Journal of Humanitarian Assistance
1. The terms of reference asked us to examine issues of early warning and conflict management. Events that took place in Rwanda in 1994 are referred to as an "emergency", as "the Rwanda experience", and as a "conflict". Not once is the term "genocide" used. (Emergency-Prevention and Conflict-Management Efforts, Terms of Reference for Study II, January 1994.) "Emergency" and "experience" are euphemisms to refer to what happened. "Conflict" is partly misleading because it implies that two sides are fighting one another, which covers the civil war in Rwanda but not the genocide.
2. An alternative view of early warning is rooted in a _single standard of morality that requires a decisive response when a certain threshold is crossed. The purpose of early warning is simply to identify the crossing of that threshold.
3. The relevant clauses of the Genocide Convention are Art. II, (a) and (b): "...genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a): Killing members of the group or (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group."
4. The African Charter on Human and People's Rights (1986), Art. 12(2) states that, "Every individual shall have the right to... return to his country. This right may only be subject to restrictions, provided for by law for the protection of national security, law and order, public health and morality". The same right is affirmed in Art. 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), though not qualified as in the African Charter. ("Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."). The relevant clause in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) is similar: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country". (Art. 12(4))
5. The preamble to the 1969 Convention on the Refugee Problems in Africa affirms that the signatories are "determined to discourage" refugees from using their status for subversive activities (paras. 4 & 5). Art.III deals in its entirety with "Prohibition of Subversive Activities", prohibiting refugees from engaging in subversive activities against any member state of OAU (III.1), and requires that the host states undertake to "prohibit refugees residing in their respective territories from attacking any State Member... by use of arms, through the press, or by radio". (III.2) To further ensure that these conditions are met, Art. II (6) advises that, "for reasons of security", refugees shall settle "at a reasonable distance from the frontier of their country of origin". These provisions are unique to African regional instruments of international refugee law. More generally, the Charter of the Organization of African Unity expresses "unreserved condemnation" for subversive activities on the part of neighboring states or any other state. (Art.III(5) The African Charter on Human and People's Rights states unambiguously that, "territories of signatory states shall not be used as bases for subversive or terrorist activities" against another party. (Art.23(2)b)
6. Recent studies discussing reform of the UN relating to peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy include, The Canadian Committee for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, Canadian Priorities for United Nations Reform: Proposals for Policy Changes by the United Nations and the Government of Canada, Ottawa: United Nations in Canada and the Canada Communications Group, 1994; Gareth Williams, (the Foreign Minister of Australia in 1993), Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond, NSW, Australia: Allen and Unwin; Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, UN 1992 ; cf. also Foreign Affairs, September/October 1995.
7. In recognition of the importance of these problems in Africa, the African refugee convention - unlike other instruments of international refugee law - deals at some length with the problem of refugees exercising their "right of return" by means of armed force. (See note 5).
8. The Ugandan government's position was that Rwanda first must acknowledge its fundamental responsibility for its nationals by permitting return; Uganda would then grant full settlement rights to those who nevertheless wanted to stay. This view was reiterated during discussions on the refugee issue in 1991 and during the Arusha negotiations.
9. The general principle governing host state treatment of refugees under the 1951 Convention (chapters II-IV) is to provide treatment to refugees as least as favorable as that accorded other aliens, i.e. non-discrimination, and in some areas (e.g. primary education, labor conditions) that of nationals. In matters of citizenship, the Convention encourages, but does not oblige, the host state to "make every effort to expedite naturalization proceedings"(Art.34). The OAU Convention incorporates these principles insofar as it is "the effective regional complement" to the 1951 Convention" (Art.VIII(2)).
10. The link between high-level positions in the Ugandan army (NRA) and senior positions in the RPF reflected the important role the Rwandese refugees had played in Museveni's struggle for power. RPF Commander Fred Rwigyema had been the Chief of Staff of the NRA and briefly also Deputy Minister of Defense in the National Revolutionary Council. Paul Kagame, who replaced him, rose to the ranks of Deputy Chief of Military Intelligence in the NRA. Several other senior RPF officers had served under Museveni.
11. While there are no systematic studies of the subject, observations to this effect were made by social scientists in Kampala who were close to the refugee community (August 1995 communication). The point is also made by Watson (1991) and Braeckman (1994).
12. The mistake of excluding representatives from the refugee communities was later rectified. At the Arusha talks, refugees from Burundi, Uganda, and Zaire (mainly "fifty-niners") were present. The refugee participants were close to the RPF, which helped to select them. UNHCR covered the costs. In 1995 it proved more difficult to select refugee representatives to the inter-ministerial committee on refugees, composed of the countries concerned, UNHCR and OAU.
13. According to a Kampala-based social scientist close to the exercise, the lead question in the preliminary survey was: "Do you wish to return to Rwanda?" The typical answer was: "Who would not want to return to Rwanda?" The survey was conducted in the refugee settlements by two local employees of UNHCR. (Interview, Kampala, August 1995).
14. Museveni denied giving either military, logistic or financial support to the RPF, and charged the RPA with stealing Ugandan army equipment. He also assured the Rwandese government that the borders had been sealed, that Uganda did not provide RPF with weapons, nor would it allow them to retreat back into Uganda, and would arrest them if they returned. Cf. Briefing given by the Minister of State for Foreign and Regional Affairs, Hon. David Omara-Atubo, to Diplomatic Representatives Resident in Kampala on 4 October 1990. See also Ambassador Katena-Apuli's letter to Stephen Goose of 26 August, 1993, in which he asserts that, "On the day of the invasion, October 1990, the Uganda Government declared all Rwandese who had left NRA to attack Rwanda as Deserters under the Operational Code of Conduct. That means on conviction by a Court Martial, they would be punishable by death". There is no evidence that any were arrested. On the contrary, RPF Commander Paul Kagame travelled often and openly to Kampala where he met with journalists, foreign supporters and diplomats throughout the war, but was never arrested (Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Arming Rwanda: The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan War, Washington, January 1994, 20).
15. "The charitable view", wrote the well-informed Africa Confidential, was that "Museveni has been unable to control his army. The cynical view is that he has been playing a double game, allowing... RPF-commander... Rwigyema to build up his expeditionary army while professing friendship with his neighbors." (Africa Confidential, vol.31, no.20, p.2.) Close observers conclude there was significant assistance, pointing to the RPF's use of Ugandan territory and shifts of equipment from the Ugandan Army to the RPF at the time as well as later (Human Rights Watch 1994, Prunier 1995). The Human Rights Watch report Arming Rwanda (1994) concluded there was "institutional complicity" based on findings that "...Uganda provided weapons, munitions and other military supplies to the RPF. These included munitions, automatic rifles, mortars, artillery and Soviet-designed Katyusha multiple rocket systems... and that Uganda allowed the rebel movement to use its territory as a sanctuary for the planning of attacks, stockpiling of weapons, raising of funds and movement of troops" (p.10).
16. See Otunnu (1995) for a long list of telling signals, also Prunier (1995). Foreign diplomats and journalists commented on the unusual movement of troops towards the Rwanda border; departing NRA members took farewell with relatives and friends; and a few days before the invasion, Maj. Gen. Rwigyema told inquisitive onlookers in Mbarara that he was taking troops to prepare for celebrations on October 9, Uganda's Independence Day.
17. There are also reports that the invasion triggered a purge of officers in the Rwandese armed forces on 2-3 October. The officers appeared to have planned to carry out a coup in conjunction with the RPF offensive, but were caught by Habyarimana's intelligence network. If so, Habyarimana probably had information about the planned invasion as well.
18. NMOG was headed by a Nigerian officer. The amended N'Sele Ceasefire Agreement of 12 July 1992 specified that military observers would come from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mali and Senegal.
19. While not a major state in Francophone Africa, Rwanda had entered that inner circle called pays du champ - states with which France had a special relationship. The ties had developed steadily since President Habyarimana was received at the Elysée Palace in 1975. As with other pays du champ, relations were managed not only or primarily through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also through the Presidential Palace (the Africa unit), and aid (including military assistance) was channelled through the Ministry of Cooperation. During periods when the relationship was non-controversial and involved matters of routine, Rwandese affairs were handled largely through the Presidential palace in cooperation with the Military Mission Office in the Ministry of Cooperation (Prunier 1995).
20. Reyntjens cites AFP and Reuter dispatches in February 1993 saying a spokesman for the neutral military observers group (NMOG) accused French troops of bombarding RPF positions (Reyntjens 1994, p. 176). American aid personnel have reported that French officers were manning artillery positions (Interviews, Washington, May 1995). In a report in Le Monde ("L'armée francaise dans le piège rwandais", 22 September 1994), Herve Gattegno cites various evidence of direct involvement, including a memorandum from the head of the military mission in Kigali recommending 21 members of the parachutist regiments for medals for bravery during the fighting in January 1991 (Reprinted in Guichaoua 1995:720-721). According to French authorities, however, the mission of the paratroopers was to evacuate French and other Europeans from Ruhengeri during the offensive, and thus within their strictly defensive role. The medals were given in appreciation of their rescue mission. As for other reports of French soldiers manning artillery positions etc., this could have referred to hands-on training sessions by DAMI personnel, some of whom were in French uniforms. Interviews, Ministry of Cooperation, Office of Military Cooperation, Paris, January 19, 1996.
21. Correspondence to the authors from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 14 November 1995.
22. The director at the time was M. Dijoud. Possibly the French were piqued that a high-ranking American official, Deputy Assistant Secretary Hicks, had organized a meeting between the RPF and the government of Rwanda in Harare in July. A subtle competition between Washington and Paris developed, driven on the French side by a sense that diplomatic initiatives in Central Africa properly belonged to a French sphere. In Washington, there was generally little interest in Rwanda, which gave lower-level officials greater leeway for initiatives. The only exception was the personal interest in promoting African conflict resolution and activist stance of Herman Cohen, the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa.
23. The N'Sele ceasefire agreement of 29 March 1991, Art.II(7), as amended at Gbadolite, 16 September 1991 and at Arusha, 12 July 1992.
24. A widely publicized case implicated the French government, via the bank Crédit Lyonnais, in helping the Rwandese government secure finances for a US$6 million weapons purchase from Egypt. Documents in the case were originally obtained by Human Rights Watch (1994). The shipment itself was no secret. American diplomats in Kigali, for instance, were appraised of the shipment in advance via American embassy staff in Cairo. (Interviews, Washington March 1995).
25. Tanzania's brokerage became a significant budget item for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tanzania's delegation, headed by an ambassador, worked practically full time on the conflict for 10 months and the hotel bill for this period in Arusha was payable in hard currency.
26. The power-sharing formula in the Arusha Accords distributed the portfolios in the transitional Council of Ministers as follows:
The ruling MRND would retain Defense and Planning but otherwise received marginal ministries, including those for family planning and promotion of women, and enseignément supérieur et culture.
RPF got the Ministry of Interior, which gave it control over local administration, the Ministry of Youth, which meant power to organize and form the next generation (and thus possibilities for establishing structures competing with MRND's educational portfolio), and the Ministry of Rehabilitation and Social Integration, which entailed control over significant resources.
The principal opposition party, Mouvement démocratique républicain (MDR), got three choice portfolios in its batch of four: Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of Primary and Secondary Education
The Liberal Party (PL), also in opposition, got the Ministries of Justice, Commerce and Labor - all three "heavy" portfolios;
The opposition Social Democrats (PSD): Finance, Public Works and Agriculture.
27. This is based on the figures in the report of the UN Reconnaissance Mission to Rwanda in August 1993. If the higher figures sometimes cited of FAR having 30, 000 men and RPF 15, 000 are more accurate (see Study I), the difference in demobilization requirements becomes even greater, i.e. about 24, 000 on the government side and 9, 000 for the RPF.
28. Current definitions of preventive diplomacy have been formulated by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his 1992 Agenda for Peace as efforts "to identify at the earliest possible stage situations that could produce conflict, and to try through diplomacy to remove the sources of danger before violence results" (para.15). During the Cold War, "preventive diplomacy" was customarily used in the sense pioneered by former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld to mean the prevention of local conflict from developing into confrontations between superpowers.
29. Communication with the authors, 27 November1995.
30. The letter of 22 February 1993 suggested 20-30 observers, surely a symbolic force for a 150 km long border.
31. By its own account, NMOG was much too small to carry out its mission. The head of field operations, the Nigerian Col. Ihekiré, told a UN good-will mission sent to Rwanda by the Secretary-General in early March 1993 that he needed at least 400 men to do the work effectively.
32. Report of Meeting between H.E. Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, Secretary-General and Mr. James Jonah, UN Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs. OAU Headquarters, Addis Ababa, 25 May 1993, p.2.
33. The US, Belgium and the UK suggested to the UN Secretariat they were ready to support the OAU on a bilateral basis. France was said not to be enthusiastic, making reference to the UN role in Rwanda. The OAU Secretariat, for its part, was sceptical. Earlier promises of bilateral assistance to NMOG and its predecessor MOT had either not been realized, or funds were tied to conditionality that prevented their disbursal. Report of Meeting, Addis Ababa 25 May 1993, op.cit.
34. Letter to Salim A. Salim dated 1 April 1994. Boutros-Ghali did not mention that, on the very same day, he had effectively upstaged his OAU counterpart by ordering his top military advisor, General Maurice Baril, to travel to Rwanda and Uganda to prepare for a UN monitoring force in the border area. The Baril mission resulted in the establishment of the United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR), as approved by the Security Council on 22 June (Res. 846(1993)). NMOG for a while limped along and monitored the cease-fire within Rwanda, and - thanks to Salim's continuous efforts - increased its capacity slightly. It was later folded into UNAMIR, as was UNOMUR.
35. The other Rwandese operation mounted by the UN was UNOMUR, designed to monitor the supplies going to the RPF across the Rwanda-Uganda border. Also _UNOMUR had a checkered efficiency record. Established by a UN resolution in June 1993, UNOMUR had only 81 military observers and lacked equipment for aerial surveillance of the 150 km long border between Rwanda and Uganda. The Security Council evidently made cost a primary consideration when deciding that UNOMUR would focus its control and verification activities on main roads and tracks (Res. 846(1993)). American military experts regarded the force as largely symbolic.
36. "The majority of the victims have been members of the minority group, the Tutsi, and they have been killed and otherwise abused for the sole reason they are Tutsi." But the report continued, "While the casualty figures established by the Commission are significant, they may be below the threshold required to establish genocide... These technical matters aside, the tragic reality is that for the sole reason of belonging to the Tutsi group, many Rwandans are dead, have disappeared, have been seriously injured or mutilated, have been deprived of their property, or have had to flee their homes and been forced to hide or live in terror" (FIDH 1993:29).
37. "The question of Radio Mille Collines propaganda is a difficult one. There were so many genuinely silly things being said on the station, so many obvious lies, that it was hard to take it seriously. It was like relying on the National Enquirer a supermarket tabloid to determine your policy in outer space. Nevertheless, everyone listened to it, I was told by Tutsis sic, in a spirit of morbid fascination and because it had the best music selection." (Canadian Ambassador Lucie Edwards, communication to the authors, 27 October 1995).
38. The Canadian diplomat Lucie Edwards, who was accredited as Ambassador to Rwanda in January 1994, recalls a meeting with human rights organizations exactly one year before, in which the growing human rights violations in Kigali were discussed. "They agreed it was El Salvador style death squads, supported by the youth wings of the MRND and CDR, tasked with killing the regime's political opponents and disrupting opposition meetings. They were unanimous that the primary target was Hutu opposition figures, including human rights activists and journalists. No one mentioned systematic attacks on Tutsi. No one predicted genocide." (Communication to the authors, 27 October 1995).
39. An official who served in the Africa bureau of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the tenure of Ambassador George Martre could not recall any mention of human rights issues in the communications between Paris and Kigali. Considered a strong supporter of "the Presidential tendency", Martre served from September 1989 until March 1993. He was replaced by Jean-Michel Marlaud, who was more attuned to multipartisme, but did not raise human rights issues because he considered the evidence too flimsy or feared it would play into the hands of the RPF. Reflecting tacit principles of division of labor during the Cold War, the United States had for some time considered Rwanda as part of a French sphere of influence in Africa. To the extent that Rwanda figured at all, US policy was to emphasize democratization and good governance as a means to deal with human rights. Both Ambassador Robert Flaten and his successor, David Rawson, observed this priority. (Interviews Kigali and Paris, August 1995; Washington, March 1995).
40. Canadian aid to Rwanda had reached a peak of C$22 million in 1990-91, declined to 18 million in 1991-92, and was cut by one-third to just over 11 million for 1992-93 and 1993-94. (CIDA, ODA, Country-to-Country Report, 1994, p.3). Further cuts did not occur because there was a significant shift from development to humanitarian aid.
41. Under the guidance of two "old Rwanda hands", in the Ministry of Cooperation and its implementing agency (ADCD), Belgium had chosen Rwanda for a pilot project in Belgian foreign aid based on new guidelines. Bureaucratic incentives to maintain the aid help to explain why Minister of Cooperation André Geens strongly advocated not only renewing but actually increasing aid in late 1991, despite his admission that the government had not undertaken the expected economic and political reforms (William 1995, pp. 436-439). Another Belgian official who accompanied Geens on his tour of Rwanda in August 1991 noted that he was "very keen on aid". (Interview, Brussels, July 1995). The French Ambassador in Kigali, George Martre, was known as an ancien du Rwanda. Martre was not a diplomat but came from the Ministry of Cooperation and was described by a close observer as a "projects man". (Interview, Washington, March 1995). Martre is considered to have wielded considerable if indirect
influence on French policy towards Rwanda during his tenure as ambassador (September 1989-March 1993).
42. In Canada the issue came to the forefront in early 1992. Attempts by human rights activists to portray a cut-off in Canadian aid to Rwanda as a reaction to human rights violations were in fact resented by Ottawa officials who feared this would complicate Canadian efforts to promote peace and democratization.
43. Memorandum from DHA/Geneva to DHA/New York, 19 March 1993.
44. Agnes Ntamabyaliro. Considered both corrupt and of "Hutu power" persuasion, she appeared in the self-appointed "interim government" after 6 April.
45. Even such a concrete and seemingly clear-cut issue as hate radio was too problematic for the international community to deal with. The Rwandese government had formally committed itself to abstain from "propagande radio nuisible", as the confidential annex to the Dar-es-Salaam joint communique put it (7 March 1993). Although the vitriolic Radio Mille Collines (RTLM) clearly qualified as nuisible and attacked even members of the diplomatic corps in Kigali, there was no decision to take forceful measures to silence it. Both the French and the American Ambassadors opposed such action. Ambassador Rawson claimed that Radio Mille Collines was the best radio for information, and its euphemisms were subject to many interpretations. The idea of jamming the radio was discussed in a preliminary fashion in the US Department of Defense, but never passed "first base", as one participant later noted. The reasons cited were many: It was illegal to interfere in the internal affairs of another state, Rwanda was not considered an enemy or even an adversary state, and jamming posed practical problems by requiring the application of sophisticated equipment from the air or a nearby base. The United States was in principle wedded to a broad view of freedom of speech. (Interviews Washington, March 1995; Kigali, August 1995).
46. Under the 1503 procedure, discussion is conducted by a small Committee of Five, and is a means to approach the government in question to deal with the situation before it is brought onto a public agenda. The confidential discussions are seen as one step in a process that - in the most severe cases - might lead to the establishment of a Special Rapporteur with a country mandate. Only on 24-25 May 1994 did the Commission call a special session and appoint a Rapporteur to investigate the genocide in Rwanda.
47. Mrs. Uwilingiyamana appeared at the 8 March meeting at the specific instructions of the Foreign Minister, Boniface Ngulinzira - who also was murdered after 6 April. Her presence before the Commission visibly angered the MRND member who remained in the delegation.
48. In 1992, the Special Rapporteur on "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions" devoted 6 paragraphs to Rwanda in his report to the Commission (E/CN.4/30: 461-467). The thematic rapporteurs on torture and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances included Rwanda in their general reports to the Commission in 1993.
49. The report estimated that at least 2, 000 civilians have been "victims of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions" in the period October 1990 to January 1993. Nor, for those who knew Rwandese history, would these figures suggest a turn for the worse: several thousand persons were victims of the 1959 "social revolution", and thousands were killed in retaliation for the attacks in December 1963 by Tutsi guerrillas. At that time, as in 1992-93, the killings took place in the context of a war, and the victims were primarily local Tutsi who were identified as the internal enemy associated with the externally-based Tutsi rebels.
50. Diplomats from the region report having seen French officers in the Gabiro national park with interahamwe units. The latter were easily recognizable from their uniform (kanga). It was one of the "open secrets" of Kigali that the militias were training in the national parks (Interviews, Geneva, March 1995; Kigali and Dar-es-Salaam, August 1995).
51. On 10 September - the acknowledged unrealistic date for deployment stipulated in the Arusha Accords - the Security Council had not even approved the force. According to the recommended timeline of the UN Reconnaissance Mission, the military and political leaders of the mission were to be in place one week after the Security Council had given its approval (M+7). In fact, the Force Commander, General Dallaire, arrived on 22 October (M+17), while the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the entire mission, J.-R. Booh-Booh, arrived on 23 November (M+38). Half of the mission staff were supposed to be in place in Kigali on M+30; in fact, it took over two months to assemble 40% of the staff. Report of the UN Reconnaissance Mission to Rwanda, New York, September 1993.
52. The French Ambassador Marlaud warned most strongly of all that delays would give the opponents of the Accords opportunities to derail the peace process.
53. The review had started out in mid-1993 on the premise that UN peacekeeping was a valuable instrument of US foreign policy, but soon took a critical course. Announced in May 1994, the Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25) held that the United States needed to apply stringent criteria of national interest before supporting UN peacekeeping operations, whether or not this involved US troops (National Security Council, The Clinton Administration's Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, Washington: May 1994). The increased activities of UN peacekeeping after the end of the Cold War had dramatically increased the assessed US contributions, from a range of US$29-47 million in 1985-89, to a sizable US$460.4 million in 1993, the latter figure representing an increase of 370% from the previous year. Under a new procedure laid down by PDD 25, the costs of all Chapter VII operations plus those in which US troops were involved would be charged against the Pentagon's budget, which inclined the latter to oppose such operations (Rosner 1995:65-91).
54. At the very high end was the UNTAC operation in Cambodia, which had an international staff of 22,000, including 16,000 blue helmets, whose cost was estimated to US$60-70 million per month (Schear 1995, UN/DPI 1994).
55. The Arusha Accords were signed on 4 August. The UN Reconnaissance Mission (DPKO/DPA/DHA) travelled in Rwanda during the last two weeks of August. Upon its return, it prepared its report, had it translated, and submitted it to the Security Council on 24 September. Authorization for deployment was received on 5 October (S/Res.872). General Dallaire arrived in Kigali with an advance party on 22 October.
56. No country came up with a unit of Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs), as UNAMIR plans approved by the Security Council called for. As a result, the DPKO had to search for left-overs from other UN operations (and did scrounge eight APCs from Mozambique); the rest had to be obtained through civilian contracts. Since the commercial market for APCs was limited, and UNAMIR's budget at any rate was not fully approved until April 4, 1994, the force never got its armored unit. The APCs assembled from the UN operation in Mozambique rapidly broke down. As UNAMIR had no repair facilities, only one was operational by the time of the April crisis. A similar fate befell the small helicopter unit authorized by the Security Council. No country offered even half a helicopter squadron; a commercial contractor who eventually was found withdrew the machines in April when violence broke out. (Interviews, UN/DPKO, UN Permanent Missions, April, June 1995).
57. The mission had a temporary budget until the end of 1993. The first formal budget proposal was released by the Secretariat (DAM) on 3 January, 1994 (A/48/837), translated into 16 languages, passed to the Fifth Committee sub-committee dealing with budgets (Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, ACABQ), which began consideration of the budget and released it on 17 March (A/48/908). On 2 April, it was formally approved by the General Assembly (A/48/828 Add.1) Member states received requests for contributions on 18 April 1994. The process has since been speeded up. Previously the Secretary-General could spend no more than US$10 million per year without an approved budget from the General Assembly, and then only with approval of the ACABQ. Now, the Secretariat can go straight to the ACABQ for a temporary budget of US$50 million once an operation is set up. Formal budgets are prepared for fiscal years rather than mandated periods (annual budgets for stable periods and 6-months budgets for less stable periods), which harmonize better with regular national and UN budget processes. (See A/49/375 and A/48/945, also Durch 1993, 1995).
58. Cable from Dallaire, UNAMIR\Kigali to Baril\DPKO\Nations, New York, regarding "Request for Protection for Informant", 11 January 1994. To draw attention to the cable a DPKO official put it in a file with black colour before circulating it.
59. Intelligence cables, UNAMIR to Brussels, doc. no.6-16 (1994), Alexandre Goffin, Rwanda. 7 avril: dix commandos vont mourir. Brussels, ASBL, 1995, De Morgen (Brussels), 6 November 1995.
60. In addition to continuous requests for equipment to bring the force up to authorized strength, General Dallaire twice requested reinforcements of a company of 150 men and 5 Canadian bilingual officers, first in late February after the civil violence in Kigali, and again on 13 March.
61. A DPKO official in New York noted on 22 January 1994 the arrival of a French DC-8 with 90 boxes of 60 mm mortar.
62. The Belgian Col. Luc Marchal told the BBC, and later confirmed to Le Monde (23 August 1995), that one of the French planes supposedly participating in the evacuation operation arrived at 0345 hours on 9 April with several boxes of ammunition. The boxes, about 5 tons, were unloaded and transported by FAR vehicles to the Kanombe camp where the Rwandese Presidential Guard was quartered. The French government denied this, saying that the planes carried only French military personnel and material for the evacuation (20 August 1995, reported in Le Monde, 22 August 1995).
63. Delcroix apparently was alarmed when finding that Rwanda was "awash with weapons" while UNAMIR stood powerless by. The Belgian UN commander of the Kigali sector, Col. Luc Marchal, told Reuters news agency that since the Belgian battalion's arrival three months earlier, it had confiscated only 16 weapons and just over 100 hand grenades. Marchal was unequivocal: "It is a problem with the mandate. Stopping and searching people for weapons is forbidden by New York," he said. (Reuters dispatch from Kigali, 13 March 1994).
64. The file was seen in DPA, DHA and DPKO. Senior DPKO officials discussed the cable several times, but questioned its significance and the credibility of the informant. DPKO sources later claimed that information about the January cable was shared with key members of the Security Council. The main response of the Secretariat, however, was to rely on the diplomatic suasion of Western embassies in Kigali. Dallaire was instructed to share the information with the French, Belgian and US embassies in Kigali and request that they take it up with Habyarimana in yet another diplomatic representation. Le VIF/L'Express (Brussels), 11 January 1996. There the matter rested. Although the significance of the cable became clear in retrospect, senior DPKO officials later denied they had received any information suggesting a genocide was being planned. A special search of DPKO archives was undertaken but failed to unearth any evidence, officials said. As for Dallaire's request for reinforcements and a proactive mandate interpretation, the DPKO officials said such requests were not forwarded to the Security Council because the Council was expected to turn them down anyway . (Interviews, New York, April and June 1995; Kigali, August 1995).
65. Three documents deal with the mandate for UNAMIR (which in documents preceding the formal proposal to the Security Council is called a Neutral International Force (NIF)). These are the Arusha Accords (hereafter AA), the report of the UN Reconnaissance Mission, headed by the future Force Commander, and which visited the region from 19 August until 3 September 1993 (hereafter "Report"), and the Security Council resolution 846 of 5 October, 1993 (hereafter UNSC). A comparison of the three shows significant differences on key issues:
AA: "guarantee overall security of the country"((B)1), in the Report becomes "establish security zone in and around the capital city area of Kigali", and in UNSC: "contribute to the security of the city of Kigali inter alia within a weapons-secure area established by the parties in and around the city" ((3)a), i.e. a progressively weaker mandate.
AA: "assist in catering for the security of civilians" ((B)3); in the Report becomes "To monitor the civilian security situation through the verification and control of the Gendarmerie and the Communal Police". This is subsequently specified as monitoring with unarmed UN Police Observers; and in UNSC "to investigate and report on incidents regarding the activities of the gendarmerie and the police" ((3)h). Here the mandate becomes more delimited and specific, and to that extent weaker.
The Accords have two strong provisions for confiscating illegal arms: (B)4 - "Assist in the tracking of arms caches and neutralization of armed gangs throughout the country"; and (B)6 - "Assist in the recovery of all weapons distributed to, or illegally acquired by the civilians". The Report lists such activities as means of achieving the principal goals identified for NIF, notably:"Assist in tracking arms and neutralizing armed groups (with armed UN Military Forces)" and "Assist in recovering arms in the hands of civilians" with armed UN Military Forces and unarmed UN Police Observers. Significantly, the Security Council resolution has no provisions at all for confiscating illegal arms.
All three sources are similar for the other main provisions: monitor cease-fire, mine clearance, monitor demobilization (cantonment points), integration, and protection for security for humanitarian relief.
66. In Somalia, Boutros-Ghali had taken the lead in proposing a proactive and eventually Chapter VII mandate which gave the UN broad powers to confiscate weapons and enforce peace. The first debacle in Somalia occurred in early June 1993, when a UN Pakistani contingent of 23 men was lost, the death of 17 US soldiers in a related mission two weeks later jeopardized the entire operation and was widely considered as a major defeat for UN peacekeeping. In his recommendation to the Security Council on 3 March for an expanded mandate for UNOSOM, Boutros Boutros-Ghali had argued that the disarming of local factions had to be enforceable to be effective. He was backed by Res. 814, which stipulated that factions or personnel who failed to comply with the disarmament process would have their weapons and equipment confiscated. The Council also supported him on this point after the Pakistani contingent was ambushed (Res. 837 of 6 June 1993). The main difference between Res. 814 authorizing UNOSOM II and the mandate of UNAMIR was a Chapter VII provision to cover the "responsibility" of the UN force:"the consolidation, expansion, and maintenance of a secure environment throughout Somalia on an expedited basis". By contrast, UNAMIR was to "assist" local authorities, and only with respect to the security of the capital by establishing a weapons-secure area in Kigali (Makinda 19954:76-81).
67. This is the assessment of the Rwanda expert, André Guichaoua, who met with a number of opposition figures on 6 April. The presence of "white" soldiers - professional, well-equipped, and with a UN badge - created a sense of security. The Prime Minister, who was assigned UN guards on the night of 6 April, had dared to be particularly outspoken. (Guichaoua, communication to the authors, 22 November 1995).
68. Trying to find out what was happening, Dallaire rushed into a meeting of the top officers on the evening of 6 April. Col. Bagosora was in charge. When Dallaire asked him to help maintain stability by recognizing the Prime Minister as the acting head of state, Bagosora put down the idea, contending she was inept and untrustworthy. By the next morning she had been killed. Dallaire also learned of the murders of 6 other moderate cabinet ministers. On the evening of 7 April, he went to the hospital to identify the bodies of the 10 Belgian soldiers.
69. Initially, the focus was on the safety of UN personnel. In a letter to the Security Council dated 8 April, the Secretary-General raised the possibility that UNAMIR might have to take main responsibility for evacuating UN civilian personnel, in which case an expanded mandate and strength would be required. A further deterioration of the situation could justify an evacuation of UNAMIR itself, and if so he was ready to make that decision. While the Secretariat and the Council were discussing these options, France, Belgium and Italy launched evacuation operations of their own, the French giving New York and the UNAMIR Force Commander 45 minutes notice before landing at Kigali airport on 9 April.
70. Smaller states on the Council complained in retrospect that the Secretariat provided insufficient information. (Interview, New York, March 1995). Also, other members complained that the Secretariat was inactive. The delegation of Ghana, which had contributed one of UNAMIR's two battalions, found that its calls to DPKO were not even returned. The informal consultations in the Council reinforce the impression of a Council ready to give the Secretariat room for initiatives, but the latter did not respond. For instance, on 12 April - or five days into the crisis - several members of the Security Council explicitly asked for the views of Force Commander and the Secretary-General by the next morning; they also sought to hear the views of major troop contributors to UNAMIR. DPKO officials briefed the Council next day, but members were still impatient and asked for specific options. When the Secretariat came back on 14 April with options, the UK and others complained about the lack of information in order to assess options. Argentina reiterated earlier demands that troop-contributing countries be consulted.
71. The Secretariat came back on 14 April with two options. Both were premised on a cease-fire, an assumption that the Security Council found unrealistic. The logic apparently was to threaten withdrawal of the entire force unless the RPF and FAR agreed to a cease-fire. That threat would hardly persuade any of the parties to stop either the war or the killings.
72. The Secretary-General's report of 20 April uses the term "widespread violence", not "genocide", but admits that "possibly...tens of thousands" had been killed (S/1994/470). The Security Council resolution (Res. 912(1994)) is mainly oriented towards the civil war, which is addressed in conventional inter-state terms. For instance, Clause 4 claims: "Obviously, a cease-fire agreement is the first step in establishing a stable and secure environment in the country, thus allowing the organized, coordinated and secure delivery of humanitarian assistance and the reactivation of the Arusha peace process." Item 6 "demands an immediate cessation of hostilities between the forces of the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front and for an end to the mindless violence and carnage which are engulfing Rwanda; Item 7 "commands the active role of the Special Representative of the Secretary-Genetal and of the Force Commander to bring about a cease-fire and to mediate between the parties in order to bring about the earliest resolution of the Rwandese crisis." Item 8 adjusts the mandate of UNAMIR to serve as an intermediary to bring about a cease-fire.