Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access originally published online on August 19, 2005
Journal of International Criminal Justice 2005 3(4):861-878; doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi063
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I. How Could it Happen? |
The Major Powers on Trial
* Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Missions for Rwanda (UNAMIR), Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Kishan Manocha, Psychiatrist and barrister (UK), Research Assistant, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; [kishan_manocha{at}yahoo.co.uk]. Nishan Degnarain, Master in Public Administration in International Development candidate (2006), Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Colonel Ken Watkin for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Faced with incontrovertible evidence of the most clear-cut case of genocide possible, the international community failed to denounce the evil and to take action to stop the killings taking place in Rwanda in 1994. Under the influence of three major powers—France, the United States and the United Kingdom—the United Nations was disabled from taking the necessary action because the mass slaughter of the Tutsi people did not impinge on these powers' narrowly defined national interests. In the specific case of France, there is evidence to show that this power arguably aided and abetted the genocide. Yet, in contrast, these three powers were able to take decisive and quick action when faced with an outraged domestic public in response to the humanitarian crisis which unfolded from the genocide. There are many reasons why individuals and governments cannot bring themselves to use the word ‘genocide’. In the case of Rwanda, perhaps the enormity of the concept prevented those who were in the midst of it from recognizing it for what it actually was.
1 S. Power, ‘A Problem from Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), at 45.
2 A. Des Forges/Human Rights, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), at 18. France and the USA both had fully equipped and manned embassies in Kigali, Rwanda, with military and intelligence attachés; the UK had the same in Kampala, Uganda. Between human and signal intelligence on the ground and worldwide space- and air-based surveillance systems, it would be scarcely conceivable for these nations to claim that they did not have detailed knowledge as to what was going on, both before and throughout the genocide. See Lieutenant-General R. Dallaire with Major B. Beardsley, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Toronto: Random House, Canada, 2003), 90.
3 Cited in Power, supra note 1, at 338. See report by W.B. Ndiaye, Special Rapporteur, on his mission to Rwanda, 8–17 April 1993, Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions. UN doc. E/CN.4/1994/7/Add.1, 
64 and 78. See also L. Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide (London: Zed Books, 2000), at 56–57.
4 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 148; Melvern, supra note 3, at 94–95; Power, supra note 1, at 344; J. Shattuck, Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), at 35.
5 M. Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), at 56–57; Dallaire, supra note 4, at 62; Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 654; M. McNulty, ‘French Arms, War and Genocide in Rwanda’, 33 Crime, Law & Social Change (2000) 105–129, at 106–115; Melvern, supra note 3, at 24–38 and 47–49; G. Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis 1959–1994: History of a Genocide (London: Hurst and Company, 1995), at 100–108.
6 For examples, see Melvern, supra note 3, at 43–44. It has been asserted that France had foreseen the risks of genocide from as early as 1990 and was aware of the implication of the most senior figures of the Rwandan regime in its preparation (Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 175–176; McNulty, supra note 5, at 116). Based on research done by Human Rights Watch, from the first hours after the killings began, French policymakers knew that Tutsi were being slain because they were Tutsi (Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 19).
7 On 27 April 1994, Jérôme Bicamumpaka, the Foreign Minister, and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, leader of the openly and violently anti-Tutsi Coalition pour la défense de la république (CDR), were warmly welcomed in Paris by President Mitterand and also had meetings with the French Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (Prunier, supra note 5, at 277).
8 According to a Human Rights Watch report, in addition to combat troops, France sent military advisors to Rwanda to train Rwandan troops in combat techniques and commando operations. See Braeckman/Human Rights Watch, Qui a armé la Rwanda? Chronique d'une tragédie annoncée (Brussels: GRIP, 1994), at 41.
9 See Melvern, supra note 3, at 45. According to a witness in the trial of senior commanders of the Rwandan army at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, French military instructors trained Rwandan militia later to be blamed for the genocide. The Tribunal was told that towards the end of 1992, in a forest near Camp Gabiro, Interhamwe militia received military training from French military instructors. The witness added that French instructors had also trained militia leaders at the base of the Presidential Guard at Kimihurura in Kigali (‘France trained genocidal Rwandan militia, court told’, Agence France Presse Newswire Dispatch, 13 January 2005).
10 Quoted in P. Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories From Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998), at 325.
13 There remains, however, a possibility that a formal, detailed account of French political and military involvement in the later stages of the Rwandan genocide may yet emerge. Lawyers for six Rwandan citizens have filed a lawsuit with the Army Tribunal of Paris alleging that French soldiers were complicit in the genocide. The plaintiffs claim that French troops allowed Rwandan forces and members of the Interhamwe militia to enter camps under their protection, where they kidnapped Tutsis and later killed them (‘Suit filed in French military court over Rwanda genocide’, Associated Press, 16 February 2005).
14 Details of this meeting can be found in P. de Saint-Exupéry, ‘France-Rwanda: des silences d'Etat’, Le Figaro, 14 January 1998, at 4; Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 664; McNulty, supra note 5, at 116.
15 Details of these arm sales, as well as the nature and scale of French military support and training to the Rwandan armed forces, are reviewed in Braeckman, supra note 8, at 31–32 and 40–42; P. de Saint-Exupéry, L'inavouable: La France au Rwanda (Paris: Les Arenas, 2004), at 201–203; McNulty, supra note 5, at 108–120.
16 According to de Saint-Exupéry, France delivered an equivalent of 14 million French Francs-worth of military equipment to Rwanda in 1992 and a further 7 million French Francs-worth of such equipment in 1993. In addition, during this period, the French state-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais, financed arms transactions worth $6 million and a French company, DYL-Invest, signed an arms contract for Rwanda worth $12.2 million in 1993 (P. de Saint-Exupéry, ‘France-Rwanda: le syndrome de Fachoda’, Le Figaro, 13 January 1998, at 4).
17 Prunier, supra note 5, at 278.
18 On 3 May 1994, an aeroplane landed in the former Zaire with $942,680-worth of arm supplies in its hold. The French firm, DYL-Invest, is alleged to have mediated this arms deal (P. de Saint-Exupéry, ‘France-Rwanda: un genocide sans importance’, Le Figaro, 12 January 1998, at 4). And, on 6 May 1994, a document on the headed notepaper of ‘Sofremas’, a company which handles French arms exports, addressed to the Defence attaché of the Rwandan embassy in Paris confirmed an order for arms worth $8,028,000 to Rwanda (P. de Saint-Exupéry, supra note 14, at 4).
19 Human Rights Watch, Rwanda/Zaire, Rearming with Impunity: International Support for the Perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995), at 6–7. Section B.13 of SC Res. 918 (issued on 17 May 1994) stipulated that all states ‘shall prevent the sale or supply to Rwanda by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft of arms and related matériel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary police equipment and spare parts’.
20 Gourevitch, supra note 10, at 155.
21 According to de Saint-Exupéry, on 18 July 1994, an aircraft landed in Goma, former Zaire, carrying arms from France and valued at $753,645. De Saint-Exupéry has evidence to show that this arms supply was funded by the Rwandan embassies in Paris and Cairo (de Saint-Exupéry, supra note 15, at 185).
22 Assemblée nationale, Rapport d'information déposé par la Mission d'information de la Commission de la défense nationale et des forces armées et de la Commission des affaires étrangères, sur les opérations militaries menées par la France, d'autres pays et l'ONU au Rwanda entre 1990 et 1994, Paris, 15 December 1998.
23 Melvern, supra note 3, at 234.
24 McNulty, supra note 5, at 105–106; Melvern, supra note 3, at 234.
25 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 76.
27 Accounts vary as to the exact number of Tutsi saved by French soldiers. See Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 689; and Melvern, supra note 3, at 215.
28 Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 679–681.
29 Barnett, supra note 5, at 149; Des Forges/Human Rights Watch, supra note 2, at 679–690; Melvern, supra note 3, at 214–215; Power, supra note 1, at 380.
30 Cited in Prunier, supra note 5, at 296.
31 W. Ferroggiaro, ‘The US and the Genocide in Rwanda 1994: The Assassination of the Presidents and the Beginning of the Apocalypse’, available online at: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSA/EBB/NSAEBB119/index.htm (visited 18 February 2005).
32 For a review of these sources, see W. Ferroggiaro, ‘The US and the Genocide in Rwanda 1994: Information, Intelligence and the US Response’, available online at: http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB117/index.htm (visited 18 February 2005); Power, supra note 1, at 354–355.
33 According to James Woods, deputy assistant secretary for African Affairs at the Department of Defense, the fact of the genocide was known as early as the second week (Melvern, supra note 3, at 230).
34 Power, supra note 1, at 354.
35 A Central Intelligence Agency report of 8 April 1994 to top officials in the US administration identified ‘Hutu security elements from the Presidential Guard, gendarmerie and military’ as killers of several government officials including the Prime Minister, cited in Ferroggiaro, supra note 32, Document 10 ‘Rwanda: Security Deteriorating’, Excerpt from Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Daily (Freedom of Intelligence Act release).
36 According to James Woods, cited in Melvern, supra note 3, at 170.
37 Organization of African Unity, Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide, OAU, Chapter 9, p. 5, quoted in Power, supra note 1, at 338.
38 The official formulation approved by the White House was ‘acts of genocide may have occurred’ (cited in Gourevitch, supra note 10, at 152). For a review of the attitude of the US government toward the use of the word ‘genocide’, see Power, supra note 1, at 359–364. For illustrations of the attempts by the Clinton administration to avoid the use of the word ‘genocide’, see Transcript, State Department Press Briefing by Christine Shelley, Deputy Press Spokesperson, US Department of State, 29 April 1994, at 3–4, and State Department Briefing, Federal News Service, 10 June 1994, at 1–4 (quoted in Power, supra note 1, at 363–364).
39 A Defense Department discussion paper dated 1 May 1994 stated that the use of the word ‘genocide’ remained a concern and is full of cautions about the USA becoming committed to taking action: ‘Be careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday—genocide finding could commit [the US government] to actually "do something" ’ (quoted in Power, supra note 1, at 359).
40 In a cable sent from the US mission at the United Nations to the State Department, a political adviser wrote: ‘The events in Rwanda clearly seem to meet the definition of genocide in Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’ (quoted in Power, supra note 1, at 361). For a description of the then Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs John Shattuck's attempts to publicly use the word ‘genocide’ and the opposition to it from within the Clinton administration, see Shattuck, supra note 4, at 43–44.
41 Power, supra note 1, at 361.
42 Shattuck, supra note 4, at 55–56.
43 The USA reluctantly voted for SC Res. 872 on 5 October 1993, which authorized UNAMIR, but it failed to contribute either troops or money to this peacekeeping force. See Power, supra note 1, at 341.
44 ‘UN Speech Monday will seek more caution in Peacekeeping’, Associated Press, 26 September 1993.
45 Power puts this number at 300, supra note 1, at 353.
46 In 1999, an international panel of senior military leaders in a report to the Carnegie Commission for Preventing Deadly Conflict concurred with the UNAMIR Force Commander's assessment that a joint force of 5,000 experienced soldiers with air support, logistics and communications would have prevented the slaughter of 500,000 people. See Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (Washington DC: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 1997), at 6.
47 Power, supra note 1, at 366–368.
48 Barnett, supra note 5, at 132; Power, supra note 1, at 369–370.
49 Power, supra note 1, at 347.
50 Ferrogiaro, supra note 32, Document 19, ‘Shattuck Memo to Acting Secretary, 9 May 1994’. See also Shattuck, supra note 4, at 49–53.
51 Power, supra note 1, at 370–371.
52 Memorandum of Frank Wisner, Undersecretary of Policy at the US Defense Department, to Sandy Berger, 5 May 1994 (declassified), quoted in Power, supra note 1, at 371–372.
53 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 375.
54 Ibid., at 354–359. See also Power, supra note 1, at 377–379.
55 Power, supra note 1, at 377–379.
56 Ibid., at 378; Shattuck, supra note 4, at 41.
57 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 372; Melvern, supra note 3, at 195; Power, supra note 1, at 379.
58 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 376; Melvern, supra note 3, at 195–196; Power, supra note 1, at 380; Shattuck, supra note 4, at 53–54.
59 This remains the firm conviction of the Force Commander of UNAMIR; see Dallaire, supra note 2, at 375 and 514; Melvern, supra note 3, at 198.
60 Melvern, supra note 3, at 198.
61 For accounts of the US response to the unfolding humanitarian disaster, see Power, supra note 1, at 381; Shattuck, supra note 4, at 57–59.
62 Melvern, supra note 3, at 219.
63 Melvern cites Tony Marley, a political military adviser in the State Department, who described America's response to the refugee crisis as resulting from the ‘CNN factor’ (Melvern, supra note 3, at 219).
64 The original assessment for UNAMIR, for which the USA had committed to pay to the United Nations but never did, would have been no more than $30 million. The cost of UNAMIR II would have been only slightly more. By deciding to support the refugee camps in Goma and not peacekeeping efforts, the USA paid an astonishingly higher sum—$527 million—in the 18 months following the genocide (see Power, supra note 1, at 381; Shattuck, supra note 4, at 25).
65 Power notes that although two officials in the Clinton administration did conduct internal studies on the administration's response to the Rwandan genocide, these were only paper exercises and their findings were never disclosed to the public (Power, supra note 1, at 510).
66 For a discussion of the British response to the Rwandan genocide, see Melvern, supra note 3, at 230–233.
68 McNulty, supra note 5, at 120.
71 M. Evans, ‘Whitehall lapse let UK firm sell arms to Hutus’, The Times, 22 January 1997 (the footnote in the quotation is added). Approximately $5 million-worth of arms and ammunition were supplied by Mil-Tec, a company with offices in London, to the interim government in Rwanda at various times during the genocide (Melvern, supra note 3, at 182).
72 Melvern, supra note 3, at 180; Power, supra note 1, at 361.
73 Melvern, supra note 3, at 180.
79 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 364.
80 Melvern, supra note 3, at 192.
81 Dallaire, supra note 2, at 376; Melvern, supra note 3, at 233.
82 For details, see Melvern, supra note 3, at 233.
83 Although the precise nature and extent of the slaughter were obscured by the civil war, Power notes, nonetheless, that ‘both the testimony of US officials who worked the issue day to day and the declassified documents unearthed by the National Security Archive indicate that plenty was known about the killers’ intentions’ for the US administration to conclude that was taking place was a genocide (Power, supra note 1, at 354).
84 Power discusses this question in relation to the US response to the killings in Rwanda: ‘And because the US government had tolerated the deaths of some 50,000 civilians in Burundi in October 1993, these officials also knew that Washington would not get exercised over substantial bloodshed’, ibid., at 347.
87 At the peak of the genocide, Boutros Boutros-Ghali referred to the atrocities as ‘mass killings’ and the Rwandans as a people who had ‘fallen into calamitous circumstances’ (Special Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda. UN doc. S/1994/470, 20 April 1994).
88 For examples of where the international media's attention was focused during the Rwandan genocide, see Barnett, supra note 5, at 150; Power, supra note 1, at 375.
89 For examples of the flaws in media coverage of the Rwandan genocide, see Melvern, supra note 3, at 137–138; Power, supra note 1, at 355–356.
90 Melvern, supra note 3, at 137.
91 Although various sections of the media were reasonably quick to report the details of specific massacres and killings, such as the massacre that took place at the Gikondo Parish Church, the word ‘genocide’ was used only once. There was never another mention of it. See Melvern, supra note 3, at 137–138, and Power, supra note 1, at 355–357.
92 Gourevitch, supra note 10, at 163.
93 Barnett, supra note 5, at 150.