International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of “chaos,” not because of disease that was the direct result of a mass exodus in the context of a genocide in which the United States and other actors refused to lift a finger. Further, “chaos” acquires a further descriptor—cancer—and the U.S. had arrived to provide palliation and possibly a cure. By preventing the cancer of chaos from spreading, it would prevent further death from the chaos. Yet, returning to the discussion in Chapter 1, we can see that Atwood had the diagnosis wrong. The cancer that was killing refugees was not “chaos”—the apolitical and meaningless term used when one wants to avoid a correct diagnosis. By treating the symptoms of the chaos—the United States and the rest of the world did not even try to treat the “chaos” itself—USAID and the U.S. military were global hospice workers engaged in superficial palliation. They kept some people alive permanently, while others were kept alive for a while, only to die as a result of disease once the hospice workers left, or at the hands of either the Hutu militants who were running the camps or the Tutsi-supported troops who came to eject them.

      What did this palliation look like? Operation Support Hope⁸⁰ involved 3,000 troops—troops that might have been used earlier to stop the genocide, or might have been used to address the growing insecurity in the camps. Instead, they were used to help provide food and water and shelter. In 1994, the United States spent $231.9 million on humanitarian assistance for the region outside Rwanda (vs. $73.3 million within Rwanda). This assistance amounted to $242.2 million in 1994 and $177.9 million in 1996.⁸¹ The aid was brought in via highly publicized airlifts. On 22 July 1994, five days after the first cases of cholera were reported, President Clinton announced he would send troops to the region to help carry out the humanitarian mission. By the time U.S. troops left Goma on 25 August—just a month after they had arrived—the U.S. military had airlifted in massive amounts of equipment and aid.⁸² These actions undoubtedly saved many lives. But even if the war on cholera had been temporarily won by the U.S., as it supported hope, the suffering that was relieved was just a drop in the ocean of the suffering that had occurred and was yet to occur in Zaire.

      Operation Support Hope was pure and unadulterated palliation. Given the speed with which the U.S. military responded to provide humanitarian assistance, it could have also deployed to protect people during the genocide. The United States used this very public operation to show the world that it cared and was doing something about the situation in the Great Lakes region. But it was just a mop-up operation, dealing with the loose ends—the “chaos”—after the genocide. Yet, the chaos was decontextualized and depoliticized. Furthermore, although Atwood called for war criminals to be tried, the U.S. troops had no mandate to arrest anyone. It was purely humanitarian: palliation but no prosecution, even though a few months later the U.S. would help set up an international court to try those who participated in the genocide. This palliation without prosecution had a devastating long-term effect. More than one million refugees were still in Zaire. Most would stay there for two more years, allowing growing insecurity to fester.

      This large numbers of refugees allowed the approximately 50,000 former Rwandan soldiers of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) and militia⁸³ to hide out and organize themselves for a return to Rwanda to retake power. Exile was “the continuation of the war by other means.”⁸⁴ Former high-ranking officials in the Rwandan government, ex-FAR, and militia controlled the camps, prevented refugees from going back home, and organized the military actions that ultimately destabilized the border area and beyond.⁸⁵ The massive refugee camps provided cover for the génocidaires and those who wanted to regain power in Rwanda. Thus, a main responsibility for the leaders was to keep the refugees from returning. This task was facilitated in a couple of different ways. It was very hard for individual refugees and families to make the decision to return home, absent such a decision by the leaders, because of the collective decision making in Rwandan society. This situation was further reinforced by the propaganda spread by the leaders, which misrepresented the situation in Rwanda at the time.⁸⁶ While the new government might have wanted to marginalize the returning Hutus,⁸⁷ it was the Hutu leaders who were in the most danger. Yet, in order to scare the refugees, the situation was made to sound significantly more dangerous than it actually was.

      The Rwandan government did not help the situation, however. There were contradictory statements regarding how and when the refugees should return. As the RPF consolidated its hold on power, it seemed that the Hutu population was being systematically marginalized, and the government was not making it easy for the refugees to return.⁸⁸ The RPF had engaged in massacres at the end of the war, and as one NGO worker observed, “Bodies appeared regularly in the Kagera River until May 1995, long after the RPF gained control of the country.”⁸⁹ Further, the Rwandan jails were overflowing with suspected génocidaires, and the refugee leaders were able to capitalize on this to demonstrate the danger of returning.⁹⁰ They were thus able to maintain and tighten their grip on the camps, which served as the staging ground for destabilization.

      Early Efforts to Return the Refugees

      Within a couple of months after the refugees left, it was clear to most of the main actors in the region that the refugees needed to return. The camps were likely to become destabilizing. It was also felt that reconciliation would be easier if the refugees returned sooner rather than later because there would be less time for further hate and suspicion of the refugees to develop within Rwanda. The debate revolved around when. UNHCR argued for an early return.⁹¹ On 23 July 1994, High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata stated that UNHCR wanted to encourage refugees to return.⁹² UNHCR offered to take a group of twenty camp leaders from Goma back to Rwanda so they could see for themselves the conditions the refugees would be returning to and report back to the camps. They refused—an indication of the resistance and defiance among the leaders.⁹³ UNHCR first tried to repatriate refugees from Goma on August 23. This was stopped by the militias and camp leaders. Yet many thousands of refugees did repatriate from Goma during the last part of 1994, accompanied by a Zairian security escort to the border. At the same time, UNHCR suspended its repatriation assistance to Rwanda in September because of alleged human rights abuses there.⁹⁴

      Two issues permeated discussions within UNHCR about return. The first was the actual conditions in Rwanda. That is, was it safe for the refugees to go back? Conditions varied throughout the country, UNHCR did not have access to significant portions of Rwanda, and there was much contradictory information. It was thus hard for it to make a firm decision.⁹⁵ The second issue was that of the voluntary nature of the return. The principle of voluntary repatriation is generally recognized.⁹⁶ Yet, given the situation in the camps and the fact that the refugees, for the most part, were not able to make the decision to repatriate because of the intimidation and violence on the part of the militants, this principle took on new meaning. If the refugees themselves are not able to make the decision whether or not to return, almost by definition any returns, particularly on a large scale, will not be “voluntary.”

      By October it was clear that the militants were expanding their organization and consolidating their grip over the camps.⁹⁷ That month, Ogata said: “The aim [of the camp militants] appears to be to control the refugee population, block their voluntary return to Rwanda and build resistance against the Government in Kigali.”⁹⁸ By the end of the year, some NGOs pulled out of Goma and Ngara in Tanzania because of the worsening situation. UNHCR considered this, although, as Dennis McNamara, director of the UNHCR Division of International Protection, stated: “the agency’s mandate and the humanitarian imperative of caring for the majority of vulnerable and needy civilians, women and children, made a withdrawal impossible.”⁹⁹ Both MSF France and the International Rescue Committee decided that the consequences of continuing to provide assistance—allowing the militants continued safe haven—overrode the humanitarian imperative.¹⁰⁰ The realization of the effect humanitarians might have turned out to be a significant turning point. While most other organizations stayed—including MSF Holland and MSF UK¹⁰¹—the debate about withdrawal highlighted how embedded the humanitarians were in the situation. One official from CARE UK suggested СКАЧАТЬ