The role of France and the United States in the Rwandan Genocide - Term Paper Example

The Rwandan Genocide The Rwanda Genocide: Background: Rwanda comprises two major ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi – the Hutu made up 84% of thepopulation and comprise the peasant class while the Tutsi made up 15% and dominated in the political and economic arenas.(Gourevitch, 1999). This situation was reversed in 1959 after a revolution, which brought the majority Hutus into power and unleashed ethnic violence. According to Gourevitch(1999), the roots of the idea of race science originated with European colonization of Rwanda by the Belgians, and resulted in a widespread policy of repression towards the Tutsi minority, which caused them to seek refuge in neighboring states. In the year 1990, the Tutsi decided to strike back and the Rwandese Patriotic Front was formed, comprised of Tutsi refugees who launched attacks from Uganda. A cease fire was arranged through the intervention of the United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda, and the terms agreed to were intended to improve ethnic participation and power sharing, allow refugees to return to their homes and create a multi party state (Gourevitch, 1999). However, the Hutus did not want to share power and commenced a media campaign via the radio station RTML, to mobilize ordinary Hutus against Tutsis, resulting in the eruption of genocidal activity. The Presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi were killed on April 6, 1994, and that night a series of mass murders resulted, with the Belgian peacekeeping forces helpless to intervene in the crisis due to their role as peace keepers.(Gourevitch, 1999). Ten Belgian soldiers who were assigned to protect the Hutu Prime Minister were murdered, and one week after the conflict erupted, Belgium withdrew all its troops. On 6th April, the large scale killing of Tutsis commenced and resulted in almost 800,000 people being killed over the short span of a few days, while the world looked on and did nothing. In summing up the reasons for the Rwandan genocide, Eltringham states that some view it as the result of “ethnic hatred”, others as a result of “bad politics and power struggle”, while yet others view it as the “direct outcome of colonial and neo imperialist manipulations”, and “economic frustrations”, but the truth may be that all these elements combined to play a role in the crisis. (Eltringham, 2004:xv). The occurrence of the genocide is a horrific event in recent human history, where thousands of innocent people died while the world stood by and did nothing. The United States is implicated for its role in the Rwanda genocide mostly through its failure to act quickly enough, and in its urging of the UN peace keeping troops to leave Rwanda at a time when humanitarian aid and intervention were desperately required. But France’s role in the Rwandan genocide was not a failure to act; rather it was an active participation and aiding by French troops of the Hutu militia in its mission to kill Tutsis. The role of the United States: The indirect role played by the United States in the western apathy to the situation in Rwanda was largely through its influence upon world bodies such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. The situation in Rwanda was already fragile with ethnic tensions raging, especially since the then Hutu Resident Habyarimana’s regime had made it clear that the Tutsi dreams to returning to Rwanda would not materialize because they were not welcome in Rwanda. At the same time, the international donor community, functioning through the IMF/World Bank imposed restrictions on the Rwandan Government and forced them to introduce structural adjustment programmes which caused further hardships to the people at a time when more economic help was required to bring peace and stability to the country. As a result, the Habyarimana regime, shifted the blame for these hardships to the enemies of the Hutus- the Tutsis, which also helped to fuel the sentiments of the Hutus against the Tutsis and ultimately resulted in the genocide (Pottier, 2002:22, 33-34) The United States has been held responsible to a great extent for the Western apathy that was displayed towards the situation in Rwanda. Des Forges and Kuperman (2000) point out that the United States was aware that Rwandan authorities had been eliminated and extremist elements were taking control of the government, using the radio to spread racist propaganda and bring about large scale genocide of the minority Tutsis. During the time that these events unfolded, there were 2000 UN peacekeepers in Rwanda, yet, the United nations “at the behest of the United States” ordered them to do nothing and then withdrew, leaving a bare minimum of 400 soldiers (Des Forges and Kuperman, 2000). Foreign nationals in Rwanda who were not at risk at all were rescued but no action was taken to stop the massacre of the Rwandan civilians. The international community, especially President Clinton said nothing of significance to indicate that action would be taken against the perpetrators of violence, as a result the apparent lack of international censure only served to fuel the violence further. The argument that was advanced in support of Clinton’s lack of action was that he was unaware of the Tutsi genocide until April 20, 1994, which is contested by Desforges and Kuperman (2000), who assert that the United Nations could have stopped the genocide, but was impelled in its withdrawal policy by the United States. Gourevitch (2000) points out that the Genocide Convention Mandate include an agreement by the signatories that they would stop genocide when it was happening; however the Clinton administration decided that the contents did not suggest mandating but rather permitting the United Nations to intervene in a genocidal situation. Gourevitch (1999) also points out that at the end of the killing campaign, when there was no international assistance forthcoming for the Tutsis, the RPF took control of Kigali and set up a new Government, which send thousands of Hutus fleeing into exile across the Rwandan border. It was only with this mass exodus of refugees that the United Nations finally took action to recognize the situation as genocide, with humanitarian aid being sent out to the refugee camps. Hence, the United States, through its influence on the United Nations, in failing to act at the right time, may have in fact, exacerbated the situation. The role of France: While the role of the United States in promoting the genocide was largely due to its inaction in mustering up action by world bodies such as the United nations, the French actively supported the Hutu regime. French soldiers were sent into Rwanda under a Un mandate to maintain a humanitarian buffer zone. But it has been alleged that these soldiers actually took part in the genocide of Tutsis and a military tribunal headed by the former Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mayo will investigate these allegations. (Spiegel Online, 2006). As Pottier points out, the Hutus under the Habyarimana regime wanted to wipe out the Tutsis who did not belong in Rwanda, they belonged in Ethiopia and would be sent back, with the Hutus “getting organized to begin this work” (Pottier, 2002:22). The French played an active role in helping the Hutu to begin this work through the military training they provided to the interahamwe – the Hutu militia, which even exported Rwandan problems into neighboring Zaire (Pottier, 2002:29). Rwanda was originally a French colony, and the French supported the Hutus in their killing schemes despite the mass genocide of thousands of innocent victims, on the grounds that the Tutsi opponents did not speak French and had grown up learning English in neighboring Uganda. According to Gerard Prunier, a French historian, French Governments viewed the conflict between the Hutus and Tutsis as one between France and the Anglo-Saxons, and this is the main reason “why Paris intervened so quickly and so deeply in the growing Rwandan crisis.”(McGreal, 2007) A commission recently set up by the Rwandan Government headed by Tutsi Paul Kagame, has also been looking into the official papers left behind by the Hutu regime when it was defeated by the RPF (McGreal, 2007). The French provide support in the form of military training of the genocidiaries, weapons shipments sent to the Hutu army in such abundant quantities that hand grenades were selling at a low price of a pound each. In addition, French soldiers themselves supervised the combat between the Hutu army and RPF forces, overseeing artillery firing and flying helicopter gunships (McGreal, 2007). They also initiated identify controls by introducing the ethnic identify card of the Rwandan republic, which helped to identify when the carrier was non Hutu, and also assisted in interrogations of Tutsis in prisons. France also played a role in providing aid to the Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM), which was the Rwandan radio station that broadcast its hate propaganda during the 1993-94 period. The inflammatory rhetoric and extremist views propagated on RTLM played a significant role in fuelling hatred in ordinary people. A Belgian journalist named Georges Ruggiu pleaded guilty to inciting killings and other Rwandan journalists also faced genocide charges at the International Criminal Tribunal. (Carver, 2000:188-197). The role of the RTLM in propagating the genocide and its indisputable control by the army is corroborated by Ruggiu who was witness for the prosecution as well as Valerie Bemeriki, a journalist and witness for the defence. (Thompson, 2007:355). Further confirmation about the involvement of the army’s involvement is provided by Dallaire, who confirms that when he wanted to do something about the RTLM broadcasts, the person he had to contact was General Augustin Bizimungu, the chief of Army Staff.(Dallaire, 2004:442). With the active support to the Hutu led army that was being provided by French soldiers, the French role in the genocide cannot be ignored. Conclusions: Hatzfield (2005) interviewed fourteen Tutsi survivors who were witness to the slaughter of other members of their community with machetes, highlighting the enormity of the slaughter of such a large number of people while the world merely stood by and did nothing. Hatzfeld(2005) interviews a group of Hutu killers to examine their motivation and justification for the crimes and whether they had any regrets. He found that any remorse experienced by the killers was centered on the consequences of the actions rather than the actions themselves. Their motivation for the crimes appeared to be mostly to just follow orders and a need to belong. They were provided one rule – they had to kill the cockroaches, as the Tutsis were called and there was no other rule to fall back upon. The causes of the Rwandan genocide could have been a combination of racial hatred, political, and socio economic causes (Eltringham, 2004). The actual scale of the genocide and the lack of remorse among the killers only demonstrate the impact of the training these killers received to effect a strong belief in them that the Tutsis were the enemy and had to be killed. But genocide on such a large scale could never have occurred without the role played by the United States and France. The failure of the United States to intervene early enough and the active support military support and training provided to the Hutu militia by the French worked to double the negative impact. On the one hand, France actively aided and promoted the killing activity through training and weapons supply, while on the other hand, the world community did not come forward to intervene in time, so that for the space of a few days, the Hutu militia literally had carte blanche to go on a killing spree, which produced such a mass scale genocide. The roots of the Rwandan conflict were in effect, an age old conflict between French and Anglo-Saxon ideologies. France played a much more active role than the United States in the conflict, not only by providing weapons and training, but by providing the basic motivation to carry on the conflict, i.e, by propagating the perception that the Tutsis were the enemies because of their propensity to speak English. The United States on the other hand, was not so deeply involved in the intricacies and reasons for the conflict. Rwanda was a French colony, not a colony of the United States. The United States demonstrated a measure of indifference in the reasons for the conflict as well as its outcome, which was reflected in the indifference of the world community. Its role in the conflict was not as intimately involved with the Rwandans as France’s was. It did not instigate or otherwise participate in the conflict in any way, whereas French soldiers were active participants in the genocide. In this way, the United States played a different kind of role in the Rwandan conflict – an inactive role as compared to the active role played by Rwanda. However, as detailed above, both French activism as well as the indifference of the United States, contributed to the genocide which occurred. References: * Carver, Richard. “Broadcasting and Political Transition: Rwanda and beyond”, IN Fardon, Richard and Furniss, Graham (edn) “African Broadcast Cultures: Radio in transition”, Oxford, 2000. * Des Forges, Alison L and Kuperman, Alan J, 2000. “Shame: Rationalizing Western apathy on Rwanda”, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2000. Available on URL: ; April 15, 2008. Eltringham, E. “Accounting for Horror: Post-Genocide Debates in Rwand”, London: Pluto. 2004. * Gourevitch, P. “We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families”, London: Picador. 1999. * Hatzfeld, J. “A Time for Machetes - The Rwandan Genocide: The Killers Speak”, London: Serpent’s Tail. 2005. * Hatzfeld, J.” Into the Quick of Life – The Rwandan Genocide: The Survivors Speak”, London: Serpent’s Tail. 2005. * McGreal, Chris, 2007. “France’s Shame?” The Guardian, January 11, 2007. Available online on URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jan/11/rwanda.insideafrica; April 16, 2008 * Pottier, J. “Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century”, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002. * Spiegel Online Report. “French role in slaughter under investigation”, Spiegel Online International, October 24, 2006. Available online on URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,444361,00.html: April 16, 2008 * Thompson, Allen. “The Media and the Rwanda Genocide”, London: Pluto Press, 2007. Read More