Early Warnirg and Response: Why the International Community Failed to Prevent :the Genocide HOWARD ADELMAN, York University, Toronto, and ASTRI SUHRKE, Christian Michelsen Institute, Norway 'Western leadership .. has proclaimed moral indifference to be its decent Christian right' jotin le Carr6 (1995, p. 213). The enormity of the genocide in Rwanda demands that it be subjected to searching enquiry and that members of the international community, collectfuely and indiaidually, examine their own roles in the eaent. This paper draws extensiaely on Study II of the loint Eualuation, and examines the effectiveness of international monitoring (early warning) and management of the Rwanda conflict. It is not intended to explore all the factors which together contrtbutud ta the genocide that were or might haae been amenable to modifiutioi by the internatianal communi$. The focus is on warning and response beginning uith the start of the civil war in 1990, and culminating in an analysis of tie international response to the genocide in April-lune L994. INTRODUCTION and organisations. This paper, like the study before it, is based Evaluators and historians have the luxury on a number of sub-studies, secondary sources as well as of hindsight to criticise actions and inac- considerable tions that subsequently appear inappro- primary data collected priate. Any search for lessons from the through interviews and document searches system, tragedy must, however, avoid retrospec- in the UN the NGO community and visits to national capitals tive speculation. Decision.makers were in Europe, North America and Africa. faced with often confusing signals, numer- ous competing demands for their attention and limitations on the resources at their IMPLICATIONS OF THE EVENTS OF 1959.-52 disposal. Critical policy theory was used by the evaluators to weigh the formulation Having administered the country through and execution of policies against their the Tutsi aristocracy for four decades, the stated objectives as well as accepted inter- Belgian colonial authoritiesr turned their national norms for the behaviour of states support towards the majority Hutu in the late-1950s - a switch driven by the realisa- The developments of these last eighteen tion of the inevitability of the de-colonisa- menths have brought about the racial dicta- tion process, the logic of democratic rule torship of one party. .. An oppressive and Belgian resentment that the strongest system has been replaced by another one. calls for independence were coming from . It is quite possible that some day we will witness violent among the favoured Tutsi class. After the reactions on the part of the Tutsi (cited in Prunier, 1995). so<alled 'peasant revolt' of Hutu against the Tutsi ruling class in 1959, during which By 1961., armed incursions into thousands of Tutsi were killed and tens of Rwanda by Tutsi refugees had begun; thousands fled the country, the colonial these continued until 1967. The main base authorities installed a military-led adminis- for these initial attacks was Burundi which tration and took the opportunity of placing continued to be governed by a Tutsi Hutu appointees in chief and sub-chief minority. One attack into the Bugasera posts vacated by Tutsi. area in late 1.963 came quite close to The table-turning process was carried reaching Kigali, but mostly the attacks forward by the ovetwhelming victory of were neither well organised nor adequate- the PARMEHUTU party in the local elec- ly resourced. Inside Rwanda, which had tions of 1960, the parliamentary elections become a de facto single-party state, Tutsi ot1967 and the referendum of 1967 which were increasingly excludedfrom public life saw the massive rejection of the monarchy and armed incursions were not only in favour of a republican system of govern- repulsed, but bouts of anti-Tutsi violence ment. The process was accompanied by flared; an estimated 10,fi)0 Tutsi were sporadic fighting between Tutsi and Hutu, slaughtered in the Bugasera area following and the persecution of Tutsi as the Hutu the 1963 incursion (Prunier, 1995). increased their grip on power. By late Another wave of anti-Tutsi violence took 1963, at least 130,000 Tutsi had sought place in L972-3 fuelled by events in Bur- refuge in the neighbouring Belgian Congo undi where tens of thousands of Hutu had (now Zaire), Burundi, Uganda and Tan- been massacred by the Tutsi minority in a gyanika (now Tanzania). Some estimates bid to remain in power. of the numbers involved have been much Such repression and violence swelled higher. the number of Rwandan Tutsi living in The speed of the switch in the configu- exile in neighbouring countries. When ration of Rwandan politics, and an aware- allowance is made for natural population ness that it could leave the country with an growth amont this group, by the 1990s the embittered Tutsi minority, provoked con- total number of refugees was in the order siderable criticism of Belgium's policy in of 500,000-700,000 (Prunier, 7995), the UN General Assembly,2 and repeated although the political and propaganda srg- calls for the encouragement of a process nificance of such estimates and the difficul- of national reconciliation. The Belgian ties of accurately measuring such a widely administration rejected the calls, and distributed population makes any figure a sought to head off further UN 'tinkering' matter of dispute. With the overthrow of by organising a de facto declaration of the Hutu PARMEHUTU dictatorship andits independence in early 196tby the acdama- replacement by a dictatorship from the tion of over 3,0(X) bourgemestres and munici- north-west under Habyarimana in 173, the pal councillors. The country achieved persecution of, though not the discrimi- formal independence in July 1%2. nation against, Tutsi stopped. Habyari- A report by the UN Trusteeship Com- mana, however, steadfastly refused to allow mission in early 1961 noted: the Tutsi refugees to return. In 1981 a small number of the Tutsi flict. Although the issue of Rwandan refugees in Uganda joined one of the refugees in Uganda defied easy solution, groups opposed to the regime of President opportunities that had existed remained Obote. The group was led by Yoweri unexplored or were not aggressively pur- Museveni, who was related (though dis- sued. With the exception of Tanzania, tantly) to a Rwandin Tutsi family. As the those regional states that were not indiffer- guerilla activities increased in intensity ent were part of the problem, while more Museveni's links with Rwandan Tutsi led distant states showed little interest. to increasing rhostility between Ugandan UNHCR, overburdened and understaffed, officials and people towards the Tutsi lacked the political or economicleverage to living there in.exile. This in turn led to help resolve the issue, which, at that time, more Tutsi ioiningwhat was now Museve- seemed minor in any global scale of ni's National Resistance Army (NRA), refugee problems. which eventually succeeded in ousting the Obote regime in 1.985. By then a number of Tutsi had risen to very prominent THE CIVI WAR STARTS positions within the NRA. On 1. October 199O, a well-armed force of Once in power, Museveni's position the military wing of the RPF invaded depended upon accommodating the vari- northem areas of Rwanda from Uganda. ous factions within the country who Much of the force was composed of resented the connection with the Rwandan Rwandan Tutsi soldiers from the Ugandan Tutsi. Seeing the direction of Ugandan army and much of their armaments were politics, the Rwandan Tutsi community in reputedly stolen from Ugandan army Uganda became more determined to stores. Though repulsed, the attack return to their own country. In 1988, the signalled the start of the civil war in Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which also Rwanda: a war which was used to increase included some Hutu opposed to the the intensity of fear and hatred and raise Habyarimana regime, was formally the stakes of political survival. created in Kampala with the objective not The build-up of tension leading to the just of ensuring the return of those Tutsi in 1990 invasion by RPF forces was accom- exile, but changing the political regime in panied by many tell-tale signs, which Rwanda. Within Rwanda the position of were inadequately monitored. When the the government was weakened by a com- invasion was a fait accompli, however, it birration of deteriorating economic con- attracted considerable international ditions (resulting from the dramatic concern and reaction, both in the region decline in the intemational price of coffee, and in Europe. France and Zaire came which was Rwanda's primary export) and to the aid of the Rwandan govern- opposition to regionally based, autocratic ment. Other actors, including Belgium, rule. Habyarimana was also coming under the OAU and key regional state$, pressure from France and other donor initiated diplomatic efforts to defuse the countries to move away from the one- conflict. party system by allowing new political The initial diplomatic efforts even- parties to develop. tually led to a series of peace talks, By failing to deal with the festering initiated and led by the OAU and Tanzania refugee problem before 1990, both the and held at Arusha in Tanzania. The Rwandan and the Ugandan governments, process, begun in August L992, rcceived as well as the wider intemational considerable international attention, and community, set the stage for future con- resulted in a comprehensive settlement, the Arusha Accords, signed in August but concluded that the ongoing democrati 1993. The United Nations assumed formal sation process and the peace talks'required responsibility for overseeing the imple- their continued economic and political mentation of the Arusha Accords, includ- support, particulatly since the peace ing the provision of peace-keepers, and in agreement under negotiation would the process limited the role of the OAU produce a new governmental structure and local African states.