war in Sudan, religious and other cultural differences fuel southern Christians' and animists' struggle for autonomy from the Islamic government in Khartoum. In Burundi, Liberia, and Rwanda, governments and rebel leaders alike have used ethnic identity to mobilize forces against each other. Many observers have noted that ethnic nationalism has become an increasingly common source of conflict in the post-cold war era, while ideology has become relatively less important.
The second type of postcolonial war in Africa arises from competition between states for regional influence and resources. Libyan forces, for example, fought Chad, Sudan, and Tunisia in an effort to access natural gas deposits and expand Libya's influence in the Maghreb. South Africa fought wars and supported insurgents in Angola, Mozambique, and Namibia from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. More recently, Angola has sent its own troops into neighboring countries; one of its chief priorities is to assure control over trade in Angolan diamonds. Nigeria and Uganda have also intervened militarily in regional conflicts. Non-African governments concerned with preserving political influence or access to valuable resources have at times exacerbated internal and cross-border conflicts by supporting one side or the other. Although former colonial powers such as Belgium and France have historically been particularly active on this front, nations ranging from Cuba to China to the United States have also intervened in African territorial conflicts.
The third type of modern African war concerns disputed international borders, most of which were drawn by European colonial powers with little heed to preexisting territorial claims. Some of these conflicts are also over resources — for example, Cameroon and Nigeria have fought intermittently for years over a border defining which country has access to valuable petroleum reserves on the Bakassi peninsula. Violent border disputes have also taken place between Algeria and Morocco, Ethiopia and Somalia, Chad and Libya, Burkina Faso and Mali, Mauritania and Senegal, and Morocco and the Western Sahara. Yet internal pressures and the Organization of African Unity's doctrine on the inviolability of colonial boundaries have almost always prevented the redrawing of borders, with the exception of the border created between Ethiopia and the new nation of Eritrea in 1993.
---------------
International
media betrayed Rwanda just like G7 and United Nations...
chantalbakkerjournalism
International
media and the Rwanda Genocide
Posted
on March 25, 2011 by Tekstbureau Chantal Bakker
By
Chantal Bakker 23-03-2011
Ethnic
competition and tensions between two different populations living in the same
country were the main reasons of the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.
On April 6 trough mid-July approximately 800.000 people were killed in mass
murders during the genocide that took place. This cruel conflict was between
the minority Tutsis, who had controlled power for centuries, and the majority
Hutus, who took over power in the rebellion of 1959 – 1962 and overthrown the
Tutsi monarchy.
The
pictures and TV images of this war are well known and a lot of people have
these pictures still quite clear in their minds. But most of them showed up
when the conflict was already been fought and when thousands of people were
already been killed. Questions about the role of the media are rising up. Why
did the media not report about the conflict when Rwandans population needed
that so much? Only a few journalists and photographers were in the area to
report about all the violence and cruelty of this civil war. What is the reason
for the little attention in the media about such a huge criminal incident? Can
the international media be blamed for this? The following describes the role of
the media while they were reporting about the Rwandan Genocide. But first of
all it will explain the situation in Rwanda in 1994 and describe the Genocide
itself.
Rwandan
history
In the small East African nation of Rwanda are living approximately 1.1 million people. Rwanda is a very small country and its density is the highest in Africa. In this densely populated country are living three different groups: the Hutus, Tutsis and Twas. In 1890 Rwanda became a colony of Germany. In 1918, after world war one, Belgium took over power. For over 20 years prior to this colonization, a Tutsi monarchy had controlled most of the power in Rwanda. This is remarkable, because the Tutsi monarchy only had a population of 10% towards a Hutu population of almost 90%.
In the small East African nation of Rwanda are living approximately 1.1 million people. Rwanda is a very small country and its density is the highest in Africa. In this densely populated country are living three different groups: the Hutus, Tutsis and Twas. In 1890 Rwanda became a colony of Germany. In 1918, after world war one, Belgium took over power. For over 20 years prior to this colonization, a Tutsi monarchy had controlled most of the power in Rwanda. This is remarkable, because the Tutsi monarchy only had a population of 10% towards a Hutu population of almost 90%.
During
the 1950s, the majority Hutu population became more rebellious and when time
went by they no longer accepted their submissive position in the country. In
1957 the Hutu Emancipation Movement decided to fight for the Hutus and they
started the ‘Hutu manifesto’. This manifestation was successful, in 1962 the
Hutus overthrew the monarchy of the Tutsis and they established the Rwanda
Republic. Because of this establishment Rwanda became also an independent
country.
A
horrible genocide
The Tutsis population has always been seen as the intelligent and rich group of Rwanda. Most of them had a noble background and most Hutus were farmers. In 1990, a rebel group named ‘Rwandan Patriotic Front’, leaded by Tutsis, tried to defeat the Hutu-led government. Although it did not work out, it can be seen as the beginning of the Rwandan civil war. From that year on, Rwanda was filled with big social tensions.
The Tutsis population has always been seen as the intelligent and rich group of Rwanda. Most of them had a noble background and most Hutus were farmers. In 1990, a rebel group named ‘Rwandan Patriotic Front’, leaded by Tutsis, tried to defeat the Hutu-led government. Although it did not work out, it can be seen as the beginning of the Rwandan civil war. From that year on, Rwanda was filled with big social tensions.
The
catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide is the assassination of Habyarimana, who was
the president of Rwanda at that time. On the evening of April 6, 1994 his
airplane was shot down. It is still not clear who is responsible for this
attack, but most theories propose the Rwandan Patriotic Front as main suspect.
This
was the beginning of the genocide. The assassination of Habyarimana resulted in
mass killings of Tutsis by the Hutus. The killing was well organized by the
government and was structured all over the nation. In the testimony for the
International Criminal Tribunal, Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda described
that one of the ministers said she was in favour of getting rid of all Tutsis.
Without them, she told her colleagues; all the problems would be over.
Both
Hutus and Tutsis were forced to always bring ID cards with them, which
specified their ethnic group. In that time, Tutsi men, women and children were
separated from the general population and often forced to be slaves for the
Hutus. Just like the government and the army, the Rwandan media played a big
role in coordinating the genocide, by telling the population what to do.
Nowadays,
almost everybody agrees with the fact that the Rwandan media is partly
responsible for the genocide that took place almost seventeen years ago. But
more and more discussions are rising up about the role of the international
media in 1994. Some are blaming the international media for not be in Rwanda at
that time.
What
about international media?
A real genocide is going enormously fast. This makes it very difficult for international media to report about it. But it must be mentioned that if the media would have report earlier about the fact that a nationwide killing campaign took place in Rwanda, they could have saved a lot of people. But is it fair to blame the international media for this?
A real genocide is going enormously fast. This makes it very difficult for international media to report about it. But it must be mentioned that if the media would have report earlier about the fact that a nationwide killing campaign took place in Rwanda, they could have saved a lot of people. But is it fair to blame the international media for this?
According
to some people, the international media indeed must share blame for not
immediately recognizing the extent of the carnage. “It really is a shame that
journalists in the first three weeks only reported about a civil war. They
should have noticed the fact that the government, the army, and the Rwandan
Media organized this ‘civil war’. They really failed in their work because they
did not recognize it as a genocide”, says Alan J Kuperman in his article ‘How
the media missed Rwandan genocide’.
Allan
Thompson, former journalist at Toronto Star and journalism professor at the
University of Carleton agrees with Kuperman. In 2007 he wrote the book ‘The
media and the Rwanda genocide’, in which he blames the international media for
ignoring Rwandans situation. “International media are also guilty for the
massacre in Rwanda. Simply because of their absence”, decided Thomson during
his book presentation. According Thompson, groups who were trying to avert the
conflict needed public and political support. They were ignored, just because
the world was not aware of the tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis. “If
the media would have given attention to Rwanda, the international community
would probably be more aware of the extreme situation in the country”.
Thompson
is also very aware of the fact that he was one of the journalists who was not
in Rwanda in 1994. “, I can also blame myself for ignoring the genocide. One of
my colleagues, the Africa correspondent of Toronto Star was reporting about the
apartheid in South Africa at that time. I should have travelled to Rwanda
myself to inform my readers of the extreme situation”.
To
clarify his point of view, Thompson explained the Heisenberg-principle in his
book. He translated this principle to the theory that journalists can influence
an incident only because of their presence. According Thompson, you can also
converse this theory. “Because no one was reporting about the conflict, the
Hutu-led government did not have to justify to anyone. Nobody was stopping them,
so the genocide could go on and on”.
Media
defence
Some journalists are trying to defend their selves. “In our daily work we, journalists and photographers, have to make choices out of a big variety of news. Because of these choices, we are consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally depended on the volatility of news. Although we do the best we can to split ourselves and report about situations as good as possible, it does not always work out right”, journalist Jeroen Corduwener and Photographer Chris Keulen said in their book ‘Rwanda, country without a horizon’.
Some journalists are trying to defend their selves. “In our daily work we, journalists and photographers, have to make choices out of a big variety of news. Because of these choices, we are consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally depended on the volatility of news. Although we do the best we can to split ourselves and report about situations as good as possible, it does not always work out right”, journalist Jeroen Corduwener and Photographer Chris Keulen said in their book ‘Rwanda, country without a horizon’.
According
Jeroen Corduwener and Chris Keulen it is also very difficult to report about
such a violent conflict and make ethical considerations at the same time. “The
truth about Rwanda does not even exist. The first mistake we have made was to
profile this conflict as terrible and pathetic. Western media, and in
particular television, played a big role in this case. TV images have such a
huge impact and create more or less their own truth because they look so real.
Of course the images are real, but at the same time they create a certain
reality. The people who watch those images do not realize that this is only one
part of the reality. We do not say that we deny the images of dead bodies and
suffering human beings, but they do not always fit our impressions and
observations”.
The
point Corduwener and Keulen are trying to make is about the superficiality of
the media. According to them it is almost impossible to give a clear view of
the situation when there are so little journalists in the area. “You just can
not report about everything when there is so much going on. People who blame
the media should also think about the difficulty of reporting in an enormously
dangerous country. If we had the time, space and journalists, the reporting
about this conflict would definitely be improved.
Blame
the media, not the journalists
Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire was one of the people in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. He was the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda and he tried to get the attention of the international media, but without any success. “I think the gatekeepers of big media stations were somehow aware of the situation in Rwanda, but they just decided to keep it out of public interest. Big American newspapers and news agencies at that time published articles about boxer O.J. Simpson and ice skater Tonya Harding. Probably not because these stories were selling better, but because some unknown people were telling them to give the situation in Rwanda no attention”.
Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire was one of the people in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. He was the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda and he tried to get the attention of the international media, but without any success. “I think the gatekeepers of big media stations were somehow aware of the situation in Rwanda, but they just decided to keep it out of public interest. Big American newspapers and news agencies at that time published articles about boxer O.J. Simpson and ice skater Tonya Harding. Probably not because these stories were selling better, but because some unknown people were telling them to give the situation in Rwanda no attention”.
Dallaire
thinks this is one of the reasons international media more or less failed in
their reporting on Rwanda. “The VS made it clear that they did not want to have
anything to do with Rwanda. It was best for the government if the American
civilians were uninformed about the extreme situation in Rwanda”.
Meanwhile,
Dallaire was aware of the fact that media was the only possibility to get the
attention. “I asked journalists to write at least one story per day, and I also
gave them food and a safe place to sleep. The journalists were doing great
jobs, but their stories somehow did now appear in the media. What was happening
at the editorial offices? Why did they not publish these stories? I still do not
know. But I do know that you can not blame the journalists in Rwanda for doing
a bad job”, says Dallaire.
Thompson
agrees with Dallaire at some point, but he thinks the journalists in Rwanda at
that time should have took more responsibility. “They should have forced the
gatekeepers to publish their stories. The fact that one individual or one small
group can decide to keep such an important conflict out of the media is absurd
and dangerous”, he concludes.
Anyway,
media definitely played a big role in the genocide of Rwanda. First of all
Rwandans local print and radio media fuelled the killings by telling one ethnic
group to murder the other ethnic group. Secondly, the international media
either ignored or misconstrued the situation in Rwanda. Some critics blame the
journalists for the bad reporting, some of them blame the gatekeepers and
people in charge for the media failing.
Whether
it is the fault of the journalists or it is not, one thing is for sure. If the
international media had reported in a better and different way about the
situation in Rwanda, they probably would have saved a lot of lives. Nowadays we
can tell that the media somehow is involved in this conflict, but it is still
unclear why they decided to keep it out of public interest. The question still
remains, and probably always will remain: what was the reason for the
international media to ignore Rwandans genocide?
Sources
Books:
-
Rwanda, land zonder horizon – Jeroen Corduwener en Chris Keulen
-
Terug naar Rwanda – Koert Lindijer
-
The media and the Rwanda Genocide – Allan Thompson
Internet:
-
Internationale media faalden tijdens de Rwanda genocide.
-
How the media mist the Rwandan genocide, by Alan J. Kuperman http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMM.7.8.03.HTM
Background
information:
http://chantalbakkerjournalism.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/international-media-and-the-rwanda-genocide/
-------------
CANADA
Why
did Ottawa ignore warnings of Rwandan genocide?
Canada
may have known more about the looming genocide than any other nation, but the
government had other priorities.
A
Rwandan family walks in the rain with all their belongings as they get close to
home near Luhondo, Rwanda.
PAUL
CHIASSON / CP
A
Rwandan family walks in the rain with all their belongings as they get close to
home near Luhondo, Rwanda.
By:
Debra Black Staff Reporter, Published on
Sat May 22 2010
Months
before the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a steady stream of detailed messages about
the killings of Tutsis arrived in Ottawa from Canadian diplomats stationed not
only in Rwanda but also Kenya and Tanzania.
Never-before-seen
documents obtained by the Star paint a clear picture of a Rwanda rife with
ethnic tension, spiraling deeper and deeper toward war in the months leading up
to the April genocide. All of it was laid out for the Canadian government of
the day.
Telexes
from the Canadian mission in the capital of Kigali in February and March 1994
report that the U.N. mission in Rwanda had proof of the existence of training
camps for militia recruits, a massive distribution of arms. The telexes also
warn there have been many “deaths by bullets” in which the “marksmen” walk away
with impunity.
But
the warnings never moved beyond the Africa desk in Ottawa at what was then
known as the department of external affairs.
André
Ouellet, the then-minister in Jean Chrétien's Liberal government, said in an
interview with the Star that this kind of specific information never made it to
his desk.
“I
suspect if it had come to me I would remember or remember some of it,” said the
now-retired Ouellet.
He
explains that such documents would have gone from the missions to the analysts
on the Africa desk, rather than the minister or his deputy minister.
“I
would not have seen any of those documents you're talking about. People who are
in missions are not sending documents to the minister or the deputy,” said
Ouellet.
As the
Rwanda genocide unfolded, the world was focused on other hotspots like Bosnia
and Haiti.
“CNN
was not there (in Rwanda), unfortunately,” Ouellet said. “Had they been there,
maybe the genocide would have been avoided.”
Parliament,
and more recently Governor General Michaëlle Jean, have apologized for the
Canadian role in global indifference to a genocide that ultimately claimed as
many as a million lives, but never for specific indifference by Ottawa.
Those
who have studied the Canadian response have concluded that the flow of
information to Ottawa was good — perhaps the best in the world — but that
Rwanda was not on the government's agenda.
“The
government never let on it had information,” said Maj. Brent Beardsley, the
military aide to Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, who headed the U.N. force in
Rwanda.
Beardsley
wrote the reports for the United Nations and said each one of them was also
sent along to the department of national defence in Ottawa.
“Africa
and Rwanda were not a priority,” Beardsley said in a phone interview. “Canada
was the best informed nation in the world (on what was happening in Rwanda.)
By
April 15, “we were reporting ‘ethnic cleansing.' That was the word we were
using because it had come out of the Balkans. Genocide wasn't in our
vocabulary,” he said.
“Ottawa
knew something was going on. . . everyone was sitting back and waiting for some
else to take a lead.”
The
genocide was triggered by the April 6, 1994, assassination of Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu.
But as
early as Feb. 17, 1994, Denis Provost, Canadian consul in Rwanda, sent Ottawa a
fax of a press statement from a meeting of African ambassadors in Rwanda. That
fax, written on United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda letterhead, said
the ambassadors “deplored the attitude of the politicians of Rwanda.”
The
faxed statement also recounted that U.N. officials had evidence of training
camps for militia recruits who were being armed to fight — a reference to a
plot for a widespread massacre of Tutsis that a source known simply as
Jean-Pierre had outlined to Dallaire.
On
Feb. 22, 1994, an unnamed Canadian official in Kigali reported on the
assassination of two local politicians and warned that the situation was
“tenuous” for citizens.
On
March 2. the diplomat alerted officials back home that massacres were occuring
in Kigali and there were many “deaths by bullets” with those responsible
walking away with impunity.
The
telexes also report widespread violence in various neighborhoods of Kigali as a
Canadian diplomat witnesses cases of assault and looting and warns that it
appears hundreds of people are being killed in the night.
In
Ottawa, Rwanda's civil war came up in the House of Commons, beginning April 14,
1994. The massacres were discussed in the context of a possible coup and civil
war or as “violent fighting . . . between the Rwanda army and the rebels.”
Concerns in the House centred on the issues of refugees, humanitarian needs and
ceasefires.
The
260 pages of documents obtained by the Star detail the escalating violence
against the Tutsi population of Rwanda.
One of
the documents is an advisory on April 7 of the death of Habyarimana and a
message from diplomats that his daughter is blaming his murder on the
Tutsi-dominated rebel group the Rwanda Patriotic Front.
Ouellet
told the House he had called Canada's representative to the U.N. who was
considering the best way to restore order. And Canada sent two military planes
to Nairobi to help with supplies and humanitarian efforts.
On May
2, 1994 Ouellet told the House of Commons that perhaps the Organization for
African Unity might be able to find ways to stop the factions in Rwanda from
killing each other. He also said CIDA had donated $1 million for emergency aid
and another $2 million had been donated to the International Red Cross.
Calling
the genocide a “terrible tragedy,” Ouellet says now that if he had known
explicitly what was going on in Rwanda or had access and read the situation
reports directly, he might have done more, suggesting he might have lobbied the
United Nations to act to stop the genocide. Canada was not on the Security
Council in 1994.
“You
know we are all responsible in the sense nobody woke up on time,” he said.
The
prevalent attitude about Rwanda in 1994 was “it's not our business,” said Gerry
Caplan who wrote a 300-page report Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide, for the
International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide
in Rwanda. Caplan believes the messages obtained by the Star were shuffled off
to the then external affairs department's Africa desk and filed. It was
standard procedure, Caplan said.
Adds
Howard Adelman, a professor emeritus of philosophy at York University who has
also reported on the Rwandan genocide: “The diplomatic corps doesn't write
about what's going on, but what's on the agenda of what's going on in Ottawa or
Washington,” he said, explaining the inscrutable art of diplomatic message
writing.
“You
give the information, but the information is only significant if it is attached
to an agenda item in your capital. If you just send the information it's
stored, it doesn't go anywhere.”
Not
only were messages going to Canada's external affairs and CIDA, but also staff
at the department of national defence was being copied on daily bulletins from
Dallaire.
Said
Beardsley: “What's the sense of sending it (messages and information) up,” he
said of the mandarins back in Ottawa. “You know what you're working on is not a
priority and no one wants to do anything about it. So you read it, file it. No
one's interested. That sums up Canada and the United Nations. It wasn't a
priority and therefore the stuff just got filed with devastating consequences.”
------------------
To
Hell and Back-
09-21-2004, 10:52 AM
09-21-2004, 10:52 AM
A decade after the genocide, Roméo Dallaire writes about his uneasy return
ROMEO DALLAIRE
In 1994, Maj.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire and the tiny United Nations peacekeeping force he led in Rwanda were forced to stand helplessly by as a civil war in the central African nation descended into genocide. In a 100-day period, as the UN ignored Dallaire's pleas to intervene, Hutu extremists massacred some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus before rebel Tutsi forces of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) emerged victorious. The bloodbath has continued to haunt the retired Canadian military officer, who went public in 1997 with the fact that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But in April, Dallaire returned to Rwanda with a film crew from White Pine Pictures to mark the 10th anniversary of the slaughter. The resulting documentary, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, had its world premiere last week at the Toronto International Film Festival. Dallaire, who was also accompanied on the April trip by his wife Elizabeth and Maclean's Chief Photographer Peter Bregg, describes what it was like to return to Rwanda for the first time in a decade. He dedicates this piece "To the Rwandans, abandoned to their fate, who were slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands, and to the 14 UN soldiers under my command who died bravely in the service of peace and humanity."
ENORMOUS ANXIETY overwhelmed me for a few minutes as we banked for the final approach to Kigali airport. I turned to Elizabeth and asked her the rhetorical question, "Why did I come back here?" The superficial answers were evident: there was the documentary film crew and I had been officially invited; I was to present a paper on conflict at an international conference in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda; and I wanted Beth to see, feel, smell and hear Rwanda. But there had to be more. What would compel me to return to "hell" 10 years later?
The Kigali of today and of 10 years ago are two different worlds. Now this fast-growing metropolis in the heart of Africa has a booming economy with a striving population, new construction, modern infrastructure, cleanliness and a rigid imposition of order. Gone are the sights of every possible window destroyed, and artillery, rocket and machine gun damage on blackened buildings. Gone too are the blood and gore, the acrid and suffocating smell of death stagnant in every corner, bodies in rags stacked like cordwood, fresh mass graves filled to the brim, and raped and dismembered bodies of young women and girls in dark passageways.
The contrast was complete, right down to the now-optimistic Col. Frank Kamanzi, a liaison officer with the RPF in 1994. Frank, who greeted us upon landing, smiled and hugged me, although with a bit of reserve. The modern architectural jewel of Rwanda was and remains the air terminal. I had last seen it ransacked and shelled. But now, instead of the tattered, worn-out UN flag on the roof, it had Rwanda's new flag, which I did not recognize. (Frank later told me that Rwanda has a new national anthem as well.) Where hundreds of car wrecks, garbage and broken-down airport machinery once lay, the tarmac was impeccable and there was plenty of modern equipment. There was even a very serious and professional-looking security squad staring at me and my entourage as we marched off the plane.
The transformation of Kigali and most of the Milles Collines -- "the thousand hills" being an apt nickname for Rwanda -- was very positive. But shudders of unreality at times forced me to look away in disbelief. Everywhere, the destruction, the smell and the sights of hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons had been removed as if with scalpel-like precision. Continuously, the current normality was overridden by mental video clips showing, with seemingly digital clarity, the horrors at the same place 10 years ago. These contrasting visions simply became too much for me, both emotionally and physically, and led to some very moody moments as I went through bouts of anger and happiness. And so, as I was lost in my inner state, the pilgrimage became harder with every passing day. I had hoped to seek forgiveness from the tens of thousands of Rwandan spirits that roam the hills and valleys, but the trip ultimately turned out to be a sort of guided tour in a paradise restored. I couldn't wait for it to end.
This aesthetic presentation of Rwanda left me with a sense that something was being camouflaged, assimilated, or even eradicated. The first sign was the overwhelming presence of members of the Tutsi tribe in both governmental and security forces. The minister of defence is one of the token Hutus in cabinet. The second sign was the imposition on all Rwandans to renounce their ethnic origins: anyone who refers to their Tutsi or Hutu origins risks imprisonment. This rather draconian means of reconciliation seems to violate human rights and remains, in my opinion, a very risky policy of reconstituting a cohesive Rwandan citizenry.
Much of the nine-day trip was dedicated to discussing the tragic events of 1994 and visiting some 15 or so sites where I had conducted most of my work. Local people would recognize me and come forward to shake my hand and thank me for having attempted to stop the genocide. This was the best therapy I could ever get. It meant that some of the survivors had neither rancor nor disdain for the little that my critically reduced force was able to do during the 100 days of genocide.
I was brought abruptly back down to earth, however, during our visit to the huge Amahoro soccer stadium in Kigali. As I was describing the horror and privation that more than 12,000 refugees suffered for months in the enclosure while being protected by my few troops, three Tutsi survivors approached me with a petition. They stated, in essence, that they are receiving next to no support to help them rebuild their homes and have little access to jobs and health care. As well, they said, the government considers them a nuisance when they complain. There are clear divisions within the Tutsi: those who fought the war from bases in refugee camps outside Rwanda and the wealthy Tutsi diaspora that has now returned from far and wide look with disdain upon the poor who stayed behind through the Hutu oppression. These poor seem to be ignored in the new regime's social development plan.
Taking a closer look at this "modern" Rwandan society, I saw a seven-tier citizens' grouping of sorts. Firmly in charge of the country are the RPF leaders and troops and the very well-to-do expatriates who, even in the last days of the war, came back in hordes and started displacing poor Tutsi survivors from their homes. Second are the Tutsi survivors looking for compensation for their losses and seeking entry into the mainstream of society. Third are the Hutus who have been displaced internally and are making do either with lower-paying jobs or a life of poverty on their small plots of land across the countryside. Fourth are those Hutus who had fled into the Congo and Tanzania for fear of the RPF onslaught during the civil war. There is an abundance of rehabilitation/reconciliation programs for this group, although security monitoring exists in specific areas of the country.
Fifth are the suspected perpetrators of the genocide, the returning Hutu soldiers of the former Rwandan Government Forces and their allies. Most are languishing in terrible conditions in Rwandan jails, slowly going through the village justice system of reintegration known as the Gacaca. Sixth are the extremists of the old regime, some living in Europe and safe places in Africa. Others live in the jungles of eastern Congo where they're supported by a variety of sources -- seemingly including the Congolese government -- and conduct murderous raids into Rwanda. Finally, the last group is made up of the most hard-line, Tutsi-hating leaders. The brains and instigators of the genocide, many of them have been dealt with by the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha.
This is the mosaic of Rwandan society that resulted from the genocide and the civil war. Can Gen. Paul Kagame, the current president, bring about his risky plan of ending tribal differentiation through assimilation of the two original ethnic groups? Can he respond in a timely and fair fashion to the different needs of the population? Can he do this while vigilantly monitoring his borders against continuous raids and a potential invasion by expatriate hard-liners, as well as possible insurrection by oppressed Hutus? A tall order, indeed, for any political leader.
The trip did not really meet my possibly unrealistic expectations. I did not sufficiently grieve or commune with the spirits of the dead Rwandans hidden below a few feet of red earth. Nor was I able to search out, to my satisfaction, those Rwandan leaders and simple folk I had befriended years ago and who I hoped had survived. I will do this in the future, as Beth has agreed to my proposal to return to live in Rwanda for a year or so.
Knowing now that a G7 meeting of the most powerful nations on Earth, including Canada, was being held in Naples during the genocide in 1994, I recognize my failure even more. I continue to live with the guilt of not defying protocol, and crashing that gathering to accuse those leaders of aiding and abetting the killings by their inaction. The indescribable scale of human destruction and the betrayal of Rwanda during those 100 days required no less.
ON THE WEB For Peter Bregg photos of Roméo Dallaire's return trip to Rwanda, as well as other online galleries, visit www.macleans.ca/gallery
--------------
Nick
Hughes (100 Days)
Journalist
Nick Hughes, who took historic Rwanda genocide footage
Nicolas
Quentin Hughes is a British Director born July 27th, 1961.
His
work relating to Rwanda includes:
Director/Producer/Writer
of the Feature Film, 100 DAYS. Mr. Hughes was cameraman for over ten
documentaries covering different aspects of the Genocide including:
?-
Witness: ‘The Betrayal’. Channel Four UK
?-
Panorama: ‘The Bloody Tricolour’. BBC UK
?-
Newsnight: ‘Women who kill’. BBC UK
Additionally,
Mr. Hughes has been news cameraman during:
?- RPA
activities 1991, 92 & 93
?-
Genocide April, 1994
?-
Pacification 1995
?-
Camp clearance, Goma, Congo, 1997
?-
Congo war 1998
His
public speaking engagements have included:
?- UN
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Witness for the prosecution Arusha
1998
?-
1999 Rwanda Genocide Conference. Kigali 1999 One of three panelists
?-
Channel Four Documentary Key Interviewee ‘The Hunger Business’. Aired UK 2000
He has
been cameraman on over 100 Documentaries and features for International
Broadcasters including:
?BBC
Assignment – Nuba, the Secret War.
?Channel
Four Dispatches. – Terrorism. Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt & Eritrea.
?BBC
Panorama – Embassy Bombings
?Channel
Four – Somalia, The Price of Peace.
?BBC
Panorama – Big man, little man.
?Channel
Four – Practical Spells, 15 part Drama series. UK
?ARD –
‘Captain’ Drama, Germany
His
corporate experience includes:
?Managing
Director & Owner of Vivid Features Ltd., Nairobi, Kenya. Vivid Features is
the foremost Facilities Company in East Africa and is privileged to manage,
staff and equip the CNN bureau for East, Central and West Africa.
?Director
of Minerva Vision, UK.
Academic
qualifications:
HND
Electrical & Electronic Engineering
University of the West
Bristol, UK
References:
?-
John Griffiths Church Farm, St Braivels, Gloucester, GL15 6QE, UK
?-
Catherine Bond CNN Bureau Chief, P.O. box 14590, Nairobi.
Director’s
statement:
NICK
HUGHES: I, I worked on so many documentaries after the genocide, and in many
ways documentary is the best way to tell the history of such an enormous event
as the genocide in Rwanda. But documentaries about Rwanda aren’t watched, and
if they are watched, they’re watched by people who already know and have
assumptions about Rwanda. And therefore you’re preaching to the converted, and
A Hundred Days is made to explain in a dramatic form — to explain what happened
to – in Rwanda – to an audience who has no interest in Rwanda.
NICK
HUGHES: Well it was something very, very small. I mean I didn’t save anybody. I
didn’t put my camera down and save any children. And nor did anybody else. And,
and nor did those people who, who sat at home and watched those two women being
murdered — watching their television in, in Europe or America — nothing
happened. There was no great outcry for something to be done.
NICK
HUGHES: In Rwanda it was really too much. The audience just sat in silence for
a moment at the end and then just fled from the cinema. I think very few people
in the audience in Rwanda actually watched the film. I think most of them went
inside themselves. When we show it to an audience in the West, particularly in
America, I have to say, in Canada where the, the
interest in A Hundred Days has been great, when the film is finished there’s so
many more questions that the audience have. They want to know much more about
Rwanda. We normally get thrown out of the cinema after about sort of 30 minutes
or 40 minutes if Eric Kabera or I are answering questions from the audience.
NICK
HUGHES: One of the problems, particularly in, in the United States is that the
film doesn’t present Africa in a positive light. Some people would say that it
sort of continues the, the negative story about Africa. The problem with that
is, is what about those people who died? What about that one million people?
What about their history? What about Rwanda? If you just want to tell positive
stories, then you can’t talk about Rwanda and you can’t talk about those people
and their suffering and the survivors who to this day are suffering. You just
have to say, well, you know, blow you, because it’s not a possible story – and
that’s, that’s not right.
NICK
HUGHES: Well, it– the film gives me an opportunity to speak about Rwanda, but I
don’t get the opportunity to go back and stop by the side of the road and pick
up a child who’s going to be murdered by the [...?...] and take him out of the
country to safety — and nor does anybody else get that opportunity to do that
again. And nobody said anything about stopping it happening next time. So no, I
don’t think there is anything really to feel positive about or redeemed about.
Not at all. The genocide is the opposite of redemption. There is no redemption.
You can’t go back. Those people are dead, and it will happen again.
----------------------
Gerald
Caplan:Our Rwandan betrayal
Gerald
Caplan The Globe and Mail
Published
Saturday, Nov. 28 2009, 11:42 AM EST
Last
updated Thursday, Aug. 23 2012, 12:20 PM EDT
Earlier
this month the RCMP arrested a 37-year old Rwandan man, Jacques Mungwarere, in
Windsor, Ont., and charged him with genocide during the 1994 genocide of the
Tutsi in his home country. Barely days before, a Canadian court sentenced
another Rwandan, Desire Munyaneza, to life imprisonment for his role in the
same genocide.
The
two cases reflect a fact of Canadian life that few Canadians are actually aware
of: For the past 50 years, before, during and since the genocide, Canada and
Rwanda have been closely linked in a remarkable number of ways. Large numbers
of Rwandans have studied, lived, worked and made lives in Canada, while
countless Canadians have been associated with Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire
being only the most prominent.
Yet in
its moment of supreme need, during the 100 days in 1994 when the Hutu
leadership organized a systematic conspiracy to annihilate the country's entire
Tutsi population, the Canadian government largely abandoned the Tutsi to their
terrible fate. Why this happened has never been investigated in a proper way,
and one of the world's leading historians of the genocide, Linda Melvern of
Britain, wants to know why. So do many others of us.
Rwanda
became independent of Belgian colonial rule in the early 1960s and Canadians
have been closely involved with the country ever since. Canada was actually the
most influential middle power in Rwanda until the genocide, largely through the
work of French Canadians. Francophone officials in both Foreign Affairs and
CIDA knew the Rwandan government well and treated it well. Although few
Anglophones knew much about the tiny country, "Rwanda was considered the
jewel in the in the crown of countries receiving Canadian aid," according
to Professor Howard Adelman, and in fact was the highest recipient per capita
in the world of such aid.
The
main university in Rwanda was founded by a Quebec priest and funded by Canadian
aid, and Canadians, many also Quebec priests, became intimately involved in the
training of Rwanda's elite until the very eve of the genocide.
That
very closeness blinded many of those involved to the ugly truths about
president Juvénal Habyarimana and his government, which they so lavishly
praised. In reality, it was a Hutu dictatorship with the minority Tutsi
suffering grievous discrimination in every aspect of society. As a result, most
Rwandans with whom Canadian government or church officials came into contact
with would have been part of the Hutu ruling class. It seems apparent that the
Canadians who worked with Rwanda largely accepted the racist ideology of the
Hutu regime and closed their eyes to the persecution of the Tutsi. There were
honorable exceptions, however, including prime minister Brian Mulroney, who was
critical of the president, and human-rights advocates Ed Broadbent and William
Schabas, who exposed the government's increasingly murderous treatment of
Tutsi.
Yet
despite the close ties between the two countries, the Canadian government - by
1994 under Jean Chrétien - refused to answer the pleas of its own soldier,
General Dallaire, for substantially more troops once the genocide erupted, nor
did it react to the crisis by urging the United Nations to intervene more
forcefully. The Canadian government knew perfectly well what was happening. It
had Dallaire. It had General Maurice Baril heading up the military component of
the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York. It had James Orbinski
running the Médecins Sans Frontières mission in the heart of the killings. It
had deputy defence minister Robert Fowler strongly urging greater Canadian
intervention. Yet except for some minor (if important) logistic help to
Dallaire's military mission, Ottawa did little.
Why?
Fifteen years later, we still don't know. Linda Melvern reminds us of several
harsh truths in the newly published, revised version of her classic study A
People Betrayed: The role of the West in Rwanda's genocide. There is no
question of the reality of the genocide (despite a growing chorus of deniers);
almost a million Tutsi were mercilessly slaughtered. Rwanda was abandoned by
virtually all the players who should have intervened, and who are therefore
responsible in part for that slaughter. Most of those players still refuse to
acknowledge their role or seek to account for them.
We're
talking here of France and the Roman Catholic Church, both actively complicit
in enabling the genocide, the United States, Britain, Belgium, the UN
Secretariat, the UN Security Council, the Organization of African Unity, and,
yes, Canada. Of these, only the United Nations, Belgium and the OAU have
commissioned proper studies, all of which came down harshly on their sponsors.
(I wrote the OAU's report.)
From
France: a refusal to acknowledge a jot of responsibility and a whitewashing
study. From the Church: no acceptance of responsibility, no apology, no
investigation of itself. From Washington: dishonest apologies and no
investigation. From Canada: silence.
Melvern
is tireless in demanding from each of those who either betrayed or abandoned
Rwanda that they must set up a serious independent commission to investigate
the role each country or institution played. The government of Stephen Harper
has formally acknowledged the reality of the Turkish genocide against the
Armenians in 1915, and has apologized to both Chinese-Canadians and native
Canadians for injustices against them perpetrated by the Canadian governments
of their time. Maybe they will continue this admirable record by allowing the
truth of our abandonment of Rwanda to be discovered.
---------------
Rwanda: The 1994 Genocide - a Scream Never Heard
By
David Nkusi, 11 January 2014
analysis
Photo:
News of Rwanda
Rwanda
fugitive and former spy Patrick Karegeya.
In
1994, Rwanda, a small state became the site of unimaginable deliberate human
destruction.
The
horror that took a hundred days to end, a hundred of the darkest period in the
history of the continent; hundreds of extermination campaigns claimed over 20
percent of the population under the explicit direction of the state with the
principle targets being members of the country's Tutsi community.
Rwandans
were traumatised by killings beyond their comprehensions; it was a conflict of
betrayal as the killings were efficient and well planned. The country sunk into
hell, the laughter kept silent, the smiles froze, and the shouts of horror
replaced the beautiful songs of the women and children.
To
some people, it was hard to believe that in the few weeks an unimaginable evil
had turned Rwanda's gentle green valleys and mist-capped hill into a stinking
nightmare of rotting corpses piled on top of each other in classrooms and
churches as Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher recounts, "the most
horrible and systematic human massacre we have had occasion to witness since
the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis'."
The
killings took place in broad daylight; in schools, hospitals, clinics,
churches, and other places where people sought refuge.
Doctors
murdered their patients, engineers murdered the paupers, lawyers murdered their
clients, the clergy murdered their congregation, politicians killed the
electorate and neighbours killed fellow neighbours.
All
these categories of people participated in varying magnitudes with the state
orchestrating and bureaucratizing the genocide, of course using state
resources.
The
incitement was made over national radio and every part of society was involved.
The extermination went on... .thousands of innocents left alone to die, no body
helped, no one came.
The
international community watched the horror from a distance despite the legal
and moral obligation to prevent the genocide especially under the 1948
Convention on genocide.
Rwanda
became the least on everyone's agenda and there was reluctance to take even the
slightest action.
The
international community encouraged the Belgian government to withdraw its
forces in Rwanda, effectively condemning to death thousands who camped at the
then ETO-Kicukiro
In
March 1998, the then US president Bill Clinton acknowledged the failure of
international community to deal effectively with the situation in Rwanda.
While
speaking to the crowd assembled at Kigali International Airport, Clinton said:
"We come here today partly in recognition of the fact that we in the
United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should
have done to try to limit what occurred" in Rwanda
From
memory to action
Today,
as many discover the horror that took place and seek to understand how and why
violence of this character could have happened in our time, and as we seek to
answer the very complex question as to what led to the 1994 debacle, there is
need for a paradigm shift from prejudice and bigotry to justice and tolerance.
Shifting
from ideology of hate to that of love and bringing up good people that value
humanity, for the one million plus Rwandans who died is not a matter of
abstract statistics.
For
unto each person there is a name, an identity; each person is a universe. As
our sages tell us, "whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has
saved an entire universe."
Conversely,
whoever has killed a person; it is as if they have killed an entire universe.
Thus, the abiding imperative: we are each, wherever we are the guarantors of
each other's destiny -- this is the only way that our memories can bear fruits
of love, peace and harmony among Rwandans.
There
are conceptual issues that seem not to have permeated fully in our society, yet
they are prudent in understanding the moral questions inherent in genocide and
ideology of hate.
Rwandans
ought to; avoid comparison of pain, use good precision of language, choose
carefully the source of information and avoid stereotyping descriptions and
most importantly avoid oversimplifying the Genocide.
Therefore
translating our memories to actions requires an all-round interdisciplinary approach
to citizens' education - an approach that helps Rwandans move from thought to
judgment to participation.
Citizen
education on Genocide helps Rwandans to understand the forces that undermined
peace and egalitarianism in Rwanda, betrayed a generation of youthful Rwandans
and later to the genocide forms - for these forces are still with us.
This
shows that it is our obligation as Rwandans to write our own history -
translate our thoughts into actions and participate in cultivating the ideology
of love and pragmatism.
Most
importantly re-categorisation of our communities based on cross-cutting issues
such as gender and profession.
Let
us live by past memory and turn it into action. Yes! We need the past so that
we learn from our own history, connect the present to the future, and find
solutions to our own problem. So, we should remember all those who perished,
young and old to shape the country's history.
Let's
join our hands together as Rwandans in championing the struggle to remember -
and celebrate - the survivors of the Genocide - the true heroes of humanity.
For
they witnessed and endured the worst of inhumanity, but somehow found, in the
depths of their own humanity, the courage to go on, to rebuild their lives as
they helped build our communities.
David
Nkusi, cultural heritage analyst/philosophical studies consult.
-------------
Introduction
Establishment
Activities
before April 1994
Adjustment
of tasks
Decision
to close UNOMUR
Final
phase
Introduction
Fighting
between the Armed Forces of the mainly Hutu Government of Rwanda and the
Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) first broke out in October 1990 across
the border between Rwanda and its northern neighbour, Uganda. A number of
ceasefire agreements followed, including one negotiated at Aruhsa, United
republic of Tanzania, on 22 July 1992, which arranged for the presence in
rwanda of a 50-member Neutral Military Observer Group I (NMOG I) furnished by
the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Hostilities resumed in the northern
part of the country in early February 1993, interrupting comprehensive
negotiations between the Government of Rwanda and RPF, which were supported by
OAU and facilitated by the United Republic of Tanzania.
The
United Nations active involvement in Rwanda started in 1993, when Rwanda and
Uganda requested the deployment of military observers along the common border
to prevent the military use of the area by RPF. The Security Council in June
1993 established the United
Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR) on the Ugandan side
of the border to verify that no military assistance reached Rwanda.
Meanwhile,
the Arusha talks, brokered by Tanzania and OAU, reconvened in March 1993 and
finally led to a peace agreement in August 1993. The comprehensive peace
agreement called for a democratically elected government and provided for the
establishment of a broad-based transitional Government until the elections, in
addition to repatriation of refugees and integration of the armed forces of the
two sides. In October 1993, the Security Council established another
international force, the United
Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), to help the parties
implement the agreement, monitor its implementation and support the
transitional Government.
Establishment
On 22
June 1993, the Security Council, by its resolution 846 (1993), authorized the
establishment of UNOMUR on the Uganda side of the common border, for an initial
period of six months, subject to review every six months. The Council decided
that the verification would focus primarily on transit or transport, by roads
or tracks which could accommodate vehicles, of lethal weapons and ammunition
across the border, as well as any other material which could be of military
use.
By that
resolution, the Council also welcomed the Secretary-General's decision to
support the peacekeeping efforts of OAU by putting two military experts at its
disposal to help expedite the deployment of OAU's expanded NMOG (NMOG II) to
Rwanda. It also urged the Government of Rwanda and RPF to conclude quickly a
comprehensive peace agreement, and requested the Secretary-General to report on
the contribution the United Nations could make to assist OAU in implementing
this agreement and to begin contingency planning in the event that the Council
decided that such a contribution was needed.
As
requested by resolution 846 (1993), the United Nations undertook consultations
with the Government of Uganda with a view to concluding a status of mission
agreement for UNOMUR. The agreement was finalized and entered into force on 16
August 1993. This opened the way to deployment of an advance party which
arrived in the mission area on 18 August. UNOMUR established its headquarters
in Kabale, Uganda, about 20 kilometres north of the border with Rwanda. By the
end of September 1993, the Mission had reached its authorized strength of 81
military observers and was fully operational.
Following
the conclusion of the Arusha peace talks, the Secretary-General recommended
that the Security Council establish another peacekeeping operation – UNAMIR. In
doing so, he proposed that the military observers of UNOMUR come under the
command of the new Mission, while maintaining their separate monitoring tasks
on the Uganda-Rwanda border. UNAMIR was established on 5 October by Security
Council resolution 872 (1993).
Activities before April 1994
UNOMUR
restricted its monitoring activities in Uganda along the area of the border
with Rwanda controlled by RPF. The Mission established observation posts at two
major crossing sites and three secondary sites on the Ugandan side of the
border. The mission monitored the area through mobile patrols enhanced by
airborne coverage. It also facilitated the transit of vehicles transporting
food and medical supplies to Rwanda. Reporting to the Security Council on 15
December 1993 on the activities of the Mission, the Secretary-General noted
that UNOMUR was "a factor of stability in the area and that it was playing
a useful role as a confidence-building mechanism". Upon his recommendation,
the Council, by its resolution 891 (1993) of 20 December 1993,
extended UNOMUR's mandate by six months. The Council expressed its appreciation
to the Government of Uganda for its cooperation and support for UNOMUR and also
underlined the importance of a cooperative attitude on the part of the civilian
and military authorities in the mission area.
Adjustment of tasks
On 6
April 1994, an aircraft carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and
President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi crashed at Kigali airport, killing all
those on board. The two Presidents had been attending a regional meeting at Dar
es Salaam. It was not possible to carry out a full investigation of the causes
of the crash, which remain unknown.
The crash
was followed over the next three months by a series of events whose speed and
ferocity taxed to the utmost the attempts of the international community to
respond. The horror that engulfed Rwanda during this period was threefold: mass
murders throughout the country amounting to genocide; a brief but violent civil
war that swept government forces out of the country; and refugee flows that
created a humanitarian and ecological crisis of unprecedented dimensions.
Those
events had a direct effect on the activities of UNAMIR and UNOMUR. UNAMIR
sought to arrange a ceasefire, without success, and its personnel came
increasingly under attack. In July, RPF forces took control of Rwanda,
effectively ending the civil war, and established a broad-based Government. The
new Government declared its commitment to the 1993 peace agreement. [For more
information see UNAMIR.]
For their
part, when the conflict broken out in April and after RPF gained control of the
entire Uganda-Rwanda border, the UNOMUR extended its observation and monitoring
activities to that area. This necessitated the readjustment of tasks and the
reassignment of military observers. UNOMUR carried out its tasks essentially
through patrolling, monitoring and surveillance of the whole stretch of the
operational area, involving both mobile and fixed observations as well as
on-site investigations of suspected cross-border traffic.
Decision to close UNOMUR
On 16
June 1994, the Secretary-General reported to the Security Council that UNOMUR
had been particularly critical as UNAMIR sought to defuse tensions resulting
from the resumption of hostilities. The Mission's activities allowed UNAMIR to
address, at least to some degree, the issue of outside interference in the
Rwandese civil war. Its presence was a factor of stability in the area.
Nevertheless, there appeared to be little rationale for monitoring one of
Rwanda's borders and not the others. He believed that UNOMUR should continue
its monitoring activities until an effective ceasefire was established. He
therefore recommended that UNOMUR's mandate be renewed for a period of three
months. During that period, the number of military observers would be reduced
by phases, adjusting to operational requirements. UNOMUR would be closed down
by 21 September 1994. The Security Council endorsed the Secretary-General's
recommendations on 20 June 1994 by its resolution 928 (1994).
Final phase
Reduction
of UNOMUR was carried out in four phases with a gradual scaling down of
monitoring activities. Phase one took effect on 15 August, and the Mission's
total strength of 80 military observers was reduced by 25. In phase two, effective
from 30 August, the Mission was further reduced by nine military observers. In
phase three, effective from 6 September, an additional 12 military observers
left, leaving a total strength of 34. In the final phase, all remaining
military and civilian personnel were to leave the area by 21 September. The
formal closing ceremony was presided by the Under-Secretary-General for
Peacekeeping Operations, Mr. Kofi Annan.
The
Secretary-General informed the Security Council that, while the tragic turn of
events in Rwanda had prevented UNOMUR from fully implementing its mandate, the
Mission had played a useful role in efforts to build confidence, defuse
tensions and facilitate the implementation of the Arusha Agreement. Following
the Security Council's authorization on 17 May to expand UNAMIR, UNOMUR became
a forward base to back up the movement of UNAMIR personnel, equipment and
supplies into Rwanda. During the closure of Kigali airport, Entebbe airport in
Uganda functioned as the only air base from which those personnel and supplies
were routed by land to Rwanda. A team of UNOMUR military observers was
stationed at Entebbe to coordinate logistic activities, and UNOMUR observers
escorted convoys of logistic material and foodstuffs to the Uganda-Rwanda
border for use by UNAMIR. UNOMUR also facilitated the transport of UNAMIR and
other United Nations personnel between Kabale and Entebbe and between Kabale
and Goma and Bukavu in Zaire. The evacuation of UNAMIR casualties was carried
out with UNOMUR assistance.
The
Secretary-General expressed his appreciation to the Government of Uganda for
the cooperation and assistance it had extended to the Mission. He commended
both the military and the civilian personnel of UNOMUR for the dedication and
professionalism with which they had carried out their tasks
-----------------
We
had 2 suffer- our beautiful troops had 2 suffer the HORROR OF CANADA'S
POLITICAL CRAP in Afghanistan... Remember... always thinking of RWANDA AND
BETRAYAL OF UN PEACEKEEPERS...
WE
REMEMBER ...WE REMEMBER THE HORRORS OF POLITICAL BULLSHIT..AFGHANSTAN- FROM
TALIBAN JACK 2 THE LIBERALS, BLOC, GREEN AND 2 MANY TORIES... CANADA
Oh my God.... The
liberals will protect the Afghan terrorists and 'if they were spanked whilst in
Afghan hands" along with preaching for the Kahdr Brothers who butchered
Nato troops to be not only 'pampered by UN rules' but that one of these evil
freaks .... was but an 'innocent child' whilst he was slaughtering Nato troops
in Afghanistan instead of being in school in Canada and playing hoops and all
the things 15year old do...... they put
us in Afghanistan..... and now the Americans feel it's time to swing their
might..... a little toooooo late..... and we are here on this day.... with
another Canadian son coming home the wrong way from the filth called
Afghanistan..... and We Never even got
to say.... Goodbye..... and our childrens asking why???? In the fields of Kandahar.... lay down....
Tyler William Todd
a mere 26 years of age..... Sweet Jesus.... Rwanda's Rules of Engagement.... are
murdering our Nato children.... whilst the Afghans betray us.... the Afghan
government betrays us and the Global Muslim Islamic Freakshow Snake of Terror
that slithers throughtout and is fed by the Middle East, Asia and Afria....
slices and dices Afghan children, women and innocents one at a time... day in
and day out..... Just cannot stop the tears.... the fear... the anguish... the
anger.... the betrayal of political global fudgeups again and again.... the UN
and NATO are dead and G8.... usless... and have finally broken the last tiny
piece of innocence, dignity and trust..... for every day people......
Oh My God....
Canadian
soldier killed in Afghanistan
CTV.ca
News Staff
Date:
Sunday Apr. 11, 2010 2:30 PM ET
A
Canadian soldier has been killed by a roadside bomb while on foot patrol in
Afghanistan.
Pte.
Tyler William Todd, 26, was killed early Sunday near the town of Belanday,
which is about eight kilometres southwest of Kandahar city.
Todd
was from Kitchener, Ont., but was serving with the 1st Battalion Princess
Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Edmonton.
Brig.-Gen.
Daniel Menard, the commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said Todd was
on a routine patrol, speaking to local villagers.
The
region is heavily travelled by Taliban militants, who stage attacks on Belanday
from local grape and wheat fields.
Last
November, the Canadian battle group established a permanent presence in
Belanday, setting up a platoon house there as part of an experiment by military
brass to have troops leave their fortified bases and live among the population.
It
was lauded as a success at NATO headquarters and even praised by U.S. generals,
as the Canadian soldiers turned the town from a no-go zone into an oasis of
calm in Taliban territory.
Just
a few weeks ago, Canadian troops and Afghan soldiers swept an area just south
of Belanday and had been assured by locals that the Taliban had fled the area.
Todd's
death brings to 142 the total number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan
since 2002.
Look at that
beautiful face... it could be your son... or mine.... and ctv and cbc... need
to manage their comment sections.... they are way too many repulsive and ugly
people on their sites that are allowed to be cruel and vicious.... and not
here... not today...please..
Canadian soldier
killed in Afghanistan
A
Canadian soldier died in Afghanistan after stepping on an improvised explosive
device while on foot patrol Sunday morning, just southwest of Kandahar city.
Pte.
Tyler William Todd was 26 years old and based out of Edmonton. (DND)
Pte.
Tyler William Todd, 26, was killed around 7:30 a.m. local time near the town of
Belanday, eight kilometres outside the provincial capital, said Brig.-Gen.
Daniel Menard, Canada's top commander in Afghanistan.
The
area is a known transit route for Taliban fighters, who use the arid grape and
wheat fields as staging areas for attacks into the city itself.
The
Canadian battle group supported an Afghan National Army sweep of the area
further south of Belanday a few weeks ago and had been assured by villagers
that the Taliban had fled.
Menard
said Todd was on a routine patrol, speaking to villagers to learn more about
the area's needs.
The
young soldier was born in Kitchener, Ont., and served with the 1st Battalion,
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, based at CFB Edmonton.
Menard
described him as someone who was dedicated and likeable with a good sense of
humour.
"Tyler
was a practical joker. He would often hide rocks and candies in the other
soldiers' beds," the general said.
"His
enthusiasm and strong will were an inspiration to his platoon. He was doing
what he loved to do, being a soldier operating alongside his friends," he
added.
Todd's
death brings to 142 the number of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since
2002.
Four
civilians have also been killed, including one diplomat, one journalist, and
two aid workers.
------------
Natynczyk
'shocked' by Karzai rhetoric
CTV.ca
News Staff
Date:
Sun. Apr. 11 2010 1:22 PM ET
General
Walt Natynczyk says he is "shocked" by recent anti-Western rhetoric
from Afghan President Hamid Karzai -- including a threat to join the Taliban --
but maintains Canadian soldiers are more concerned with improving the lives of
Afghan civilians.
"Our
men and women in the Canadian Forces are focused on enabling the peace and
security of Afghans where they live," Natynczyk told CTV's Question Period
on Sunday.
"We
are indeed shocked by what's been said up in Kabul, but at the same time the
men and women of the Canadian Forces are working on where Afghans live and
enabling the Afghan police, enabling the Afghan Army to provide security for
their people."
Natynczyk
was responding to a question of whether NATO has a reliable ally in the Karzai
government.
Karzai
angered many Western leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, when he
lashed out at both the United Nations and the United States for what he said is
excessive meddling in his government's affairs. He also accused both the UN and
the U.S. of conspiring to deny him re-election in last year's presidential
election.
Harper
condemned the comments as "unacceptable," a sentiment echoed by
retired general Rick Hillier, who said the statements were likely born of
Karzai's frustration with juggling two problems: reforming his government and
accommodating demands from the international community.
Natynczyk
said one of the biggest challenges in Afghanistan today is governance, from the
local level right up to Karzai and his cabinet, "and the sooner we have a
strong government right from the district level all the way through, the sooner
we'll achieve a faster pace of progress in Afghanistan."
But
the chief of defence staff said there are encouraging signs that life is
improving for ordinary Afghans, a direct result of the work Canadian soldiers have
done to train the Afghan police and Afghan Army.
"What
it's allowed is for Afghans to come back home to their farms, back to their
houses and actually start to farm their fields, till their fields,"
Natynczyk said. On a visit to the country just a few weeks ago, the general
said he was buoyed by the sight of Afghan farmers opening their irrigation
ditches.
"It's
probably the most progress I've seen in many years of visiting
Afghanistan," Natynczyk said.
But
as for recent comments by both the U.S. secretary of state and British foreign
secretary suggesting Canadian soldiers should remain in Afghanistan beyond the
scheduled 2011 withdrawal date, Natynczyk said the only new Canadian soldiers
that will deploy to the country are the 90 extra troops headed there in May to
help train Afghan soldiers and police.
"Just
to be clear, we're following through with the Parliamentary motion,"
Natynczyk said. "And the Parliamentary motion indicates that the Canadian
Forces will leave Kandahar province in 2011 and the end of military mission in
Afghanistan will occur in 2011."
When
asked if the Canadian Forces would then turn its attention to a UN mission in
the Congo, Natynczyk said there are already 10 staff officers and one support
personnel on the ground. He said the UN has sent a request to augment the
mission to the Foreign Affairs Department, and he would "await wait the
government of Canada wishes to do."
POSTED
.... JUST YESTERDAY... omg....
DEAR
GOD.... PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS BECOME ANOTHER FUDGED UP RWANDA (100 days of
silence by UN/NATO/G8 and world's media-
BETRAYAL OF UNPEACEKEEPERS ON THE GROUND OF RWANDA AND THE BUTCHERING OF
800,000 BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE OF RWANDA)-
UN/NATO/POLITICIANS AND THE MEDIA NEED TO GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER
SERIOUSLY.... THESE ARE OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS.... CANADA'S LIFEBLOOD....
LIVING... BREATHING... AND DYING.... FOR A NATION AND PEOPLE.... THAT JUST
DON'T GET WHAT FREEDOM .... TRUE FREEDOM MEANS... AND THE HUMAN RIGHT... TO
ACTUALLY OWN THEIR OWN LIVES... AND EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION.... THE
BIGGEST FREEDOM OF ALL.... I MOURN LECH
OF POLAND TODAY.... MINERS IN USA AND CHINA... I MOURN FOR A LIFE THAT USED TO
BE DECENT AND GOOD.... WITH ABSOLUTELY
.... NO BLURS.... WHEN
POLITICIANS SEEMED TO ACTUALLY CARE FOR THE PEOPLE THEY SERVED.... INSTEAD OF
PAWNED.... TAKE CARE OF OUR BELOVED
CHILDREN WEARING OUR FLAGS OF CANADA, USA, UK, AUSSIE, KIWI, GERMANY, FRANCE,
POLAND, SPAIN, NETHERLANDS, EUROPE AND ALL THE COALITIONS.... PLEASE ...
PLEASE....
Obama says Karzai
must remain 'critical partner'
WASHINGTON
-- U.S. President Barack Obama says Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai
remains “a critical partner” with the United States in the global war against
terrorism despite Karzai's harsh recent criticism of the West.
Obama
tells ABC News in an interview from Prague that U.S. troops must be in
Afghanistan because “3,000 Americans were killed” by an attack that was
launched from there. The president says “those people are still out there,
plotting to kill Americans.”
Obama
said that if the United States succeeds only on the military side, but not on
the civilian side, “then you're going to continue to have instability in the
region.” He said Karzai “has his own domestic politics that he has to deal with.”
CHER
DIEU. ... S'IL VOUS PLAIT CECI ne pas PERMETTRE DE ne pas DEVENIR UN AUTRE
ESQUIVE SUR LE RWANDA (100 jours de silence par les médias d'UN/NATO/G8 et
monde- la TRAHISON D'UNPEACEKEEPERS PAR TERRE DE RWANDA ET L'ABATTRE DE 800.000
BEAUX GENS DE RWANDA)- ONU/OTAN/LES POLITICIENS ET LES MEDIAS ONT BESOIN
D'OBTENIR LEUR ENSEMBLE DE MERDE SERIEUXXEMENT. ... CEUX-CI SONT NOS FILS ET
FILLES. ... FORCE VITALE DU CANADA. ... VIVRE... RESPIRATION... ET MOURIR. ...
POUR UNE NATION ET UN GENS. ... CELA n'OBTIENT pas JUSTE CE QUE LIBERTE.... LA
VRAIE LIBERTE SIGNIFIE... ET LA DROITE HUMAINE... EN FAIT POSSEDER LEURS
PROPRES VIES... ET L'EDUCATION, L'EDUCATION, L'EDUCATION. ... LA plus GRANDE
LIBERTE DE TOUS. ... Je PORTE LE DEUIL LECH DE POLOGNE AUJOURD'HUI. ... LES
MINEURS A USA ET CHINE... Je PORTE LE DEUIL POUR UNE VIE QUI A ETE DECENT ET
BON. ... AVEC ABSOLUMENT.... AUCUNES TACHES FLOUES. ... QUAND LES POLITICIENS
ONT SEMBLE EN FAIT SOIGNER LES GENS qu'ILS ONT SERVIS. ... AU LIEU DE MIS AU
MONT-DE-PIETE. ... S'OCCUPER DE NOS ENFANTS BIEN-AIMES PORTANT NOS DRAPEAUX DE
CANADA, USA, Royaume-Uni, Australien, le KIWI, ALLEMAGNE, FRANCE, POLOGNE,
ESPAGNE, HOLLANDE, EUROPE ET TOUTES LES COALITIONS. ... S'IL VOUS PLAIT... S'IL
VOUS PLAIT. ...
Obama
dit que Karzai doit rester ‹ le partenaire critique › WASHINGTON -- le
Président Barack Obama américain dit qu'Afghanistan le Président Hamid Karzai
reste « un partenaire critique » avec les Etats-Unis dans la guerre globale
contre le terrorisme malgré Karzai la critique récente dure de l'Ouest. Obama
dit les Nouvelles d'ABC dans un entretien de Prague que les troupes américaines
doivent être en Afghanistan parce que « 3.000 Américains ont été tués » par un
assaut qui a été lancé de là. Le président dit « ces gens sont toujours,
traçant dehors pour tuer Américains ». Obama a dit que si les Etats-Unis
réussissent seulement sur le côté militaire, mais pas sur le côté civil, «
alors vous continuerez à avoir l'instabilité dans la région ». Il a dit Karzai
« a sa propre politique domestique qu'il doit traiter ».
Highway
of Heroes (Never had a chance to say goodbye)
comment:
I've
always hated the war, but that doesn't mean that I don't cry over each and
every soldier we lose, be it in Afghanistan, Iraq, anywhere. They are serving
their country/countries and they should be respected for their brave deeds...
My deepest condolences to all who lost a family member in an action
My deepest condolences to all who lost a family member in an action
comment:
I
just wanted to say I think it's fantastic that y'all have dedicated a portion
of the highway near Toronto in such a way. I only wish that we here in the US
would do the same thing, or something simular. I am the daughter of a former
Leading Air Women in the Canadian Air Force, she is dead now, but she would
have been pleased and proud!
comment:
future
canadian soldier paying his respects to those fallen...and giving thanks to
those currently serving!!!
comment:
God watch over your
soldiers, Canada. We here in Michigan pray for you.
RWANDA
- O BEAUTIFUL RWANDA- POSTED MARCH 6, 2014
The
Rwandan Genocide
Modern
History Project 2012
Romeo
Dallaire
Widely
known for having served as Force Commander of UNAMIR, the United Nations
peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994. Dallaire tried desperately
to stop the genocide that was being waged by Hutu extremists against Tutsis and
Hutu moderates.
Early
Life
Romeo
Dallaire was born in Denekamp, Netherlands in 1946 . He later immigrated to
Canada when he was six month-old and settled down with his mother in Montreal,
where he spent his childhood. In 1963, he enrolled in the Canadian Army as a
cadet at Le Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, and graduated from the Royal
Military College of Canada in 1970. He was commissioned into The Royal Regiment
of Canadian Artillery shortly after, but continued to attend numerous military
colleges over the next 2 decades.
Romeo
& Rwanda
Dallaire
received his commission as the Force Commander of UNAMIR in late 1993 to assist
in the implementation of the Arusha Accords. The UN attempted to negotiate with
numerous influential people within Rwanda to execute these Accords
successfully, and as a result end the three-year Rwandan Civil War. Dallaire
was tasked with supervising and helping both sides with the implementation of
the agreed-upon Arusha peace accords and then transition to a new government.
While
Dallaire came to Rwanda expecting a standard mission, he soon noticed early
signs that something was wrong.
On
January 22, 1994, a French aircraft landed in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda,
loaded with ammunition and weapons for the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). Dallaire
learned through an informant that these weaponry would later be utilized in an
attack on the Tutsis and he promptly sent a telegram to the UN. He had
requested to seize these shipments, but his request was denied on two main
reasons. Firstly, the shipments had been ordered before the Arusha Accord, and
as such, the UN was not allowed to attain possession of them. Secondly, the FAR
displayed paperwork indicating that the weapons had been sent by several
countries (Belgium, France, United Kingdom) in which the UN believed had good
intentions. In the end, these weaponry were not seized and were later used to
massacre countless Tutsis.
Also
at this time, troops from the Rwandan government began checking identity cards
of the citizens, which identified individuals as either Hutus or Tutsis. This
tactic of utilizing identity cards would later allow Hutu militias to quickly
and easily pinpoint their victims with precision during the Genocide.
Genocide
On
April 6, 1994, the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down. This set in motion
the vicious genocide as extremists within the Hutu population began assassinating
moderate government officials and ultimately claiming the lives of more than
800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus within 100 days.
Amid
this escalating violence, Dallaire stood his ground and faced a nearly
impossible situation. His force shrunk from 2,500 soldiers to merely a few
hundreds as nations withdrew their troops in the first days of the slaughter
and the UN repeatedly refused to send reinforcements. Dallaire and his
remaining forces remained, attempting to save as many people as they could
while the massacre continue. Most of his efforts were to defend specific areas
where he knew Tutsis would be hiding, resulting in directly saving the lives of
32,000 people of different races throughout the genocide.
As the
massacre progressed in Rwanda and press accounts of the genocide grew, the UN
Security Council rethought Dallaire’s former request and voted to establish
UNAMIR II. It included a strength of 5,500 men which would be sent by the UN.
As opposed to UNAMIR, which had a peacekeeping mandate under Chapter VI of the
U.N. Charter, UNAMIR II would be authorized under Chapter VII to enforce a
peace. It was not until early July in 1994, when RPF troops under Kagame swept
into Kigali that the genocide ended.
While
the genocide is over, Dallaire witnessed acts so inhuman during his time in
Rwanda that he now suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. He
attempted suicide in 2000, but now writes about his experiences in Rwanda as a
method of dealing with his condition.
--------------------
SORRY - sort of screwed this copy up... the link is at the bottom..
A good man in Rwanda
Twenty years ago, Rwanda descended into
the madness of genocide. UN peacekeepers were stretched to breaking point – but
one stood out, taking huge risks to save hundreds of lives.
By Mark Doyle
By Mark Doyle
This is the story of the bravest man I have ever met.
I’ve covered many wars and seen many acts of courage. But for sheer grit
and determination I’ve never known anyone to compare with Capt Mbaye Diagne, a
United Nations peacekeeper in Rwanda.
I was there in 1994, when 800,000 people were killed in 100 days, and I
returned to reconstruct the story of this remarkable, charismatic officer from
the west African state of Senegal.
The country plunged into war and genocide on 6 April 1994, when the
plane carrying the Rwandan president, a member of the majority Hutu population,
was shot down. Everyone on board was killed. Within hours Hutu extremists
seized power and a tidal wave of murder was unleashed against the minority
Tutsi population, and anyone prepared to defend them.
Genocide memorial, Kigali, 2014
The army came for Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana that first night.
As gunfire rang out, her five children, the youngest just three, were
bundled through a chain link fence to be hidden in a neighbour’s house.
The children were cowering in the brick-built bungalow, occasionally
peeping out of the window, when they spotted soldiers looking for their
parents.
“There was more gunfire," says Marie-Christine, the prime
minister's daughter, who was 15 at the time.
Then we heard the soldiers scream for
joy. And after that there was nothing but an eerie silence.”
Agathe Uwilingiyimana was a moderate Hutu, not a Tutsi, but she was
killed because she was ready to share power with them. Had the killers found
the children they would have been slaughtered too.
Marie-Christine Umuhoza, Lake Geneva, 2014
Hours later, when UN soldiers arrived to pick up UN aid workers from the
compound behind the prime minister’s residence, they discovered Marie-Christine
and her brothers still hiding in the bungalow.
A fierce argument broke out about what to do with the children. It was
not clear that the UN soldiers were authorised to move them, says Adama Daff,
one of the aid workers, but “on humanitarian grounds we definitely could not
leave them there”.
It was extremely dangerous to travel anywhere. Roadblocks manned by Hutu
killers had already appeared, and the armoured personnel carriers which were
supposed to have taken UN aid workers to safety had not shown up.
In the end, Daff says, it was decided that Capt Mbaye, an unarmed
military observer, would take the children in his unarmoured car to the relative
safety of the nearby UN-guarded Hotel des Mille Collines.
Romeo Dallaire, Ottawa, 2014
“He decided to load the kids up,” says Gen Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian
commander of the small and poorly equipped UN force. “He hid them under a
tarpaulin and just drove like stink.”
The gutsiness of that. There are no
limits to describe how gutsy. It’s Victoria Cross-type action.”
They were the first of many people Mbaye took to the Hotel des Mille
Collines - an unremarkable edifice of glass and concrete set on a hill
overlooking the capital Kigali, but one of the few sanctuaries for Tutsis in
the city.
Capt Mbaye Diagne was in his mid-30s, from a small village in northern
Senegal, and a man of immense charm. Tall, gap-toothed and easygoing in Aviator
sunglasses, his humour put people at their ease even in one of the darkest
chapters of modern history.
2. No refuge
The first, bloody days of the genocide felt like pandemonium.
There was hot lead flying in all directions and bodies lying, sometimes piled up, on the sides of the roads.
The terrifying roadblocks were mainly manned by the Hutu Interahamwe militia. The word means “those who work together”- and the work was killing Tutsis with machetes, knives and sticks. I saw one man attack another in the head with a screwdriver.
Radio stations urged them on, calling for the death of Tutsi “cockroaches”.
The shooting down of the president’s plane had rekindled a civil war between the government army and rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which had been briefly on hold following a tentative peace deal. Led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, the RPF was advancing on the capital, saying it would stop the massacre.
In between the two sides was the beleaguered UN force. Its vehicles were sometimes attacked by Hutus - especially if the militia thought there were Tutsis inside them.
Within the first 48 hours, a lot of the unarmed military observers like Mbaye - especially those outside the capital - disappeared. “It took us nearly a month to find some who had gone to different countries,” says Dallaire. “Some ended up in Nairobi before we knew where they were.”
With virtually no-one to defend them, tens of thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in churches, but even here they were not safe. One of them, Concilie Mukamwezi, went with her husband and children to the Sainte Famille church, a large religious compound in the centre of Kigali. She remembers her time there with digital clarity.
“I had just bought some laundry soap from a stall when a priest in military uniform came up to me,” she says.
“He had four militiamen with him and he was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and grenades.
“This priest accused me of being a collaborator with the rebels.
He pointed his Kalashnikov at me like this,” she says, picking up a stick from the ground and holding it up like a rifle, “and he said he was going to fire.”
Incredible though it may seem, some Hutu clergy were collaborating in the genocide, and some were even taking part.
One of Mbaye’s jobs was to be the eyes and ears of the UN mission, and he made it his business to check occasionally on the people sheltering at Sainte Famille.
He knew Concilie by sight because before the genocide she had worked at the office of the national telephone company, Rwandatel, where he paid his phone bills. And by coincidence he happened to walk into the church compound at her moment of need.
“Captain Mbaye ran over and stood right between the priest and I,” says Concilie. “He shouted, ‘Why are you killing this woman? You must not do this because if you do the whole world will know.’” The priest backed down.
There was no large-scale killing inside the Sainte Famille compound, partly as a result of the efforts of Mbaye and the other UN peacekeepers - although plenty took place just outside.
In many churches where people had taken sanctuary, soldiers and militiamen broke in and massacred them in the pews.
Radio stations urged them on, calling for the death of Tutsi “cockroaches”.
The shooting down of the president’s plane had rekindled a civil war between the government army and rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which had been briefly on hold following a tentative peace deal. Led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, the RPF was advancing on the capital, saying it would stop the massacre.
In between the two sides was the beleaguered UN force. Its vehicles were sometimes attacked by Hutus - especially if the militia thought there were Tutsis inside them.
Within the first 48 hours, a lot of the unarmed military observers like Mbaye - especially those outside the capital - disappeared. “It took us nearly a month to find some who had gone to different countries,” says Dallaire. “Some ended up in Nairobi before we knew where they were.”
With virtually no-one to defend them, tens of thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in churches, but even here they were not safe. One of them, Concilie Mukamwezi, went with her husband and children to the Sainte Famille church, a large religious compound in the centre of Kigali. She remembers her time there with digital clarity.
“I had just bought some laundry soap from a stall when a priest in military uniform came up to me,” she says.
“He had four militiamen with him and he was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and grenades.
“This priest accused me of being a collaborator with the rebels.
Incredible though it may seem, some Hutu clergy were collaborating in the genocide, and some were even taking part.
One of Mbaye’s jobs was to be the eyes and ears of the UN mission, and he made it his business to check occasionally on the people sheltering at Sainte Famille.
He knew Concilie by sight because before the genocide she had worked at the office of the national telephone company, Rwandatel, where he paid his phone bills. And by coincidence he happened to walk into the church compound at her moment of need.
“Captain Mbaye ran over and stood right between the priest and I,” says Concilie. “He shouted, ‘Why are you killing this woman? You must not do this because if you do the whole world will know.’” The priest backed down.
There was no large-scale killing inside the Sainte Famille compound, partly as a result of the efforts of Mbaye and the other UN peacekeepers - although plenty took place just outside.
In many churches where people had taken sanctuary, soldiers and militiamen broke in and massacred them in the pews.
3. Flight
Other desperate Rwandans attempted to take advantage of rescue operations launched for the country’s expat community.
Ancilla Mukangira, a Rwandan working for a German aid agency, made her way to the American Club in the mistaken belief that the Americans would give her a place in one of the vehicles due to leave the country.
“I went in to register for the convoy,” she tells me outside the old club, which is today a Chinese restaurant. “But they said no Rwandans were allowed, and told me to leave.”
Ancilla was standing, crying, on the pavement outside, when Mbaye approached her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “If they see you they will kill you.”
She told him she had been kicked out. He was appalled, and could barely believe it, she says, but then offered to help her himself.
“Mbaye was shocked by the behaviour of the Wazungu [whites],” says Andre Guichaoua, a French academic staying at the Mille Collines hotel, who got to know Mbaye well in the first few days of the genocide.
French, Belgian and Italian troops were flying into Kigali - but only to save their own nationals.
For a man who was a UN soldier this evacuation of Europeans by European soldiers was an absolute scandal.
“Because if you had put the French and Belgian soldiers alongside the United Nations troops it would have been perfectly possible to confront the army and militia who were directly involved in the massacres," Guichaoua says.
“There was no co-ordination - and Mbaye was deeply horrified by this.”
In fact, there was very little co-ordination even within the UN system. While officers like Mbaye were bravely protecting those they could, UN bosses in New York were still arguing how - or even if - to support them. Soon after hostilities began they actually reduced the number of UN troops on the ground from 2,500 to less than 300.
The US, meanwhile, was determined to avoid putting boots on the ground. It was just six months after the humiliation of its forces in Somalia when 18 US rangers were killed in an incident which became known as Black Hawk Down.
So Mbaye drove Ancilla Mukangira to the Hotel des Mille Collines, past the militia men who were waiting at the gate to kill the Tutsis inside.
He told her to stay in his room and not open the door to anyone, returning only late at night, with an extra mattress for her to use.
“He saw me reading my Bible,” Ancilla remembers.
He said I should pray for my country, as awful things were happening.”
Ancilla Mukangira, a Rwandan working for a German aid agency, made her way to the American Club in the mistaken belief that the Americans would give her a place in one of the vehicles due to leave the country.
“I went in to register for the convoy,” she tells me outside the old club, which is today a Chinese restaurant. “But they said no Rwandans were allowed, and told me to leave.”
Ancilla was standing, crying, on the pavement outside, when Mbaye approached her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “If they see you they will kill you.”
She told him she had been kicked out. He was appalled, and could barely believe it, she says, but then offered to help her himself.
“Mbaye was shocked by the behaviour of the Wazungu [whites],” says Andre Guichaoua, a French academic staying at the Mille Collines hotel, who got to know Mbaye well in the first few days of the genocide.
French, Belgian and Italian troops were flying into Kigali - but only to save their own nationals.
“Because if you had put the French and Belgian soldiers alongside the United Nations troops it would have been perfectly possible to confront the army and militia who were directly involved in the massacres," Guichaoua says.
“There was no co-ordination - and Mbaye was deeply horrified by this.”
In fact, there was very little co-ordination even within the UN system. While officers like Mbaye were bravely protecting those they could, UN bosses in New York were still arguing how - or even if - to support them. Soon after hostilities began they actually reduced the number of UN troops on the ground from 2,500 to less than 300.
The US, meanwhile, was determined to avoid putting boots on the ground. It was just six months after the humiliation of its forces in Somalia when 18 US rangers were killed in an incident which became known as Black Hawk Down.
So Mbaye drove Ancilla Mukangira to the Hotel des Mille Collines, past the militia men who were waiting at the gate to kill the Tutsis inside.
He told her to stay in his room and not open the door to anyone, returning only late at night, with an extra mattress for her to use.
“He saw me reading my Bible,” Ancilla remembers.
4. The day he saved my life
I had got to know Mbaye a little myself. Soldiers are normally wary of journalists, but, in this, as in other ways, he was different.
One day, we drove together in his white UN car to gather information about an orphanage in a suburb of the city called Nyamirambo, where it was believed several hundred vulnerable children might be hiding.
On our way there, we were stopped at a militia roadblock. One of the militiamen walked over to the car and leaned through the window holding a Chinese stick grenade. It looked like an old-fashioned sink plunger, but instead of having a rubber sucker on the end of a stout stick, it had a bomb.
He waved it at me.
“Who’s this Belgian?” he asked menacingly.
The militia considered Belgians, the former colonial power in Rwanda, to be their enemy. They had recently killed 10 Belgian soldiers, who were part of the UN force, calculating that this would make the entire Belgian UN contingent leave Rwanda – which it did.
I was terrified I was about to be killed, but Mbaye looked at the man, smiled, and cracked a joke.
“I’m the only Belgian in this car. See?” he said, pinching some of the jet-black Senegalese skin on his arm. “Black Belgian!”
The joke broke the tension of the moment. Mbaye then ordered him out of the way, the militiaman instinctively obeyed - and we drove on.
“He loved joking with people, he loved talking,” says one of his former comrades in the UN mission, Babacar Faye, now a colonel in the Senegalese army.
He used his sense of humour to talk his way through the roadblocks.”
Mbaye was a devout Muslim, but he carried alcohol in his UN 4x4 to buy the lives of people he was taking through the deadly checkpoints.
“In his car, he would often have cases of beer, bottles of whisky and lots of packets of cigarettes,” says Faye. “And he always had wads of cash.”
I once saw a list of names on a scrap of paper that had fallen out of his pocket. It was a list of first names –“Pierre”, “Marie’ - with sums of money written next to them - $10, $30 and so on.
These were his records – the amounts he had paid, often on someone else’s behalf, to get people through the checkpoints.
He sometimes even gave away his military food rations – and when his colleagues found out, they donated theirs to add to the valuable stash on the back seat of his car.
“When he was stopped at these roadblocks, the militiamen would say ‘Boss, I’m hungry’ or ‘Boss I’m thirsty’ so he’d give them a cigarette, or if it was one of the militia chiefs he’d give a beer or a whisky,” says Faye.
“This allowed him to go everywhere without making the militiamen too angry. And that’s how he saved people the militia wanted to kill – five or six people in his car at a time.”
One day, we drove together in his white UN car to gather information about an orphanage in a suburb of the city called Nyamirambo, where it was believed several hundred vulnerable children might be hiding.
On our way there, we were stopped at a militia roadblock. One of the militiamen walked over to the car and leaned through the window holding a Chinese stick grenade. It looked like an old-fashioned sink plunger, but instead of having a rubber sucker on the end of a stout stick, it had a bomb.
He waved it at me.
“Who’s this Belgian?” he asked menacingly.
The militia considered Belgians, the former colonial power in Rwanda, to be their enemy. They had recently killed 10 Belgian soldiers, who were part of the UN force, calculating that this would make the entire Belgian UN contingent leave Rwanda – which it did.
I was terrified I was about to be killed, but Mbaye looked at the man, smiled, and cracked a joke.
“I’m the only Belgian in this car. See?” he said, pinching some of the jet-black Senegalese skin on his arm. “Black Belgian!”
The joke broke the tension of the moment. Mbaye then ordered him out of the way, the militiaman instinctively obeyed - and we drove on.
“He loved joking with people, he loved talking,” says one of his former comrades in the UN mission, Babacar Faye, now a colonel in the Senegalese army.
Mbaye was a devout Muslim, but he carried alcohol in his UN 4x4 to buy the lives of people he was taking through the deadly checkpoints.
“In his car, he would often have cases of beer, bottles of whisky and lots of packets of cigarettes,” says Faye. “And he always had wads of cash.”
I once saw a list of names on a scrap of paper that had fallen out of his pocket. It was a list of first names –“Pierre”, “Marie’ - with sums of money written next to them - $10, $30 and so on.
These were his records – the amounts he had paid, often on someone else’s behalf, to get people through the checkpoints.
He sometimes even gave away his military food rations – and when his colleagues found out, they donated theirs to add to the valuable stash on the back seat of his car.
“When he was stopped at these roadblocks, the militiamen would say ‘Boss, I’m hungry’ or ‘Boss I’m thirsty’ so he’d give them a cigarette, or if it was one of the militia chiefs he’d give a beer or a whisky,” says Faye.
“This allowed him to go everywhere without making the militiamen too angry. And that’s how he saved people the militia wanted to kill – five or six people in his car at a time.”
5. Escape attempt
As time went on, the war split Kigali into two zones – one controlled by the government, the other by the RPF.
The Hotel des Mille Collines was in the government-controlled zone, right next to a barracks where some of the militia leaders were based. But thanks to its armed UN guards, many Tutsis and moderate Hutus did what they could to get inside. Most had to have money or contacts.
The prime minister’s children were smuggled out of the hotel after a few days – hidden under suitcases in the back of a UN vehicle. They were taken to the airport and flown to safety, still dressed in the pyjamas they were wearing when they fled their home.
But more and more people arrived at the hotel and conditions steadily worsened. Water supplies were cut off, forcing those sheltering there to drink water from the swimming pool. At first they would boil it, but after the power was cut too, they couldn’t even do that.
On one occasion Mbaye and other UN officers tried to organise a convoy of UN trucks from the Mille Collines to the airport. A doctor, Odette Nyiramilimo was on one of the lorries with her family, while Mbaye was in the lead vehicle.
The convoy made it out of the hotel gates, but it only got a few hundred metres down the road before it was stopped by a crowd of militiamen.
A government propaganda radio station had got hold of the list of the people in the lorries, and was reading it out on air, whipping the militia into a frenzy.
“They were trying to pull us off the lorries,” recalls Dr Nyiramilimo, “shouting ‘Kill the cockroaches!’
“Then Captain Mbaye ran up. And he stood between the lorry and the militiamen holding his arms out wide.
He shouted, ‘You cannot kill these people, they are my responsibility. I will not allow you to harm them – you’ll have to kill me first.’”
The Hotel des Mille Collines was in the government-controlled zone, right next to a barracks where some of the militia leaders were based. But thanks to its armed UN guards, many Tutsis and moderate Hutus did what they could to get inside. Most had to have money or contacts.
The prime minister’s children were smuggled out of the hotel after a few days – hidden under suitcases in the back of a UN vehicle. They were taken to the airport and flown to safety, still dressed in the pyjamas they were wearing when they fled their home.
But more and more people arrived at the hotel and conditions steadily worsened. Water supplies were cut off, forcing those sheltering there to drink water from the swimming pool. At first they would boil it, but after the power was cut too, they couldn’t even do that.
On one occasion Mbaye and other UN officers tried to organise a convoy of UN trucks from the Mille Collines to the airport. A doctor, Odette Nyiramilimo was on one of the lorries with her family, while Mbaye was in the lead vehicle.
The convoy made it out of the hotel gates, but it only got a few hundred metres down the road before it was stopped by a crowd of militiamen.
A government propaganda radio station had got hold of the list of the people in the lorries, and was reading it out on air, whipping the militia into a frenzy.
“They were trying to pull us off the lorries,” recalls Dr Nyiramilimo, “shouting ‘Kill the cockroaches!’
“Then Captain Mbaye ran up. And he stood between the lorry and the militiamen holding his arms out wide.
Eventually, Mbaye, along with other Senegalese officers, dissuaded the militia from killing the people on the convoy. But the crowd of militiamen was too big to drive through so they had to turn the convoy back to the hotel. They had not been able to get to the airport and out of the country, but they were alive.
Back at the Mille Collines, while the doctor was giving first aid to passengers who had been dragged from the vehicles and attacked, Mbaye came up to her.
“He seemed shocked,” Dr Nyiramilimo says. “He was saying, ‘They almost killed you, you know, they really wanted to do it.’ And he was upset – he was almost crying.
What really struck me was that he seemed far more worried about us than he had been about himself. He was a hero.”
Dr Nyiramilimo and Ancilla Mukangira eventually left the hotel in later convoys. The UN organised “swaps”, with Tutsis trapped on one side of the front line exchanged for Hutus stranded on the other. In this way thousands were saved.
Back at the Mille Collines, while the doctor was giving first aid to passengers who had been dragged from the vehicles and attacked, Mbaye came up to her.
“He seemed shocked,” Dr Nyiramilimo says. “He was saying, ‘They almost killed you, you know, they really wanted to do it.’ And he was upset – he was almost crying.
Dr Nyiramilimo and Ancilla Mukangira eventually left the hotel in later convoys. The UN organised “swaps”, with Tutsis trapped on one side of the front line exchanged for Hutus stranded on the other. In this way thousands were saved.
6. A final roadblock
We will never know exactly how many people owe their lives to Mbaye.
His old friend Col Faye puts it at “400 or 500, minimum”. He believes all of the people in the Hotel des Mille Collines would have been killed had it not been for Mbaye’s pivotal role in defending it.
An official estimate by the State Department in Washington, which in 2011 honoured Mbaye with a Tribute To Persons Of Courage certificate, says the figure is “as many as 600”.
But the American Fulbright Scholar Richard Siegler, who lives in Rwanda and plans to publish a book on Mbaye, thinks the correct figure may be 1,000 or more.
“The full extent of Captain Mbaye's actions has yet to be recognised, because those who saw him act only saw a small part of what he was doing,” Siegler says.
When you put everything he did together, it becomes clear that this was one of the great moral acts of our times.”
It would be wrong to suggest that Mbaye was the only one to have saved lives in Rwanda in 1994 - there were countless cases of extreme bravery by Rwandans themselves.
But in all of the years since the genocide, researchers have pored over the details of what happened, and none has found anyone involved in as many rescues as Capt Mbaye Diagne.
His luck finally ran out on the morning of 31 May 1994.
By this time the RPF had the upper hand but government forces were making a last stand in central Kigali. Almost every day there were big battles in the city – fights so intense that the sounds of individual guns firing merged together to make a deafening noise like rolling thunder.
It was on one of these days that Mbaye was asked to take an important written message from the head of the government army, Augustin Bizimungu, to the UN commander, Romeo Dallaire, who was based in the zone now held by the RPF.
Mbaye would have to leave the government-controlled sector by driving through a government army checkpoint.
He stopped at the checkpoint and a mortar round exploded on the road a short distance from his car.
Shrapnel tore through the bodywork.
Mbaye was hit and died instantly.
His old friend Col Faye puts it at “400 or 500, minimum”. He believes all of the people in the Hotel des Mille Collines would have been killed had it not been for Mbaye’s pivotal role in defending it.
An official estimate by the State Department in Washington, which in 2011 honoured Mbaye with a Tribute To Persons Of Courage certificate, says the figure is “as many as 600”.
But the American Fulbright Scholar Richard Siegler, who lives in Rwanda and plans to publish a book on Mbaye, thinks the correct figure may be 1,000 or more.
“The full extent of Captain Mbaye's actions has yet to be recognised, because those who saw him act only saw a small part of what he was doing,” Siegler says.
It would be wrong to suggest that Mbaye was the only one to have saved lives in Rwanda in 1994 - there were countless cases of extreme bravery by Rwandans themselves.
But in all of the years since the genocide, researchers have pored over the details of what happened, and none has found anyone involved in as many rescues as Capt Mbaye Diagne.
His luck finally ran out on the morning of 31 May 1994.
By this time the RPF had the upper hand but government forces were making a last stand in central Kigali. Almost every day there were big battles in the city – fights so intense that the sounds of individual guns firing merged together to make a deafening noise like rolling thunder.
It was on one of these days that Mbaye was asked to take an important written message from the head of the government army, Augustin Bizimungu, to the UN commander, Romeo Dallaire, who was based in the zone now held by the RPF.
Mbaye would have to leave the government-controlled sector by driving through a government army checkpoint.
He stopped at the checkpoint and a mortar round exploded on the road a short distance from his car.
Shrapnel tore through the bodywork.
Mbaye was hit and died instantly.
“It was a very, very difficult day,” says Dallaire, who is now a senator in the Canadian Parliament. “[There were] so many, but it stood out because we lost one of those shining lights, one of those beacon-type guys who influences others.”
Mbaye was part of a small group who had been willing to risk their lives to save others, says Dallaire.
“He had a sense of humanity that went well beyond orders, well beyond any mandate.
He moved at least half a pace faster than everybody else.”
And he had been about to go home.
“There are only 12 days left before my part in this mission ends,” he had told his wife, Yacine, on the phone three days before he was killed. “Then I will be back in Senegal. So you must pray for us.”
In that last call home to Dakar, he talked a lot about death. “That really upset me,” says Yacine. “He never used to talk like that before. I think the things he saw over there deeply affected him.”
Their two children, a boy, Cheikh and girl, Coumba, were just two and four years old when their father died. It would be two years before Yacine could bring herself to tell them the truth. “Daddy will be home when his mission ends,” she would tell them.
I asked Yacine how she had held the tragedy inside her and not shared it with her children.
“Yes, it was hard, but they would not have understood,” she says. "It was the right thing to do – to protect them from it until they could understand.”
The daughter of the assassinated prime minister, Marie-Christine Umuhoza, is now married with two children of her own.
She and her brothers were flown to France, but the country which had provided a home for the wife and family of the murdered president rejected the children of the murdered prime minister. Instead they ended up as refugees in Switzerland.
Marie-Christine lives in Lausanne, where she works as a psychiatric nurse. She had never spoken publicly about the events of 1994 before, but she told me her chilling tale with great poise and dignity.
She seems to have been able to put a tragic part of her life to one side and move on.
“When I agreed to speak to you, I did it in part so I could pay tribute to the memory of Captain Mbaye,” she says.
He is – he was – a good person. I owe him my life. If he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here now.”
I heard about Mbaye’s death after noticing an unusual amount of chatter on the UN walkie-talkie network. I heard soldiers talking about a serious incident at a government roadblock in which a UN military observer may have been killed.
“Oh God, I hope it’s not Mbaye,” said a UN aid worker. But he was in denial – he knew it was Mbaye.
I rushed to the roadblock with a Canadian UN officer who also knew but couldn’t bring himself to say it.
When I found the car the body had been taken out. There was blood on the seat and in the footwell.
The next day, when his body was being taken to a plane at Kigali airport for repatriation to Senegal there was no coffin available – the UN mission was operating on such a shoestring, and had been so abandoned by the rest of the world, that Mbaye was wrapped in a large piece of the blue plastic sheeting the UN normally uses for sheltering refugees.
A UN flag was placed on top.
Just before the body was loaded, one of the other Senegalese military observers, Capt Samba Tall, approached me.
“I am a soldier,” Capt Tall said, “but you are a journalist. You must tell the story of Capt Mbaye Diagne.”
Then Capt Tall and I both broke down in tears.
Mbaye was part of a small group who had been willing to risk their lives to save others, says Dallaire.
“He had a sense of humanity that went well beyond orders, well beyond any mandate.
And he had been about to go home.
“There are only 12 days left before my part in this mission ends,” he had told his wife, Yacine, on the phone three days before he was killed. “Then I will be back in Senegal. So you must pray for us.”
In that last call home to Dakar, he talked a lot about death. “That really upset me,” says Yacine. “He never used to talk like that before. I think the things he saw over there deeply affected him.”
Their two children, a boy, Cheikh and girl, Coumba, were just two and four years old when their father died. It would be two years before Yacine could bring herself to tell them the truth. “Daddy will be home when his mission ends,” she would tell them.
I asked Yacine how she had held the tragedy inside her and not shared it with her children.
“Yes, it was hard, but they would not have understood,” she says. "It was the right thing to do – to protect them from it until they could understand.”
The daughter of the assassinated prime minister, Marie-Christine Umuhoza, is now married with two children of her own.
She and her brothers were flown to France, but the country which had provided a home for the wife and family of the murdered president rejected the children of the murdered prime minister. Instead they ended up as refugees in Switzerland.
Marie-Christine lives in Lausanne, where she works as a psychiatric nurse. She had never spoken publicly about the events of 1994 before, but she told me her chilling tale with great poise and dignity.
She seems to have been able to put a tragic part of her life to one side and move on.
“When I agreed to speak to you, I did it in part so I could pay tribute to the memory of Captain Mbaye,” she says.
I heard about Mbaye’s death after noticing an unusual amount of chatter on the UN walkie-talkie network. I heard soldiers talking about a serious incident at a government roadblock in which a UN military observer may have been killed.
“Oh God, I hope it’s not Mbaye,” said a UN aid worker. But he was in denial – he knew it was Mbaye.
I rushed to the roadblock with a Canadian UN officer who also knew but couldn’t bring himself to say it.
When I found the car the body had been taken out. There was blood on the seat and in the footwell.
The next day, when his body was being taken to a plane at Kigali airport for repatriation to Senegal there was no coffin available – the UN mission was operating on such a shoestring, and had been so abandoned by the rest of the world, that Mbaye was wrapped in a large piece of the blue plastic sheeting the UN normally uses for sheltering refugees.
A UN flag was placed on top.
Just before the body was loaded, one of the other Senegalese military observers, Capt Samba Tall, approached me.
“I am a soldier,” Capt Tall said, “but you are a journalist. You must tell the story of Capt Mbaye Diagne.”
Then Capt Tall and I both broke down in tears.
-------------------
A day in the marshes
As terrified Tutsi families realised that no-one was going to come and rescue them, they did their best to hide from the teams of killers.
The young and fit often chose to out-run the killers in the forests. The old, the sick, and parents with children spent their days hiding among the tall papyrus in the mud of the marshes.
mornings
We
hid the children in small groups
"In the morning, we could not even give ourselves a little moment to dry out in the rising sun. We went off again, soaked through, to deposit the children in little groups under the cover of the papyrus. We told them to stay as nice as fish in the ponds – meaning not to put more than a head out of the water and not to cry. We gave them muddy water to drink, even if it were sometimes tinged with blood.
Then, in our turn we covered ourselves in mud. Sometimes, we would glimpse one another through the surrounding foliage. We asked ourselves why God had forsaken us here, in the midst of snakes, which fortunately did not bite anyone."
Killing all day long
“We went down very early. The little ones hid first, the grown-ups acted as look-outs and talked about the disaster that had befallen us... they were the last to hide. Then there was killing all day long. In the beginning, the Hutus played tricks in the papyrus, for example they said, “I've recognised you, you can come out” and the most innocent got up and were massacred standing. Or else Hutus were guided by the cries of little children, who could not stand the mud anymore…"
"In the morning, we could not even give ourselves a little moment to dry out in the rising sun. We went off again, soaked through, to deposit the children in little groups under the cover of the papyrus. We told them to stay as nice as fish in the ponds – meaning not to put more than a head out of the water and not to cry. We gave them muddy water to drink, even if it were sometimes tinged with blood.
Then, in our turn we covered ourselves in mud. Sometimes, we would glimpse one another through the surrounding foliage. We asked ourselves why God had forsaken us here, in the midst of snakes, which fortunately did not bite anyone."
Killing all day long
“We went down very early. The little ones hid first, the grown-ups acted as look-outs and talked about the disaster that had befallen us... they were the last to hide. Then there was killing all day long. In the beginning, the Hutus played tricks in the papyrus, for example they said, “I've recognised you, you can come out” and the most innocent got up and were massacred standing. Or else Hutus were guided by the cries of little children, who could not stand the mud anymore…"
The
killers sounded cheerful
"The killers worked in the swamps from nine to four, half past four, as the sun would have it. Sometimes, if it rained too much, they came later in the morning. They came in columns, announcing their arrival with songs and whistles. They beat drums, they sounded very cheerful to be going killing for an entire day.
One morning, they would take one path, the next day another path. When we heard the first whistles, we disappeared in the opposite direction. One morning, they cheated, they came from all sides springing traps and ambushes; and that day was a very dispiriting one because we knew that that evening there would be more than the usual number of dead."
"The killers worked in the swamps from nine to four, half past four, as the sun would have it. Sometimes, if it rained too much, they came later in the morning. They came in columns, announcing their arrival with songs and whistles. They beat drums, they sounded very cheerful to be going killing for an entire day.
One morning, they would take one path, the next day another path. When we heard the first whistles, we disappeared in the opposite direction. One morning, they cheated, they came from all sides springing traps and ambushes; and that day was a very dispiriting one because we knew that that evening there would be more than the usual number of dead."
Angélique Mukamanzi
25 year old farmer, hill of Rwankeli (Musenyi)
25 year old farmer, hill of Rwankeli (Musenyi)
afternoons
Calm
and accomplished killings
"In the afternoon they (the killers) would not sing anymore because they were tired, but chatting away, they returned to their homes. They fortified themselves with drink and by eating the cows that they had slaughtered at the same time as the Tutsis. These were truly very calm and accomplished killings. If the RPF liberators had delayed one week more on the road, there would not be a single Bugesera Tutsi left living to deny the lies, such as the criminals' so-called drunkenness."
"In the afternoon they (the killers) would not sing anymore because they were tired, but chatting away, they returned to their homes. They fortified themselves with drink and by eating the cows that they had slaughtered at the same time as the Tutsis. These were truly very calm and accomplished killings. If the RPF liberators had delayed one week more on the road, there would not be a single Bugesera Tutsi left living to deny the lies, such as the criminals' so-called drunkenness."
Angélique Mukamanzi
Less-than-nothings
"When we spotted a small group of runaways trying to escape by creeping through the mud, we called them snakes. Before the killings, we usually called them cockroaches. But during, it was more suitable to call them snakes, because of their attitude, or zeros, or dogs, because in our country we don’t like dogs; in any case, they were less-than-nothings.
For some of us, those taunts were just minor diversions. The important thing was not to let them get away. For others, the insults were invigorating, made the job easier. The perpetrators felt more comfortable insulting and hitting crawlers in rags rather than properly upright people. Because they seemed less like us in that position."
"When we spotted a small group of runaways trying to escape by creeping through the mud, we called them snakes. Before the killings, we usually called them cockroaches. But during, it was more suitable to call them snakes, because of their attitude, or zeros, or dogs, because in our country we don’t like dogs; in any case, they were less-than-nothings.
For some of us, those taunts were just minor diversions. The important thing was not to let them get away. For others, the insults were invigorating, made the job easier. The perpetrators felt more comfortable insulting and hitting crawlers in rags rather than properly upright people. Because they seemed less like us in that position."
Adalbert
nights
Gathering
food at night
"In the evening, after the killings, we scattered out into the night to dig in fields, collection manioc and beans. It was also the banana season. We ate raw for a month, hands filthy with mud, like louts.
It was the same fate for adults as for little children, who no longer had the opportunity to drink maternal milk or other nutritious substances. So, many people, even though not struck by machetes, were sprung by a deadly weakness. In the morning, we woke and we found them, lying beside us, stiffened in their sleep. And we, without a word of farewell for them, without a last gift from time, were unable to cover them decently.
"In the evening, after the killings, we scattered out into the night to dig in fields, collection manioc and beans. It was also the banana season. We ate raw for a month, hands filthy with mud, like louts.
It was the same fate for adults as for little children, who no longer had the opportunity to drink maternal milk or other nutritious substances. So, many people, even though not struck by machetes, were sprung by a deadly weakness. In the morning, we woke and we found them, lying beside us, stiffened in their sleep. And we, without a word of farewell for them, without a last gift from time, were unable to cover them decently.
We made the most
of rainy nights by rubbing ourselves down with palm leaves, cleaning away the
thickest coatings of refuse and the mud filth. Then we lay down on the ground.
We talked of the day, wondered who had died that day, asked ourselves who was
to die the next. We discussed the evil fate that had fallen on our heads. We
did not exchange many words of joy, but many despondent ones."
Angélique Mukamanzi
No
one to save us
"During the evening assemblies, we could catch hold of no news from anywhere because radio sets no longer blared out, except in the killers’ homes. Still, we understood by word of mouth that the genocide has spread over the country, that all Tutsis were suffering the same fate, that no one would come to save us anymore. We thought that we would all have to die.
As for me, I no longer concerned myself with thinking about when I would die, since we were going to die anyway, only with how the cuts would hack at me; only about how long it would take, because I was very frightened of the suffering machetes bestow.”
"During the evening assemblies, we could catch hold of no news from anywhere because radio sets no longer blared out, except in the killers’ homes. Still, we understood by word of mouth that the genocide has spread over the country, that all Tutsis were suffering the same fate, that no one would come to save us anymore. We thought that we would all have to die.
As for me, I no longer concerned myself with thinking about when I would die, since we were going to die anyway, only with how the cuts would hack at me; only about how long it would take, because I was very frightened of the suffering machetes bestow.”
Francine Niyitegeka
25 year old shopkeeper and farmer. Kibungo Hill
25 year old shopkeeper and farmer. Kibungo Hill
every day for a month...
"On certain
evenings, when the evil-doers had not killed too much that day, we gathered
around glowing embers to eat something cooked; on other evenings, we were too
dispirited. In the marsh, at dawn the next day, we found the same blood in the
mud... corpses going off in the same places.
These corpses offended our spirits to such an extent that, even amongst ourselves, we did not dare speak of them. They all too bluntly showed us how our own life would end. Which is the reason why our utmost wish in the morning was simply to make it through to the end of the afternoon one more time.”
These corpses offended our spirits to such an extent that, even amongst ourselves, we did not dare speak of them. They all too bluntly showed us how our own life would end. Which is the reason why our utmost wish in the morning was simply to make it through to the end of the afternoon one more time.”
The role of the west
In 1993 a peace-keeping mission in Somalia went horribly wrong. Many people were killed or injured. Wounded US soldiers were surrounded by jeering armed mobs.
This happened two days before the UN security council was due to decide whether or not to send peace-keepers to Rwanda. With the support of Russia and the UK, America insisted on only a small, cheap peace-keeping effort. It would be limited to Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, and there would be no seizing of weapons - only observing.
For Rwandans, the timing could not have been worse…
Rwandan
President Habyarimana and the Burundian President are killed when Habyarimana's plane is shot down
near Kigali Airport. Hutu extremists, suspecting that the Rwandan president is finally
about to implement the Arusha Peace Accords, are believed to be behind the
attack. The killings begin that night.
The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Hutu militia (the interahamwe) set up roadblocks and go from house to house killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians. Ten Belgian soldiers with UNAMIR, assigned to guard the moderate Hutu Prime Minister, are tricked into giving up their weapons. They are tortured and murdered.
The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Hutu militia (the interahamwe) set up roadblocks and go from house to house killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians. Ten Belgian soldiers with UNAMIR, assigned to guard the moderate Hutu Prime Minister, are tricked into giving up their weapons. They are tortured and murdered.
A wave of violence spread across the country.
Alisa’s family, with thousands of other terrified Tutsi, took refuge in the
Catholic church at Ntarama. Alisa said, "we all thought that if we came
into the house of God maybe no-one would touch us, so everywhere around this
place was crowded with people."
The next day, the Canadian General
Romeo Dallaire, head of
the UN peace-keeping, put in an urgent request for a doubling of his force to
5,000. He was told not to intervene in the conflict.
Estimated death toll 8,000
France
and Belgium send troops to rescue their citizens. American civilians are also airlifted out. No
Rwandans are rescued, not even Rwandans employed by Western governments in
their embassies, 
consulates, etc.
Innocent
Rwililiza: “The French knew that a genocide was in preparation, since they advised
our army. They supposedly just did not believe it...
One day, in Nyamata, armoured cars finally came to collect the white Fathers. In the main street, the interahamwe believed that they had come to punish them and they fled, yelling at one another that the Whites were here to kill them. The tanks did not even stop for a Primus break to have a laugh about the misunderstanding. Also, a few weeks later, the Whites sent professional photographers to show the world how we had been massacred.
So you may understand that into the survivors' hearts there slipped a feeling of abandonment that shall never go away, but I do not want to anger you with this.”
One day, in Nyamata, armoured cars finally came to collect the white Fathers. In the main street, the interahamwe believed that they had come to punish them and they fled, yelling at one another that the Whites were here to kill them. The tanks did not even stop for a Primus break to have a laugh about the misunderstanding. Also, a few weeks later, the Whites sent professional photographers to show the world how we had been massacred.
So you may understand that into the survivors' hearts there slipped a feeling of abandonment that shall never go away, but I do not want to anger you with this.”
From The Survivors Speak, by Jean
Hatzfeld
On Monday 11th April, the militia and the
army attacked the crowds in the church compound. Alisa said, "there was a
very big noise, and then everyone got down on the ground and they came in and
started doing their thing...
There were many bullets - and grenades - I could hear people screaming. I could hear it in the back of my head... really, it was very bad."
About 5,000 people were killed here that day, including many of Alisa’s family. She escaped into a nearby banana plantation.
There were many bullets - and grenades - I could hear people screaming. I could hear it in the back of my head... really, it was very bad."
About 5,000 people were killed here that day, including many of Alisa’s family. She escaped into a nearby banana plantation.
Estimated death toll 32,000
Belgium
withdraws
its troops from
the U.N. force after the ten Belgian soldiers are tortured and murdered.
its troops from
the U.N. force after the ten Belgian soldiers are tortured and murdered.
UNAMIR reduced to 270 soldiers
(Resolution 912 passed by UN Security Council). New Zealand, Nigeria and
the Czech Republic were the only nations who had supported forceful intervention
to stop the violence.
General Anyidoho, a Ghanaian, refuses to leave Rwanda, disobeying Ghanaian law and UN central command, but supporting UNAMIR and Dallaire and ordinary Rwandans.
General Anyidoho, a Ghanaian, refuses to leave Rwanda, disobeying Ghanaian law and UN central command, but supporting UNAMIR and Dallaire and ordinary Rwandans.
Estimated death toll 64,000
The
U.S. and U.N. Security Council vote to withdraw 90% of the peacekeepers in Rwanda. Human
Rights Watch calls on them to use the word ‘genocide’ - a term which would have
legally obliged the UN to act.
Alisa has taken her 9 month old baby girl and joined thousands of others
hiding from the killers in the malaria infested marshes of the Nyabarongo
River. She said, "every day in the swamp, many teams of killers would come
looking for people to kill, because they knew we were hiding there. Every day
we jumped over corpses to escape from them."
Estimated death toll 112,000
UNAMIR
reduced to 270 soldiers (Resolution
912 passed by UN Security Council). New Zealand, Nigeria and the Czech Republic
were the only nations who had supported forceful intervention to stop the
violence.
General Anyidoho, a Ghanaian, refuses to leave Rwanda, disobeying Ghanaian law and UN central command, but supporting UNAMIR and Dallaire and ordinary Rwandans.
General Anyidoho, a Ghanaian, refuses to leave Rwanda, disobeying Ghanaian law and UN central command, but supporting UNAMIR and Dallaire and ordinary Rwandans.
Gen.
Dallaire is left with 450 ill-equipped troops from developing countries. The press ask the
American State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelley whether genocide is
happening.
Her response carefully tries to avoid the word: "the use of the term 'genocide' has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are other factors in there as well…we have to undertake a very careful study before we can make a final kind of determination…"
Later, the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution condemning the killing, but omits the word "genocide."
Her response carefully tries to avoid the word: "the use of the term 'genocide' has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are other factors in there as well…we have to undertake a very careful study before we can make a final kind of determination…"
Later, the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution condemning the killing, but omits the word "genocide."
Estimated death toll: 168,000
Friday. The militia find Alisa hiding in the
marshes. She said, “I had nowhere to run. They took my baby off my back, they
took off my clothes and they cut me. They cut my baby in two parts. They cut my
head and my hand and hit me on the shoulder with a spiked club. They thought I
was dead, so they left."
A
U.S. Defence Dept discussion paper warns, “Be careful… a genocide finding could commit us
to actually ‘do something.’"
The head of UN peacekeeping, Kofi Annan, says, “we are watching people being deprived of the most fundamental of rights, the right to life, and yet we seem a bit helpless ..."
The head of UN peacekeeping, Kofi Annan, says, “we are watching people being deprived of the most fundamental of rights, the right to life, and yet we seem a bit helpless ..."
Estimated death toll: 200,000
General Dallaire asks the UN to jam the extremists hate
radio transmissions. The UN asks the US. The Pentagon rejects the proposal as
too expensive, and says that any act to silence RTLM might violate Rwanda’s
sovereign right to control radio broadcasts within its border.
Estimated death toll: 232,000
The
UN finally asks the US to
provide 50 armoured personnel carriers. They argue for weeks over who will pay
for them. They don’t arrive until July.
Estimated death toll: 328,000
President
Clinton, in a speech
about American policy on humanitarian action, says: “Whether
we get involved… in the end must depend on the cumulative weight of the
American interests at stake.”
Mike McCurry, State Department spokesman, is asked at a press briefing, "has the administration yet come to any decision on whether it can be described as genocide?"
He answers, "I'll have to confess, I don't know the answer to that. I know that the issue was under very active consideration. I think there was a strong disposition within the department here to view what has happened there; certainly, constituting acts of genocide that have occurred ..."
Mike McCurry, State Department spokesman, is asked at a press briefing, "has the administration yet come to any decision on whether it can be described as genocide?"
He answers, "I'll have to confess, I don't know the answer to that. I know that the issue was under very active consideration. I think there was a strong disposition within the department here to view what has happened there; certainly, constituting acts of genocide that have occurred ..."
Estimated death toll: 392,000
At
a State Department briefing, spokesperson Christine Shelley is asked, “"How many acts of genocide
does it take to make genocide?"
"That's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer."
"Well, is it true that you have specific guidance not to use the word 'genocide' in isolation, but always to preface it with these words 'acts of'?"
"I have guidance which I try to use as best as I can. There are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of. I don't have an absolute categorical prescription against something, but I have the definitions. I have phraseology which has been carefully examined and arrived at as best as we can apply to exactly the situation and the actions which have taken place ... "
"That's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer."
"Well, is it true that you have specific guidance not to use the word 'genocide' in isolation, but always to preface it with these words 'acts of'?"
"I have guidance which I try to use as best as I can. There are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of. I don't have an absolute categorical prescription against something, but I have the definitions. I have phraseology which has been carefully examined and arrived at as best as we can apply to exactly the situation and the actions which have taken place ... "
ALISA: "Some people took me out of the
swamp but I wasn’t aware of what was happening around me. After four days the
wound on my hand began to rot; maggots were coming out of it.
As the killings continued, the French government continued to supply weapons
through eastern Zaire (DR Congo). President Francois Mitterrand said, "In such countries, genocide is not too
important."
(reported in the
newspaper Le Figaro)
UN
Security Council approve
a 60 day French mission. 3,000 soldiers came in, with RPF agreement, and set up
the ‘Turquoise Zone’ in North East Rwanda. This became a safe haven for the
almost beaten old regime. The transmitter for RTLM continued broadcasting from
the Turquoise Zone. The French allowed all of the Hutu soldiers and interahamwe
to keep their weapons.
“While I was talking about the ongoing genocide, [the French] staff were raising points about the loyalty France owed to old friends,” Dallaire (shown right) reported. “They refused to accept the reality of the genocide and the fact that the extremist leaders, the perpetrators, and some their old colleagues were the same people”.
“While I was talking about the ongoing genocide, [the French] staff were raising points about the loyalty France owed to old friends,” Dallaire (shown right) reported. “They refused to accept the reality of the genocide and the fact that the extremist leaders, the perpetrators, and some their old colleagues were the same people”.
Estimated death toll: 616,000
RPF
forces capture Kigali.
The Hutu government flees west to Zaire, with a tide of refugees.
The genocide is over.
The genocide is over.
Estimated death toll: 800,000
The
media arrives, and the
world is galvanised into action by the images on their televisions.
Dallaire watches with a mixture of awe and frustration as planeload after planeload of soldiers, armoured vehicles, water tankers and humanitarian aid arrive at the refugee camps on Rwanda’s borders.
But the world still doesn't understand what they are seeing. Among the innocent are tens of thousands of genocide perpetrators - soldiers and militia - still armed. They rule the camps with fear and brutality. Aid workers find themselves being used as caterers to probably the largest collection of mass murderers ever assembled.
Dallaire watches with a mixture of awe and frustration as planeload after planeload of soldiers, armoured vehicles, water tankers and humanitarian aid arrive at the refugee camps on Rwanda’s borders.
But the world still doesn't understand what they are seeing. Among the innocent are tens of thousands of genocide perpetrators - soldiers and militia - still armed. They rule the camps with fear and brutality. Aid workers find themselves being used as caterers to probably the largest collection of mass murderers ever assembled.
The
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is set up in Arusha, Tanzania, after a vote by
the UN Security Council.
“This tribunal was created essentially to appease the conscience of the international community.” said Charles Murigande, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Accountability for the Genocide.
“The international tribunal was painfully slow to begin work, had great trouble locating and capturing suspects and spent more than $1 billion to try the less than seventy it managed to arrest. Defendants enjoyed private cells, television, and three meals a day.
They also had free access to the world’s finest medical care, meaning that rapists among them who had infected Rwandan women with HIV during the genocide were given expensive antiretroviral drugs, while their victims, mired in Rwanda’s poverty, wasted away and died with little or no care.”
“This tribunal was created essentially to appease the conscience of the international community.” said Charles Murigande, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Accountability for the Genocide.
“The international tribunal was painfully slow to begin work, had great trouble locating and capturing suspects and spent more than $1 billion to try the less than seventy it managed to arrest. Defendants enjoyed private cells, television, and three meals a day.
They also had free access to the world’s finest medical care, meaning that rapists among them who had infected Rwandan women with HIV during the genocide were given expensive antiretroviral drugs, while their victims, mired in Rwanda’s poverty, wasted away and died with little or no care.”
(Stephen Kinzer. A Thousand Hills)
Alisa was released from hospital after two
months. She said, "For eight years my life was miserable. I was desperate,
poor, traumatised and just disappointed with life.”
Credits
This timeline draws on a variety of sources, including our own interviews
PBS Frontline Ghosts of Rwanda. www.pbs.org
Linda Melvern. A people betrayed: the role of the west in Rwanda's genocide.
Jean Hatzfeld. Into the quick of life: The Rwandan genocide. The survivors speak
Stephen Kinzer. A thousand hills. Rwanda's rebirth and the man who dreamed it.
Images
UN and Dallaire photos are screengrabs from the film Shake Hands with the Devil, the documentary about Romeo Dallaire.
The photo of the water tankers with UN Markings, Convoy, 501st, Transportation Squadron, 3/325, Airborne Combat Team, South European Task Army Force, Task Force 51. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3131/3748379631_db2bb997bf_o.jpg
This timeline draws on a variety of sources, including our own interviews
PBS Frontline Ghosts of Rwanda. www.pbs.org
Linda Melvern. A people betrayed: the role of the west in Rwanda's genocide.
Jean Hatzfeld. Into the quick of life: The Rwandan genocide. The survivors speak
Stephen Kinzer. A thousand hills. Rwanda's rebirth and the man who dreamed it.
Images
UN and Dallaire photos are screengrabs from the film Shake Hands with the Devil, the documentary about Romeo Dallaire.
The photo of the water tankers with UN Markings, Convoy, 501st, Transportation Squadron, 3/325, Airborne Combat Team, South European Task Army Force, Task Force 51. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3131/3748379631_db2bb997bf_o.jpg
Too much to believe
The militia have been killing all week. Brother Otto looks out the window of his room at St Paul's Church and sees that the pile of bodies has been getting bigger and bigger.
The other day prisoners in pink uniform came and picked up a huge load of corpses. But they will have to come again. Somebody said they come every three days. He hopes so. It is too much to believe, this mound of corpses. The smell from the bodies is bad. It covers everything these days. Brother Otto has seen things that no training could have prepared him for. "The brutality, the brutality of these young thugs. They think they can solve their problems by killing the other ethnic group."
A madness at work
But it's not just the youngsters. The army are much worse. The other day he saw soldiers throwing stones at the children to rouse them into killing. Some of them did not want to kill but the army forced them to take part. Everybody must have blood on their hands. Then no one person can be blamed.
The German
brother has worked here for years. He thought he knew these people. What did he
know?
'There is a madness at work. They kill and then steal everything. They want to be like the rich, like the government people. Kill the head of the household and take what he owns.'
The killing goes on and on. Otto has been wounded now and he cannot stay at St Paul's. There is shrapnel in his arm. But if he leaves what will happen to the Tutsi orphans who are hiding in the house? His friend Brother Henri has been holding the militia off for days.
Henri is small but a tough man. He faces up to them and says, 'Kill me but leave the children alone. ' So far they have not taken him up on the offer. But if they wanted to, the Interahamwe could come in and kill all of them. If they leave, the orphans will die; if they do not, Otto may not survive. The children know this and they start to become very frightened.
'There is a madness at work. They kill and then steal everything. They want to be like the rich, like the government people. Kill the head of the household and take what he owns.'
The killing goes on and on. Otto has been wounded now and he cannot stay at St Paul's. There is shrapnel in his arm. But if he leaves what will happen to the Tutsi orphans who are hiding in the house? His friend Brother Henri has been holding the militia off for days.
Henri is small but a tough man. He faces up to them and says, 'Kill me but leave the children alone. ' So far they have not taken him up on the offer. But if they wanted to, the Interahamwe could come in and kill all of them. If they leave, the orphans will die; if they do not, Otto may not survive. The children know this and they start to become very frightened.
Leaving the children
The brothers
decide that they must leave. Otto's wound is getting worse and the fighting is
intensifying. Inside, Otto is churning up. He wonders how he ended up in this
situation. He had come to Africa because he believed in the power of God's
word. But where was the good here? What a world where children are hiding
because death is edging closer and closer to them.
Henri talks to the children and prays with them. They know what is coming and so they ask a favour. 'Brother, please lock us in the room. If you lock us in here, they will not find us. Please lock us in.'
It is as if the children understand that there is no choice. All choices have been removed.
And so looking at their faces for the last time, Henri closes the door and locks them in. There is no food to give them. The supplies have run out. Henri and Otto leave. They leave the children. Now, as he is telling me the story, Henri starts to weep. He places his hand underneath his glasses and rubs his eyes, but he cannot stop crying. Henri is looking into the wide frightened eyes of the orphans. He is hearing their voices as he walks down the corridor away from the room. Beside him Otto sits with a look in his eyes that begs my understanding.
Henri talks to the children and prays with them. They know what is coming and so they ask a favour. 'Brother, please lock us in the room. If you lock us in here, they will not find us. Please lock us in.'
It is as if the children understand that there is no choice. All choices have been removed.
And so looking at their faces for the last time, Henri closes the door and locks them in. There is no food to give them. The supplies have run out. Henri and Otto leave. They leave the children. Now, as he is telling me the story, Henri starts to weep. He places his hand underneath his glasses and rubs his eyes, but he cannot stop crying. Henri is looking into the wide frightened eyes of the orphans. He is hearing their voices as he walks down the corridor away from the room. Beside him Otto sits with a look in his eyes that begs my understanding.
We were overwhelmed
'We were overwhelmed, you see. We were overwhelmed by this great evil, by
these acts of wickedness,' he says.
Henri then speaks: 'Somebody said to me that when they got out of Rwanda they would be insane. As for me... I am left with lifelong questions. What did I do that I should not have done? What did I not do that I should have done?'
I take Brother Henri's hand and try to comfort him. These brothers feel a terrible guilt, but they are good men. Overwhelmed. Yes, that is the word for what has happened to them. Overwhelmed.
On 14 June, a week after the rescue of the brothers, the militia murdered fifty men and boys who had been seized from the church.
Henri then speaks: 'Somebody said to me that when they got out of Rwanda they would be insane. As for me... I am left with lifelong questions. What did I do that I should not have done? What did I not do that I should have done?'
I take Brother Henri's hand and try to comfort him. These brothers feel a terrible guilt, but they are good men. Overwhelmed. Yes, that is the word for what has happened to them. Overwhelmed.
On 14 June, a week after the rescue of the brothers, the militia murdered fifty men and boys who had been seized from the church.
A journalist's story
Fergal Keane travelled through Rwanda in June 1994 during the last weeks of the genocide. WIth producers David Harrison and Rizu Hamid, sound recordist Tony Wende and cameraman Glenn Middleton, he was there to record a documentary for the BBC's Panorama program. His book Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey was the winner of the 1995 Orwell Prize. In this excerpt he describes waking up on the morning they are about to enter Rwanda...
The news out of Rwanda was bleak. As the
rebels advanced, they were discovering more bodies, thousands of bodies in
churches and community halls.
The siege of Kigali had intensified and there was frequent mortar and shell fire. At the end of the news David switched off the radio, looked across in my direction and said with classical understatement, 'It should be an interesting few weeks, old boy.'
I turned towards the wall for a last few moments' sleep but instead found myself thinking back to something that was said to me by a friend in Nairobi. He had just come out of Rwanda and was sitting at the terrace bar of the Norfolk Hotel, drunk and tired and lapsing from one long silence into another. Around us were groups of tourists either going to, or returning from, safaris in Kenya's national parks. They were happy and excited, exchanging tips on insect repellent, sunburn, the best times of day to see different animals. I wondered if they had heard anything about the genocide taking place a couple of hours' flight away in Rwanda.
The siege of Kigali had intensified and there was frequent mortar and shell fire. At the end of the news David switched off the radio, looked across in my direction and said with classical understatement, 'It should be an interesting few weeks, old boy.'
I turned towards the wall for a last few moments' sleep but instead found myself thinking back to something that was said to me by a friend in Nairobi. He had just come out of Rwanda and was sitting at the terrace bar of the Norfolk Hotel, drunk and tired and lapsing from one long silence into another. Around us were groups of tourists either going to, or returning from, safaris in Kenya's national parks. They were happy and excited, exchanging tips on insect repellent, sunburn, the best times of day to see different animals. I wondered if they had heard anything about the genocide taking place a couple of hours' flight away in Rwanda.
Occasionally my
friend would pipe up and begin to say something about Rwanda but he had passed
the stage of drunken fluency. There were now only bursts of words, scrambled
and squelched out in an agonising rant. He knew he was too drunk to make much
sense and got up, weaving through the tables towards the hotel lobby. I
followed him, guiding him towards the elevator, where he turned to say
goodnight. As the lift doors opened, he put his hand on my shoulder and blurted
his goodbye message: 'It's in the soul, man... spiritual damage is what it
is...'
Strange talk even in drink. The soul. Spiritual damage. As a group foreign correspondents are not given to discussions of a metaphysical or existential nature. We are trained in the school of the present, taught to analyse the tangible. There are men and women with spiritual beliefs, but these are rarely if ever discussed with colleagues. I could only conclude that something had changed inside my friend. Something that he had seen or experienced, perhaps the collected images of weeks, had prompted this hard-headed reporter to contemplate the soul of man.
We drank and ate our dried biscuits in silence. Afterwards we trooped out and saw that a thick mist had come down overnight and spread itself like a curtain across the road south to Rwanda.
Strange talk even in drink. The soul. Spiritual damage. As a group foreign correspondents are not given to discussions of a metaphysical or existential nature. We are trained in the school of the present, taught to analyse the tangible. There are men and women with spiritual beliefs, but these are rarely if ever discussed with colleagues. I could only conclude that something had changed inside my friend. Something that he had seen or experienced, perhaps the collected images of weeks, had prompted this hard-headed reporter to contemplate the soul of man.
We drank and ate our dried biscuits in silence. Afterwards we trooped out and saw that a thick mist had come down overnight and spread itself like a curtain across the road south to Rwanda.
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