Strategic Considerations of the
Rwandan Catastrophe of 1994
If one searches for the reason of the Rwandan catastrophe of 1994
strategic factors are more often neglected than acknowledged. But without
taking them into account, the truth cannot be found. And justice becomes
selective. While local actors are being punished, the often more powerful
international culprits go untouched. The events in Rwanda in 1994 were not an
internal armed conflict. They were caused by international intervention from
the outside. To limit the discussion one-sidedly to the internal dynamics of
Rwandan society and history neglects the fact that it were interventions from
the outside, which set the conditions for the catastrophe to unfold and helped
one side of the conflict to conduct its military operations. Western powers,
most prominently the Anglo-American powers with the Francophone powers acting
as competing junior partners, have caused the crisis in the Great Lakes region
of Africa during the 1980s and 1990s in a twofold manner and are therefore
responsible for the human catastrophe that followed.
First, they ruined the region like the rest of the continent through the
International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) structural adjustment policy
economically. Secondly, they intervened with covert operations to manipulate
simmering conflicts for the purpose of political controle. The combination of
both led to the desaster in Rwanda in 1994. To understand this, the following
strategic considerations must be taken into account:
1.. Events in Rwanda in 1994 have to be seen in the context of the war
which started in 1990 and continued in the series of armed conflicts in the
Central African region up to the present. It becomes clear that these conflicts
are largly founded on a geopolitical strategy of Western powers, most
prominently the United States and Great Britain, towards Africa, which can best
be characterized as neocolonialist.
2.. The specific involvement of the US and British governments with the
party which started the war in 1990, amounts to a far reaching political, if
not juridical indictment of those governments for the criminal consequences of
their actions.
3.. The economic conditions, imposed by the international financial
institutions on the Habyarimana government destroyed the social fabric of
Rwanda right at the time when war was launched against it, intensifying the
sense of desperation among the population.
4.. The political struggle over the right of refugees to return turned
into a violent powerstruggle and the ghosts of Rwanda's past, of the conflict
between the majority and minority population groups, came back full force. The
assassinations of three Hutu Presidents within a period of six months escalated
the tensions to the bursting point.
5.. The Western powers never showed any serious committment to be the
guarantor of the questionable Arusha peace agrement. After its breakdown,
concious of its consequences, they decided against an intervention to stopp the
carnage.
6.. Events in Rwanda and the region show, that the motivation for
Western policy in Africa is not just interest in raw materials. It is also
based in the devilish ideology of population controle.
7.. Those considerations show, that the often-disseminated theory, that
events in Rwanda in 1994 were the result of one ethnic group having committed
genocide against another ethnic group is not based on the totality of facts.
Therefore, it is highly questionable to consider members of the political elite
of this first group to be guilty of having committed genocide, because of their
affiliation and government function. Such accusations become even more
questionable in the case of Andre Ntagerura, who had been known for his
pro-development commitment.
1. Anglo-American neocolonial desire.
The October 1, 1990 invasion of Rwanda from Uganda by troops calling
themselves members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), started a process of
devastating regional wars, which has not stopped to this day. In Rwanda the war
resulted in the assumption of power by the RPF in July of 1994. Two years later
Rwandan, Burundian and Ugandan troops invaded Zaire, erased the camps of
refugees which had fled from Rwanda and Burundi in Zaire's Kivu province, and
drove a so called rebel force, the Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF), with
its new leader Laurent Kabila, all the way to power in Kinshasa in May of 1997.
One year later troops from Uganda and Rwanda again invaded Zaire, now the
Democratic Republic of Congo, under the pretext of supporting rebel movements,
the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD). The armies of Zimbabwe, Namibia and
Angola intervened to save the Kinshasa government and in a stationary war faced
the invading forces along a frontline dividing the Congo.
The Financial Times of London called this cynically "Africa's First World
War".[1] The magnitude of human suffering and the loss of life goes far beyond
anything the world has seen since World War II. A conservative estimate would
put the number of dead resulting directly or indirectly from the conflicts in
East/Central Africa in the last twelve years at more than 5 million. But they
could be as many as 8 million. In the meantime, the Ugandan and Rwandan
controlled rebel forces in Congo's East loot the country of its natural
recources, especially diamonds and coltan, like never before.
How was it possible that after the end of the cold war in 1990, the world
allowed this part of Africa to collapse to such debth of barbarism and
suffering? Was not a peace dividend promised to the countries of the developing
sector? And was Africa not supposed to receive a double dividend from the end
of the cold war and of the apartheid system in South Africa? It would be naive
to try to find answers to these questions in the local conditions. Africa has
become the target of a dangerous new form of unilateralism which emerged after
the Soviet Union disintegrated as a superpower. In Africa the Anglo-American
alliance of Great Britain and the United States led this type of unilateralism
to new extremes with old methods. The new extremes are the dimension of
exploitation of the natural recources of Africa and of the devastation
inflicted upon the population. The old methods are covert military and
intelligence operations to exploit and manipulate local and regional confli
cts for the purpose of political and economic control. The new unilateralism
confronts Africa with an attempt by the Anglo-American establishment to
recolonise the continent.
The British press led this discussion openly. One example is an article
by Norman Stone in the August 18, 1996 edition of the Observer under the title
"Why the Empire must strike back: Only a programme of 'enlightened
re-imperialism' from Europe can put right the bloody mess made of its former
colonies in Africa".[2] Stone argued:
"Liberian massacres have become so commonplace as not even to rate a
casual news item. Somalia is a continuing mess, worsened by the absurd recent
international antics to rescue it. No one seems to have any idea what might be
done about Rwanda and Burundi, where the massacres go on.... Re-imperialism now
begins to make sense again, and the Europeans would be in a good position to
push through some sort of international mandate...Now with much of Africa a
bloody mess, we are back to where we were before 'the Scramble of Africa' got
underway in the 1880s....
"A hundred years ago, it would have seemed obvious to well-intentioned
observers of the African scene that an international mandate should be given to
civilized states to intervene in the maintenance of order. Empires do not have
to be formal or tyrannical...There are times when they do good, and the
post-independence history of Africa shows that this is one of them."
The hypocrisy, though, is that much of the "bloody mess" was created by
Western policies of economic and financial injustice towards Africa which is
inherent in the policies of the old Bretton Woods institutions World Bank and
International Monetary Fund (IMF). And furthermore very often Western
governments and secret services have bloody hands from intervening directly
into the affairs of African nations. It took 40 years for the Belgian
government to admit its involvement in the murder of Patrice Lumumba in Congo
in January of 1962 and to apologize for it.[3] It took 30 years for the British
Foreign Office to release the documents which show that Britain and Israel were
the real force behind the 1971 Idi Amin coup against Milton Obote.[4] It does
not need to take again 30 or 40 years until investigations show how the US and
British governments were involved in the series of wars and powerchanges in
Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo starting in October of 1990. The evidenc
e is already clear today.
In April and May of 2001 US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney sponsored
hearings before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights
Committee on International Relations on the humanitarian crisis in Central
Africa.[5] In her opening statement McKinney said:"The accounts we are about to
hear today assist us in understanding just why Africa is in the state it is in
today. You will hear that at the heart of Africa's suffering is the West's, and
most notably the United States' desire to access Africa's diamonds, oil,
natural gas, and other precious resources. You will hear that the West, and
most notably the United States, has set in motion a policy of oppression,
destabilisation and tempered, not by moral principle, but by a ruthless desire
to enrich itself on Africa's fabulous wealth. While falsely pretending to be
the friends and allies of many African countries, many western nations, and I'm
ashamed to say most notably the United States, have in reality b
etrayed those countries' trust and instead, have relentlessly persued their
own selfish military and economic policies. Western countries have incited
rebellion against stable African governments by encouraging and even arming
opposition parties and rebel groups to begin armed insurrection. The Western
nations have even actively participated in the asssassination of duly elected
and legitimate African Heads of State and replaced them with corrupted and
malleable officials. Western nations have even encouraged and been complicit in
the unlawful invasion by African nations into neighboring countries."
The hearings heard testimony how Commonwealth companies, such as American
Mineral Fields, Inc. or Barick Gold, Inc., which counted former US President
George Bush, sen., and former Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney as members of
its International Advisory Board, were making deals about future mining rights
with rebel forces in the Congo during the wars.[5a] The hearing discussed how
the activities of these companies during the first Rwandan invasion of
Congo/Zaire in 1996 overlapped the activities of US intelligence operatives in
connection with the advance of Laurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces
for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL). Such officials were from the US
Embassies in Kinshasa, Kigali, and Kampala, as well as from the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
The hearing heard testimony how US covert operations supported the first
Rwandan invasion of Congo in 1996 as well as the second one in 1998. Part of
the support was an official US training program, called Enhanced International
Military Education and Training (E-IMET) which was conducted for the RPF
government in Kigali prior to the invasion of Congo-Zaire in October of 1996.
But during the 1996/97 and again during the 1998 to the present campaign of the
Rwandan and Ugandan military inside the Congo, covert operations of US forces
including mercenaries or PMCs (Private Military Contractors) such as Military
Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI) from Alexandria, Virginia, USA, played a
critical role.[5b] Sources in the Great Lakes region have repeatedly reported
the presence of black US soldiers among the Rwandan and rebell forces. The US
Pentagon and intelligence agencies supposedly also supplied and still supply
satellite and other intelligence to the invading forces du
ring the different phases of combat in Eastern Congo.
In summary, Wayne Madsen stated at the congressional hearing on May 17,
2001: "It is beyond time for the Congress to seriously examine the role of the
United States in the genocide and civil wars of central Africa, as well as the
role That PMCs currently play in other African trouble spots like Nigeria,
Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, angola, Ethiopia, Sudan and Cabinda. At the
very least, The United States, as the world's leading democracy, owes Africa at
least the example of a critical self-inspection."[5b]
If it is so clearly established that US and British Commonwealth private
and government interests were involved in those operations which the RPF
government in Rwanda started for occupation of the Congo since 1994, the
question arises, how deeply were they involved before that in the process from
1990 to 1994 when the RPF took power in Rwanda?
2. U.S. and British governments on the side
of the attacking war-party.
Emergence of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and the invasion of Rwanda
in 1990
In the course of the powerstruggle in Rwanda after 1959 tens of thousands
of Tutsi fled into exile to neighbouring countries or overseas. By the middle
of the 80s a Rwandan Tutsi diaspora was well established in the United States,
Canada, Belgium, Uganda, Kenya, and other African countries. Many were young
children when they left with their parents or had already been born in
exile.[6] They only knew about Rwanda from the memories of their parents. In
Uganda the Rwanda Refugees Welfare Association (RRWF) was organized. It later
became the Rwandan Alliance for National Unity (RANU). Between 1981 and 1986,
the year Museveni took power in Kampala, RANU operated from Nairobi, Kenya. Its
seventh congress was held again in Kampala in December 1987, when the name was
changed into Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). It had now become a political
organisation striving to achieve the return of the refugees and their children
to Rwanda.
During the Obote regime in Uganda thousands of Rwandans in exile joined
Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA) and fought with him until victory in
1986. The two most prominent were Fred Rwigyema, who commanded the RPF troops
at the beginning of the invasion of Rwanda on Oct. 1, 1990 and Paul Kagame, who
took over the military command of the RPF after Rwigyema was killed. Rwigyema
knew Museveni from exile in Tanzania in the 70s. Both Rigyema and Kagame
belonged to the small group of Museveni friends, who started his guerilla war
in Uganda in 1981. Museveni, Rwigyema and Kagame belonged to what some have
called the 'Dar Es Salaam Kindergarten' of left radical revolutionaries firmly
entrenched in the ideology of Franz Fanon and his glorification of violence as
a means of revolutionary change.
A further consolidation of the RPF's strategy to mobilize the exile
community for a return to Rwanda took place at the world congress of Rwandese
refugees held in Washington DC in August of 1988. This congress was organized
by the Association of Banyarwandans in Diaspora in Washington, supported by the
US Committee of Refugees, a government funded organisation, the executive
director of which was Roger Winter. The Banyarwanda newsletter at the time
thanked Winter for his"daily efforts and contacts on their behalf."[7] Roger
Winter became a committed lobbyist for John Garang, the rebell leader and
Museveni ally of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), and for the cause
of the RPF in Washington. He was among the RPF troops when they made their
final move towards Kigali in the summer of 1994.In November of 1996, during the
attack of ADFL and Rwandan forces on the Muganga refugee camp outside of Goma
in Eastern Zaire, he was with Laurent Kabila. Of the later he spoke
during testimony to the House Subcommittee on International Operations and
Human Rights on Dec. 4, 1996, in Washington.
The role of Roger Winter among the RPF raises a critical question. How
much was he as a US official involved in influencing the decision of the RPF to
adopt a policy of the right of refugees to return by force to Rwanda? It is not
known that he ever discouraged the RPF leadership from their strategy of
violent return. On the contrary, from his praise for the RPF's military victory
in Rwanda in 1994 one can only conclude that he was supporting it. Possibly he
encouraged the RPF leadership in this strategy. This constitutes a serious
problem for the US government at the time and it should be further
investigated. Rwanda had an internationally recognized government, which
enjoyed normal diplomatic relations to Washington, other states, and the United
Nations. How then could the US government directly or indirectly support the
RPF, which was committed to fighting their way back into Rwanda by violent
means? It fits into the strategy to use rebel warfare as a means of changi
ng power in Africa, which later became so obvious in Washington.
The declared RPF intention to return to Rwanda by force should have
prompted a strong counterreaction from the US government, because it clearly is
a violation of international conventions.
One should just imagine if East German refugees, of which there were tens
of thousands in West Germany during the 60s, had organized themselves into an
organisation which would have attempted to invade the GDR in 1980. This would
probably have caused WW III. But more likely, it would have been stopped early
by the US, British and French military forces in Germany.
The RPF leadership drove its committment to return to Rwanda, if need be
by force, to its conclusion and invaded Rwanda from Uganda on Oct. 1, 1990. The
overwhelming majority of these well armed fighters were active members of the
Uganda National Resistance Army (NRA). The military leaders of the RPF were all
high ranking officers in Museveni's army. So it would be fair to say, that on
Oct. 1, 1990 the Ugandan Army invaded Rwanda, even if they called themselves
"rebells". Fred Rigyema, the commander of the RPF forces, was a major general
of the NRA and its Deputy Commander. Paul Kagame was a major in the NRA and
Head of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Dr. Peter Baingaina was also a
major and head of the NRA Medical Services. Chris Bunyenzi was a major and
commanding officer of the NRA's 306 Brigade. Major Sam Kaka was commanding
officer of the military police.[8]
Even though President Museveni of Uganda has repeatedly denied any
knowledge of the invasion beforehand, this is not credible. Especially because
his assurances to Rwandan President Habyarimana that he would stopp the
"Rwandan boys" were never fullfilled. Preliminarily, the RPF invasion suffered
a serious defeat from the Rwandan army, which received military support from
France, Belgium and Zaire. Of the 4,000 men invasion force, approximately 1,800
were killed and the remaining were driven back over the boarder to Uganda. If
President Museveni had seriously wanted to end the invasion, he could have done
it then. But, instead, the RPF under the new leadership of Major Paul Kagame,
who had for this purpose come back from his training course at the United
States Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, was able to
regroup and prepare for the next attack. This was only possible with massive
logistical support from the Ugandan army. This alone proves that the
Ugandan President was committed to this war.
The invasion of Rwanda in October of 1990 took place while world
attention was already focussed on the United States build up for the war
against Iraq, which began in January of 1991. Iraq was punished because of its
invasion of Kuwait in the summer of 1990. But, for the Ugandan invasion of
Rwanda, a different logic applied. That invasion was not only not critizised,
but fully supported by the US and British governments.
The US Pentagon had a military training program for Ugandan officers.
Major Kagame was part of this. When he left Fort Leavenworth in the middle of
an unfinished course to go back to Uganda, the US military and intelligence
services knew for what purpose, to lead troops in a war in Rwanda. Only four
month after the RPF invading force was crushed in Rwanda and driven back into
Uganda, Kagame had managed to assemble a new force of 5,000 well equipped men
to strike against Ruhengeri on January 23, 1991. By the end of 1992 the RPF
force in Rwanda numbered about 12,000 men. To keep such an army supplied with
food, uniforms, weapons, transportation, and communication, means the
deployment of a significant logistical apparatus and financial resources. While
some of the money may have been contributed by the Tutsi diaspora worldwide,
the core of the support could only have been state sponsored. The Ugandan
military and thereby the Ugandan government was supplying the RPF.
It was, ironically, the Ugandan President himself, who admitted to this
support for the RPF. In an article for the Ugandan newspaper The Monitor, he
wrote on May 30, 1999 that "Uganda decided on a two-course action: 1) to help
the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) materially so that they are not defeated; 2)
to encourage the dialogue between President Habyarimana and the Rwandese in the
diaspora." In the same article, Museveni recalls, how he had trained the RPF
leader Fred Rwigyema as young boy in Mozambique for guerrilla warfare and how
Rwigyema, than a mayor general, was among 4,000 men of Rwandan origin, who were
part of Uganda's new army.[9] Museveni than explaines that in 1996 he gave Maj.
Gen. Kagame, by than in power as Minister of Defense in Kigali, the idea to
"recruit a force of about 1,200 soldiers from among the Masisi Tutsi, train
them and make them part of the Rwanda Patriotic Army, in order to keep them as
a stand-by force." Kagame actually implemented the
idea and by August of 1996 had 2,000 of them ready for the invasion of
Congo/Zaire which was the beginning of L. Kabila's march to power.[10] The
Uganda President describes in these articles exactly the same modus operandi
that he followed in preparing the invasion of Rwanda in 1990. Museveni had
these several thousand men and high ranking officers of Rwandese origin as a
stand-by force for an attack on Rwanda in his army, the Uganda National
Resistance Army (NRA). When they attacked, they were called "Tutsi-rebels" even
though they were the Ugandan army.
As reflected in press coverage of the time, Western governments and
secret services were fully aware of these methods of special warfare, Uganda
used against its neighbours. For example, Germany's senior Africa correspondent
Gunther Krabbe published an analysis in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung with
the title "Africa's Specialist for Guerrillas: where the Ugandan Head of State
Museveni interferes."[11]
Nevertheless, the Uganda government was not only politically supported by
the West but economically, it was and still is fully dependent on the US and
British governments. To this day, half of the Ugandan budget is financed by
donors. In 1987 Lynda Chalker, Britain's Minister of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs, worked for an agreement between the government of Uganda
and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which was reached in June.[12] Since
that time the Ugandan government implemented the IMF's policy of structural
adjustment. Currency devaluation, budget austerity, privatisation, market
deregulations, and tarif liberalisation made the Uganda of President Museveni
the IMF's show case for Africa. And the praise for him was unanimous among
Western governments, finance officials, and bankers, especially from Uganda's
former colonial power, Britain. The praise for Yoweri Museveni, the former
radical Maoist and admirer of Franz Fanon's theory of revolutionary
violence,[13] was so much, that he was invited to give a speech to the 1995
annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos.[14]
Lynda Chalker, who was not just a member of the cabinet of John Mayor,
but also of the Queens Privy Council, was enjoying among the closest relations
to the Ugandan President. Richard Dowden, one of Britain's most senior Africa
editors correctly spoke of the "strong personal chemistry between Baroness
Chalker, the Minister for Oversees Development, and President Museveni. One of
her first trips to Africa was to Uganda in 1986, days after Museveni took
power, and the relationship between the baroness and the philosopher-fighter
has blossomed."[15]
Sources report, that he introduced the RPF leader, Paul Kagame to her.
After the RPF took power in Kigali in July of 1994, Lynda Chalker was the first
high ranking western official to visit Kigali. She immediately set up an
embassy in Kigali, which Britain did not have before. During her visits to the
region, besides seeing Museveni in Kampala, she would always stopp over in
Kigali, where Paul Kagame would rearrange his schedule to meet with her. After
she left her government position, Chalker became an advisor to the World Bank
and to the Davos World Economic Forum. She also entered into a business
relationsship with the Dutch multinational Unilever. And her relationship to
the RPF leader, now President of Rwanda, is still close. In the US President
Museveni and Vice President Kagame were well connected to the government,
including to such semiofficial groups as the Prayer Breakfeast.
For Western, in particular Anglo-American strategists Yoweri Museveni
epitomized the new generation of African leaders, who ironically changed from
radical Marxists in the 1970s Dar Es Salaam University, to liberal market
reformists during the 1980s and 90s and who would be used by the US and British
governments for their geopolitical interests in Africa. Besides implementing
the IMF's policies, Washington and London at the beginning of the 1990s built
up an alliance around the Ugandan government against the so called
fundamentalist threat from Sudan in the North. Secondly, they started a joint
operation between Uganda and the RPF of Rwanda to rearrange the entire
powerstructure of Central and Southern Africa. The war in Rwanda between 1990
and 1994 was the beginning of this process. This Anglo-American design became
more obvious during the following events in Congo. That is why President Nujoma
of Namibia in 1998 called the march of Rwandan and Ugandan troops into Cong
o a security threat to Namibia, and together with Zimbabwe, deployed troops to
stop it.
After Laurent Kabila took power in Kinshasa, the London Times of May 20,
1997 describes the Anglo-American geopolitics behind Kabila's success. "In
November last year Washington gave diplomatic support to the mainly Tutsi
rebellion in eastern Zaire which grew into a revolution and toppled Mr. Mobutu
last weekend. As a result French officials saw an 'Anglophone conspiracy'
behind Mr. Kabila's movement in which Britain supplied the know-how of the
imperial era, and Americans the money and military training necessary for the
Tutsis to storm across Zaire in only seven month. There may be some truth in
the conspiracy theory. Among the beneficiaries of Zaire's change of regime have
been George Bush, who along with former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney,
is a member of the advisory board of Toronto-based Barrick Gold, which bought a
gold concession for 80,000 sqare kilometres in northeast Zaire from the then
rebels. But the conspiracy is deeper and more subtle." The art
icle than describes the alliance of the new African leaders, Anglo-American
strategy would count on: Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, John
Garang of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), Issias Afewerki of
Eritrea and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.[16]
While the local population keeps starving and dying, the Rwandan and
Ugandan controlled rebel movements in Eastern Congo today deliver precious raw
materials to Europe and North America. The senior German journalist with 40
years of experience in Central Africa, Peter Scholl-Latour, recently reported
about a revealing incident in the summer of 2000 which he was told about by
reliable sources in Kigali. When tensions grew between the former allies Rwanda
and Uganda and fighting erupted among their troops in the Congo, the US
Undersecretary of State for Africa, Susan Rice, personally threatened both
governments with consequences if the supply of the strategic mineral Coltan to
the US would not immediately resume.[17]
3. Rwanda's economic ruin.
During the 1970s and the first years of the 1980s Rwanda enjoyed relative
economic stability and food selfsufficiency. Rwanda had one of the best road
systems in the region, and post and telephone services as well as electricity
supply were expanding. The health and education systems were improving, and the
government had ambitious plans for further development. But, as in the rest of
Africa, these plans were all aborted under the pressure from the international
financial institutions. In April of 1984 the government of President
Habyarimana introduced a program of 'rigour and austerity' which suspended many
projects. Effected also by falling coffee prices and high import costs,
especially for petrol, Rwanda began to slide into economic crisis. In June of
1989 the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) collapsed under pressure to
liberalise the world markets in favor of the big multinational coffee traders.
With 75% of Rwanda's export earnings coming traditionally from co
ffee, the price collapse reduced Rwandas foreign earnings by 50%. In 1988 and
1989 the country was effected by serious drought causing a famine in the south.
Thousands of refugees who streamed into Rwanda, fleeing from neighbouring
Burundi made the situation for the government even more difficult.
Under those circumstances, the international financial institutions IMF
and World Bank mercilessly pushed the Rwandan government into implementing a
structural adjustment program. The elements of this policy were the same
notorious measures which had already failed elsewhere in Africa, but in the
case of Rwanda, it pushed the country into economic disintegration at the very
moment when it was attacked by the invasion from Uganda. The first devaluation
of the Rwandan Franc was carried out in November 1990. This led immediately to
large increases of the price of fuel and essential consumer goods. In June of
1992, in the middle of the war, the IMF insisted on the next devaluation
increasing prices even further. The other measures of the SAP were trade
liberalisation, lifting of subsidies to agriculture, privatisation of state
enterprises and the retrenchment of civil servants. But as the government was
the biggest employer with 7,000 employees in central government and mor
e than 40,000 in local administration these measures proved to be a desaster,
especially also because the government had to cope with hundreds of thousands
of refugees who fled the war from the north.
By 1990, the government had to divert about 10 million dollars of the
meager budget recources a year to the payment of foreign debt. Rwanda was
caught in the same debt trap as almost all other African countries beginning in
1980. Rwanda started out with less than 200 million dollars foreign debt in
1980. Despite the fact that the Habyarimana government payed millions of
dollars back every year, the total debt more than trippled to about 700 million
dollars by 1990.[18]
The strangulation of African countries by the foreign debt is one of the
worst crimes against humanity Western governments and their financial
institutions have committed, because it has more than anything else contributed
to creating poverty, desease and human death. In 1980 Subsaharan Africa had
about 80 bn dollars foreign debt. By the end of the 1990s this had increased to
more than 250 bn dollars, even though the African countries in the meantime had
payed more than 200 bn dollars back.
For Rwanda, the effects of the foreign debt strangulation and the
structural adjustment measures meant the destruction of the social fabric of
society, which went parallel to the destruction caused by the war, and was
almost complete by the beginning of 1994.
4. Rwanda's fall into violence and revenge.
The economic crisis made it more and more difficult for the Rwandan
government to envisage the large scale reintegration of returning refugees of
the Tutsi community abroad. Nevertheless, in 1990 President Habyarimana was
ordering different government departments to prepare plans for the return of
those refugees. He himself went to refugee camps in Uganda to discuss this. And
a bilateral commission between Rwanda and Uganda was set up to develop plans
for the return of the refugees. The commission met in Kigali in July of 1990
with the participation of the UNHCR and representatives of the OAU. An action
plan for different options for the refugees was agreed upon and delegates from
the refugee camps were supposed to visit Rwanda at the end of September 1990.
The next meeting of the commission was scheduled for Jannuary 1991. But,
instead, war started in October of 1990. Habyarimana had also agreed to
constitutional changes towards democratisation following the La Baule s
ummit of Francophone African States in June of 1990. The leadership of the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and their allies in Kampala have never answered
the question, why, despite those changes in President Habyarimana's government
attitude, they attacked Rwanda militarily, if their only concern was to return
to their home country and to help build democracy. Maybe they were just driven
by narrow interests. But for the political strategists in Washington and
London, who encouraged and supported their war, this cannot be cited as an
excuse.
Lynda Chalker could have put pressure on the Ugandan President to stick
to negotiations with President Habyarimana about the settlement of the refugee
question and not go to war. As the Ugandan government depended for its survival
entirely on money from the Western donors, in particular from Britain and the
United States, the US government could have used their influence among the
Rwandan refugees to prevent them from preparing for war. Instead, both
governments did the opposite and encouraged the war drive. Therefore these
Western governments bear responsibility for the disaster which followed in
Rwanda and culminated in the carnage in 1994. In this way the internal eruption
of violence in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 was also directly caused by the US
and British governments adoption of their special form of unilateralism. After
the Soviet Union collapsed, the Bush, sen. administration brought back war as a
justified means of solving international conflicts. It was ap
plied on a grand scale with Desert Storm against Irak in 1991. In the African
context the war in Rwanda and later in Congo followed the same logic.
In Rwanda the war began spreading panic and the invaders were not at all
wellcomed as liberators. In 1991 there were more than 100,000 displaced persons
who had fled from the war in the north southwards. At the beginning of 1992
this had increased to 300,000. And the new RPF offensive in February of 1993
caused a stream of almost 1 million refugees inside the country. Under these
circumstances and the disintegrating economy, it can be explained that the old
traumata of Rwanda's and Burundi's history, of the tensions between the two
major population groups Hutu and Tutsi, came back full force. The Rwanda
Revolution of 1959 with the ensuing violence, and the slaughter of hundreds of
thousands of Hutu in Burundi in 1972 were a reminiscence of the fragile
relationship between them in the past. When then the democratically elected
Hutu President of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by the Tutsi
military in Bujumbura in October of 1993, just three month after the Rw
anda parties had signed the Arusha peace agreement, the ground for compromise
in Rwanda was further destroyed. The spiral of violence escalated. Finally, the
shooting down of the Presidential plane on April 6, 1994, killing President
Habyarimana of Rwanda, President Ntaryamira of Burundi, the chief of the
Rwandan army General Nsabimana, the commander of the Presidential Guard, Major
Bagaragaza and a number of other officials had the effect equivalent to
throwing a hand-grenade into an ammunitons depot. This now ment that in the
course of 6 months three Hutu Presidents were assassinated. The existing
tensions burst out into an orgy of violence and mass killings. For months
already the country was under the effect of widespread suspicion whether one
was with the government of Habyarimana or the invading forces of the RPF.
To this day, no investigation of the circumstances of the deadly attack
on President Habyarimana's plane took place. Neither the RPF government in
Kigali, nor the United Nations, or the Western governments undertook one. Only
one thing is clear, this could not have been done in Africa without the active
involvement of Western intelligence services. And whoever ordered it knew about
the consequences. It would lead to the total breakdown of any basis for
implementing a compromise agreement between the RPF and the Habyarimana
government which it did.
5. The failed Arusha peace negotiations and
Western refusal to intervene in case of greatest need.
The US and British governments' attitude towards negotiations between the
two war parties in Rwanda show the same questionable approach as their support
for the war in 1990. The premise of these negotiations, which started under US
and French guidance in July of 1992, was to justify and legitize the RPF's
invasion after the fact. They had engaged in warfare against an internationally
recognized souvereign government, and yet they were accorded the same status as
this government. The question about which the negotiations took place from the
beginning, was not really the sharing of power, but the gaining of power of the
RPF. That this ended in the questionable formula of 60% for the government
forces and 40% for the RPF forces and the sharing of 50% of all command posts
of the future army was obviously no contribution to building trust among the
adversaries.[19]
While negotiations between the government and the RPF went on in Arusha
beginning in July of 1992, the war went on. In February of 1993 the RPF
launched a massive offensive, which brought their troops within 50 kilometres
of Kigali. Under pressure from Western governments the Arusha agreement was
signed in August of 1993. But it soon became obvious that those Western
governments had no interest in guaranteeing the implementation through the
United Nations. Delegations of the Rwandan government and the RPF warned the
Security Council in September of 1993 of the collapse of the agreement if a
significant UN force would not be deployed rapidly to Rwanda. When the United
Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) was finally established on Oct.
5, 1993, it had neither sufficient manpower nor logistics nor a strong enough
mandate to be a guarantor for the peace process. UNAMIR was in no position to
react against the rising violence in the country.
The United Nations have admitted to their failure in Rwanda in 1993 and
1994.[20] The real scandal though is the behaviour of the governments in the UN
Security Council which were first of all responsible for UNAMIR's weakness.
Secondly, especially the American and British governments refused any effective
military action of the UN to the consequences of the fatal killing of President
Habyarimana. Against the urgent request from the UN commanders in Kigali, the
UN Security Council decided to reduce rather than to increase the manpower for
UNAMIR. Thus, the explosion of violence against civilians and the mass killings
which followed the death of the President took their toll without limits. The
US, British, French and Belgian governments were fully aware of the carnage
going on. Why did they not act? On April 21, the UN Security Council decided to
wihtdraw UNAMIR, but one week later the same Security Council decided to
increase UNPROFOR for the Balkan by more than 6000 t
roops. Were the Western governments calculating to have the RPF take power
first, and only than intervene, like US troops did in July of 1994 to help the
stranded Rwandese refugees in Goma, Zaire?
6. War as a means of population control.
The action and non-action of Western governments, in particular of the US
and British governments, in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 of actively supporting
a war and refusing to intervene when it was needed to save civilians, were, as
we have shown, driven by geopolitical considerations. As later events in Rwanda
itself and in the Congo make clear, this policy continues to this day. It
reveales the utter hypocracy of Western governments, when they speak of their
concern for human rights and good governance in Africa. In reality their policy
is driven by nothing but strategic considerations to having access to vital raw
materials. That Western powers in persuance of this strategic aim take into
account the loss of life of millions points to an even more devilish side of
the world-view adhered to by parts of the Western political elite. This is
called the dogma of population controle. As ugly as wars may be, but, they
reduce populations quite effectively. If African populat
ions can be reduced, the longterm strategic danger that African nations would
use up their precious raw materials for themselves can be eliminated. This is
the ugly truth behind the paradigm shift Western Africa policy underwent during
the last 30 years. Thus, Western powers foment wars and destabilisations of
governments in Africa. Than, they only have to find the rebels, mercenaries or
warlords to make the deals for taking the raw materials out of the continent,
leaving the local population to their fate in misery.
During the days of Africa's liberation struggle in the 1950s and 60s the
rapid economic development of Africa to levels of standards of living
comparable to Western Europe or the United States was the generally accepted
policy orientation. Underdevelopment was considered the problem, not
overpopulation. This changed with the introduction of the irrationalist
Malthusian dogmas of the Club of Rome in 1971 and the first World Population
Conference in Bucharest in 1974. From then on, socalled overpopulation was
regarded as the problem for Africa, not underdevelopment. Starting with the
National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200 "Implications of Worldwide
Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests", authored by than
National Security Council Secretary Henry Kissinger for the United States
Government in December of 1974, Neo-Malthusianism was widely introduced into
the policy formulations of all Western governments and international
organisations like the U
nited Nations.[21] Other policy outlines of governments and thinktanks
followed the same line, for example Jimmy Carter's Global 2000 plan.
Malthusianism also became the dominant ideology in Western universities and the
media, and increasingly changed public opinion., so much so that the horrific
human catastrophe, the worst since World War II, which has been unleashed since
1990 in Central Africa finds no adaequate recognition, neither with Western
governments nor with the general public.
7. Conclusion and the case of Andre Ntagerura.
Andre Ntagerura was a very senior member of the last government of
President Habyarimana. He also belonged to the central committee of the MRND.
Before being the Minister of Transportation and Communications in the first
government in April of 1992 which included opposition parties, he held other
portfolios before, like Social Affairs and Public Works. The MRND included him
as Minister of Planning in the list of Ministers they were proposing for the
broad based government agreed upon in the 1993 Arusha peace negotiations, to
which the RPF did not raise any objections at the time. Minister Ntagerura had
the reputation of a very competent technocrat in his field more so than a
politician. He was a well respected and competent negotiator in regional
organisations such as the Kagera Basin Organisation (KBO) of Rwanda, Burundi,
Uganda, and Tanzania where he was working on linking Rwanda by rail through the
Central Corridor to the Tanzanian railsystem to reach the port of Dar
Es Salaam. He was also promoting a Northern Corridor via Uganda and Kenia to
the port of Mombassa. He was committed to developing the transport-
infrastructure of Rwanda and its neighbors, because he regarded this as key for
overcoming the misery of the people living in the region. In this context, he
reportedly was a respected Rwandan representative with international
organisations such as the World Bank. In May of 1994 Ntagerura led the Rwandan
government delegation to Arusha to try and negotiate a ceasefire agreement with
the RPF.
The Habyarimana government was the legitimate government of Rwanda in
1990. Like any other government it clearly had the right to buy weapons and
defend the country, when it was attacked. Mainly with French assistance the
government increased the army from 5,000 to about 50,000 men in 1993. Given the
guerilla tactics, the invading forces were using, it is understandable for the
military and political leadership of the country to also organize militias.
Between the end of 1990 and the beginning of 1994 the government faced a total
onslaught amidst the collaps of the economy and the desperate effects of more
than 1 million refugees uprooted by the advancing enemy troops. That groups of
extremists played an ethnic card within the broader context of the governments
efforts to survive cannot be held principally against every member of the
government or the old ruling party. The stock-taking of the 1990-1994 events in
Rwanda would not be complete without mentioning, that atro
cities and mass-killings were committed on both sides of the political divide.
But the internal human catastrophy in Rwanda would not have happened without
the military, political, and intelligence services intervention from the
outside. Unless the truth about this aspect of the Rwanda tragedy is uncovered,
justice can not be done.
Political analysis has to uncover the processes which lead to desasters
such as the catastrophe in Rwanda during the last decade of the 20th century.
The contribution of political analysis to justice and reconciliation exists in
drawing lessons from it. After the people of Rwanda and Burundi have lived
through the horrors of fratricidal wars again and again during the second half
of the 20th century, they will only be able to find longlasting peace and
reconciliation among themselves if the attitude and policy of the Western
powers towards this sorrow stricken part of Africa changes. The policy of
promoting economic misery and conflicts must be replaced by finally creating
peace through real development.
Notes
[1] Financial Times, London, November 14, 1998.
[2] The Observer, London, August 18, 1996
[3] BBC News, London, February 5, 2002.
[4] The Monitor, Kampala, March 31, 2002
[5] "Covert Action in Africa: A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C." news
brief from U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, April 16, 2001.
[5a] News brief Cynthia Mc Kinney: Statement by Keith Snow and Wayne
Madson
[5b] Prepared Testimony and Statement for the Record of Wayne Madson
before the Subcommittee on International Relations, U.S. House of
Representatives, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2001.
[6] "Rwandese Refugees in Uganda, Ogenga Otunnu," in The Path of
Genocide, The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, New Brunswick, N.J.: Surke
Transaction Publishers, 1999.
[7] Impuruzu newsletter, June 1988.
[8] "An Historical Analysis of the Invasion by the Rwanda Patriotic Army
(RPF) Ogenga Otunnu," in The Path of Genocide, The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to
Zaire, New Brunswick, N.J.: Surke Transaction Publishers, 1999.
[9] The Monitor, Kampala, May 30, 1999.
[10] The Monitor, Kampala, June 1, 1999.
[11] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 21, 1995.
[12] New African Yearbook 2001, London: IC Publication.
[13] Yoweri T. Museveni, "Fanon's Theory on Violence: Its Verification in
Liberated Mozambique."
[14] Yoweri Museveni, "What Hope for Africa?" address to 1995 annual
meeting of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland.
[15] Richard Dowden, "Uganda Slips Through West's Democracy Net."
[16] Sam Kiley, "New Leaders Take Africa's Destiny Into Their Own Hands,"
in The Times of London, May 20, 1997.
[17] Peter Scholl Latour, Afrikanische Totenklage, Bertelsmann Verlag,
2002.
[18] Debt tables from World Bank data.
[19] Bruce Jones, "The Arusha Peace Process," in The Path of Genocide,
The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, New Brunswick, N.J.: Surke Transaction
Publishers, 1999.
[20] Statement by the UN Secretary General, Dec. 16, 1999.
[21] NSSM 200, Dec. 10, 1974, Executive Summary.
Selected Bibliography
New African Yearbook 2001, London: IC Publications.
The Path of Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, New
Brunswick, N.J.: Surke Transaction Publishers, 1999.
L.R. Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's
Genocide, London: Zed Books, 2000.
Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1995, 1997.
Helmut Strizek, Ruanda und Burundi von der Unabhaengigkeit zum
Staatszerfall, Cologne: Weltforum Verlag, 1996.
Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalisation of Poverty Impacts of IMF and
World Bank Reforms, 1997, 2001.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
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