Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

  Ambassador David Rawson US Ambassador to Rwanda, left at the beginning of the war

  Lieutenant Commander Robert Read Canadian reinforcement Officer transferred from Somalia to Rwanda during the genocide and employed as Logistics Base Commander

  Recce Reconnaissance

  RGF Rwandese Government Forces

  RGF Headquarters Located in Camp Kigali

  RGF Sector HQ in Ruhengeri, south of the DMZ, encompassed government-controlled areas in northern Rwanda consisted of MILOBs only

  Isel Rivero UN DPKO Political Desk Officer for Central Africa, Cuban

  Iqbal Riza Assistant (Deputy) Secretary-General, DPKO, Pakistani diplomat and long-time UN employee

  ROE Rules of Engagement

  Colonel Jean-Pierre Roman Belgian Commander of the Belgian Para-commando brigade, visited Rwanda at the same time as Minister Claes

  Colonel Cam Ross In spring 1993, led first UN Technical Mission to Rwanda and recommended the deployment of a peacekeeping force. During UNAMIR, was Director of Peacekeeping Operations for the Canadian Forces at NDHQ in Ottawa

  General Armand Roy Canadian Army Military Area Commander for Quebec in 1993

  Royal Canadian Regiment The senior serving infantry regiment in the Canadian Army

  Royal Military College (RMC) Located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

  RPA Rwandese Patriotic Army

  RPF Rwandese Patriotic Front

  RPF Sector HQ in Mulindi, co-located with the RPF HQ. Its area of operation was the area under RPF control in northern Rwanda. Consisted of MILOBs only

  RTLM Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines

  Ruhengeri Northwestern prefecture, capital of same name, location of the Virunga Mountains, heartland of the extremist Hutu regime, location of the Gendarmerie school, including rapid reaction forces

  George Ruggiu Belgian mercenary who ran RTLM, which incited genocide against Tutsis

  Enoch Ruhigira Chef de cabinet of the president and former prime minister of Rwanda, confidant of Habyarimana

  Rules of Engagement (ROE) Establishes rules for the use of military force in a mission, updated as risk factors change

  Colonel Léonidas Rusatira Head of the esm or Military College, senior colonel in the rgf, later promoted to general, Hutu moderate, deserted to the rpf near the end of the war

  Tito Rutaremara Proposed RPF national assemblyman, Tutsi extremist

  Lieutenant Colonel Ephrem Rwabalinda RGF liaison officer to UNAMIR, killed in early July 1994

  Rwandese Government Forces (RGF) Hutu-dominated Rwandan Government Army, Kinyarwanda- and French-speaking

  Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) The military wing of the RPF

  Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) Tutsi-dominated military and political movement, disciplined rebel army composed of Rwandan refugees raised in Ugandan refugee camps, supported by the Ugandans, English-speaking, led by Kagame, originally the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU) started in 1979, changed to RPF in 1987

  Major Jean-Yves St-Denis Canadian reinforcement Officer, UNMO

  Sainte Famille A large church/school complex in the centre of Kigali that served as a protected site for thousands during the genocide

  Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim Secretary General of the Organization of African Unity, Tanzanian

  Marcel Savard Ex-Canadian Forces Logistics Officer, leader of the UN Field Operations Division team on the Technical Mission

  SC The UN Security Council

  Lieutenant General Daniel Schroeder American commander of the U.S. Joint Task Force to Africa

  The Secretariat The administrative support organization of the UN

  Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SRSG) The political head of mission appointed by the SG, usually appointed Head of Mission. SRSG UNAMIR was Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh from Cameroon from Nov 93–Jun 94 and Shaharyar M. Khan of Pakistan from 1 Jul 94

  Section A squad or group of soldiers usually eight to eleven in number and commanded by a junior NCO or Sergeant

  Security Council UN decision-making body of ambassadors representing their respective nation-states charged with monitoring and ensuring international peace and security. The council receives reports from the SG and in turn issues the SG with guidance. The Security Council issues the mandates for peacekeeping missions

  Seth Sendashonga RPF political leader, fled Rwanda to join the RPF in Uganda, Hutu

  SG The UN Secretary-General

  Théodore Sindikubwabo Hutu MRND extremist appointed President of the interim government after the assassination of Habyarimana

  Sitrep Situation Report, provides details of current situation

  Major Manuel Sosa Uruguayan MILOB killed by a rocket

  Southern Sector HQ in Butare, area of operations was government-controlled area of southern Rwanda, consisted of MILOBs only

  Sous-prefect Assistant political head of a prefecture

  SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations

  Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) Agreement between the UN Force and a host nation, concerning administrative and legal matters such as immunity from national law, exemption from duties and tariffs, etc.

  Status of Mission Agreement (SOMA) Agreement between the UN Mission and a host nation, concerning administrative and legal matters such as immunity from national law, exemption from duties and tariffs, etc.

  Johan Swinnen Belgian Ambassador to Rwanda, left in April 94

  Technical Mission UN term for a multi-disciplinary reconnaissance or information-gathering team sent to a problem area to observe and report back to the SG who in turn reports to the SC

  Theatre command Operational command in the field

  Third force Name given by UNAMIR to an extremist group that was out to derail the peace process

  Colonel Isoa Tikoka UN Military Observer during Arusha Peace negotiations, and later became UNAMIR Chief Military Observer, known as Tiko, of Fiji

  Major General Guy Tousignant Canadian Force Commander of UNAMIR, replaced Major General Dallaire Aug 94

  Triumvirate General Dallaire’s nickname for Major-General Maurice Baril, Kofi Annan and Iqbal Riza

  Master Corporal Philippe Troute FC’s personal driver, Walloon Belgian Para-commando

  Tutsi Minority ethnic group in Rwanda comprising approximately fourteen percent of the population

  Twa Minority ethnic group in Rwanda comprising approximately one percent of the population, mainly pygmies

  Faustin Twagiramungu Prime Minister Designate for the BBTG, selected in Arusha, member of the MDR, moderate Hutu during 93–94, varied political background, became prime minister after the RPF victory in July 1994

  UN United Nations

  UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

  UNAMIR 1 Established by Security Council Resolution 872/05 Oct 93, to assist in the implementation of the Arusha Peace Agreement

  UNAMIR 2 Established by Security Council Resolution 918/17 May 94, to contribute to the security and protection of displaced persons, refugees and civilians at risk in Rwanda

  UNCIVPOL United Nations Civilian Police Division

  UNDP United Nations Development Programme

  UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

  UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

  UNITAF Unified Task Force Somalia, to establish a safe environment for the delivery of humanitarian assistance

  UNMO United Nations Military Observer

  UNOMUR United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda, treated as a Sector within UNAMIR. HQ in Kabale, area of operations was the Ugandan side of the Uganda/Rwanda border opposite the area under RPF control, to monitor the flow of men, arms and supplies from Uganda to the RPF in Rwanda, consisted of MILOBs

  UNREO The United Nations Rwanda Emergency Office, established to coordinate all humanitarian aid efforts for Rwanda

  UN Protected Sites Protected areas for people at risk (such as the Amahoro St
adium, the Meridien hotel, the King Faisal hospital, the Hôtel des Mille Collines, the Belgian camp at the Dom Bosco school)

  General Uytterhoeven Belgian Senior Military Officer, visited Rwanda at the same time as Minister Claes

  Agathe Uwilingiyimana Prime minister of the interim government, MDR Party, moderate Hutu, put in power 7 Apr 93, killed 7 Apr 94, known as Madame Agathe

  Captain Robert van Putten Dutch Aide-de-camp replaced Captain Willem de Kant, Feb 94

  Valcartier Home base of 5ième Brigade-Group, located outside Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

  Vital points Installations or locations considered to be mission-essential property that merits security, for example, airports, power stations, etc.

  Butch Waldrum Retired Canadian Air Force General, employed in FOD New York, visited UNAMIR 5 Apr 94, caught on the ground during the events of 6–7 Apr 94, evacuated to Nairobi and established the air bridge to support UNAMIR

  Weapons-secure area/zone The RPF and the RPF would secure their weapons and move them or armed troops only with UN permission and under UN escort

  Colonel Clayton Yaache Ghanaian Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Sector Commander before 7 April, and later, after withdrawal to Kigali, head of the Humanitarian Assistance Cell in UNAMIR HQ during the genocide

  RECOMMENDED READING

  Perhaps some of you who have read this book will be encouraged to study the Rwandan genocide in greater detail. The following is a list of books and reports that I recommend for their accuracy, the quality of their research and the way they present the facts. I emphasize that this is a personal reading list, which reflects my opinion and perspective.

  The best brief history of Rwanda culminating in the genocide is the work by French social scientist Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York, Columbia University Press, 1995). Prunier is a Rwanda scholar who has lived in the area and studied its people and their history in the depth that can only be achieved by a brilliant academic.

  The best overall account of the background to the genocide, and the failure to prevent it, is Linda Melvern’s A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide (London: Zed Books, 2000). I provided the author with information and consulted on some of the chapters; the investigative work is hers and hers alone. She discovered so much that we did not know, and her book remains one of the best sources available.

  Two worthwhile works by American academics are Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002) and Michael Barnett’s Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002). They give the reader an inside look at decision-making in the U.S. government and in the halls of the UN, using Rwanda as the case study. I strongly recommend both works for the reader who wants to better understand why no one came to help in 1994.

  The best account of the actual genocide, one which is also very detailed and very painful to read, is a book by the American human rights activist Alison Des Forges, called Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999). Alison is an expert on the history of human rights in Rwanda and was one of our greatest allies in 1994 in trying to encourage the international community to intervene in Rwanda and to expose the genocide for what it was. She has testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda at Arusha and is considered an expert on all aspects of the genocide.

  The most disturbing account on the tragedy of genocide, written from a personal perspective, is Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories From Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998). Gourevitch was one of the first journalists to enter post-genocide Rwanda and speak directly with survivors. He took that information and produced a work that strikes directly at your soul.

  For a picture of post-genocide Rwanda, Shaharyar Khan’s The Shallow Graves of Rwanda (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2000) is the most complete account of how the international community failed to help the survivors of the genocide. Khan was the UN’s Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the last days of UNAMIR. We served a little over a month together, and I found him to be a superbly experienced diplomat, an innovator, a talented leader and a wonderful human being.

  The official Canadian Forces history of UNAMIR was written by Dr. Jacques Castonguay, a military historian who was principal of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean and was a professor when I attended that institution as a cadet. From the start, I wanted an official history of the mission, the sort the Canadian Army used to produce during military campaigns in the past. Dr. Castonguay travelled to the mission area while the headquarters was still in place and reviewed documents that have since gone missing. His account also reflects Brent Beardsley’s and my own thinking about the genocide immediately after it occurred.

  Two senior officers have written excellent books on the complex military command and political interface on the ground during the mission. The first was written by my deputy force commander, Ghanaian Brigadier General Henry Anyidoho, and is called Guns over Kigali (Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 1997). It is the story of the mission from the perspective of an experienced African soldier and peacekeeper. Henry served under me and my successor; he had the opportunity to view Rwanda first-hand both during and after the genocide. His insight on the command of African troops is particularly valuable. He, too, returned to a nation where colleagues were jealous and the government apathetic. The Ghanaian troops of UNAMIR never received full recognition from their government, their army or their fellow citizens for the courageous work they performed in Rwanda. The other work I want to mention is Rwanda: la descente aux enfers: Témoignage d’un peacekeeper Décembre 1993–Avril 1994 (Brussels: Éditions Labor, 2001) by Colonel Luc Marchal, who served as my Kigali sector commander as well as the Belgian contingent commander. He has written a first-class account of leadership in a peacekeeping mission in crisis, where one is torn by loyalty to country and loyalty to the mission and morality. He had the most difficult command in UNAMIR, the Kigali Weapons Secure Area, and his book is an extremely personal reflection on the complexities of this new era of conflict resolution. He performed his duties beyond the call; his actions and his high personal moral standards permitted Belgium to be perceived as behaving with a modicum of dignity as its government abandoned us in the field and then attempted to influence the rest of the world not to help. In response, his home country did nothing less than try to destroy him. There is no better example of the risks of command in operations.

  During the genocide, I produced a plan for an emergency international intervention of 5,500 troops to stop the slaughter, a plan that was never adopted. In 1997, this plan was subjected to international military analysis at Georgetown University, where Colonel Scott Feil of the U.S. Army was studying under a fellowship from the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. The plan was assessed by high-ranking officers from several nations. Their analysis was published by Colonel Feil as Preventing Genocide: How the Early Use of Force Might Have Succeeded in Rwanda (New York: Carnegie Commission, 1998). In their judgment, the planned intervention would have at best stopped and at least dramatically reduced the casualties of the genocide.

  The OAU and the United Nations have both conducted full inquiries into the Rwanda genocide of 1994. The OAU report is the more detailed and accurate of the two from my perspective. The Brahimi Report on UN Peacekeeping Reform, a major study of the UN’s peacekeeping efforts by a panel of experts led by Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi, is a solid compendium of the lessons learned from UNAMIR and several other UN missions over the last decade or so. It outlines the reforms needed at the UN in order to meet the complexity of conflict resolution and peacekeeping in this uncertain era.

  I am sure I have missed other fine accounts and I apologize to their authors. I urge readers to carefully check library catalogues and book-store shelves for all accounts of what happened in Rwanda in 199
4. Most importantly, I encourage young authors, journalists and scholars to continue to study this human tragedy and to contribute to our growing understanding of the genocide. If we do not understand what happened, how will we ever ensure it does not happen again?

  The last reading I want to recommend is the seminal report, “We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century,” which was given as a speech by the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan. In this report, Annan calls on us to meet the challenges of the new “millennium of humanity” and insists that we will prevail over conflict. After all I have witnessed, I too believe we can prevail.

  INDEX

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  5ième Régiment d’artillerie légère du Canada, 22–3, 34, 36–7, 40, 44

  430th Tactical Helicopter Squadron, 42

  Adinkra, Lieutenant Colonel Joe, 344–5, 446

  African states and UNAMIR 2, 375

  Ahsan, Major, 423–4

  airport (Kigali)

  battleground, 378–9, 408–9

  a battleground, 336

  closed, 264, 411

  control of, 270–1, 275–6, 284–5, 321, 362

  evacuation of, 286–7

  and Habyarimana crash, 225, 243, 259

  neutrality of, 324

  protection of, 161

  re-opening of, 485–6

  RGF control of, 310–11

  withdrawal from, 384–6

  Albright, Madeleine, 374, 505–6

  Al-Khussaiby, Salim bin Mohammed, 436

  Allard, General Jean Victor, 17, 22, 24

  Amahoro (Peace) Stadium. See also headquarters of UNAMIR

  cleaning up of, 490

  as a shelter, 270, 291, 466, 478

  transfers from, 396–7, 419–20

  American Rangers, 147

  Annabi, Hedi, 51, 86

  Annan, Kofi A., 50, 92–3, 520. See also triumvirate of DPKO