Rwanda: International Specialist

 
These notes come from a May 1994 meeting of the UN Security Council. During the meeting, Rwandan Foreign Minister Jerome Bicamumpaka addresses the Council, denying that perpetrators in Rwanda are acting with genocidal intent. His comments are intentionally misleading and false. During the genocide, Hutu militants killed Tutsis. Bicamumpaka twists the facts and speaks of the Tutsis as though they are the perpetrators of the violence in Rwanda. Afterwards, members of the Security Council make statements in response to Bicamumpaka’s address and the Secretary-General’s suggestion that more troops are brought in to support UNAMIR.

Guiding Questions:
  • How did members of the UN Security Council respond to Bicamumpaka’s speech?
  • Three days before this meeting, the Secretary-General suggested increasing the number of peacekeepers in Rwanda. What did the members of the Security Council say about this?

The President: The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on the agenda. [...] 

Mr. Bicamumpaka [VEE-cha-moo-MAW-kuh] (Rwanda): [...] I speak to you in order to invite you to look more deeply into the tragic events that are currently besetting my country, Rwanda. Many people learned of these events as they happened, unaware of their historical background and origin, or of the motives behind them. However, many have asked why there was so much hatred and cruelty. Some would answer naively that it was the fault of the Rwandese army or of the Rwandese Government. Yet the actual reality is different, more complex, less easy to grasp from the outside. It is deeply rooted in the subconscious of every Rwandese and in the collective memory of an entire people. 

The Rwandese tragedy derives from the age-old history of the nation of Rwanda. The hatred that is erupting now was forged over four centuries of cruel and ruthless domination of the Hutu majority by the haughty and domineering Tutsi minority. [...] But too much hatred and too much contempt, too much enslavement, inevitably bring rebellion. [...]

Several years of tranquility passed. Some said that ethnic hatred had died down, that national reconciliation had been achieved. Deep friendships developed between the Hutu and Tutsi peasants and among the elites on both sides, and mixed marriages were celebrated, many modest but some with great ceremony. 

The illusion was perfect, but it was still only an illusion, for then came the invasion of 1 October 1990, [...] The wound that we thought had healed was reopened. 

Many lost their lives simply because they were Hutu. The invaders, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), had [...] destroyed everything that could symbolize republican power - roads, bridges, clinics, hospitals, schools and so on. 

And yet, they claim to have taken up arms in order to restore democracy and the prosperity of Rwanda. What kind of democracy accepts the systematic killing of its people? What democracy can tolerate the forced displacement of more than a million people? 

Fortunately, the army and the Rwandese people together were able to stop the revenge-seeking invaders, [...] 

I should like to thank all the observers at the negotiations, who spared no effort to get the two parties to sign the Arusha Peace Accords. The people of Rwanda, and particularly those displaced in the fighting, had legitimate hopes for those agreements. Everybody came together in saying: long live peace in Rwanda. 

But alas, how disappointed we were when the moment came to implement the Accords, which had been negotiated with such difficulty. The Rwandese Patriotic Front, the political organ of the invaders, showed its true colours. It wanted power during the transitional period, and at any price. [...]

The assassination of the Head of State of Rwanda on 6 April 1994 and the simultaneous resumption of war were not mere coincidence. These events were part of a carefully prepared plan to seize power in Kigali. [...] The resumption of hostilities by the RPF, along with large-scale massacres of Hutu civilians, was the straw that broke the camel’s back, unleashing repressed hatreds and a festering desire for revenge. 

The apocalypse came in the form of an inter-ethnic war of unbelievable cruelty. Long-repressed hatred and bottled-up feelings resulting from constant provocation erupted. [...] 

The Government of Rwanda has condemned every massacre, no matter who the perpetrators were. Those perpetrators must be identified and punished. But this applies to the entire duration of the war, that is, since 1 October 1990. 

The RPF, strongly supported by Uganda, has taken responsibility for killing the Head of State of Rwanda - high treason in any civilized country - and has resumed the war, a war more savage than the one that began on 1 October 1990. It has carried out systematic, selective massacres of civilians. The RPF shamelessly accepted responsibility for its heinous crimes because it was certain that it could continue to mislead the world and convince the world it was innocent. But can we believe in its innocence? Can we agree that all of these crimes should simply be disregarded because of an unprecedented media campaign to absolve the assassins and assign them the hero’s role? [...]

The solution is not to let the Tutsi minority - 10 per cent of the population - seize power. The problem of Rwanda has to be understood so that it can be destroyed at its roots. The people of Rwanda carried out a social revolution in 1959 against the autocratic power of the Tutsi minority and the stifling feudal yoke. No people, however docile, can agree to be slaves once again. [...]

The Rwandese Government is convinced that the cease-fire will not be respected nor the Rwandese conflict resolved until Uganda ends its aggression against Rwanda and stops supplying war matériel and troops to the RPF. The Security Council should ensure that this occurs. [...] 

Mr. Olhaye (Djibouti): If there is a positive development in the relentless Rwandan tragedy, it is the apparently universal recognition that in some significant way the international community must now become directly involved. [...]

Although, as is clear, my delegation would like to see a stronger mandate for UNAMIR, time is crucial at the moment. It is critical that we take immediate steps to halt the progression of fighting, aid those innocent civilians displaced by the war and control vital geographic assets in Rwanda [...]

Mr. Vorontsov (Russian Federation): [...] Russia strongly condemns efforts to resolve the conflict in Rwanda by force, and advocates an immediate end to the violence and the fighting in that country. We are willing closely to coordinate our activities in the Security Council and our bilateral activities with the efforts of all members of the world community, the Organization of African Unity and African States, with a view to dealing with this grave crisis in Rwanda. We intend to do everything possible to ensure that peace and concord will reign there once more.

Mr. Keating (New Zealand): I need to begin, I regret, by saying that in the view of my delegation the first speaker in our debate should not have spoken. I say this for two reasons. First, in the view of my delegation he does not represent a State. He has no legitimacy and is merely the mouthpiece of a faction. He should not have been seated in a privileged position at this table. Secondly, he has, in the view of my delegation, given us a shameful distortion of the truth. 

My delegation voted in favour of resolution 918 (1994), but I cannot conceal its disappointment that the resolution only approves a very modest first phase of the expanded United Nations presence which we believe is essential in Rwanda. [...]

Sir David Hannay (United Kingdom): I would like to say that my delegation, too, regrets the tone and the content of the first statement that was made to the Council this evening in the name of the Government of Rwanda. We would have wished to see a condemnation of the atrocities that have taken place, [...]

Mr. Yañez Barnuevo (Spain): Like other members of the Council, we also regret that we have had to hear today, in the Council, reasoning which comes too close to an attempt to justify acts that we consider to be altogether unjustifiable. [...]

It is our hope that the Rwandese parties, heeding the appeals of the international community, will cooperate in good faith with those efforts by concluding a cease-fire and resuming the Arusha peace process. If they do not do so, they will be assuming enormous responsibility vis-à-vis their people and the entire international community.

Mr. Kovanda (Czech Republic): Now, as is well known, a civil war has been raging in Rwanda as well since 1990. But even a civil war, however awful by itself, is no excuse - never mind justification - for genocide. And, civil war or not, the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have fallen victim to the butchers were not at the front lines but far in the hinterland, with no visible connection to the RPF except for their ethnic background. Hence the real innocence of those whom we all too automatically describe as "innocent civilians".

The President: I shall now make a statement in my capacity as representative of Nigeria. [...]

We urge Member States to respond promptly to the Secretary-General’s request for logistical support capability for the rapid deployment of UNAMIR’s expanded force level and its support in the field. 

One final word: although Nigeria voted in favour of this resolution, we have reservations on two aspects. First, we are not entirely satisfied with the manner in which African issues that come before the Council tend generally to be treated. [...] Our own expectation is that the second phase of UNAMIR’s deployment will achieve the force level of 5,500 troops, or as close to that as possible and necessary, as called for by the Secretary-General in his report. In this regard, Nigeria has already indicated its intention to contribute troops to an expanded UNAMIR. We therefore call on Member States to respond urgently and favourably to the Secretary-General’s request. 

We call on the international community not to abandon the innocent civilians in Rwanda, because to let them down would be to let ourselves down. After all, we are part of the same common humanity. [...]

Source:

UN Security Council. The situation concerning Rwanda: Report of the Secretary-General (S/1994/565). S/PV.3377. 16 May 1994. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/188689?ln=en.