Читать книгу Prelude to Genocide - David Rawson - Страница 15

ONE

Ceasefire

On October 1, 1990, a military force moved from southern Uganda into northeast Rwanda at Kagitumba and headed down the eastern edge toward the tourist camp and police headquarters at Gabiro, the central entrance to Kagera National Park. The military force called itself the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA), the military arm of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). Major General Fred Rwigyema, formerly deputy commander of Uganda’s National Resistance Army (NRA) and deputy minister of defense in Uganda’s government, headed the invasion. A large part of the force was made up of Rwandan Tutsi from the Lweru triangle who had joined Yoweri Museveni’s campaign to overthrow Milton Obote. Additional refugees had joined the NRA in 1986 to help put down a rebellion in northern Uganda. Now, the troopers moved out of barracks toward the Rwandan border under various guises. Major General Rwigyema told people that he was preparing for Uganda National Day on October 9. Recruits from within the Tutsi diaspora, as well as Hutu military leaders and politicians who had fled the regime of President Habyarimana, were part of the RPA corps.¹

The exiles had carried from Rwanda stories of corruption, injustice, and economic bankruptcy in the Habyarimana regime. Expecting that a disenchanted population would join in revolt against the government, the RPF found that, instead, the people fled before them. Within three days of the invasion, General Rwigyema was killed at the front.² On October 23, Rwanda government forces ambushed the RPA, killing top officers along with scores of RPA fighters. After suffering additional losses, the RPA broke up into small mobile groups, seeking cover in the Virunga volcano forests and crossing over into Uganda by night. The initial RPA thrust had been broken; the Rwandan government declared victory.³ But Major Paul Kagame, head of Uganda’s military intelligence, rushed back from training in the United States and revitalized the RPA forces, preparing for a drawn-out civil war.

The October 1 incursions quickly stirred an international response. Both President Habyarimana and President Museveni had gone to New York to attend the World Summit on Children and were about to journey on to meetings in Washington. Their precipitate return to their respective capitals highlighted both the surprise and the seriousness of the incursion.⁴ Key donors, France and Belgium, dispatched forces to protect Kigali and the expatriates in it. The United States began to withdraw nonessential personnel from its embassy.⁵ Neighboring presidents Mobutu of Zaire and Mwinyi of Tanzania called separate summit conclaves. All external parties wanted the fighting in this poor, overpopulated country to end quickly.

The journey to a ceasefire, however, went along a circuitous path. This chapter explores that journey by first looking at the issues that any search for a ceasefire confronts and then recounting the failed summitry of the first two years. After considering how cooperation between France and the United States and between the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and Tanzania ushered in a durable ceasefire on June 13, 1992, I ask what lessons we learned from the exercise.

Issues at Stake

Although the initial fighting in Rwanda had come to a temporary lull in October 1990, settling the conflict proved a lengthy exercise in diplomatic negotiation and political opportunism. The October hostilities presented a classic spectrum of questions.

What is the nature of the conflict? Was the 1990 RPF attack on Rwanda, for example, an invasion or an insurgency? An invasion across the border of a sovereign state is in international law “aggression” and a matter for UN Security Council consideration. The incursion into northeast Rwanda originated from Uganda with troops who had taken leave from Uganda’s National Revolutionary Army. The Rwandan government characterized the incursion as a cross-border aggression sponsored by the Ugandan government, requiring a collective response by the international community. But the Ugandan leadership insisted that the attackers left Uganda without the authorization or knowledge of Ugandan authorities.

If this was a cross-border attack, it was also without question an insurgency, a battle by Rwandans to find place and power within the Rwandan state.⁶ Having launched the war, the RPF now sought to legitimize its status as an internal insurgency. The Rwandan government, however, was not interested in bilateral talks or a ceasefire, which would recognize the RPF as the opposite party and change the asymmetry of the government/rebel equation.⁷

Does a conflict warrant international attention, or should local wars be allowed to flame out?⁸ In the Rwandan case, the care of refugees, the war-born impediments to trade and humanitarian aid, and especially this ethnic struggle for ascendency that found its echo in eastern Zaire, southern Uganda, and Burundi all constituted threats to regional peace and security.⁹ The nature of the conflict also determined the applicability of international humanitarian law to the Rwandan case.¹⁰ Thus, international interveners came to see the conflict between the Rwandese Patriotic Front and the Rwandan government as an internal insurgency with external repercussions that threatened international peace and merited an international intervention.

Who are the contenders and how cohesive are their organizations? It would seem at first glance that the battle in and around Gabiro was between the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA), fighting for the exiled Tutsi, and the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), defending the state of Rwanda and the people within it. However, the RPF/RPA was but one of many groups vying for influence among the Tutsi diaspora. Indeed, the RPF had launched the attack preemptively to forestall an agreement of exiles to a UNHCR plan for programmed repatriation.¹¹ In addition, expatriate Tutsi businessmen were attracted to possible business opportunities in Rwanda under a peaceful, negotiated return.¹² Early days of battle showed a force divided in terms of vision, strategy, and operations.

On the other hand, the Rwandan Armed Forces no longer represented a unified country. After over twenty years of one-party rule, Rwandan elites joined in demanding an end to autocratic control and an opening to a democratic, liberal order.¹³ On July 5, 1990, the seventeenth anniversary of his coup, President Habyarimana promised a new economic and political order. A year later, under a new constitution, the legislature approved a law authorizing multiple political parties.¹⁴ Some sixteen parties filed for recognition. Whatever their regional base or ideological perspective, the new parties sought to distinguish themselves from Habyarimana’s rule.¹⁵ Thus, even before the RPF invasion, an opening to multiparty politics brought to the fore the north-south chasm in Rwandan politics. Eventually, under a coalition government led by Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye of the opposition Democratic Republican Movement (MDR), Rwandan politics and the war effort became a contest with multiple stakeholders.¹⁶

Are parties external to the conflict part of the problem or part of the solution? Conflicts draw in interested partners. In this asymmetrical confrontation between an incipient insurgency and an established state force, each side could claim interested neighbors and external supporters.¹⁷ France, Belgium, and Egypt had military assistance programs in Rwanda, while China was a regular supplier of arms. Libya built the Meridien Hotel and partnered with the government in joint enterprises. Zaire, linked formally to Rwanda in the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (CEPGL) and impelled by close personal bonds between the two presidents, had responded to the October 1990 crisis with the immediate dispatch of several hundred troops from the Special Presidential Division.¹⁸ Germany, the United States, Canada, and Switzerland all had significant assistance programs supporting a regime in a poor, small country that, during the early 1980s, was thought to model effective techniques of rural development.¹⁹

On the other hand, after a 1988 international conference, in Washington, DC, on Rwandan refugees, the RPF began to build up financial support among the Tutsi diaspora and moral support from sympathetic foreigners. Most important, in launching its adventure into Rwanda, the RPF had expropriated armaments from Ugandan army connections and continued to receive support from elements within the government sympathetic to the Front’s cause, perhaps even from President Museveni. The smuggling of gold and diamonds along the Zairean border provided funds for weapons purchased on the international arms market. Thus, both contenders in the Rwandan crisis depended on support from states and third parties outside of Rwanda’s borders.

Are the contenders ready for a settlement? Has a culture of peace prevailed over a culture of war? The 1990 incursion had quickly evolved into a rhetorical confrontation, with skirmishes along the border, but not into a “mutually hurting stalemate.” Since both sides felt they could ultimately win, the conflict was hardly “ripe for resolution.”²⁰ As the RPF tactics changed to guerrilla raiding, the conflict settled into a protracted, irregular war, all the more disturbing to external third parties who wanted to quickly restore peace.

If third party intervention becomes possible, who should mediate in the dispute? The Rwandan conflict was of immediate concern to neighboring states and a source of long-range anxiety for donors vested in large development programs and now burdened with humanitarian assistance within the Rwandan state. Who should mediate this troublesome conflict, and under what auspices? The Africans wanted an African mediation, but which personality or which state should lead?

Zaire’s president Mobutu was a dominant figure among African chiefs of state but had hostile relations with Uganda’s Museveni. As friend and protégé of Habyarimana, Mobutu would hardly be evenhanded in this matter. Finally, he was a sick man whose influence was fading abroad and whose rule was being challenged by “democratic” forces at home. Mobutu’s capacity to sustain a mediation seriously engaging both sides was very much in question.

On the other hand, an insurgency launched and sustained from the southern reaches of Uganda into a landlocked neighboring state must have had Museveni’s nod of approval. Moreover, Museveni and Habyarimana neither liked nor trusted one another. Museveni was in no position to mediate between the insurgents and the Rwandan government.

Burundi was the neighbor to the south whose history, politics, and social divisions mirrored those of Rwanda. However, Rwandans of all stripes considered themselves superior to their traditional enemies in Burundi. Additionally, by 1990, Burundi’s military president, Pierre Buyoya, had recently put out the fires of a major ethnic blowup in Burundi’s north and was too enmeshed in his own ethnic difficulties to provide mediation in Rwanda’s conflict.

The country with the least vested interest or diplomatic liabilities among Rwanda’s neighbors was Tanzania. While Prime Minister Malecela and several within the ruling Tanzanian elite were friendly toward Habyarimana’s regime, in 1990, both Tanzanian president Mwinyi and foreign minister Diria were from coastal Swahili backgrounds and had no affinity with either side. Moreover, conflict within Rwanda created insecurity on a distant western border. Tanzania had a vital interest in seeing peace restored.²¹

Regional Summitry

EARLY SUMMITS

Notwithstanding the inherent issues involved, neighboring chiefs of state rushed to bring the Rwandan conflict to a close. Within a fortnight of the October 1 incursion, Tanzanian president Mwinyi hosted a summit with Museveni and Habyarimana at which the Rwanda government agreed to dialogue under OAU auspices and Tanzania and Uganda agreed to pressure the RPF to accept a ceasefire.

On October 23 and 24, the heads of state of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi), meeting at Mobutu’s home in Gbadolite, proposed establishing a peacekeeping force and noted Mobutu’s effort to facilitate dialogue between the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front. Two days later, a second summit convened at Gbadolite at which Museveni, now chairman of the OAU, confirmed Mobutu as mediator. The chiefs of state authorized a military observer group of officers from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, and the RPF to be established under OAU supervision.²²

When the military observer group convened November 12–19 in Goma, Zaire, to draft the terms of a formal ceasefire, they touched the foundations of the conflict’s intractability. While it had agreed to dialogue with the Patriotic Front, the government of Rwanda would not accept that group as representative of the refugee community nor admit wholesale repatriation of refugee populations. The RPF on the other hand wanted full recognition as an opposite in the negotiations, as an internal armed force whose interests had to be accommodated.

By this time, the Rwandan government thought it had repulsed the invasion; many of the insurgents had fled back to Uganda, and the rest were scattered along the frontier trying to pull together under Major Kagame’s leadership. Neither side was particularly anxious to accommodate an international intervention and mediation. The OAU was not able to get the RPF and the Rwandan government to agree on terms of a ceasefire or on deployment of a military observer group. Mediation was instead being imposed by self-interested neighbors and patrons.

In a pattern that would be reiterated numerous times, this blockage led to military pressure from the RPF, which was countered by repression and ethnic violence abetted by the government. During the months of November and December, the Rwandan government pushed back RPF attacks along the Uganda-Rwanda border. In January 1991, the RPF returned to the attack along the northern border, briefly occupying the regional capital of Ruhengeri and freeing prisoners held in the local prison, including prominent political prisoners like former chief of security Theoneste Lizinde. In reprisal, the government, exercising state-of-emergency powers, arrested over eight thousand persons suspected of supporting the RPF. Attacks against Tutsi Bagogwe in the government heartland of Gisenyi/Ruhengeri area killed more than two hundred civilians.²³

SUMMITS IN ZANZIBAR AND DAR ES SALAAM

Increased violence again drew in regional summitry. Meanwhile, President Habyarimana, having failed to stop repression at home, lost ground in regional discussions. On February 17, in a hurriedly convened mini-summit on Zanzibar between the presidents of Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda, Habyarimana at last accepted the principle of a ceasefire.

Two days later, at a regional summit on refugees at Dar es Salaam (Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zaire attending), Habyarimana agreed in principle to the right of refugee return, and neighboring chiefs of state covenanted to facilitate naturalization for refugees who wanted to stay put. Significantly, the Dar es Salaam Declaration thanked Mobutu for instituting dialogue and urged him to maintain the momentum of dialogue “between the Rwandan government and the armed opposition.” The declaration thus confirmed Mobutu as mediator and recognized the RPF without naming it as the opposite party in the conflict. The notion that Uganda was attacking Rwanda through its cohorts no longer held water with presidents of the region. With diplomatic optimism, the declaration held that dialogue would find “a solution to the problem facing the parties concerned.”²⁴

FROM N’SELE TO GBADOLITE

In March 1991, as ceasefire talks began at N’sele, Zaire, President Habyarimana announced his intention to offer an amnesty for those who had taken up arms against the Rwandan government.²⁵ But that initiative did not significantly change the dynamics of the conflict; the peace process was in its infancy. By March 29, Casimir Bizimungu, foreign minister of the Rwandan government, and now Major General Paul Kagame, vice president of the RPF, signed a ceasefire agreement, committing to ongoing dialogue and to the deployment of a military observer group under OAU supervision. Political dialogue was to start in fifteen days following the deployment of an observer group of the regional states of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Burundi. But the military observer group did not get organized until May. When it deployed in Kigali, the Rwandan government restricted its movement around the country. The ceasefire, which was broken almost immediately by skirmishes along the Uganda border, turned into a stalemate between the Rwandan government’s conventional forces and RPF bush warriors in a low-intensity civil war.

Meanwhile, the Rwandan government’s position on internal politics seemed to soften. That March, the government, under pressure from the international community and from its own jurists, released eight thousand suspected RPF sympathizers who had been detained since January.²⁶ In June, the president promulgated a new constitution that allowed multiparty political competition. On June 18, the legislature, the National Development Council (CND), passed the Political Parties Law and the race to establish political parties took off.²⁷ By the end of the year, the CND finally passed two amnesty laws, one for refugees and exiles and one for persons within the country convicted of infractions of the law short of violent crimes.

THE OAU PROMOTES ANOTHER SUMMIT

At the OAU Summit in June, pressure built for another try at peacemaking. The OAU chiefs of state directed the secretary general of the organization to convene another regional summit to continue the mediation process. Accordingly, Mobutu hosted a meeting at Gbadolite to work out the terms of a new ceasefire. With the witness of the president of Nigeria, as new chairman of the OAU, the parties signed on September 16 a ceasefire agreement, seen as a revision of the understanding reached at N’sele six months earlier. The major change was in the makeup of the military observer group; this time it was to be composed of Nigerian and Zairean officers. Political dialogue was also initiated at Gbadolite, but the mediator broke it off in ten days, exasperated at RPF intransigence.

Absent a ceasefire reinforced by political dialogue, renewed fighting broke out in December and January, allowing the RPF to demonstrate its capacity to attack and leaving it with a permanent foothold in northern Rwanda, thus confirming its status as an “internal” insurgency. Back in Kigali, negotiations to install a multiparty government under the June constitution stalled; in frustration, a new government was finally sworn in on December 30, naming Sylvestre Nsanzimana as prime minister and including only one minister who was not from the president’s party. In response to renewed fighting in the north, the government increased the size of the army fivefold, turning the usually balanced budget into deep deficit.

RESULTS OF SUMMITRY

A year and a half after the October 1990 RPF attack, the regional chiefs of state had little to show for their considerable efforts to stop the fighting and arrange a peace through summit agreements. Undertakings at the summits did move the parties closer to recognizing each other as antagonists with whom to negotiate. The chiefs of state laid out quite early the elements of a putative peace process: ceasefire, political dialogue, military observer group, and peacekeeping force. The implication was that goals of peace and security required an international intervention that was both political and military in nature.

But the summit discussions were based on faulty assumptions, namely, that the issues at stake were subject to presidential decision; that the contending parties ultimately wanted peace; and that ceasefires, military observer groups, or peacekeeping deployments could be created ex nihilo by spoken agreement. But neither the respective states nor the Organization of African Unity had the capacity to organize and operationally structure the peace process or ensure the compliance of the parties. Finally, intrinsic to summitry is failure continually to attend to the problem. Interveners responded to violent outbreaks rather than systematically addressing root causes of the conflict.²⁸ Clearly, if peace was to return to Rwanda, the levels of international engagement would have to be broadened.

Donors Respond

France and Belgium, the top two states engaged in assistance to Rwanda, reacted immediately to the October 1990 RPF incursion. President Habyarimana stopped by Paris and Brussels on his way home from New York and secured the promise of military assistance from President Mitterrand and King Baudouin. Both sent troops to Kigali, presumably to protect the capital city and the expatriates living there but obviously reinforcing the Rwandan military’s capacity to carry the battle to the field. While France dealt directly with the Rwandan government and was an observer of the summit talks held under Mobutu’s auspices, the Belgian approach was to send a high-level delegation to all capitals of the region to seek out regional African views and encourage a more vigorous African response to the crisis. Belgians seemed skittish about any direct engagement; the very fact that the Belgian foreign minister was visiting the region in regard to the Rwanda crisis raised an outcry in the Belgian press and in parliament. Once the situation on the front seemed stabilized and the capital city no longer threatened, Belgium withdrew its combat forces but left in place a military training mission working with the gendarmerie. By act of parliament, Belgian military assistance was limited to training, technical assistance, and nonlethal military materiel. Thereafter, Belgium settled into a watching brief, ready to demarche the Rwandan or Ugandan governments as interests required, but with no intention to mediate. Recognizing that the French, because of their troop presence in Rwanda, had the larger say and the larger headaches, Belgium tended to support French initiatives in the region.²⁹

After the failures of regional initiatives, the French director of African affairs, Paul Dijoud, offered to mediate in August 1991, and in October he tried to bring the Rwandan government and the RPF together in Paris. Because high-level RPF representation was absent, Rwandan foreign minister Bizimungu declined to participate. In November, France sent an observer mission to the Rwandan-Ugandan frontier to assess the nature of cross-border incursions. As 1992 opened, Dijoud tried again to organize direct negotiations between the Rwandan government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front. By mid-February, the French foreign ministry admitted that the initiative had been a failure. The problem was twofold: first, the internal situation in Rwanda was “explosive and deteriorating,” with Hutu hardliners in the president’s entourage actively opposing moves toward democratization. Second, neither the Rwandan government forces nor the RPF had shown the capacity to prevail militarily, but the RPF seemed determined to fight on until Habyarimana was removed. In the French foreign ministry’s view, the RPF would continue to secure supplies and establish safe haven north of the border; Uganda would not prevent the use of its territory as a springboard for RPF operations.³⁰

VIOLENCE AND DIPLOMACY

The fragile internal situation became evident in March 1992 in another outbreak of ethnic violence, this time in the southeastern area of Bugesera, a region of new settlement that had attracted Tutsi pushed out of more populous zones to the west and north. The attacks occurred as political parties pressured Habyarimana for a coalition national government in Kigali and for changes in communal and regional (prefecture) governance. Although young thugs, presumably in political hire, led the attack, local authorities were slow to intervene, and some even encouraged the violence. Eventually the National Gendarmerie had to stop the fracas in which some one hundred persons died and twelve thousand were displaced from their homes.³¹ France, Belgium, Germany (also representing the president of the European Community), Switzerland, Canada, and the United States joined in a vigorous demarche that reminded the Rwandan president of his government’s responsibility to stop killings and destruction and to ensure peace and security.³²

Both the donors and the government cast the demarche in the larger context of Rwanda’s political evolution. The demarche called for the creation of a multiparty government “with the least possible delay” and urged moderation in media broadcasts. Inaction by Rwandan authorities, the ambassadors warned, could jeopardize the future of cooperative programs. The president said he shared the ambassadors’ preoccupation but blamed, in part, the rabble-rousing rhetoric of opposition leaders. In his brief on the security situation, the interior minister noted that the onset of violence had left a vacuum in local administration, that is, local authorities did not counter the violence. He also argued that “the existence of multi-partyism by its very nature creates incitement.”³³

TOWARD A COALITION GOVERNMENT

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church sought to organize dialogue between the RPF and the Rwandan government. How many of these contacts were carried out informally, the record will not show. But by October 1991, one year after the RPF invasion, the church mediated a meeting in which the contending sides committed to common principles.³⁴ The church also sought broader political representation within the government through the establishment of a government of national unity that encompassed newly revived political parties. By February 1992, this effort had evolved into a ten-person “Comité de contact” of leaders from the Catholic Episcopal Conference and the Rwandan Protestant Council and brought together party leadership to work out their differences and seek a common future in the establishment of a coalition government.³⁵ In March, the church leaders met with RPF representatives, including Commissioner Pasteur Bizimungu, in Nairobi to determine the extent of the Front’s commitment to negotiations with a broad coalition government.³⁶

Even as talks moved forward on a multiparty government, new parties were proliferating. Some were based on sectarian loyalties, like the Islamic Party or the Catholic Christian Democrat Party. Others reflected aspirations of personal leaders. A significant party, the Coalition for Democratic Renewal (CDR), was based on the ideology of Hutu ascendancy. Formed by a charismatic but erratic Hutu civil servant who fell out with Habyarimana, the CDR became a party committed to preserving or enhancing the institutional stature of the Hutu majority, which the party saw as being jeopardized by negotiations with the RPF. Based in the president’s homeland in northwest Rwanda, where Hutu chiefs had ruled in precolonial days, the CDR had links to the president through his wife’s family. The party was not, however, invited to the dialogue that led to the signing of an interparty protocol on March 13 with a view to forming a multiparty “government of transition.” After long negotiations with major party leaders, Habyarimana, on April 16, finally invited Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye, a leader of the MDR/Parmehutu party to head a new coalition government.³⁷

THE UNITED STATES EXPANDS ITS ROLE

Political opening within Rwanda induced new international interest in resolving the conflict between the Rwandan government, now largely representative of internal political forces, and the Rwandese Patriotic Front, still harrying Rwandan government forces in the north. From the beginning, the United States had been concerned about the war in Rwanda. The foundations for US policy toward Rwanda were found in the inaugural address of George H. W. Bush and in his first State of the Union message, both of which emphasized democracy and human rights.³⁸ Thus, US policy viewed the conflict in Rwanda in terms of its larger international dimensions, namely, regional insecurity, refugee burdens and challenges to democratic governance, and fundamental human rights. But in an area where it had no significant stake, the United States deferred to regional players and to European partners with keener interests. As Mobutu, then other regional leaders and the OAU, and finally France moved to bring the parties together, the United States took a watching brief and played behind the scenes.

At the Department of State, Assistant Secretary Herman Cohen regularly received intelligence reports of the ongoing efforts to establish peace in the region. On learning of the RPF attacks on Ruhengeri in January 1991, he contacted President Museveni of Uganda by phone to ask Ugandan help in preventing the incursions and stopping the fighting.³⁹ The department then instructed ambassadors in Kampala and Kigali to proceed by urging Museveni to deny Uganda as a sanctuary for attacks on Rwanda and asking Habyarimana to accelerate national reconciliation within Rwanda, to intensify direct talks with the RPF, and vigorously to pursue a comprehensive refugee agreement. In addition to this bilateral approach, the United States tried to encourage a joint demarche with the European Community in order to have a common message from all Western donors to both Rwanda and Uganda. The European Community would agree only to a more modest parallel demarche, and even then it had to drag a reluctant Great Britain in its wake.⁴⁰

In April 1991, Cohen convoked American ambassadors from the region to a meeting in Bujumbura. The chiefs of mission concluded that there were “no vital US interests at stake [in the regional crisis], either internationally or domestically.” With regard to Rwanda, they recommended that the United States not assume a leadership role but, “in coordination with EC colleagues, exert influence selectively to uphold U.S. interests.” They felt the United States should use the crisis to encourage movement on democracy and human rights interests, to tell the RPF that the United States supported its democracy and political equality goals, and to seek a durable solution to regional refugee problems. Following their deliberations, the assistant secretary articulated the fundamental US approach to the conflict in a news conference:

We believe that the protection of refugees who return to their homes should be ensured by a democratic political system that provides to every citizen equal rights and defends human rights.

We condemn any use of force to settle the problems of refugees and ask all governments in the region to prevent any use of their territory for military action against their neighbors.⁴¹

The assistant secretary went from that convocation to meet with President Museveni and with the Ugandan foreign minister, pressing the Ugandan government to interdict military supplies to the RPF and to move the RPF toward negotiations. Meanwhile, reports from the field outlined the distance between the two sides. In Kigali, US ambassador Robert Flaten reported that President Habyarimana was still blaming the war on Museveni and holding that “Museveni has not changed at all!” According to the president, political dialogue was possible if the RPF took its place as a party among other parties within a pluralistic environment. Automatic integration of RPF forces into the Rwandan army was totally unacceptable. The military observer group set up under terms of the N’sele Accord had not inspected RPF positions and did not appear truly neutral.⁴²

In Kampala, the US chargé stated that the ceasefire was not holding, that artillery and small arms fire along the border occurred daily, and that a major escalation was eminent. Thousands of Ugandans were displaced by the war all along the border. According to credible reports, the RPA had taken over portions of Kisoro District in Uganda, and the National Resistance Army still connived with or acquiesced in RPA activity. During the lull in fighting, both sides had had the time to reorganize, train, and equip.⁴³

After the June 1991 OAU Summit at Abuja put Nigerian president Babangida in the chairmanship and confirmed Zairean president Mobutu as mediator of the Rwandan dispute, the United States asked the OAU leadership to do the following:

• To request both sides to observe the ceasefire

• To mediate the GOR/RPF dialogue on an urgent basis

• To request that Museveni permit the OAU-sponsored military observer group (MOG) to operate in Uganda

• To reiterate to Museveni the need to deny the RPF operational support in Ugandan territory

• To urge Habyarimana to implement programs of democratization and national reconciliation⁴⁴

Babangida proposed a mini-summit of heads of state in the Central/East African region. US ambassadors in the region were instructed to inform their host governments that the United States supported the OAU’s renewed efforts to mediate the conflict. That same demarche also inferred Belgian and French preference for African mediation.⁴⁵ Having sought OAU leadership in resolving this conflict, the United States, nonetheless, pursued a bilateral initiative when Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Irvin Hicks met informally with representatives of the Rwandese Patriotic Front and the Rwandan government in Harare.

The US hope was that, without impinging on other mediation efforts, this meeting might help revive the peace process and “lead to an agreement on a cease fire and to the RPF’s participation in the democratic process.” That hope was quickly dashed in a spate of acrimonious charges. The government representative, Augustin Ndindilimana, said he had come to inform the participants that Rwandan government forces controlled all national territory, that pushing back against incursions from Uganda was permitted under ceasefire terms, that the RPF would not let the military observer group inspect their forward positions nor were they seeking to join in political dialogue as a recognized party, and that the presence of Western forces in Rwanda was a guarantee of a political process open to all Rwandans.⁴⁶

The RPF representative, Pasteur Bizimungu, said that the Rwandan government had failed to respect the N’sele Accord. He brought as evidence the continuing presence of foreign troops, the incarceration of political prisoners, and the inactivity of the military observer group. Were it not for foreign troops, the RPF would have achieved military victory. Visits of the observer group had been turned back because the Rwandan military insisted on accompanying them everywhere. Hicks found the Rwandan government intransigent and the RPF legalistic. The Harare meetings, in sum, made “little progress.”⁴⁷

For all its early efforts in promoting the peace process in Rwanda, Washington policy focused largely on other trouble spots in Africa and deferred to Brussels and Paris on Rwandan issues. As spelled out at the Bujumbura chiefs of mission conference, US policy had been to “keep former metropolitan powers (including EC) out in front in solving the problem.” Since France among European Community partners had troops on the ground and the most direct entrée to the Habyarimana regime, Washington policy makers determined to let the French take the lead.⁴⁸

Three factors seemed to have occasioned deeper US engagement in the Rwandan crisis in early 1992. First, there was general admission among the tripartite partners—France, Belgium, and the United States—that the peace initiative mediated by President Mobutu in the context of the Economic Community of Great Lakes States or the efforts of the Organization of African Unity was not bringing the conflict to a close. Nor were differences among political groups within Rwanda being bridged. In short, there was little progress after over a year of effort by states from within the region.⁴⁹

Second, the nongovernmental and academic communities began to highlight the continuing seriousness of the crisis. Roger Winter at the US Committee for Refugees had been urging greater US government attention to the plight of Banyarwanda refugees since the early 1980s.⁵⁰ Gene Dewey of the Congressional Hunger Committee had traveled to the area in March of 1991 and reported that Rwandans wanted help from the outside in resolving the crisis.⁵¹ In March 1992, academic and government specialists met under auspices of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Invited as a discussant, I returned to Rwandan questions for the first time in nineteen years. Our panel recognized the increased corruption under Habyarimana’s administration and attendant economic decline, the fragile political situation, and the ravages of civil war. As a counter, we recommended economic and political decentralization within Rwanda and “the creation of a political system in which both groups win, i.e., power sharing democracy.”⁵²

The conclusions of the “specialists” convinced the director of Central African affairs, Ambassador Robert Pringle, to push for a higher US government profile in seeking peace for Rwanda, thus bringing into play the third reason for US engagement: high-level policy activism. Assistant Secretary Cohen convened a Policy Coordinating Committee on Rwanda and Burundi. The committee’s conclusions followed both the track set down in Bujumbura nearly a year before and the way forward envisioned by the panel of specialists: democratization and ethnic reconciliation through diplomatic pressure and program emphasis on these issues by USAID, USIS, and military assistance. The committee also concluded that “if a coalition government acceptable to the opposition is formed in Rwanda, we should urge the French to restart the GOR-RPF negotiations, offering to assist by urging the Ugandans to end their support for the insurgency and help bring the RPF to negotiate.”⁵³

The African affairs “front office” quickly engaged to implement the new approach. Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Houdek visited Kampala in April right after the formation of a multiparty government in Kigali. He confronted Museveni with the outside world’s perception that the RPF was operating from Uganda: “A definition of sovereignty is that you control your own territory.” In Houdek’s view, the Rwanda/RPF conflict was igniting “ethnic tinderbox situations in Rwanda and Burundi.” The American envoy left Kampala with demurrals from the Ugandans and a plea from Rwandan ambassador Kanyarushoki that the United States get involved again in trying to bring the sides together.⁵⁴

After Houdek’s visit to “test the winds,” Assistant Secretary Cohen followed up with a May visit to Kampala and Kigali. In Kampala, he heard an RPF plea for direct intervention in the peace process, the integration of RPF into the Rwandan army, guarantees of RPF safety, and internationally observed right of return for all refugees. From Museveni, he heard, but disputed, the usual demurrals about Ugandan complicity in the conflict. Cohen agreed to US participation (if all parties assented) as an observer in a French-led meeting to help along the democratic process and jump-start negotiations. He suggested the possibility of US technical assistance in setting forth the parameters of a viable ceasefire and in promoting democratization.⁵⁵

The assistant secretary carried to Kigali assurances from the Patriotic Front that it was ready to negotiate and to work toward an observable ceasefire. Refugees should be able to return freely (a nonnegotiable demand) and the RPF should be integrated into the Rwandan Army. The RPF doubted, nonetheless, the capacity of the new Rwandan government to govern and to carry forward an effective negotiation. Museveni, for his part, was still insisting that the war was between the Rwandan government and the RPF. He continued to promise full citizenship to Rwandan refugees who did not want to return to their country and expected that most of them would want to remain in Uganda.⁵⁶

Cohen proposed that the Rwandan and Ugandan governments negotiate a security pact that would “lock in” commitments of both sides to peace. The international community would guarantee such a “mutual security” agreement. Cohen found support for this notion within Ugandan leadership and from the foreign minister of Rwanda, but he met with initial resistance from President Habyarimana, who wanted to maintain the posture that Uganda was responsible for the RPF incursion. Cohen also suggested to his Rwandan hosts that the integration of armies and the demobilization of forces be linked and that the right of refugee return be included in an eventual peace agreement. He told the Rwandan government, as he had offered to the Patriotic Front, that the United States would be willing to participate as an observer in future negotiations and would provide US technical assistance in preparations for the talks, if all parties requested a US presence.⁵⁷

The Rwandans welcomed a possible US participation as observer at negotiations with the Front. Minister of Foreign Affairs Boniface Ngulinzira told Cohen that Rwanda proposed a two-pronged strategy for resolving the war: political dialogue with the Rwandan Patriotic Front and normalization of relations with Uganda. It was significant to the diplomatic structure of the talks that the Rwandan government would no longer demand a mediating message carrier between the two parties but would seek “facilitation” of direct, face-to-face negotiations.⁵⁸

As a follow-up to this approach, and after having checked with the French, Cohen had Ambassador Johnnie Carson in Uganda facilitate a face-to-face meeting between the Rwandan government and the RPF in Kampala. In late May, Foreign Minister Ngulinzira (accompanied by the interior minister and the minister for refugee affairs) traveled to Uganda to initiate talks with the RPF and with the Ugandan government. The talks, delayed a week by hesitations on both sides, were finally held on May 24.⁵⁹ Ngulinzira later asserted that Cohen’s role had been indispensable in arranging the projected meeting.⁶⁰

The French foreign ministry immediately followed up those talks with an invitation to the two parties to meet in Paris. The parties could set the agenda and determine the extent of French participation. The ministry also informed the parties that, in view of the recent visit made by Mr. Cohen in the region and the discussions he had there, France had invited the United States to be associated with the meeting.

To Arusha through Paris

As the Rwandan government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front prepared to meet each other again, this time in Paris, it was in the context of a dramatically changed peace process. For one, the conflict was lasting longer than either side had expected. The RPF had hoped for a quick victory and enthusiastic reception in 1990. Instead, it found a population that fled before it and a GOR military that eventually dealt it some losses. Initially, the Rwandan army thought they had won as the RPF forces withdrew to the mountains between Uganda and Rwanda. Yet a year and a half later, the sputtering confrontation of forces was taking on the characteristics of an intractable conflict.

Second, the internal situation within Rwanda had changed significantly as well. Since the incursion of October 1, 1990, the Habyarimana regime had released thousands imprisoned for suspected RPF sympathies, promulgated a new constitution allowing multiparty government, committed itself to the programmed return of refugees, offered amnesty to persons who had joined the RPF cause, and finally, after eight months of negotiations and an aborted first attempt, set up a multiparty coalition government to rule until the next elections. That government now included parties, such as the so-called Democratic Forces of Change, determined to replace the established regime through constitutional processes. The government’s position in any two-party talks was thus greatly complicated, and Habyarimana’s freedom of maneuver significantly limited.

For all of the changes on the political front, the war that impelled those changes had drawn to a stalemate. Despite a huge increase in recruitment and operational expense, the Rwandan government forces were not able to dislodge or push back RPF forces entrenched in the Virunga Mountains, or to protect front lines from lightning incursions. The RPF forces were not able, or not yet willing, to leave their mountain redoubts and advance southward.⁶¹ What united politicians of all stripes within Rwanda was a desire to end the war that had depopulated large parts of Rwanda’s fertile north, created over a million internally displaced persons, ruined the economy, and bankrupted the country.

Third, peacemaking had failed, whether under auspices of the Great Lakes Community and President Mobutu, the interventions of Tanzanian president Mwinyi, or the efforts of the Organization of African Unity. For all the presidential summitry, subregional and regional organizations had not been able to organize an international presence in Rwanda as a guarantor of the peace process. As Foreign Minister Ngulinzira was later to note, “Rwanda has had two unfortunate experiences with African observer forces, one ineffective, the other nonexistent.”⁶² The RPF and the government met and signed a ceasefire agreement at N’sele and amended it at Gbadolite, but these had not diminished hostile posturing or armed conflict along the border. By the admission of all sides, this “African” problem no longer admitted a purely “African” solution.

Finally, the position of donors had evolved. Belgium and France had both been active on the diplomatic front since October 1990, with France supporting Mobutu’s efforts and Belgium favoring OAU initiatives. Now, in the wake of the Bugesera massacres, Belgium had been particularly strenuous in its condemnation of the Habyarimana regime, while French patience with the Rwandan army’s performance was wearing thin. Both sought a more vigorous engagement as a way out of an apparent dead end.

The Rwandese Patriotic Front and the Rwandan government had entreated Assistant Secretary Cohen to lead a new mediation. The United States, with its usual proclivity for regional approaches in conflict resolution, first suggested the EC as an appropriate mediating institution.⁶³ The US government finally had agreed to provide some technical assistance to the peace process and to be linked formally to future talks as an “observer.” Thus, the parties were coming to Paris with the peace process now being managed by donor partners rather than by African states.

Two things remained constant in this protracted history of political change and military stalemate: the willingness of the Habyarimana regime to countenance or connive in ethnic violence at times of acute political tension, and the proclivity of the Patriotic Front to use military coercion to enhance its negotiating posture. A prime example of the former was the Bugesera massacres, perpetrated just as the Habyarimana regime was resisting pressure to form a coalition government. A good illustration of the latter came as the principals were on their way to Paris. On June 5, the day that peace talks were to begin, the RPF launched an attack in the center north at Byumba. France brought in an additional company of troops to protect its citizens in Kigali. It looked like the logic of war was again to win out over the logic of peace. Yet, though somewhat delayed, the Paris talks went forward on June 6. The US embassy in Paris concluded that “as far as we can ascertain neither the June 5 RPF attack in northern Rwanda nor the French deployment of an additional army company had any direct resonance in the talks.”⁶⁴

THE UNITED STATES JOINS THE DIALOGUE

The United States accepted the invitation of the French government and the parties to be “present” at the Paris talks, sending Jeffrey Davidow, the senior deputy assistant secretary for African affairs. Davidow engaged both sides on the substantive issues facing the talks: the when and how of a ceasefire, the agenda for political talks, the relation between the process of democratization within the country and the RPF demands for inclusion within the polity, and how to deal with repatriation of refugees into an already overpopulated country.⁶⁵

In the talks with Ambassador Davidow, the Rwandan government delegation reaffirmed its two-track approach, patching up relations with Uganda even as it initiated talks with the RPF. On the other side, RPF chief negotiator Pasteur Bizimungu held that “the transition government should be broad based and have the agreement of all parties, even those not included in it.” Regarding the talks, Davidow predicted that “successes, if there are any, will be minimal.”⁶⁶ That is why, in his meeting with French director for African affairs Dijoud, Davidow noted that the Rwandans could not solve their problem alone. He urged the French to consider a mediation role, perhaps in conjunction with the Tanzanians, who did not have the resources to go it alone. “It is more important that the mediator be powerful than that it be neutral,” Davidow insisted.⁶⁷ As for the United States, it was willing to be present in the process but would have difficulty contributing manpower or money other than some technical advice to the negotiators and assistance for refugees.

WHAT WAS CONCLUDED AND WHAT WAS NOT

The Paris talks finally began on June 6, 1992. Except for a French and US presence at the opening and closing sessions, the three-day talks were direct and closed-door. The closing communiqué reaffirmed the mediation of Mobutu while reserving the right to face-to-face “facilitated” talks. The parties asked neighboring countries as well as the OAU, France, Belgium, and the United Sates to be Observers to the negotiations. As regards the implementation of a ceasefire, the parties “affirmed their political will to put an end to the war,” reaffirmed the validity of the N’sele Accord of March 29, 1991, and asked the OAU secretary general to provide information on an OAU monitoring role. On a possible agenda for negotiations, the parties retained from the Rwandan government the question of national unity and the democratization process and from the Rwandan Patriotic Front the fusion of the two armies, a transitional government with an enlarged base, and political guarantees. The two parties agreed to meet again July 10–12 in Africa (either in Zaire or Tanzania) for substantive discussion on a ceasefire.⁶⁸ Less than a month later, direct talks between Foreign Minister Ngulinzira and RPF chairman Kanyarengwe at the OAU ministerial in the presence of the Senegalese foreign minister (Senegal had just taken over as chair of the OAU) firmed up these understandings.

What was not in the communiqué was the very large arena still contested by the two sides. There was no agreement on how refugees should be repatriated. The coalition government wanted to preserve the institutions that the 1991 constitution put in place and expand them to include RPF participation; the RPF wanted to dismantle the current government and rewrite the constitution. The government wanted to move forward to new elections that would provide the basis for multiparty participation in government; the RPF wanted to hold national elections at the end of the interim period but insisted on immediate local elections to replace officials named by the current regime. The government would accept token integration of RPA officers into the Rwandan army; the RPF wanted to demobilize the government army and integrate RPF troops into a new force at a 50:50 ratio. As for the critical issue of moving forward on a sustainable ceasefire, the Rwandan government wanted an interposition force, whereas the Patriotic Front wanted a truce line monitored by a small observer force.

The Paris talks reflected, as well, positions of the international actors in this crisis. France’s role, solicited by the government and questioned by the RPF, was confirmed by the success, however limited, of the Paris talks. The United States, which had early staked out a middle ground on the crisis, was now being solicited by both sides as an honest broker. However, Ambassador Davidow had carefully delimited the modest role that the United States envisioned.⁶⁹ His argument against an expensive interposition force, his urging of progress in democratization as the path to peace, and his enthusiasm for parallel interim institutions like a political military committee were positions to which the United States would continually return. Operationally, keeping the French forward in the peace process and keeping costs low became central planks in the US platform.

Senegal, by virtue of its presidency of the OAU, was assured of a voice at the table. Both France and Rwanda seemed to see Uganda as an essential part of the peace process, as witnessed by the border-assessment mission France had already deployed and the upcoming visit of Ugandan foreign minister Ssemogerere to Paris. The parties were ambiguous about potential African mediators. Neither side was particularly friendly with the Tanzanians. Both the internal opposition and RPF mistrusted Zaire. But both were determined that the ceasefire negotiations should move back to an African locale. Eventually, Arusha won out over Kinshasa, although the parties insisted on keeping Mobutu as mediator and the N’sele Accord as the founding document for the revived negotiation process.⁷⁰

AN AMERICAN GAMBIT

Since the US policy review in March, the United States had been visibly active in the Central African region. An internal summation of the US position concluded that “with Hank Cohen’s high visibility as the promoter of dialogue and without a vested interest in the area, the USG is seen as the most objective party.”⁷¹ Cohen’s personal diplomacy had brought together the Rwandan government and the Front in Kampala. He had encouraged Museveni’s positive participation in the peace process and had secured an invitation to the United States to be present at the Paris talks in May. Now the French had invited the assistant secretary to be in Paris during the visit of Ugandan foreign minister Ssemogerere on June 20. The ostensible purpose of the foreign minister’s meeting was to be briefed on the French border survey. But Paris wanted Cohen’s help in pressuring the Ugandans to stop assistance to the Rwandese Patriotic Front.

At the meeting, the assistant secretary found the foreign minister surrounded by Ugandan security officers and plaintively denying Ugandan engagement with the RPF. Cohen finally got Ssemogerere to the side and told him that the United States knew that Uganda was supplying the RPF. This war was destabilizing the region and costing the international community large outlays for humanitarian relief. The war must stop. If a ceasefire was not in place by October 1, Cohen warned, the United States would deduct from its aid to Uganda the amount of its costs for relief for displaced persons within Rwanda.⁷² The foreign minister said that he personally welcomed this demarche and wished that President Museveni would have a chance to hear it directly.

Consequently, Cohen had Ambassador Carson deliver to President Museveni a letter in which Cohen noted that the fighting in the Rwandan conflict had intensified despite Museveni’s commitment to help end the conflict, that the fighting was not necessary since the democratization process in Rwanda allowed the RPF the best chance to gain satisfaction of its legitimate grievances, that the fighting was draining international relief coffers, and that Museveni’s government “bears a direct responsibility in the continuation of the fighting.” The letter then reiterated the US position that if a peaceful settlement or firm ceasefire “is not in place by October 1, 1992, we will have no choice, given the burden the conflict places on U.S. resources, but to deduct what is needed for relief for Rwanda’s displaced from the economic assistance we provide to Uganda.”⁷³

On Assistant Secretary Cohen’s return to Washington, the staff sent up a decision memorandum proposing technical assistance to the ceasefire negotiations. The memorandum was based on the belief that the Rwandan conflict had reached a critical turning point where “the situation may deteriorate due to inertia and inexperience on the part of the GOR and the RPF,” if the United States did not exert pressure to influence the outcome of ceasefire negotiations. The proposal would have legal expert John Byerly and military specialist Lt. Col. Charles Snyder meet with the government of Rwanda and the Patriotic Front, respectively, to discuss preliminary ceasefire proposals and conflict resolution techniques.⁷⁴

If those talks were constructive, the experts would proceed to the negotiations as backup technical support to the US ambassador to Tanzania, Edmund DeJarnette, the official US Observer for the ceasefire talks. The memorandum also recommended that “we brief the French and the Belgians on what we propose to do” and that the United States raise the level of regular contact with the Patriotic Front to the ambassadorial level in Kampala, thus “increasing symmetry in our relations with the GOR and the RPF.” Cohen agreed to the proposals under specific condition that the French and the Belgians not object to this modest US initiative. The French and Belgian embassies in Washington were called in for a briefing, and demarches were made in each capital.⁷⁵

Snyder and Byerly had helped construct the Namibian peace agreement and brokered a truce in the Angolan civil war, and they were at that time deeply involved in peace negotiations in Mozambique. With Byerly’s knowledge of texts and approaches and Snyder’s understanding of military requirements, they constituted a formidable reservoir of information on strategies for conflict resolution. Snyder spent long hours with RPA leader Kagame and his cohort when they visited Washington, and Byerly went to Kigali to huddle with the Rwandan government negotiators. The Byerly-Snyder team forwarded texts from ceasefire agreements in Zimbabwe, Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to both parties.⁷⁶

The experts found two very different planning environments. Colonel Snyder met with Paul Kagame, a military leader who had demonstrated military prowess in the field but had yet to raise significant political support within Rwanda. Convincing Kagame and the RPF that they could attain their minimum goals through compromise within a political process was Snyder’s goal. He found the RPF to be quick learners who assessed negotiating scenarios and expanded their options and analyses in preparation for the July 10 encounter. On the other hand, Byerly met with a Rwandan government discouraged about the war, divided on core principles, and competing with the president for power. Byerly had to rally the divided and dispirited members of the Rwandan government, convincing them to develop a common position and confidently to engage the RPF in negotiations.⁷⁷

Finally, a Ceasefire

Despite the apparent success of the Paris talks, the success of the July ceasefire negotiations was by no means assured. Until late June, it was not known where the talks would take place, other than that they would be held in Africa, in keeping with OAU principles. Though the parties were loyal to Mobutu as mediator and to the N’sele and Gbadolite Accords as the foundation for future discussions, Zaire, preoccupied with its own internal problems, was not in a position to host the negotiation.

With customary caution, the Tanzanian government indicated its willingness to take on such a role, should both parties request it officially.⁷⁸ On June 26, Rwandan minister of interior Munyazesa asked the government of Tanzania to “arrange for direct GOR-RPF talks to take place in Arusha, July 10–12.” But it was not yet confirmed what the Tanzanian role would be in those talks.⁷⁹

As the ceasefire talks opened in Arusha, July 10, Ambassador DeJarnette noted the style of Foreign Minister Ngulinzira as conciliatory and flexible but that of RPF commissioner Bizimungu as rhetorical and demanding. Ngulinzira presided over a large delegation representing contentious political parties, the foreign ministry, and the defense ministry. Bizimungu spoke for a small team of experienced negotiators and one field commander.⁸⁰

The sessions were beset by “confusion over tabled texts, a tendency by both delegations to score negotiating points rather than focus on substance.” According to DeJarnette, “mutual suspicion and a tendency to lose sight of final objectives” characterized the Rwandan delegations. Long-winded interventions by Foreign Minister Diria and other African Observers “missed the mark more often than they hit it.” The US delegation concluded that “it is at best an even proposition that they will succeed in reaching any agreement in Arusha and even less that the agreement will be workable.” Although the United States had been engaged in the negotiating process with technical advice from the Byerly-Snyder team and networking by Ambassador DeJarnette, the delegation felt that the United States should not associate itself with an agreement that could not be expected to succeed.⁸¹

Yet, despite maladroit handling of issues, including dismissal of a hard-won agreement on a buffer zone, Minister Diria persisted. On the night of July 11, he kept delegations locked in discussions until fundamental agreement had finally been hammered out in the early morning hours. Technical framing from the Observer group, including the proposal of a “mixed commission” to oversee the peace process, contributed significantly to an early morning consensus. An agreement was in hand by July 12 and finally signed on July 13. Under its terms, a truce would take effect on July 19 with the full ceasefire to go into force on July 31. Political negotiations were to begin on August 10 and conclude no later than October 10 with the signing of a permanent peace treaty. Measures in the peace agreement were to be implemented by January 19, 1993.

The ceasefire agreement reestablished the Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG) made up of contingents from West and Southern Africa and officers from the contending parties. The group would verify and control the ceasefire and report violations to the OAU secretary general and a Joint Political Military Commission (JPMC). This mixed commission, which Observers had pressed on the negotiating parties, would be composed of five representatives each of the opposing parties, with the OAU, neighboring countries, Belgium, France, and the United States invited to participate as Observers. The JPMC would follow up implementation of the ceasefire and of the peace agreement, once it was signed. Its first session was held in Addis within a fortnight of the ceasefire agreement, another meeting convened in Addis on September 25–27, and two more met in Arusha on October 25–26 and December 22–23. In those early days, absent the expected deployment of the NMOG and given the tough jousting of political negotiations, the JPMC became guardian of the ceasefire and a channel of dialogue between parties.

Under Article V of the agreement, the signatories accepted political principles whose “modalities of implementation” were to be specified during subsequent negotiations:

• establishment of the rule of law on national unity, democracy, pluralism, and respect for human rights

• formation of a national army of government forces and those of the Rwandese Patriotic Front

• establishment of power sharing within a broad-based transitional government⁸²

The United States, which had wondered if there would be a ceasefire worth supporting, now wanted to buttress the first realistic ceasefire document in the war’s nearly two-year history. In an official statement, the Department of State said it was “greatly encouraged” by the signing of the ceasefire agreement and gave credit to both parties, as well as to the government of Tanzania which hosted the negotiations, to the Organization of African Unity which would supervise the military observer group and to the government of France for its lead role in organizing the negotiations.⁸³ The Department of State immediately dispatched letters of congratulations to President Habyarimana, RPF chairman Kanyarengwe, and the chief negotiators.⁸⁴

Residual Issues

CONCESSIONS AND COMPROMISES

A quick look at the simple language of this brief agreement shows how much is granted by both sides. At the Paris meeting, the RPF urged dissolution of the current regime and the constitution of a new order in which the RPF would be a major partner. The Rwandan government wanted to preserve the 1991 constitution and to insert the RPF as a political party within the emerging democratic process. The ceasefire called for an “enlarged, broad-based” interim government, suggesting deeper changes in established institutions than the government might have wanted. The RPF wanted the “dissolution of the Rwandan army and its reconstitution as a new entity with full integration of RPF soldiers.” The Rwandan government was willing to accept only integration of select RPF officers. That the ceasefire formula called for “formation of a national army consisting of Government forces and those of the Rwandese Patriotic Front” implies that the RPF won the day on the military side.⁸⁵

What is missing from the scope of the ceasefire principles is any mention of refugee return. After the June three-day, closed-door session in Paris, Foreign Minister Ngulinzira told Ambassador Davidow that there was still no real agreement on the refugee issue. The Rwandan government was prepared to permit the return of qualified professionals, but “a mass return of peasants without lengthy careful preparation would bring insurmountable problems.”⁸⁶ At his news conference at the conclusion of the Paris meeting, Ngulinzira reaffirmed the Rwandan government commitment to the February 1991 Dar es Salaam Declaration on refugees. The Patriotic Front, however, did not want Rwandans’ right of return contravened by any schema, whether Rwandan government or international. That is one of the reasons they launched the war.⁸⁷ Yet, the ceasefire agreement, other than mentioning the Dar es Salaam Declaration on refugees in its preamble, did not set forth the refugee issue as a matter of future negotiation.

PRESIDENTIAL HESITATION

There was as well a structural and political difference in this ceasefire negotiation. President Habyarimana or his cohorts had agreed to the two previous ceasefires. Despite the fact that one had been ineffective and the other nonexistent (to use the characterization of Foreign Minister Ngulinzira), the president had been engaged in the process. This time, the foreign minister, coming from an opposition party in the coalition government, negotiated the ceasefire. The agreed political agenda conceded ground that the Rwandan government had adamantly held on continuity of the government and on integration of forces. There was a question whether the president would accept the handiwork of the Rwandan government delegation.

Immediately following the ceasefire signing, President Habyarimana went off to Belgium. At his meeting with King Baudouin on July 20, Habyarimana seemed hesitant in his support for the ceasefire terms. But at his later meeting with Foreign Minister Claes, Habyarimana came out solidly in support of the ceasefire. What happened in between was that the US embassy tracked down the president in his hotel and delivered a letter from President Bush congratulating him on “his success in bringing Rwanda one step closer to peace.” Having read the letter, Habyarimana gave his “personal and unwavering commitment to continuing the peace process” and asked that that oral response be conveyed to the president.⁸⁸ The Belgians saw the quick and unambiguous support of the United States for the ceasefire as the element that tilted the Rwandan president, publicly at least, in its favor.⁸⁹ Whether the president would buy into subsequent negotiations carried out by the coalition government remained a problem to the very end.

MUSEVENI’S ROLE

Perhaps pivotal to the success of this ceasefire’s implementation was a new engagement by President Museveni. He had, heretofore, claimed innocence regarding the RPF incursion and had perfunctorily attended peacemaking summits. Now he called in the American chargé and told her that, although he “didn’t know what was happening in Rwanda” and in view of the fact that he was being held responsible, he had asked his people (the NRA) to find out who was responsible for the fighting in June. He also sent a message to the RPF informing them of his strong support for the ceasefire. The president took the occasion to complain that the French were arming the Rwandan army with a new long-range gun, which French instructors had fired at the RPF. Museveni’s positive support for the ceasefire, his apparent efforts to rein in the RPF, and his strong criticism of the French put the jinx on a joint French-US demarche to Museveni being proposed in the capitals. The chargé concluded, “This meeting would seem to make a joint French-U.S. demarche . . . superfluous.”⁹⁰

NMOG IV

The text, mainly at the insistence of US technical advisors, contained a provision for establishment of a “neutral corridor” separating the two respective forces so as to facilitate monitoring of the ceasefire by the Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG). This monitoring group was not a new idea; the Gbadolite Summit, the N’sele ceasefire agreement, and the 1991 OAU Summit outlined a monitoring group in different iterations.

At the Arusha discussion, the parties decided to reconstitute the fifty-officer Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG) under direct OAU authority, giving it responsibility for verification and control of the ceasefire. The group was to be deployed on July 31, but the international community was not prepared to fund deployment of the force. Equipping of the NMOG was still being discussed between donors and the OAU secretary general on August 10 at the opening of the political negotiations. Only on October 13 could OAU deputy secretary general Mapuranga report that the six NMOG contingents were at last in Kigali and would be deployed to the “neutral zone” by the weekend. By this time, the first two parts of the Arusha Protocols had been negotiated, without any intervening force on the ground.⁹¹

KIGALI’S REACTION

Back in Kigali, Rwandan political forces did not universally welcome the ceasefire. Some were suspicious of the sincerity of the RPF in entering into negotiations, believing that it might use negotiations as a blind to cover rearmament and an enhanced field position. Others wondered if Habyarimana’s trip to Europe was not a way of getting support for toning down provisions of the ceasefire. An insider from the Revolutionary National Movement for Development (MRND) said that many party stalwarts believed that the government had given away too much at the ceasefire talks. On his return from Europe, Habyarimana urged all Rwandans to support the agreement, and the president of the MRND accepted the principles of the agreement as long as they did not “call into question either the political system or the republican institutions already existing in the country.”

The nascent CDR, however, came out categorically against the ceasefire, denouncing the agreement point by point and claiming that all concessions had been on the Rwandan side, that Uganda should be party to the agreement (in line with the thesis that the RPF was a Ugandan front), that the RPF should not have parity with government either in negotiations or in the Joint Political Military Commission, and that the CDR should be accepted in the government and participate in the next negotiations. Its rhetoric heightened in subsequent weeks as CDR leaders called for the prime minister’s resignation and urged the creation of a new government that would protect Hutu interests.⁹²

As a result of changes in internal administration, strife erupted between youth wings of the major parties.⁹³ The MRND Interahamwe showed its strength and connections to the security apparatus as the youth corps barricaded traffic in and out of Kigali under the benign eye of the Kigali prefect, gendarmerie captain, and the prosecuting attorney. Although the purpose of the demonstration was to protest intimidation by other youth militia against MRND incumbents, the fact of interparty strife accentuated the divisions within Rwanda even as the government sought to organize a united front for political negotiations.⁹⁴

CHANGED PERSPECTIVES

The two days of disjointed but intense negotiations that constituted the Arusha ceasefire talks changed the dynamics of the peace process in two ways. First, there was enough in the details of the agreement to offer promise of implementation through the Joint Political Military Commission, the Neutral Military Observer Group, and the Organization of African Unity’s clear mandate for oversight. Second, whatever their ultimate goals regarding control in the country, the two Rwanda parties did commit to the logic of peace built around discussions on the rule of law, military integration, and power sharing, and to a warrant searching for common ground in subsequent talks.

Meanwhile, the context of international intervention had changed. Mobutu, the mediator, held on to his title but was too busy parrying with the Zairean National Conference by this time to give much thought to Rwandan negotiations. Instead, OAU secretary general Salim Ahmed Salim presided over the talks, while Tanzanian foreign minister Diria “facilitated” the negotiations with a certain heavy-handed determination that finally won concessions and agreement. Finally, under the able leadership of Senegal’s ambassador Louis Pape Fall, the Observers gained cohesion as a group.

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS

For all the changed dynamics of the peace process, many things remained the same. The distance between the two parties was palpable in the tensions of the negotiations and in the rhetorical attacks of formal presentations. Both parties anchored their strategies in positions that seemed irreconcilable: radical change of Rwandan governing institutions on the one hand, or continuity and defense of those same structures on the other.⁹⁵ The exiles carried in their conceptual baggage long years of participation in Museveni’s National Resistance Movement. The government brought thirty years of experience in governing or contesting for governance in Rwanda. The question was whether the parties—given their long, separate histories and contrary perspectives—would find common ground. The conflict that had settled into a stalemate now had a sustainable ceasefire, but was the crisis “ripe for resolution”?⁹⁶

Lessons We Learned

The search for a durable ceasefire in Rwanda took over twenty-one months and involved states and organizations of the subregion, major partners, and international organizations. Lessons learned in this multi-stakeholder pursuit of peace include the following:

• Outbreaks of international violence are seldom predictable. Both President Habyarimana and President Museveni were playing on the world stage in New York when the Rwandese Patriotic Front attacked across their mutual border into Rwanda.

• Conflicts between states and insurgencies usually need outside intervention to bring both parties to the negotiating table. In Rwanda’s case, it took a high-level intervention by France backed by the United States at a meeting in Paris to set up the eventual framework of the Arusha talks.

• A willingness to talk comes out of a mutually hurting stalemate. Parties will stop the fighting and pursue peace only when they see a greater longterm advantage in political dialogue than in continued armed conflict.

• Along the path to a cessation of hostilities, return to fighting can be expected. Contenders will use violence to demonstrate their capacity to harm before engaging seriously in negotiation. In Rwanda, the government abetted ethnic violence, whereas the RPF used unexpected strikes against strategic targets.

• Failed attempts at a durable ceasefire have a certain utility. In Rwanda, identifying the parties, drawing out their commitment to negotiations and to peace, mobilizing international concern, and outlining the elements of a peace process all came out of aborted ceasefire negotiations.

• A carefully tailored agreement might not last if power holders are uncertain that the negotiation satisfies their interests. In the case of Rwanda, Habyarimana almost backed out of the ceasefire agreement until reassured by a presidential letter from the United States.