{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c0","slug":"a-people-betrayed-en","title":"A People Betrayed","audio_url":"https://hls.blinkist.io/bibs/5ee91a236cee070006ead0c0/5ee91a236cee070006ead0c2-T1592335587.m4a?Expires=1656185064&Signature=PJF~sti82J1kAddltWuiaCebyqR0eHS2Pn71TlVfLdZfQxyNx1QVbEwJeizc-oBRJ8Dc~oe5fuFI6JeJgnyUGuyn2EusT7Bd3eETYV1sOCFP9mxB2kmontzOI2Umpy~RK-qMyyWBX1cAXSV9r-W6VSToF4SrUmZ3Vmk5HYtbSH4mUMki0RJUCbWcPW8tcpVlF1td~Fm7hP1F9QFOWTknoHtrQZOgjAuXAu4usVFoFxfbcH1kmCdf0c5ioEloxnyTXaIjZ-gFxdj-efCOOEcWa8gYZrqr6Wn3j~jtyYIS9M1-hsKw2SJSk42ZGwNdZ~7jYWGhaHeLZmIOVJJARWC7xw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJXJM6BB7FFZXUB4A","chapters":[{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c2","title":"The racial classification of Hutu and Tutsi was calcified by European colonial practices.","text":"

In 1894, exactly 100 years before the Rwandan genocide, King Rwabugiri of Rwanda received German Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen. Unbeknownst to Rwabugiri, his domain had been “given” to Germany ten years earlier at the Berlin Conference, which carved up Africa for colonization by European powers.

At the time, the mountainous, lush, and beautiful land of Rwanda was known in Europe as the “Switzerland of Africa.” It was a complex society with an intricate social order, rich oral history, and highly cultured court featuring poets, magicians, wine-stewards, and cattle-namers.

King Rwabugiri was a military genius. Military conquest was a priority to the state, and Rwabugiri’s armies traveled widely with vast cattle herds. It was in his armies that the designation between Hutu and Tutsi first emerged. The elites in charge of the cattle were tall and thin, with angular features; they started to be known as Tutsi. Their servants, who were generally shorter with rounder faces, were called Hutu.

Visiting Europeans, searching for justification as to why Rwandan culture should be so advanced, developed the theory that the Tutsi, a so-called “superior race,” had migrated from the Horn of Africa and had come to dominate the “inferior” Hutu. It was impossible for Europeans to imagine black Africans developing so refined a society without outside influence.

In the early twentieth century, as Germany became mired in World War I, the Belgians came to dominate the region. In 1933, the Belgian administration ordered a census to classify the population by ethnicity. Each individual was carefully measured and assigned an identity. This census introduced the idea that ethnicity could be determined based on physical appearance. And ethnicity guaranteed certain rights – under the Belgians, only Tutsi had access to education, administrative training, and government jobs.

Belgian rule was harsh, involving forced labor, beatings, and exploitation of the peasant population, which it designated as Hutu. Many of these peasants were conscripted for labor in the diamond mines in the neighboring Congo River Basin. It was these oppressive conditions that brought about the cohesion of the Hutu group – and, for the first time, the idea of a pure Hutu nation.

A manifesto in 1957, written with the help of a Belgian priest working in Rwanda, called for Hutu emancipation and the rule of the majority. Widespread rural anger encouraged an emerging Hutu nationalism.

The overwhelming popularity of the manifesto laid bare an alarming fact: the Hutu majority now believed the European narrative that the Tutsi were foreign invaders who had enslaved and exploited them.

"},{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c3","title":"The end of the monarchy deepened social mistrust and division, setting the stage for the impending catastrophe. ","text":"

In 1959, 46-year-old King Rudahigwa of Rwanda – a Tutsi – went to the hospital for a routine procedure. After being given an antibiotic injection by Belgian doctors, he inexplicably died.

The Tutsi elite believed the Belgian doctors, with the support of Hutu extremists, had killed him. Violence erupted throughout the country, ultimately resulting in the abolishment of the monarchy, establishment of political parties, and, in 1961, a declaration of Rwandan independence.

This period heralded significant changes that would have grave future consequences.

First, the king’s death marked the moment Rwanda began to transition into a militarized police state. Belgium immediately placed Rwanda under military rule to prevent further violence.

Rwandans remained under official military rule until 1975, when Army Chief of Staff Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu nationalist, seized power. By then, Rwandans had become so accustomed to curfews, military checkpoints, and ubiquitous identity checks that official martial law was no longer needed. A militarized everyday life had been normalized in Rwanda.

More significantly, France and Belgium now backed Hutu majority governments, which began purging Tutsi from public life. The two Hutu presidents to follow independence back in 1961 enacted oppressive measures against Tutsi, excluding them from public office and limiting access to education and training. Under the command of French officers, Rwandan police began compiling files on all Tutsi in the country.

The first large-scale killing soon followed. In 1963, peasants empowered by local authorities massacred thousands of Tutsi – primarily with agricultural tools like hoes and machetes. British philosopher Bertrand Russell called it the worst atrocity since the Holocaust. Other massacres were carried out by the official Gendarmerie Nationale Rwandaise, under the command of Belgian officers.

This violence sparked the first flight of Rwanda’s refugees. The total number is unclear; estimates place it at around a million. Refugees suffered terribly in camps along Rwanda’s borders.

But those who made it to cities began to organize. In 1987, a Nairobi-based group that had formed in opposition to Hutu nationalism morphed into the paramilitary Rwandan Patriotic Front. The RPF began fundraising for an armed struggle to return to Rwanda. To get military training, the RPF encouraged youths in Ugandan refugee camps to join the Ugandan army. Rwandan youths, primarily Tutsi, ultimately comprised over a quarter of the Ugandan army.

The stage was set for an invasion.

"},{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c4","title":"Civil war devastated Rwanda while providing cover for Hutu leadership to equip its paramilitary killing squads.","text":"

On October 1, 1990, several thousand Ugandan soldiers abandoned their posts and crossed over into Rwanda. The RPF’s long-awaited ground invasion had begun.

But the Rwandan army was ready for them. Alongside French special forces, the army counterattacked, sending the RPF back into Uganda or into the inhospitable Virunga mountains, where many froze or starved to death.

When news of the failed invasion reached Paul Kagame, a Tutsi refugee who had distinguished himself in the Ugandan army, he rushed to the mountains. Under Kagame’s leadership, the ragtag fighters became a disciplined, politicized guerrilla machine of 15,000 – drawing Tutsi from all over Rwanda and the diaspora.

Slowly, they began gaining ground. By the end of 1991, the RPF controlled around 5 percent of the country.

The Rwandan government, seen as a democratically elected majority, attracted a broad base of international support. The Rwandan army swelled after the invasion, from 5,000 to 28,000. The government struck deals with France and Egypt to purchase military equipment to arm their new soldiers. The latter was brokered by future United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

The war devastated the country. In October 1990 alone, 300,000 people became refugees. The Rwandan franc plummeted, and health and education services collapsed. Meanwhile, Rwanda had become the third-largest weapons importer in Africa, having spent $100 million – or 71 percent of the nation’s budget – on military equipment.

In the capital city of Kigali, far-right Hutu nationalist ideology flourished, supported by propaganda machines and goon squads. The best organized of these were the Interahamwe – the paramilitary unit of President Habyarimana’s ruling party. Eventually it became apparent that its members were receiving training from the Rwandan army in killing at speed.

In February 1992, Interahamwe members carried out a massacre of Tutsi in Bugesera. The massacre – later documented by human rights groups – was well-planned. Peasants were recruited to participate, having been told that this was a special collective work session. “Brush clearance,” everyone knew even then, meant killing Tutsi. Three thousand people were murdered.

The Bugesera killings were later seen as a dress rehearsal. Because no one was brought to justice, Rwandan security forces came to believe they could kill with impunity.

As we’ll see, they were largely right.

"},{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c5","title":"The civil war officially ended with the 1993 Arusha Accords, but the government had no intention of implementing them. ","text":"

After 13 months of deliberation, the international corps of delegates was ecstatic. Collectively, representatives from five African countries, the United States, France, and Belgium had cajoled the RPF and the Rwandan government into ending their civil war. They signed a landmark agreement in Arusha, Tanzania in August 1993.

The Accords, as they came to be known, were supposed to bring radical constitutional reform to Rwanda. Refugees would be allowed to return home. The RPF and Rwandan armies would merge. As a first step, a UN peacekeeping force would be sent to observe proceedings.

The only problem was, President Habyarimana and his cohort had no intention of seeing the Accords implemented. Instead, they were putting plans in place for Tutsi extermination.

The conspiracy began in December 1991, when Habyarimana held a meeting with 100 military and security officers. In a report from this meeting, for the first time, “the enemy” was described as not just the RPF, but anyone who disagreed with the party. Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, a fervent Hutu nationalist, was said to be the inspiration for this ideology.

The Rwandan government continued stockpiling weapons. While Habyarimana was negotiating for peace in Arusha, his government entered into its biggest arms deal yet with a French company – $12 million worth of grenades, bombs, ammunition, truncheons, pistols, and AK-47s.

The government also purchased tons of hoes and machetes, funneling money through private companies. In 1993 alone, $4.6 million was spent on agricultural tools by companies not concerned with agriculture.

By January 1993, the Rwandan government had begun distributing arms to militia and individuals throughout the country. Later UN estimates put the exact figure at around 85 tons. In one town of 150,000 inhabitants, UN inspectors found 50,000 machetes, guns, and other arms.

Most insidious of all, perhaps, was the launch of the Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) station in 1993. The launch coincided with cheap portable radios suddenly becoming available in local markets – or, in some cases, being distributed by local authorities for free. The hosts of RTLM, all current or former members of President Habyarimana’s party, played pop music, were often drunk on air, and used street slang. They became hugely popular overnight.

Soon, RTLM would broadcast baldly racist messages. It would read Tutsi names on air, saying they deserved to die. Shortly thereafter, these Tutsi would be carted off by Interahamwe, Habyarimana’s party’s paramilitary unit. The RTLM incited Rwandans into a violent, racist frenzy.

It was this tense environment that the Arusha-mandated UN peacekeepers landed into in October 1993, led by Canadian Brigadier-General Roméo Dallaire.

"},{"id":"5ee91a236cee070006ead0c6","title":"The UN, distracted by other crises, didn’t heed Dallaire’s increasingly dire warnings that genocide was imminent. ","text":"

The same month that Dallaire landed in Kigali, 19 American Special Forces were killed in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, while under the official aegis of the UN.

US President Bill Clinton blamed the UN. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, now the UN Secretary General, blamed the US. The Battle of Mogadishu highlighted a disorganized UN that lacked the power to control a combat operation. It also contributed to a UN Security Council whose members were determined to block peacekeeping efforts that could be politically risky.

Roméo Dallaire’s peacekeeping mission, known as UNAMIR, would pay the price for this state of affairs. UNAMIR was supposed to ensure a peaceful transition according to the terms of the Arusha Accord, but instead of the 4,500 troops he’d requested, Dallaire had been given 2,500 untrained, inexperienced soldiers with defective equipment.

UNAMIR was underprepared for what awaited on the ground, too. Massive population upheaval destabilized the country, and civil war had created 800,000 refugees in the north. Meanwhile, encouraged by the signing of the Accords, Tutsi refugees from neighboring countries were flooding back into Rwanda across the Ugandan border.

Hutu Power, as the nationalists had come to be known, took note of the UN’s inefficacy. The government stepped up its propaganda campaigns against Tutsi, the UN, and the Belgians, along with its weapons distribution. Interahamwe began to carry out execution-style killing at checkpoints, as well as targeted catch-and-kill missions based on lists identifying Tutsi residents in neighborhoods.

For weeks, Dallaire included the same sentence in his communiques to UN HQ: “The situation is deteriorating significantly and all our resources are used to the full.” The UN did nothing.

In February 1994, Dallaire wrote to UN headquarters in his strongest terms yet. Unless he was given permission to seize weapons, there would be increased violence against Tutsi and the peacekeepers themselves. Permission was denied, as weapons seizures were outside the purview of the peacekeeping mission.

In early April, the RTLM broadcast that “a little something” was going to happen in the next few days. Machine gun posts were set up at Rwandan army camps, and automatic weapons were distributed in downtown Kigali. Dallaire feared for what was to come.

On April 6, the UN Security Council convened in a long-planned meeting to discuss the progress of the Arusha Accords in Rwanda. Intelligence was woefully lacking, and the council was distracted by crises elsewhere. It didn’t see the writing on the wall – that Arusha was a moot point by now, and terrible catastrophe was looming over the country. It was only a matter of time.

"},{"id":"5ee91a246cee070006ead0c7","title":"President Habyarimana’s assassination sparked a widespread and brutal genocide.","text":"

President Habyarimana didn’t normally travel at night. But, after being delayed at a regional summit in Dar es Salaam, he was anxious to get home. On April 6, 1994, as Habyarimana flew over the dark city of Kigali, his plane was shot down by a missile.

It was the signal Hutu Power had been waiting for. RTLM announced that Habyarimana had been assassinated by the Belgians in cahoots with the RPF – and they should be made to pay the price. The targets were Tutsi and Hutu Power’s opponents, as well as UN peacekeepers from Belgium.

In Kigali and other cities, the Rwandan army and Interahamwe began murdering people out in the open. They ran down their lists of Tutsi, killing entire communities in gruesome fashion. At checkpoints erected every few blocks, it was too time-consuming to check IDs, so nationalists just killed anyone who was tall or looked educated. Tutsi took refuge in hospitals and schools, where they were massacred. Sexual violence was rampant.

Moderate Hutu politicians, along with their families, were murdered in their homes. Ten Belgian peacekeepers were hacked to death with machetes.

All told, one million people were slaughtered – the majority in the first four days after Habyarimana’s death.

The far-right General Bagosora unofficially took the reins of government. He formed an interim government stacked with Hutu Power politicians and with an elderly party loyalist as its figurehead.

On April 8, Dallaire wrote to UN HQ about the genocide, describing a well-planned campaign of terror and mass murder. He had failed in his mission to protect Rwandan politicians and UN peacekeepers. His troops didn’t have enough ammunition for even a three-minute fight.

For UN HQ, giving UNAMIR permission to intervene in the killing would have meant financial and material contributions from member states – and permission from the UN Security Council. Neither of these was forthcoming, so again, the UN did nothing.

The US and Europe, however, acted quickly to evacuate nationals in Rwanda. France also evacuated Rwandan VIPs, including the president’s widow – a Hutu Power devotee – whom the government installed in a luxury apartment in Paris. According to a Senegalese peacekeeper, a French plane also resupplied the Rwandan government with weapons during this period. The French government denies this.

Studies have subsequently shown that UN intervention could have prevented the genocide from spreading. But because the UN did nothing, Tutsi and moderate Hutu were soon being killed by the thousands all over Rwanda.

"},{"id":"5ee91a246cee070006ead0c8","title":"As genocidal violence engulfed the country, the UN abandoned the Rwandan people.","text":"

Amid the stampede to get out of Kigali, the International Committee of the Red Cross – or ICRC – stayed on, headed by the heroic Swiss Philippe Gaillard along with 26 staff members. On a Kigali hillside, they created an emergency field hospital in a former girls’ convent school.

The ICRC team developed a routine. Every morning, ambulances left the hospital to look for people who had been attacked and abandoned on the streets. Medical staff had to choose which wounded they could take to the hospital, prioritizing those who would die without medical attention. Children were also a priority. It was pointless to rescue Tutsi men because they would just be killed at checkpoints. They had to be back at the hospital by 01:00 p.m., before the militia members at checkpoints were too drunk to negotiate.

Dallaire supported the ICRC where he could, but he still wasn’t authorized to take any measures to prevent the violence outside of self-defense. The UN peacekeepers were marooned by roadblocks and lacked even basic supplies, including food. Some of his troops, shaken by what had happened to their Belgian colleagues, stopped following orders altogether.

Despite Dallaire’s continuous reporting, the UN Security Council sent no reinforcements. The Belgian government, after the killing of its peacekeepers, actually decided to withdraw its troops – and petitioned other member states to do the same. The Belgian foreign minister later said it was a campaign to save face; they didn’t want to be seen as the only ones pulling out.

The RPF weren’t nearly as sluggish, and on April 12, Kagame’s fighters descended on Kigali.

In advance of the RPF’s movements, RTLM radio broadcast frenzied propaganda warning listeners of the RPF’s cruelty and calling for extermination of all Tutsi. Announcers read out targeted people’s names, addresses, and places of work on the air – and they broadcast resupply requests for ammunition and grenades.

As the RPF advanced, the interim government fled Kigali. With them went Interahamwe, distributing arms and propaganda to regional political leaders and civilians. The catastrophic anti-Tutsi violence spread throughout the country.

On April 21, the UN Security Council finally took action in response to the genocide in Rwanda, which had been going on for over two weeks. They pulled out UN peacekeepers altogether, leaving a small force to “mediate” between the two sides. Later, it was referred to as one of the most ignominious moments in UN history.

"},{"id":"5ee91a246cee070006ead0c9","title":"After weeks of killing, media attention finally precipitated a toothless international response.","text":"

When the UN pulled out its peacekeepers on April 21, thousands of Rwandans were being hacked to death every day based on their perceived ethnic identity. At this point, the US State Department had undeniable proof of the planned ethnic cleansing. But the UN Security Council was unprepared to face the reality of the genocide – along with the legal liability they would assume if they acknowledged it.

Others were less wary of calling the genocide by its name. On April 25, after estimating that 500,000 people had been killed in the previous 18 days, a British Oxfam officer working in Rwanda phoned headquarters to report that genocide was taking place. On April 30, Dallaire told Reuters that unless the international community acted, it would be unable to defend itself against the accusation that it did nothing to stop genocide.

The previous day, the UN Security Council had debated for eight hours over the use of the word. The UK and United States were against it because it would legally require the UN to respond.

Meanwhile, after three weeks of slaughter, Rwanda was finally making the news – but not for the corpses piled in the streets. Journalists were instead reporting that 250,000 people had walked across the Tanzanian border, the largest exodus of refugees ever witnessed in a single day.

As the UN dithered, the genocide continued at pace – supported, shockingly, by France. A paper trail shows that $13 million in Rwandan government funds passed through the Banque Nationale de Paris after the genocide began. Human Rights Watch has shown that weapons were delivered to the Rwandan government via Goma, Zaire five times in May and June 1994 from the French government or affiliated French companies. Again, the French government denies this.

Once the media picked up the story, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali reversed his opinion. In light of the new information about the human catastrophe in Rwanda, he recommended military intervention at scale. On May 4, Boutros-Ghali appeared on the American news program Nightline, calling the events in Rwanda a genocide. He submitted a proposal to the UN Security Council – based on a plan submitted weeks earlier by Dallaire – for a resupply of 5,500 troops and equipment to the embattled UNAMIR force.

The relief force, called UNAMIR II, was approved by the Security Council on May 17. The word “genocide” doesn’t appear in the resolution. No troops or equipment were immediately available. It took over a month for the first reinforcements to arrive in Rwanda.

"},{"id":"5ee91a246cee070006ead0ca","title":"As the RPF gained the upper hand, France swooped in to protect its allies: the génocidaires of the Rwandan government.","text":"

As April turned to May, Rwanda was totally consumed by violence. RPF General Paul Kagame stopped investigating massacre sites; he’d seen enough, and feared that the accumulated trauma would impact his decisions in battle. The time for UN intervention, he realized, had passed. The genocide was almost complete. It was up to the RPF alone to stop it.

Kagame’s RPF was the superior fighting force compared to the bloated, undisciplined Rwandan army. By early June, it controlled almost every major city in Rwanda. The interim government was on the run.

It was at this point that French President François Mitterrand decided to mount an intervention, ostensibly to protect threatened populations. France would cover expenses, not the UN. On June 15, Mitterrand launched Opération Turquoise. There wasn’t a moment to lose, he said.

Opération Turquoise faced criticism from the start. The French press wondered why Mitterrand was only now riding to the rescue of the embattled Rwandan government, having known what was going on for years. The RPF thought the French were only intervening to save the génocidaires, as the perpetrators had become known.

Dallaire was shocked. If the French were so keen to help, he wondered, why hadn’t they lent support to the multilateral UNAMIR II mission? He suspected they were only now getting involved to prevent the RPF from taking over the entire country.

In Kigali, however, Hutu Power rejoiced at the news. Drunk soldiers were singing pro-French songs, and RTLM announcers instructed girls to wear their best dresses to welcome the French tanks.

The French appeared not to have heard a realistic version of events on the ground. After visiting the French camp across the border in Zaire, Dallaire reported French troops denying genocide and expressing enthusiasm for fighting the RPF. After they crossed into Rwanda, the French were surprised to hear horrific stories of slaughter from surviving Tutsi. They had been told the Tutsi had been massacring the Hutu – not the other way around.

Ultimately, the French created a safe zone in the south of the country on the insistence of Boutros-Ghali. It was supposedly to protect those fleeing the violence, but in practice, it provided a safe haven where the génocidaires couldn’t be arrested. The French failed to prevent continued violence, even within the special humanitarian zone.

They also struggled to contain the RPF, who were relentless in their fighting. The RPF took Kigali on July 4, effectively marking their victory in the civil war.

"},{"id":"5ee91a246cee070006ead0cb","title":"Blame for the genocide lies not only with the génocidaires, but with the international community.","text":"

With the Rwandan capital now firmly in RPF hands, the war was over. But the country was starting again from zero. Government buildings had been looted down to their door frames. There was no food, water, livestock, or crops. Only one-sixth of Kigali’s pre-war population remained. Rotting bodies lay in piles on the streets.

Rwandans outside Rwanda may have had it even worse. The RPF advance, in concert with RTLM fear-mongering, had triggered an exodus. One million refugees crossed into Zaire over the course of two days – the largest and fastest movement of people in history. Refugees lived in terrible conditions in camps. Thousands died from dysentery, cholera, and starvation.

The camps proved fertile recruiting ground for a resurgent Hutu Power movement, which retrained in Zaire with the goal of re-invading Rwanda. Border skirmishes continued for years.

Donor countries demanded the RPF form a coalition government. The trouble was, there were no Hutu moderates left with whom to manage the country. Imagine a post-World War II scenario in which Jews and Germans lived together in Germany under a Jewish-dominated army – with roughly one-third of Germans living outside the country as refugees.

In response to the overwhelming proof of genocide, the UN launched an investigative commission on July 1, 1994. After examining the archive, the commission concluded that the killing had been both planned in advance and motivated by ethnic hatred. Six months after the violence began, the UN officially classified it as genocide.

The UN also launched the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. As of 2009, 36 judgments had been issued. These include a life sentence for Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, who was shown to be the leader of the Interahamwe network of death squads.

The evidence regarding French involvement continues to grow. After the war, France lobbied against the new Rwandan government in all international bodies – even attempting to block Rwanda from receiving aid from the European Union. Documents released in 2007 show that Mitterrand was “obsessed” with keeping Rwanda under the French sphere of influence. Accusations against his government include training Rwandan special forces, policy failure, and promoting genocide.

The United States and UK, for their part, claimed not to know what was going on in Rwanda despite significant evidence to the contrary. Ignorance, though, didn’t stop them from stymying the Security Council, preventing intervention that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

According to Roméo Dallaire, it was the selfish and racist policies of these two states that did more than anything else to aid and abet the genocide.

"}]}

Log in to Blinkist

Sign up for Blinkist

Learn more, live more