Shake Hands With the Devil (62 page)

Later that day, I received an important code cable from Annan himself. It included a copy of the Security Council resolution that would govern our future, complete with the last-minute changes imposed by the United States. Annan's covering letter described its heavy-handedness. The morning of the final debate, the Americans had visited the
DPKO
seeking clarifications “on the nature and concept of operations of the expanded
UNAMIR
, its deployment schedule, the availability of troops and the consent of the parties.
¹
Based on this discussion, the U.S. wished to suggest the attached changes.” Maurice lost his temper and vehemently accused the United States of unconscionable stalling. Nonetheless the Americans had forced through some changes, as Annan's cable laid out: “Please note that paragraph 7 of the resolution implies that, while preparations for the second phase of the expanded operation will proceed, its implementation will not take place until the Security Council has had the opportunity to review the situation and take the further decisions that may be required, on the basis of the report to be submitted by the Secretary-General. This provision leaves open the possibility of a revision of the concept of operations on which, as you know, the U.S. continues to have doubts.”

The resolution called for the redeployment of nearly two hundred
UNMO
s from Nairobi and the buildup of the Ghanaian battalion to full
strength and mechanized capability. This meant training those troops on
APC
s before we could finally commit them to operations. That would take longer than seven days. As for the phase-two battalions, I would not see them until after the assessment of phase one was studied by the Security Council. If the Western nations continued to refuse to commit mechanized and well-equipped troops for phase two right from the start, then the process of deployment of troops and armoured vehicles, including the marrying-up of both these components for training, then I would not see them in two months or more at best. With that timetable, phase three wouldn't be deployed for three to four months. In that case, the need for any new troops at all would be enormously diminished, as the
RPF
would have probably won the war and overrun the country.

I went for a walk around the compound that night and wondered what I would do with this lame mandate. I would not get my troops. Should I even attempt to carry on? I listed in my head all that we were up against as I paced. The
RGF
and the interim government were speaking from both sides of their mouths and showed no real desire for either the ceasefire or the cessation of the massacres. The
RPF
was opting to go it alone, and wanted to limit
UNAMIR
to the status of a token observer. The Security Council, under the overbearing weight of the United States, had once again sold us out. The French seemed to be on the sidelines, ready for their cue.

I decided to wait for the morning before making up my mind. I didn't want to give up, but how could I justify staying?

^1
.
Some U.S. politicians wholeheartedly supported
UNAMIR
2. On May 5, senators Paul Simon and Jim Jeffords contacted me in Kigali and got first-hand the information they needed to draft a letter to the White House seeking a change in policy from the administration in regards to Rwanda and
UNAMIR
. In the months to come these gentlemen became my greatest allies in the U.S. government until finally the administration was so embarrassed by the media and by the senators' lobbying that it finally mounted a humanitarian mission. That mission did save the lives of millions—including most of the perpetrators of the genocide—but it did not assist the victims nor did it arrive in time to prevent or stop the genocide. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Simon and Jeffords for at least trying to get Rwanda on the radar screen of the White House.

ON MAY 17
the Security Council approved a watered-down version of my plan as Resolution 918, which officially created
UNAMIR
2. While the resolution approved the concept of operations, the force structure and the phased thirty-one-day deployment, it was vague on the genocide and the role the force should play in stopping it. Colin Keating later publicly admitted, “The United States has gutted this resolution.” Even so, I was prepared to accept vagueness as permission to execute my plan so long as I was given the required troops—the resolution authorized an immediate change in
UNAMIR
's mandate and the rapid deployment of 5,500 men. After nearly a decade of reliving every detail of those days, I am still certain that I could have stopped the madness had I been given the means.

But as the days went by and no troops arrived, it was clear that the Security Council had once again passed a resolution that did not truly represent the intentions of its member states. In this case, while most nations seemed to agree that something had to be done, every nation seemed to have a reason why some other nation should do it. So there we sat, waiting for a promise to be kept, reduced to the role of accountants keeping track of how many were being killed.

Madeleine Albright, the U.S. permanent representative to the
UN
, and Sir David Hannay, her British counterpart, had for some time resisted the use of the term “genocide” in
UN
debates, but now that their objections had been swamped in a deluge of factual reports out of Rwanda, the United States fell back on the argument that African security problems should be solved by African troops. A number of African states
were willing to contribute: Ghana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Nigeria, Zambia, Congo, Mali and others. But none of them had the logistical capacity to deploy and sustain their forces without help. The burden of sending troops eventually fell to Ghana, Ethiopia, Zambia, India, Canada and Nigeria. With the exception of the Canadians and, to a lesser extent, the Indians, these forces were logistically too weak to deploy themselves without First World assistance. None of the nations that eventually stepped forward had the capacity for the massive reinforcement that might have bought the
UN
credibility in the eyes of the belligerents.

The United States and the United Kingdom committed other acts of sabotage on deployment to Rwanda. For instance, I had long been arguing with New York that
RTLM
had to be shut down, as it was a direct instrument in promoting genocide. The
UN
did not have the means to stop the broadcasts, either through jamming, a direct air strike on the transmitter, or covert operations, but it made a formal request of the United States, which had the means to try all three. The issue was studied by the Pentagon, which in due course recommended against conducting the operation because of the cost—$8,500 an hour for a jamming aircraft over the country—and the legal dilemma. Bandwidth within a nation is owned by the nation, and jamming a national radio station would violate international convention on national sovereignty. The Pentagon judged that the lives of the estimated 8,000–10,000 Rwandans being killed each day in the genocide were not worth the cost of the fuel or the violation of Rwandan airwaves. The death toll, which was estimated at 200,000 by the end of April, reached 500,000 by the end of May and 800,000 by the last day of June.

I had judged that we needed one hundred
APC
s to be effective on the ground. The
DPKO
approached forty-four nations to give, lend or lease
APC
s to the troop-contributing African countries to equip their forces. The United States, with its vast unused Cold War stocks of
APC
s, eventually supplied fifty. As soon as the United States offered anything at all, the
DPKO
stopped searching for other donors. And then the stalling began: staff with the Pentagon were reluctant to put their vehicles into central Africa and seemed content instead to let them rust in
German depots. They badgered the
DPKO
with questions, and staff there passed the questions on to me. Then the United States decided that the
APC
s could not be given to the mission but would have to be leased and that the lease would have to be negotiated. Eventually they came up with the price of $4 million, which they insisted had to be prepaid. When the issue was raised of transporting the carriers to Kampala to link them up with the Ghanaians who needed to be trained to operate them, the United States insisted upon another $6 million to cover the cost of air transport. After the funding was secured—another time-consuming exercise—the
APC
s were airlifted to Entebbe; after much negotiation with Uganda, they arrived stripped of machine guns, radios, tools, spare parts, training manuals and so on. The United States, in effect, delivered tons of rusting metal to Entebbe. We were without trucks to transport the
APC
s to Kigali and had no drivers trained to operate them.

Not to be outdone by the Americans, the British offered fifty Bedford trucks—again for a sizable amount to be paid up front. The Bedford is an early Cold War–era truck, which in 1994 was fit only to be a museum relic. When I was told of this “most generous” offer, I sarcastically asked, “They do work, don't they?” I was answered first with silence and then: “I'll check and get back to you.” The British later quietly withdrew their request for payment and provided some of the vehicles, which broke down one at a time until there were none left. There were many more transactions like these, and they were not isolated to the great powers.

While the
UN
and the international community were dithering about the fate of
UNAMIR
2, on the ground in Kigali we were picking up signs that the interim government was getting ready to launch a coherent counteroffensive in the city. The Interahamwe leaders had told my military intelligence officer, Deme, that they had been having extensive meetings with Bizimungu. They said they had made a deal with the
RGF
chief of staff that would allow the militias to carry on as they liked at night, but that required them to work with the
RGF
on local security operations in the daytime. Taking their cue from Bizimungu,
the militias were continuing the genocide after dark with a free hand.

Apart from the inner core of the city, where Presidential Guard units were still running the show, on the barriers we saw more gendarmes working with the Interahamwe. Deme's deduction was that a decision had been made to synchronize all the forces—the military, Gendarmerie and militias—in order to launch a counterattack in the city. A significant number of government forces were still inside Kigali: the army had seven battalions—four thousand troops—as well as the para-commandos, the artillery, the military police battalion and the reconnaissance battalions, who were the most highly trained troops and had heavy weapons systems.

The Interahamwe leaders told Deme that the militia was now split into two factions. The
CDR
-affliated Impuzamugambi (in Kinyarwanda “those who have a single aim”) would offer no mercy to the Tutsis. The Interahamwe, represented by the leaders I had met with, described itself as the legitimate third force and as “more considerate of the situation.” The leaders also admitted that the chances of our transfers succeeding were very slim because they couldn't guarantee that the other faction would respect any agreement they had made. Even if Bagosora said that the transfers would work, they couldn't promise that they would. They advised
UNAMIR
not to negotiate with the government or the military because we wouldn't get the real answer. “Co-operate with the people,” they told Deme, “and avoid the politicians and the heads of the military, for they are telling only lies.” I gave this report from my intelligence officer a lot of credence. It confirmed for me that there was going to be a last-ditch effort to save Kigali, and the Interahamwe were in on that plan. Negotiating a ceasefire was a secondary concern: we were about to see these bastards continue the fight, even as they were making nice noises at the negotiating table. Stopping the killing had to be
UNAMIR
2's primary mission.

Deme also had news about the other side. The
RPF
was heavily recruiting Tutsis behind its lines. After basic training, these men were deployed as rear security in the areas that had already been captured. Our
UNMO
s started to encounter these new troops behind the
RPF
lines and noticed that some of them spoke only a dialect of Swahili, which
meant they came from the Ugandan diaspora. Reports of massacres of Hutus who were former government agents and employees, along with their families, continued to come in. These massacres were mainly conducted in the areas of Byumba and Ngarama. Deme also passed on the news that there was a huge number of Hutu orphans in Byumba, whom Kouchner had gone to check on. To make matters more interesting, the
RPF
had put heavy restrictions on where our
UNMO
s could go. The last line of Deme's report read, “It has been established that the restrictions imposed on us are done to conceal their [
RPF
] activities especially massacres.”

Throughout May the
RPF
continued to pursue their campaign of turning Kigali into a pocket in order to slowly strangle the
RGF
. They advanced from the north and east and in a large southernly hook, which on May 16 cut the road between Kigali and its large
RGF
garrison and Gitarama, where the interim government was located—effectively separating the head from the body. Increasingly the morale and discipline of the
RGF
forces were faltering, as the appearance of
RPF
patrols on their flanks or in their rear would bring wholesale retreats. Retreats cause defeatism and inevitably a breakdown in discipline; we received an increasing number of reports of
RGF
troops assisting in the genocide, looting, deserting and mutinying. This process was accelerated when the
RGF
conducted mass recruiting and conscription campaigns, gave the recruits three to four days of training and then threw them into battle against the seasoned and skilled
RPF
, which only resulted in the
RGF
's inevitable defeat and a further deterioration of morale and discipline. At Gitarama, the liaison team of
MILOB
s that I had finally established with the
RGF
's consent, was often threatened by drunken and dispirited soldiers.