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The word genocide has become firmly established as the term which best explains the catastrophic events which began in Rwanda in April this year. We're told by western journalists, non-governmental organisations (NGO's), and African affairs commentators that evil Hutu militias executed a carefully planned programme of genocide, designed to exterminate every Tutsi in Rwanda, as their way of securing Hutu privilege, which they understood to be threatened by western-initiated pressure to democratise Rwanda. We're told that the downing of President Habyarimana's plane triggered off a collective madness throughout Rwanda, of ordinary people setting upon their relatives and neighbours with indescribable savagery, a savagery which was ended only when the perpetrators were overthrown. The Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) are hailed as the only force willing and able to liberate Rwanda from the genocide. They had succeeded where the United Nations and western governments had failed.
The genocide thesis illustrates the unquestioning approach journalists have for western foreign policy. What has happened in Rwanda reveals not the propensity for evil within Rwandese society, but just how cheap African lives are when Washington, London, Berlin, and at later stages, Brussels and Paris, change the rules. The war began in 1994, but the seeds of the conflict had been sown over the previous three years. This came about as a consequence of a three-pronged assault by the west upon the Habyarimana government: economic, political and military.
The economic assault savaged a national economy already suffering from serious distortions, which were due to its dependence upon coffee exports.
This dependence is a legacy of its colonial economy, which Rwanda has been unable to overcome, due to pressures to further boost exports in order to cover mounting import bills. This made the economy vulnerable to coffee price fluctuations. Consequently, the collapse in the world price of coffee of 1989 created havoc.
But the subsequent imposition of punitive austerity measures in the form of a structural adjustment programme by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund was more than the economy could stand and set off a downward spiral. Rwanda's gross domestic product fell by 17% between 1987 and 1992, and by 8% in 1993 alone. 'Adjustment' also had strings attached amounting to political blackmail: under Washington's instructions, a 30 million dollar fund, due to Rwanda as part of the package, was withheld until the country had achieved a 'legal' government i.e. until Habyarimana bowed to western diktat. The IMF and World Bank were to prepare a report to Washington on the progress being made by the government. (EIU Rwanda country report, 1st Quarter 1994)
At the time Rwanda depended on coffee exports for 80% of its foreign exchange.
Until 1989, the government had been able to assure farmers a guaranteed price of 125 Rwandese Francs per kilogram. When the price of coffee on the London market fell to half of its 1980 level, the Rwandese government responded with subsidies, which became unsustainable and precipitated a currency devaluation of 67% in 1990. By then the average farmer was producing 45% more coffee, while earning 20% less. State revenue fell by almost 60% on 1987 figures. (EIU
Rwanda country report, 1st Quarter 1994). By 1992 Rwanda's external debt stood at $844 million, having been $189 million in 1980. It was estimated that 85% of the population lived in poverty, with a third of all children malnourished. (Martens, Genocide in Rwanda)
In circumstances of such scarcity and poverty, violence is never far from the surface. And the poverty was not confined to rural Rwandese, although they comprised 93% of the population. For waged workers, the state was the most significant employer. As the shake-out of the civil service proceeded in accordance with the structural adjustment programme, unemployment threatened practically everyone. For the middle classes, the talks in Arusha exacerbated personal insecurities, since employment and political allegiances are so closely linked. The prospect of an RPF take-over meant that just about everybody's job was on the line. For reasons explained later, the RPF was for most Rwandese an unknown entity. Kigali began to buzz with rumour and scare stories, most of which were peddled by the government. These fears account for the strengthening of the militias.
Western strategy towards Rwanda changed after the Cold War. During this period the regimes of Kayibanda (1962-1973) and Habyarimana (1973- November 1990) were secured in office with the guarantee of Belgian and French military backing. That democratic rights were denied ordinary Rwandese and oppressive measures were taken against 'Tutsis', had not deterred either power, nor the others for that matter, from supplying arms and greasing the palms of these regimes. The political assault upon Habyarimana initiated by America and Britain after the Cold War led to the polarisation of Rwandese society along ethnic lines. Habyarimana was pressured into conceding multi- party politics in July 1990. New political parties emerged in Rwanda, but a more important process was taking place across the border in Uganda: the grooming of the RPF by Britain and America. Democratising Rwanda meant western screws turning on Habyarimana until his political power was stripped away, leaving his former ruling party as one contender among many. This is what the agreement known as the Arusha Accords of August 1994 signifies: the capitulation of Habyarimana's regime to western diktat, and the preparations for an RPF-dominated Rwanda.
The third prong of the western assault was the military offensive waged through its proxy, the RPF. This organisation is a by-product of the success the west has had in securing a new client regime in Uganda, under President Yoweri Museveni. Rwandese 'Tutsi' exiles were a significant component of Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA), which seized power in 1986. Many Rwandese occupied senior positions in the Ugandan state apparatus. For example, Paul Kagame was NRA head of intelligence between November 1989 and June 1990; Fred Rwigyema was a major general; Peter Baingana was head of NRA medical services; and Chris Bunyenyezi was former commander of the notorious 306th Brigade. (EIR Report August 1994) According to a US Committee for Refugees paper (Feb. '91), the RPF began in 1979 as the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity. It operated clandestinely until 1983, when it recruited for the NRA.
From 1986 onward, once the RNA had seized power, the Rwandese Patriotic Front operated openly. The large presence of Rwandans in the military became a focus of resentment among Ugandans, who regarded them as unfairly privileged foreigners. In addition, the size of the military was also attracting local and western criticism, particularly after the threat to state security posed by northern dissident movements had largely been contained. As part of a western-funded demobilisation exercise, distinct RPF battalions were created.
Rwandese soldiers, along with their Ugandan counterparts, received military training from the British at their base in Jinja. America began training the RPF leadership, who also held top positions in the Ugandan military. For example, Paul Kagame was NRA acting head of military intelligence between November 1989 and June 1990, and received training at US army and staff college at Leavenworth, Kansas.
From 1989 onward America supported joint RPF - Ugandan attacks upon Rwanda. Telegrams to the state department cited foreign military observers documenting Ugandan support for RPF attacks. There were at least 56 'situation reports' in state department files in 1991. Between 1989 and 1992 US aid to Uganda was $183 million, double the amount to Rwanda. As American and British relations with Uganda and the RPF strengthened, so hostilities between Uganda and Rwanda escalated. Between 1990 and 1993, Uganda blocked supplies to Rwanda from Kenya. (Harold Marwitz, 'Another side of Rwanda's bloodbath'. Washington Times, 11 August 1994)
By August 1990 the RPF had begun preparing an invasion with the full knowledge and approval of British intelligence. Rwigyema toured the Banyarwanda exile communities in Europe and North America. Sections of the Kigali elite recognised that the squeeze on Habyarimana to share power with the RPF was a prelude to war, and were keen to switch allegiances in anticipation of the government being toppled. On 25 August Vincent Kajeguhakwa, a Tutsi businessman and former partner of Habyarimana, and Pasteur Bizimungu, a relative of Habyarimana and head of a state company, fled to Kampala, urging invasion. On 26 September, while presidents Habyarimana and Museveni were attending the World Summit on Children in America, Rwandese NRA officers and ordinary soldiers began leaving their posts. A large troop movement toward the Rwandan border raised no alarm. The soldiers openly bid farewell to their families and friends. They travelled with their weapons for two days and assembled in Kabale soccer stadium, just north of the Rwanda border, about 200 miles from Kampala. Their weaponry included land mines, rocket-propelled grenades, 60 millimetre mortars, recoilless canons and Katyusha rocket launchers. According to western diplomats, international military observers, Ugandan army officers and eyewitnesses who saw soldiers unloading crates of Kalashnikovs, Uganda willingly provided more arms, food, gasoline, batteries and ammunition to the RPF throughout the war. (The Nation. 2 May 1994, E-mail nation-info@igc.apc.org.)
The invasion began on 1 October. Ondoga ori Amaza, NRA director of publications, gave the official line that the RPF comprised deserters from the Ugandan army, and that Museveni learned of the defection while in America. This position was also adopted by Oxfam. (see 'Rwanda: An agenda for international action', Guy Vassall-Adams, Oxfam 1994, p21). Other Ugandans, notably ex-president Godfrey Binaisa, poured scorn upon this version of events:
"We are further told by the Uganda government that these returnees had already deserted from the Uganda army. How many deserters were ever captured? What was the result of the trials? Did the Tutsi commissioned officers in the Uganda army ever take the oath of allegiance to Uganda when they were appointed? Why is it that the present rebel commander Major-General Paul Kagame formerly chief of army intelligence in the Uganda army keeps on moving in and out of Uganda without fear of arrest? Only one conclusion remains to be drawn that the present conflict was started by Uganda, and it would be a fiction to call it a civil war. For instance, the American civil war did not start in Canada or Mexico but right here in the United States. (Open letter to the youth of Uganda 8.6.94) Another source states that the RPF was established as a result of a NRA demobilisation exercise, for which Uganda received foreign funding. 'They demobilised by crossing the border in completely equipped units, taking their insignia off their shoulders as they crossed.' (Interview with British East Africa expert from Institute of Development Studies, Sussex; quoted in 'RPF is the Ugandan army, says expert.' Economist Intelligence Review, 19 August 1994)
The RPF's initial gains were reversed by the end of the month once the government forces were strengthened with Zairean and Belgian troops, and a thousand French paratroopers (executed in accordance with the defence pact signed between Habyarimana and D'Estaing in 1975). A cease-fire was agreed on 27 October. At this point Belgium terminated its support for Habyarimana and shifted allegiance toward the RPF, allowing them to set up office in Brussels. France was left as his sole western backer.
A prolonged war ensued, due primarily to the fact that both sides received substantial western assistance. After the 1990 invasion, the French re- organised the Rwandese armed forces. Under Lieutenant Colonel Chollet, the forces were expanded from 5 000 to 30 000. Falcum 50 planes and pilots were supplied. (Ludo Martens: Genocide in Rwanda, chapter entitled 'But who are the barbarians?') France supplied, or kept operational, most heavy guns, assault vehicles, helicopters, Milan and Apila missiles. They also gave Habyarimana his ill-fated Mystere-Falcon jet. (New African June 1994)
In contrast to the French, the American and British roles were indirect. Although both have trained RPF soldiers, their support has been mediated through Uganda. The RPF was overhauled under the new leadership of Paul Kagame, coming fresh from America. Hostilities were renewed using guerrilla tactics. Western supplies came through Uganda, delivered mainly through the army. By the time of the June 1992 cease-fire the RPA controlled the whole of the border region with Uganda. There have been allegations from International Red Cross personnel, of NRA trucks disguised with IRC insignia, entering Rwanda with arms. On 29 April 1991, three NRA officers publicly declared in an open memoranda addressed to Museveni that they had formed an underground movement against the government. They accused him of, amongst other things, 'sinister secret plans for Rwanda operations'. According to them, Museveni had concluded a top secret meeting at Entebbe State House on 15 April, in which plans were approved for clandestine action designed to provoke Rwanda's neighbours into taking action against the Rwandese government. Two crash - course training camps, under the authority of Museveni's brother, Salim Saleh, would prepare six hundred elite troops, to disguise themselves as Rwandese soldiers, and terrorise Tanzanian and Zairean villagers along the borders with Rwanda during the last week of May. (An open letter from Uganda NRA officers and men. Kampala, 29.4.91). This would appear to have a precedent, NRA guerrillas waging war against the Ugandan state were accused of adopting these tactics in the Lowero triangle during the early stages of their war, implicating the Obote regime with atrocities.
Faced with mounting odds, Habyarimana continued to make concessions. In April 1992, the ruling party, the Mouvement Republicain pour le Development et la Democratie (MRND), agreed to form a coalition government with four other parties for a year until elections were held. In January 1993 another power sharing agreement was made. Yet at the same time the RPF continued its offensive, interspersed with cease-fires. From Uganda came solid support for military take-over. Uganda sent troops in twice in July 1993 to fight alongside the RPF. Tanzanian authorities voice-recorded President Yoweri Museveni as he was commanding the RPF soldiers not to sign a peace agreement with the Rwanda government but that RPF should return to the battle-field and resume fighting immediately. In his own words, Museveni is reported to have said: "Don't sign the peace agreement. I want you back at Milindi immediately. (The Shariat 6-12 Sept 9 quoting Tanzanian newspaper The Mirror, No 126, second issue, May 1994, and the Ugandan Monitor)
By 1993 Rwanda was polarised by the war and by the impact of 'structural adjustment' austerity. The advancing RPF, weakening Kigali government and rising economic tensions (defence was the only ministry to be spared massive lay-offs), demarcated the battle lines. Sections of the MRND organised the militias to break with the negotiations process and prepare for the showdown. The RPF's territorial gains gathered pace, generating wave upon wave of refugees. Both sides were terrorising civilians and committing atrocities. In March an international commission of enquiry found both sides responsible for abuses including rape, summary executions, abductions of civilians and looting. (Federation Internationale des Droits de l'Homme: 'Commission Internationale d'Enquete sur les Violations des Droits de l'Homme Commises au Rwanda depuis le ler Octobre 1990').
The RPF appears to have few links with Rwandese society. This relationship was interestingly put by Ludo MArtens, leader of the Belgian Labour party: "The RPF is conducting a war for the people and not a people's war." But, as revealed in a comment by one of the RPF's own commanders at the time, 'the people' were not convinced of this role as liberator; "Here, once members of the population sight you they just give the alarm and welcomed you with a machete in their hands." (quoted in New African Sept. 1994) Although the RPF grew in size as the war progressed, its advance across the country generated no social base for itself among local inhabitants. It placed severe restrictions among the populations under its control, and made no attempt to establish civilian administration. Most of its captured regions became spontaneously depopulated. Evidently, most Rwandese chose to leave RPF-controlled areas and risk the actions of the militias, rather than accept RPF authority.
A major RPF offensive was launched in February 1993. Again, thanks to French assistance in the form of 680 troops including paratroopers, Habyarimana's regime survived. But his bargaining power was exhausted. In August 1993 , the Rwandese government capitulated into signing the Arusha Accords. It agreed to create a transitional government of 22 ministers, five of whom RPF; the creation of a commission to oversee the return of the refugees, and to ensure their security, the establishment of new armed forces, with the RPF contributing 40% of new troops and 50% of the high command; and the organisation of legislative and parliamentary elections in 1995. How two armies engaged in three years of warfare could be fused and placed under joint command was not detailed. Quite clearly, it was never intended to happen. Arusha was the cumulative impact of a three year long sustained western assault which broke the back of the Habyarimana government. The RPF was let in for the kill.
The polarisation of Rwanda was complete. On the one side was the beleaguered Rwandese government, its National Guard, boosted with weapons worth $5.9 million from South Africa; and $5 million from Egypt, the militias, including the infamous Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, and France. On the other side was the RPF, Uganda, Britain, the United States, Belgium, the United Nations, the IMF, World Bank and most of the western media. The earlier gains made with the emergence of other Rwandese political parties, many of whom promoting national unity, were reversed by the imperative of taking sides before the showdown.
The government distributed Kalashnikovs among municipal authorities. These authorities then joined forces with the militias to attack civilians suspected of being RPF supporters. Killings and mass arrests followed. For their part, the RPF executed suspected state government collaborators, displaced thousands from their villages, and press-ganged people into becoming porters and labourers. (The Nation. 2 May 1994. Obtained on E-Mail nation-info@igc.apc.org)
Unsurprisingly, the Arusha Accords were not implemented - the Rwandese government was in no hurry to commit suicide. By February, only one institution, the presidency, was in place. The United Nations and Western governments began to wield the big stick again. The French forces departed Rwanda in December; signalling the government's complete isolation. A thousand United Nations troops arrived in the same month. UNAMIR had 370 Belgians as its major contingent. As a demonstration of its cross-over to the other camp, this contingent moved a RPF battalion into premises given by the UN in Kigali. This battalion was to be used ostensibly to protect RPF parliamentarians. In practice, the UN was handing Rwanda over to the RPF on a plate. Then came one last squeeze: Habyarimana was threatened with a UNAMIR pull-out and a final RPF offensive if he didn't comply immediately with all the terms of Arusha. On 3 April the ambassadors of France, Belgium and Germany met Habyarimana. The German ambassador expressed satisfaction with the result: "We can no longer talk of stumbling blocks. I think everything is on the right path. I personally expect the establishment of institutions in the course of this week." (BBC summary of world broadcasts AL/1963 A/2, 5 April 1994, quoted in Omaar, p87) Two days later the UN Security Council voted to extend the UNAMIR mandate . The next day President Habyarimana was assassinated by having his plane shot down as it approached Kigali airport. The final and most bloody chapter of the war had begun.