cxt NOTE EXECUTIVE OFFICE From: Samir Sanbar, Assistant Secretary-General, DPI OFTHESECRETARY-GENFRAI
The Media^i\jsioru3f^DPI has purchased 'Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold', a three- part documentary shot over three years which tells the stories, from a critical perspective, of several Rwandans before, during and after the genocide of April 1994. Part two of the , ,_.,.,, nri. mm.,.. .1. nnn-injuj fMfnerrn!aaao,~r^-~r~£--^-f^-**t^fti'rnf^fH^JS*B««Wnwu««T-*«ue™-Mi-wur™'«t.*wiii™»«i „ j»^.iT-.Twr-*—^-ir-lM—Mm..•... 11^,1 wi u, documentary focuses on the UN role in Rwanda and relates the experiences of the UN soldiers who pulled put of Kigali. This documentary which was produced by Canadian filmmakers was shown on a Canadian cable channel VisionTV which bills itself as "Canada's Faith Network", and was accompanied by a half-hour debate between Major General Romeo Dallaire and Belgian Senator Alain Destexhe. The debate was described in a publicity flyer as providing "new and startling revelations about the UN's role and the international community's complicity and cowardice in the genocide in Rwanda". The documentary was also aired in Belgium and France.
In addition, the documentary and debate received further prominence from a spinoffin articles which appeared in various Canadian dailies as well as in the Washington Post (copy of article attached). Ted Koppel of Nightline has also expressed an interest in the issue, according to Fred Eckhard.
It is in this context and because the results of a Belgian legislative commission investigation will be released towards the end of October, that we are organizing a screening of part II of the documentary together witji the^nsmng debate on Thursdayj6 October 1997 at 2:00 pm injhe ^I^cr^ening_R^m_(ex-stadip,4). The screening will last approximately one hour and will be followed by a short discussion of its impact. Parts I and III of the documentary exploring the genesis of the genocide as well as its aftermath will be screened separately the following week at a date and time to be determined.
I would be grateful if you could inform the office of the Media Division, ext. 3-2242, whether you will be able to attend these screenings or if you wish to delegate a member of your staffer bring someone with you, bearing in mind that the screening room holds approximately 24 seats. cc: Mr. Iqbal Riza \/ Mr. Bernard Miyet Mr. Hedi Annabi JLJLJLJ f I Mr. Leonard Kapungu 0 10 October 1997 Ms. Elizabeth Lindenmayer Mr. Shashi Tharoor fflOCTf 3199? Mr. Michael Muller Mr. Lamin Sise ELOSG/CEMTRAI Mr. Fred Eckhard Mr. Chris Coleman Mr. Kevin Kennedy U.N. Alerted to Plans for Rwanda Bloodbath http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srvAVParch/1997-09/25/121f-092597-idxhtml
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Search the World U.N. Alerted to Plans for Rwanda Use Search the World to find Bloodbath news, reference materials and Internet resources for more than 220 countries and territories. '94 Document Shows Peacekeepers Sought to Type a country or territory name Seize Hutus' Weapons below: By Charles Trueheart Washington Post Foreign Service International Section: Thursday, September 25, 1997; Page AOl specialized news and Web The Washington Post resources customized for every country in the world. PARIS, Sept. 24—A Belgian legislative commission investigating the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands International Breaking News: 24-hour-a-day updates in the of Rwandans has gathered strong evidence that U.N. Today's Top News section. peacekeepers in the central African country could have prevented or at least hindered the extermination campaign All international stories from but were thwarted by superiors at the world body's this morning's Washington Post. headquarters in New York.
A key document in the panel's investigation, according to a Belgian senator who is a member, is an urgent fax sent by the head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda at the time, Canadian Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, to his superior in New York, Maj. Gen. Maurice Baril, also a Canadian.
In the fax, dated Jan. 11, 1994, Dallaire reported that a highly placed Rwandan informant had given the U.N. force details of a plan by the Hutu extremist government then ruling Rwanda to exterminate thousands of civilians, most of them members of the Tutsi tribal minority. The informant also gave peacekeepers the locations of arms caches established to equip the government-backed Hutu militiamen who were to carry out the killing, according to the fax.
The fax said the informant "has been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali [the Rwandan capital]. He suspects it is for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1,000 Tutsis."
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Dallaire asked Baril for authorization to confiscate the arms caches within 36 hours, and to grant asylum to the informant and his family. But unnamed officials at the U.N peacekeeping directorate refused to authorize the operation, Belgian Sen. Alain Destexhe said in an interview, asserting that it was not within the mandate of . the peacekeeping force. This assertion was disputed by many familiar with the operation, including the man most familiar with its parameters, Dallaire. However, a similar statement was made today by a U.N. spokesman, who affirmed that Dallaire's plan of action was outside the U.N. mandate.
Less than three months later, after presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi -- both Hutus — died in an unexplained plane crash on April 6, Rwandan troops and militiamen began a bloody rampage, killing 20,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just a few days.
The ensuing 10-week slaughter, in which more than a half-million Rwandan men, women and children were shot, hacked or beaten to death, stunned the world. The wholesale killings are the subject of a U.N.-funded criminal tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, which operates in concert with the better-known court based in The Hague that is prosecuting war crimes in the Yugoslav conflict.
The Belgian commission is concerned with the Rwandan events because Belgium was once the colonial power there and because in the first days of the genocidal campaign 10 Belgian peacekeeping troops were tortured and killed by Hutu militiamen. Their deaths prompted the Belgian government to withdraw all 400 of its soldiers - the best trained and equipped in the U.N. contingent in Rwanda at the time, analysts say — only five days after the massacres began.
In his Jan. 11 fax, Dallaire had passed along word from the informant that "Belgian troops were to be provoked and if Belgian soldiers resorted to force a number of them were to be killed and thus guarantee Belgian withdrawal from Rwanda." After pulling out its troops, the Belgian government urged the United Nations to shrink its peacekeeping presence in the country, which it quickly did, from more than 2,500 troops to about 270.
The U.N. refusal to back Dallaire's recommendation in January has become a public issue in Canada in recent days.
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Both Dallaire and Baril are decorated Canadian officers, Dallaire is now a top official at the Defense Ministry, and last week Baril was named chief of the Canadian armed forces. In addition, Baril's role at the United Nations in 1994 made him the top military adviser to the man who headed the U.N. peacekeeping directorate, Kofi Annan — now secretary general of the world body. Annan's role in the decision to block Dallaire's plan remains unknown.
"Who said no?" Sen. Destexhe asked rhetorically. "Is it Baril? Is it Kofi Annan? Is it Boutros Boutros-Ghali [who was then secretary general]? I don't know." Referring to Baril, Destexhe said: "If you're intelligent, you don't keep that fax to yourself."
Last March, Annan — newly installed as U.N. secretary general — refused to permit Dallaire and other unnamed U.N. officials to testify on these matters at the Belgian inquiry, claiming diplomatic immunity and asserting that most of the information they could provide had already been furnished by the United Nations.
The Belgian commission will release its findings at the end of October, and Destexhe told Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper that its contents are likely to be embarrassing to Baril.
At his swearing-in in Ottawa today as head of the Canadian military, Baril said the final decision on what to do in Rwanda rested with the United Nations and was not for him to second-guess. "The decision was taken by the secretariat," Baril said "It was a very difficult decision. If I would not have been able to live with that decision, I would not be here, and I would not be in uniform. . . . This is a matter for the U.N. secretary." Canadian Defense Minister Art Eggleton told reporters earlier that Baril "wasn't in a position of authority. It was the U.N. secretary general who was."
A spokesman for Annan, Fred Eckhard, said today that all senior officials at the U.N. peacekeeping directorate were behind the decision to refuse Dallaire's request. "We're taking a bum rap on this. . . . We had to work within the limits of the mandate," Eckhard said.
"We bent over backwards to give Dallaire a scheme where he could participate in an arms-seizure operation but from a distance . . . [by forming] a cordon sanitaire around the area of the operations while the government went in" and
3 of 4 10W97 11 43 U.N. AJerted to Plans for Rwanda Bloodbath http..'/scarch.washingtonpost.com/wp-srvAVParch/1997-19/25' 1 . '•0 - seized the arms caches, Eckhard said. "Of course, it had no interest in doing that." Dallaire will appear with Destexhe in a pre-recorded debate that will be broadcast Thursday on Canada's Vision TV. In it, the Canadian discusses his frustration as the top peacekeeper in Rwanda but refuses to pass the blame up the chain of command to Baril or Annan. "Ultimately, I'm responsible for the decisions," he says. Destexhe, a former head of Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian group, said the reported refusal by the U.N. peacekeeping office to back Dallaire's plan of action also included instructions to Dallaire to convey the informant's intelligence, along with the U.N. decision not to act on it, to Rwandan President Habyarimana and his political party. "They were the ones preparing the massacres," Destexhe said in disbelief. "It's like informing a terrorist that you know how he's preparing his terrorism and assuring him you're not going to do anything about it." Correspondent Howard Schneider in Toronto contributed to this report. © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company Back to the top :l fot. 4oM ' :c O1; 97 :: 4?