International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills

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СКАЧАТЬ where Hutu were being threatened by advancing RPF soldiers. While Prunier argues that perhaps 13,000–14,000 people were saved by Opération Turquoise,⁷¹ the action had little to do with stopping people from being killed in a genocide. Rather, it was about supporting a long-time ally. By protecting Hutu areas, the French troops protected the génocidaires and allowed them to escape to neighboring countries.⁷²

      The RPF took Kigali on 4 July and declared a unilateral cease-fire on 20 July. The genocide was over. The international community had done nothing to stop it. This fact, and the manner in which it was ended, ultimately resulted in an even larger human conflagration in Rwanda’s next-door neighbor, Zaire.

       Could the Genocide Have Been Stopped?

      There is a debate about what the UN and states could have actually done to prevent or stop the genocide. A report to the Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Deadly Conflict argued that 5,000 troops “could have made a significant difference in Rwanda.” The most pessimistic analysis, by Kuperman, argues that because of limitations in airlift capability, the international community could only have reacted fast enough to save at most 125,000 lives—calculated as 25 percent of an estimated 500,000 people killed.⁷³ There were plenty of warning signs that the situation was unstable and significant violence was possible. When UNAMIR was first created, the UN Security Council could have authorized a larger force with a more robust mandate. This would have required the agreement of Rwanda. A reflection of the “Somalia Syndrome” and a more cautious approach to peacekeeping and associated activities was to be found in Presidential Decision Directive 25⁷⁴ signed by President Clinton just weeks after the genocide began. The United States wanted to reduce the percentage of UN peacekeeping expenses it paid, indicating a financial imperative in limiting the extent of UN peacekeeping—and also more restrictive criteria for when the U.S. would support—and participate in—Chapter VI and Chapter VII operations.⁷⁵ Support by the U.S. and other countries for a large operation was not forthcoming. Michael Barnett argues that there were three other moments when the international community failed to act when it could have to prevent the massive loss of life: (1) when UN headquarters declined to allow UNAMIR to take more robust action against those suspected of planning a genocide; (2) failure of the Secretariat to provide significant information in its possession and argue for an early intervention based on that information; (3) Security Council refusal to authorize action in the weeks in April immediately after the genocide started.⁷⁶

      Once UNAMIR began to be deployed, other warning signs became apparent. The 11 January “genocide cable” was only one of many points where relevant information was made available to the UN and other actors. This cable was shared with the ambassadors from the United States, France, and Belgium. Dallaire provided other information to UN headquarters. He was finally given the go-ahead to search for weapons, but given the restrictive terms of UNAMIR’s mandate, including that any such operations be done in cooperation with the police, few weapons were found. Again, the UN could have acted more forcefully on early warning information to prevent the genocide, but it did not. There was not sufficient interest on the part of key players.

      Once the killing started, it was not possible to ignore the killing itself, but there were strenuous efforts to avoid recognizing the import of the killings. Portraying the killings as part of a civil war or age-old tribal hatreds seemed to make it “normal,” just one of those things that happens in Africa periodically. Beefing up UNAMIR would entail crossing the Mogadishu Line. Yet we also perhaps see the first glimmers of the working of the “never again” norm. This norm identifies genocide as the most egregious of all international crimes and creates pressure to act. The verbal contortions used to avoid using the term genocide represent simultaneously the moral pressure to intervene and the unwillingness on the part of most of the global power elite to actually do so. It was only once the term genocide started to be uttered from the mouths of those representing the major powers that there was discussion and action toward putting a beefed-up force into place, although the West was able to avoid any meaningful action since UNAMIR II was not deployed until August, and without proper support. The French Opération Turquoise, rather than reflecting the “never again” norm, was a reflection of pure national interest. The intervention came too late and was focused on protecting French allies. The French use of “never again” rhetoric illustrates the power of the norm—not to force timely action to stop genocide, but rather to enable non-normatively based action—that is, to serve as a cover for other action. It is only in the aftermath of the genocide that international norms began to peer above the parapet—if only briefly.

       From Genocide to Humanitarian Crisis

      By the time the genocide ended, the focus had moved from the genocide itself to the humanitarian aftermath. If the international community did not seem interested in stopping 800,000 people from being killed, it was much more worried about the large numbers of refugees generated by the conflict. The humanitarian crisis illustrated the dilemmas and dangers of responding to large-scale humanitarian situations.

      The first mass exodus of refugees occurred in late April when 170,000 people fled to Ngara in western Tanzania in twenty-four hours. They kept fleeing, with an additional 500,000–800,000 fleeing to North Kivu in eastern Zaire on 14–17 July, after the RPF had taken control of most of the country.⁷⁷ These refugees were not Tutsi fleeing the Hutu génocidaires, however. Rather, they were Hutu fleeing the oncoming RPF fighters. In the end, more than two million Hutu refugees fled Rwanda to escape the RPF. About half of these fled to eastern Zaire, with the rest spread among neighboring countries—in particular Tanzania and Burundi.

      These Hutus included génocidaires—those who had participated in the mass slaughter—and many ordinary Rwandans who played no role in the genocide. The reason why the former group fled is obvious—they feared what would happen to them if the Tutsi RPF caught up with them. The second group had more, and more complex, reasons for leaving. First, some, like refugees around the world, simply fled the brutal fighting. Second, they were afraid the RPF would indiscriminately go after any and all Hutu. This fear was exacerbated by propaganda put out by the génocidaires. Third, many Hutu were forced into refugeehood by their fellow Hutu, to serve as shields for the leaders who planned and executed the genocide. They were intimidated by the génocidaires. Further, the refugees stayed as a result of a defining feature of Rwandan society—pervasive top-down control and decision-making. The individuals were not used to making decisions on an individual basis; rather, decisions were made for them, as part of a group.⁷⁸ This combination of factors led to one of the central dilemmas of the crisis. How should humanitarians deal with humanitarian action that could possibly prolong or expand a conflict, or, alternatively, be used as an excuse for others not to engage in actions that address the situation?

      Supporting Hope, Covering Up Inaction or Supporting Génocidaires?

      Although the United States was loath to be involved in, or support, any effort to stop the genocide or protect civilians during the genocide, it did participate in a very significant—and public—if somewhat short-term, response to the aftermath of the genocide. By late July the story had moved from genocide to cholera. The camps in eastern Zaire were the perfect breeding ground for disease. At least 50,000 people died in Goma, Zaire, within a month after the mass exodus. J. Brian Atwood, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, described the situation as “chaos.”⁷⁹

      Before discussing the actual U.S. response, let us pause to consider the import of these words. Apparently the mass murder of 800,000 people over one hundred days is not worthy of being called chaos, but the same number of people crammed into refugee camps, combined with disease, does rise to this level. The refugees are victims of “chaos.” They are not victims of the aftermath of the most intense period of mass killing the world has ever seen. This is the same as saying that “mistakes were made.” It passively depoliticizes the situation and avoids apportioning blame or responsibility. “Chaos” has no political antecedent; rather, it is a state of СКАЧАТЬ