Loading summary
Transcript59 lines
- [00:00]
A
My name is Gabi Hesselbein and I'm working here at the LSE at the Crisis States Research Center. From that perspective, of course, we know Linda since quite a while. But the honor to organize the evening tonight lies with Rieko, the Rwandan youth information community organization, which is present tonight with a table outside and with a few leaflets inside. And I will come back to that at the end of the session. It's a youth charity working in Rwanda, and it is particularly working with children who are orphaned or otherwise troubled. You can get much more information from them themselves at the table, or from a number of people who are around and ready to answer your questions. I would like to introduce Linda Melvin. Linda Melvin, an investigative journalist who, after she, if I may say so, became a victim of Rupert Murdoch many years ago. She started to write nonfiction books. And I'm not going to say anything about what she did before 1994, because that is really what we admire her for. She got her head deep, deep into the Rwandan genocide. She collected material, she dug herself into what she could find, and she is occupied with that topic now since 1994. I know a number of people who do research and really troubled countries and awful histories, but to do that sort of work since 1994 is something I have the greatest respect for. I know what it means in everyday life and I admire Linda a lot for that. Tonight she is going to talk about the role of the west in Rwanda's genocide. And that is, if I stand you correctly finding from edition to edition to edition, more material and more material and more material, if I understand you correctly. But you will probably say something to that, that the west didn't just look away and that the genocide happened, but was actively involved in one way or another. But welcome, Linda, and I'm looking forward to hearing.
- [02:38]
B
Thank you.
- [02:39]
A
Thank you.
- [02:49]
C
Ambassador. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming this evening for a lecture in which I hope to share with you some of my work into what is now, as Gabby has said, a 15 year journalistic investigation into the circumstances of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I'd like first to thank Raiko for initiating and organizing this lecture. I have visited their Centre for Homeless Children and Youth of Kigali as its staff cope with the legacy of the genocide. And I have seen this, the support that this small charity can provide. I first came to know of Raiko through Major Stefan Steck, who was a Polish UN military observer who served in unamir, the UN Assistance mission for Rwanda. He was one of a volunteer A group of troops who stayed during the genocide after the Security Council of the United nations had decided to withdraw the majority of the troops. In my first interview with Stefan Steck in 1996, he had given me hundreds of copies of UNAMIR cables sent to UN headquarters. These documents taken with him after the genocide was over. Stec's cables were amazing and they showed how once the genocide began, daily situation reports sent from the tiny garrison in Rwanda clearly explained what was taking place. These documents detail pleas for urgent help to protect hundreds and thousands of desperate civilians. Everyone pretends, Stec told me. The politicians pretend they didn't know what was happening. He had left Rwanda after the genocide, determined that the story of the failure be correctly understood. And he started his own charity for Rwanda, the Amahoro foundation, which is how he came to know and admire the work of Raiko. In any account of what happened in Rwanda, the role of the United Nations Security Council is of central importance. The decision by the Council to send a small peacekeeping mission to Rwanda in 93 and then to keep it there in an increasingly hostile environment without reinforcements was disastrous. It was a feeble and pathetic UN effort with its weak mandate and minimal capacity. It was suitable only for the most benign environment. And it sent a clear signal to extremists that they could continue with their plans. The UNAMIR mission was described as classic peacekeeping and it was to oversee a peace agreement which provided for a transition from dictatorship to a multi party political system and crucially, to accommodate power sharing and an end to the three year civil war between the Hutu dictatorship and the RPF Tutsi rebel force. They were fighting on behalf of 1 million, up to 1 million Rwandan refugees expelled from the country during purges of Tutsi starting in 1959. But those in power, a northern clique of Hutu power extremists, determined otherwise. They legitimized their racist beliefs about Tutsi in all parts of government. They used the state apparatus to organize and end to any possibility that the peace agreement would work. A vicious propaganda campaign against the minority Tutsi became more and more virulent. A youth militia was increasingly in control of the streets. There were assaults and murders of pro power sharing politicians. And Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in the world, became Africa's circumstances third largest importer of weapons, siphoning money from international funding to buy them. In the weeks beforehand, Tutsi was sleeping in churches for safety. At night, the UN established centers where Tutsi or any government critic could find sanctuary. Stefan Steck told me that in these weeks genocide simply hung in the air and the peacekeepers called it mission impossible. The 15th commemoration provides a timely starting point for a realistic look at how governments responded to the genocide in Rwanda and the decision making within the UN Security Council which affected the lives of an incalculable number of people. The failure to predict the genocide and there was a massive evidence of its planning, the failure to prevent it and not to halt its progress surely merits the most precise documentation. In the course of three months, April to July, up to 1 million people were killed. It began with the elimination of the political opposition. Everyone who had stood against the extremists, every lawyer, every journalist, every politician, teacher, social worker, all were hunted down and killed. For the next three months, every single Tutsi in the country would be targeted. The United nations, the French and Belgian Senates and and the Organization of African Union have all held inquiries into what happened and all these inquiries have added a great deal to our knowledge of events. The conclusion of the Organization of African Unity was that it was a preventable genocide and that once allowed to start, it could have been significantly reduced. The Security Council, the OAU determined, simply did not care enough about Rwanda. All that had been required was a reasonably sized international military force with a strong mandate to enforce the peace agreement. Nothing of the kind had ever been authorised by the Security Council either before or during the genocide. Many aspects of the story defied understanding, notably how the victims had been, and I quote from that report, betrayed repeatedly by the international community. The UN's own inquiry found that states should have been ready to identify genocide and assume the responsibility to act. France, Belgium and the US and UK were all liable for the failure from the beginning to the end. For the three months the genocide lasted, these key states recognized as legitimate an interim government that was perpetrating genocide. A government hastily sworn into office to replace Rwanda's mixed political party and power sharing movement whose membership had just been murdered. Whilst there have been inquiries elsewhere, in stark contrast, in both the US and the uk, it would appear that no informed debate has ever been held and no known official inquiry has ever taken place. Today, in the UK and the us, the blame has simply slid away from the officials and politicians responsible for the decision making over Rwanda and who are able to claim and get away with it that they had no idea at all what was happening. I was told that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had been extremely unsighted when it came to Rwanda and that it was in the French sphere, a francophone African country, also a view developed in the UK that Rwanda had been largely a US failure. And it is true that in 1994 the US did have an unparalleled military capacity to respond. And it has been subsequently shown that there was in the US a clear failure to understand the range of military options available available. But the criticism is more severe than this of the part played by the US and the UK, both with abundant means to have made a difference. Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, the force Commander of unamir, would conclude that they had done everything possible to sabotage the fulfillment of of his mission. Dallaire said that the selfish and racist policies of the UK and the US had aided and abetted genocide. No answers to these accusations have ever been provided by successive US or UK governments, nor for an apparent failure to abide by either the moral or the legal obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Instead, today the responsibility in action is spread among institutions, bureaucracies and offices. A full narrative account of the government decision making is difficult to achieve as secrecy laws continue to ensure that political leaders remain unaccountable to Parliament, the press or the people. We may never know. Whether the obligations of the British government as a signatory to the 1948 Genocide Convention were raised in government in 1994 when the UK government determined that genocide was taking place is apparently not for us to know. The principal function of the legal adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is to provide legal advice to ministers and officials, including on international human rights law. This department is represented at the UK Mission to the UN in Geneva and at the UN Mission in New York. What advice the then legal adviser, Sir Franklin Burman, may have offered ministers about their responsibilities is apparently, according to him, protected by client privilege, irrespective of any official secret considerations. This reveals a secret process where officials work without any kind of scrutiny or accountability. The Convention on the Punishment and Prevention of the crime of genocide 1948 was the world's first human rights treaty, and it stood for a fundamental and important principle. Whenever genocide threatened any group or nation or people, it was a matter of concern not just for that group, but for the whole of humanity. The Convention, which preceded the Universal Declaration of human rights by 24 hours, was the first truly universal, comprehensive and codified protection of human rights. While the Universal Declaration was an affirmation, the Genocide Convention was a treaty. This means that compliance is not a choice, it is an obligation. The Security Council of the UN is entrusted with the application of the Convention. Article states that any contracting party may call upon the competent organs of the UN to take such actions under the UN Charter as they consider appropriate. There were no sealed trains or secluded camps in Rwanda. The killing took place in broad daylight. The methods of killing had been tried in the past and were well documented in human rights reports. Within a few days, information was available that the killing was planned and coordinated. At the end of the first week, the International Committee of the Red Cross, which maintained a presence in the country throughout, estimated a death toll of 10,000 civilians murdered every day. After three weeks, the international Committee of the Red Cross, in an unprecedented statement, pleaded for the UN Security Council to act to protect civilians. It was then a milestone, recognized as a milestone event. But in the case of the then Prime Minister John Major, the Rwandan genocide has completely vanished from the public version of his period in office. And there is, for instance, no reference to the Rwandan genocide in the index chronology or the chapter on the wider world in his autobiography. One senior diplomat responded to one of my questions with of course we didn't do anything. Neither the press nor the public was interested. I was told that Rwanda was not in the British sphere in Africa. There was no British Embassy in Kigali and there were no British interests. The time and resources were being channeled into the problems of Bosnia and the UK was trying to disarm Iraq. The UK mission in New York, I was told, was overwhelmed with other issues. But we are a permanent member of the UN Security Council. We are not New Zealand or Norway. We voted for a mission for Rwanda. Did we not monitor then what was happening to it? And this apparent lack of information did not prevent the UK playing a leading role in the Security Council in shaping the UN policy towards the crisis. It was the uk, for instance, that had first suggested a small interim presence in Rwanda and a British compromise resolution that mandated the removal of most of unamir. British diplomats had argued that anything other than massive military intervention was impossible. The UK ambassador in the Council described Rwanda as another Somalia. It was not. The political situation was more akin to that which existed in Northern Ireland. The UK had suggested leaving a token force behind in Rwanda, as the UK delegate explained, in order to appease public opinion. As the Rwanda crisis unfolded, there were increasingly long and bitter closed door meetings of council to discuss what to do. And someone gave me an account of these secret meetings. And I also spoke at length to two ambassadors who attended them, Karel Kavander of the Czech Republic and Colin Keating from New Zealand. This document exposed the political realities behind the human rights rhetoric. And there were some troubling aspects in the first few crucial weeks. The systematic and continuing slaughter of Rwandans was not once discussed at any length in Council meetings. There was no discussion at all in these early weeks about the possibilities which existed to rescue Rwandans. There were instead strenuous arguments from the UK and the US against intervention. We know next to nothing about the amount and quality of the intelligence available to the UK government at this time. In the us, a minimal number of documents have been released and we all remain largely ignorant of the decision making process. From the time Unimere was created, Rwanda was accorded a low priority. It was not considered the smouldering volcano that it really was, but it was not a semi permanent low level crisis as a recent US report has claimed. Before the genocide began, there were detailed briefings to UK and US missions at New York, from Belgium diplomats to describing how dangerous Rwanda really was, death lists, the militia, the hate radio, the collapse of the peace agreement and how urgently in this weeks beforehand reinforcements were needed. But the UK and the US refused any idea of reinforcements on the grounds of economy. After four weeks of genocide at the end of April and in early May 94 in the UK, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam repeatedly and publicly called on the British government for immediate action to protect civilians. On May 3, the Director of Oxfam, David Breyer, delivered a petition to number 10 Downing street with the British actor Helen Mirren. An accompanying letter told the Prime Minister that the genocide was potentially on a scale not seen since Cambodia. The UN could not stand idly by. A relatively small UN force could offer protection. David Bryer recalled later being fobbed off with all sorts of platitudes. Ed Cairns, who was an Oxfam policy advisor, said that anyone other than a fool knew that military intervention was what was needed. There were regrets later at Oxfam at the lack of time to devise a strategy and they believed that they should have tried to shame the politicians and officials responsible for the decision making. The then Foreign Secretary Douglas Heard admitted that Bosnia had been the priority because it was quotes in our continent. In the House of Commons, Heard said, they are close to us in Bosnia. It is right that we should be devoting such effort to them. Some years later, he wrote, it never occurred to us, the Americans or anyone, to send combat troops to Rwanda to stop the killing. I record this as a bleak fact. In 2004, Douglas Heard explained that the UK government had been slow to realise the enormity of what had happened. One of the most important documents that Steck gave me is a cable from Romeo Dallaire, the force commander, dated 12 May and sent to New York for the consideration of the Council. It gives the locations of 91 sites throughout the country where people had been herded and were at risk from daily killing raids by the Interahanway. Attached to this cable is a map with the sites and a list of each one of those sites and the estimated number of people. A total of 756,000 people trapped. This was the equivalent, if you like, of 91 Srebrenicas. Dallaire explained that behind the Rwandan government force lines, the massacres of Tutsi, pro democracy, Hutu and sympathizers with opposition parties was taking place. And he again stressed that a presence of UN forces was needed and a battalion of troops from Ghana was standing by. There were immediate complaints from the US about Dallaire's plan, and the UK ambassador wanted a formal document and a budget. The delegate from New Zealand, Colin Keating, told me afterwards that while thousands of people were being hacked to death every day, ambassadors in the Security Council argued for weeks about military tactics. Throughout May, the US blocked effective action for Rwanda by arguing against Dallaire's plan to airlift a brigade to kill Kigali. The US wanted safe havens on Rwanda's borders with Tanzania and Zaire. A team of military experts from the Pentagon arrived at the UN headquarters to persuade Kofi Annan of the merits of this idea, arguing that safe havens were cheaper to create and would require fewer soldiers. Only if the safe haven idea were to be accept accepted would the US contribute to the costs. Otherwise it would not. As Dallaire said, the people would have been killed on their way to these safe havens. The us, however, and the UK argued for weeks that only a massive and dramatic intervention would succeed. No attention was given at all to the contribution that the peacekeeper still in the country could make even without reinforcements. There were detailed briefings continuing from the International Committee of the Red Cross directly to the UK and US governments. The International Committee of the Red Cross Director of Operations Jean de Cortin, in regular contact with ICRC delegates in Kigali, made it clear to the Under Secretary for Global affairs and the Department of State Tim Wirth that the killing would not stop without military action. But there was a reluctance even to jam the hate radio rtlm, which was broadcasting calls for people to tell the radio where Tutsi were hiding. In one of her broadcasts, Valerie Bemericki, now accused of genocide, read out the names and addresses of 13 people together with where they worked she urged that they be found. The radio broadcast, the vehicle number plates of those who were trying to escape, and they read on air the addresses of where people were hiding. They broadcast requests from civil servants or from militia leaders who needed a resupply of ammunition or grenades. Dallaire pleaded with New York for permission to neutralize the station. It was inciting people to kill, he said. It was explaining how to kill, telling people who to kill. On 18 April, the RPF mounted a machine gun attack on the studios and the broadcasting was stopped. Stopped, but only temporally, and it resumed within hours. The control of the situation by the state authorities was made using rtlm. The country was run for three months via the airways, as a society was created based on genocide. The hate radio, from the very beginning was the only government institution which seemed to operate effectively. It was an integral part of national and local government planning. Early on, a broadcast called on all the drivers of heavy goods vehicles to present themselves at the office of the prefecture in Kigali. They were needed for the garbage trucks and bulldozers to collect and bury the bodies littering the streets. The ICRC provided petrol for these trucks and a sub prefect later confided in the ICRC delegates that 67,000 bodies have been collected in one week. In this way, whilst in the past few years successive UK and US governments have failed to even try to understand their own policymaking, in France it is different. There have been a number of investigations to try to unravel the extent of the French influence. The French journalist Patrick de Saint Exupery has shown in his own work how France provided weapons before, during and after the genocide. He concluded, we poured petrol on an immense fire. Saint Zupery showed how a secret army had been created for Rwanda by French officers who worked directly with what he called a legion presidential. These elite French operatives, answerable only to Mitterrand, had created a secret command for the Rwandan army and built within it a psychological warfare capability with operatives trained in the manipulation of public opinion based on fear and terror. Rwanda had been treated by the French like a military laboratory. This unit of elite troops, the Commandement des Operation Special, created in 1992, was not subject at all to the usual French military controls. A true reckoning of French involvement in Rwanda may never be possible. The French policy was largely determined within the confines of a special office in the President's Elysee Palace. It was known as the Africa Unit. It operated through a network of military officers, politicians, diplomats, businessmen, senior intelligence operatives and mercenaries. And at its center was President Francois Mitterrand. One of the more contentious issues is likely to remain the extent of influence of senior French Officers who on 6 April 1994 were embedded in the elite units of the Rwandan army. Four of these officers have testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. But this was anonymously and in camera, their evidence as well given in defence of the Je neuxide. The first significant release of material from French government archives in 2007 confirmed what many people had been claiming that Mitterrand had been obsessed with Rwanda to the point of interrupting cabinet meetings, and he had truly believed that the rebel RPF was part of an Anglophone plot involving the President of Uganda, whose ultimate aim was the creation of a regional and English speaking Tutsi land. Since 1994, there's been an almost continuous series of debates, studies and resolutions on the role of the west in Rwanda's genocide. And these have all shown how little true humanitarianism there is at the heart of even states which both possess abundant resources and which profess a commitment to human rights. Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair said in office that in retrospect, if nearly a million people were being murdered in Rwanda as they had been in 1994, then the British government would have a political and moral duty to prevent or suppress the killing. And yet there seemed no apparent awareness to understand his predecessor's failure, or how it might help to formulate government policy for the future, or any active promotion of international practices and procedures that could build up a genocide prevention capability in the UN. In July 1994, Britain's Overseas Development Minister, Baroness Linda Chalker, had visited Kigali. She asked Dilair what he needed. Dallaire showed Chalker his list of basic requirements, which by then had been faxed around the world. I gave her my shopping list here, he remembered, I was up to my knees in bodies. By then. The 50 flatbed trucks that the UK had promised had not materialized. Speaking later on a BBC TV Newsnight program, Chalker would blame Dallaire's lack of resources on quotes. The un, which she claimed, really should get its procurement right. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda is one of the most horrible crimes of our age. It contributed to the destabilization of an entire region. And it was followed by years of war, human deprivation, rape and misery, with untold and unimaginable brutality and an incalculable number of victims. And the story is not over. Fifteen years later, we still witness how the UN is neither organized nor financed in a way that allows it to act decisively. And independently to mount major military operations in order to protect civilians at risk. This is a terrible fact. Last year, the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was near to come collapse. A major general appointed the commander of Monouk, it's known by its French acronym, resigned after just five days. In two weeks time, the crucial issue of UN peacekeeping is to be discussed at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute. Understanding and Effectively Tackling New Peacekeeping Challenges. It is part of the 6th Annual Conference of the International Day of Peacekeepers. At the present time, France and the UK are sponsoring a new UN peacekeeping review at the un and perhaps the lessons of Rwanda might just be useful in this regard. One of the participants at this conference is Dr. Bruce Jones, who will address peacekeeping in the changing politics of peace operations. Dr. Jones, director of the center for International Cooperation, New York University, is an Expert on the 1993 Arusha Accords, the peace agreement that Unimir had come to Rwanda to monitor. His book, Peacemaking in the Dynamics of Failure, is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of these events. When the genocide was over in July 1994, the streets of the capital Kigali were almost empty from a previous population of 300,000 people. There were 50,000 people left and half of these were displaced. Their condition was disastrous and they lacked adequate food and clean water. Outside the capital, whole families and communities had been wiped out. Livestock had been killed and crops laid to waste. A once manicured landscape was overgrown and neglected. Everywhere there were ditches filled with rotting bodies. The people had been terrorized and traumatized. The hospitals and schools were destroyed or ransacked. Rwanda's health centers, one in each commune, were ruined. The stocks of basic drugs and health supplies had been looted. Water supply lines were non operational. Qualified staff had been killed or fled the country, including most of the teachers. An estimated 250,000 women had been widowed. In the whole country. There were six judges and 10 lawyers. There were no gendarmes. Rwanda is the size of Wales. At least 100,000 children had been separated from their families, orphaned, lost, abducted or abandoned. Most of Rwanda's children had witnessed extreme forms of brutality and 90% of them had at some point thought they would die. Most children felt they had no future. They did not believe that they would live to become adults. More than 300 children, some less than 10 years old, were accused of genocide or murder. An estimated 300,000 children were thought to have been killed. These figures come from a report produced by unicef. It was written by Nigel Cantwell and it is called Starting From Zero. I finish with a few words about raiko. Established in 2003 to respond to the needs of some of the most vulnerable young people in Rwanda. The legacy of the genocide continues to overshadow many young lives as they struggle to cope with broken families, abandonment or being orphaned. Raiko provides an opportunity for them through Centre Marambo in Kigali, which, as I've already mentioned, I have visited. It is indiscriminate in its care and it provides basic, practical and emotional support to street children and those at risk of finding themselves on the street. It runs a number of vocational training programs and provides accommodation schooling for 32 former street boys. Please show your support by making a donation on the way out or purchasing some of the beautiful crafts on display outside, which were produced by the cooperatives that Riko Partners. If you would like further information on Raiko, please speak to one of the volunteers outside. Thank you very much for your attention.
- [40:43]
A
Thank you very much, Linda. Before I open the floor for questions and answers, I would like to ask you two questions. One is a very short, technical one. Are your two books available outside? I'm sorry, I'm not really aware of it. Can we buy them here?
- [41:05]
C
There are copies of Conspiracy to Murder, my first book on the genocide. I came to this through the UN. I wrote my third book with a 50 year history of the United Nations. So I came to this through peacekeeping. And I was in New York. It was being filmed by Channel 4 for a series called UN Blues for the 50th anniversary of the UN. So I was in New York filming in April 1994. And this is when I first started interviews with some of the ambassadors in the Security Council. And once I was leaked the document that revealed what was said in the secret meetings of the Security Council, I knew I had to do a book. And that book, A People Betrayed, was published in 2000. I found it very difficult to get a publisher to be interested in it, but it was finally published in 2000. The second book I wrote is called Conspiracy to Murder, and that is available outside. And it describes how the genocide was placed, planned, paid for and perpetrated. That book is available. I have just recently completed the manuscript of an update of A People Betrayed, and that is to be published on July 17, which is the official end of the genocide period.
- [42:25]
A
Thank you. You were pointing out the role of the west and its responsibility in the UN genocide. I would like to ask a question about the UN system because I sometimes find it very, very contradictory. On the one hand, the UN Let Rwanda down.
- [42:48]
C
Furthermore, they can't hear.
- [42:51]
A
Furthermore, a number of decisions made by the UN, like the Mandate, 7, Operation Te Quoi, the creation of the court, the dealing with justice, etc. Etc. The way the UN dealt with Rwanda did not only make friends in Rwanda, not surprisingly, on the other hand, Western politicians, quite a number of them, and you go into quite a detail, portray themselves as not knowing, as having not known about what was going on. If they had not known, they would have done something. That sort of reasoning which sounds very much like a lie actually, according to what you dig out and all the documents you deliver. So to me it seems like a sort of whitewashing. We didn't know and we would have done something different. But on the other hand, I mean, the. These catastrophes, maybe not to that extent, but nothing to play down, are continuing and there are a number of politicians saying UN is history, UN is irrelevant. You won't find a solution for any country other than the us, the uk, France or whoever is going to intervene directly. So can you please help us with a suggestion of what has to be learned from the role of the west and the world in genocide?
- [44:23]
C
First of all, I think it's important to realize that the failure is a failure of the Security Council of the United nations and its 15 members, and most particularly its five permanent members. It is not a failure of the entire, entire UN system. It is a failure of decision making within the Security Council of the un. The founders of the UN determined that Security Council meetings to devise policy should be open to the public. Each government on the Council had to justify its own position in the court of world opinion. But over time, it became more convenient for politicians and diplomats to hold meetings to devise what is known as UN policy in secret and in informal sessions. I doubt very much that on April 29, 1994, after Oxfam had determined that genocide was taking place, whether the eight hour debate that ensued in the Council would have taken place had that debate been in open session. There was eight hours of secret debate in the Council during which time our ambassador, the UK Ambassador, David Hannay, told the membership that if they called what was happening in Rwanda a genocide, they would be a laughing stock. As far as I know, no inquiry has been held in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to try to explain how we got this so badly wrong. And I'm sure that David Hannay would not have said what he said during that eight hour debate had the debate been held in public session. I see this obviously from the point of view of A journalist. And I think that the lack of accountability is absolutely extraordinary. The other thing that I think is important to remember is that an untold number of victims in Rwanda believed that with the UN in their country, they would be safe. It lulled them into a false sense of security. And I think that this is a really very serious issue that has not been addressed either. The minimal capacity of unamir, I think, is now quite well known because Major General Dallaire, as you know, and I expect some of you have read it, has written his own book on what happened. And he says in many of his cables that I've read his bitterness about the abandonment of the mission by the council. Once the genocide began, the Council of the UN did not even resupply the peacekeepers who stayed behind, those peacekeepers who were trapped trying to save as many people as they could. This tiny garrison was not resupplied. It was for the want of petrol, not courage, that more people were not rescued. Whitewashing. Yes, I think certainly, I think certainly in France, the Senate report and each country sees the genocide differently. And in France it is a much bigger scandal than it is here. And there is now talk of another inquiry by the Senate because of the disturbing information that has been dug up by human rights groups and journalists. In the US, a minimal number of documents produce no inquiry in Congress at all. In the uk, the silence can continues. The one inquiry that I think really was not a whitewash and that is really worthwhile is that conducted by Belgium. And the Belgium Senate inquiry, declassified documents that show the cables that went from New York to Brussels and from Brussels to Kigali. This is how we know that the British and the US were briefed by Belgium politicians about the risks that existed in Rwanda. So, yes, I think that is a whitewash, but not necessarily in Belgium. I hope that answers your question.
- [49:20]
A
Please raise your hands when you want to ask questions or make a comment. And I think I saw one there, there and there. Could you. James, stop please.
- [49:37]
D
Thank you. James Putzel from the lse. Linda, thank you again for. It's always, I don't know if I should say, a pleasure to listen to you because it's so disturbing again to hear this account. I'm wondering if since you started your work, there has been new legislation on freedom of information. Do you know or have you tried to pursue freedom of information legislation inquiries in UK and in the United States and with what results? Or has anyone else tried? And I'd be interested to hear that, as I think a lot of students here might pursue research through those mechanisms. And what have been the problems in getting more documentation released? The second thing is the French, I mean, you speak about the scandal. It goes on, it goes further because.
- [50:41]
B
The French have a particularly belligerent attitude.
- [50:43]
D
Towards Rwanda to the point of arresting recently the chief of protocol of President Kagame. And it's quite an extraordinary continued belligerence. And I'm wondering how you explain that.
- [51:00]
A
Would you like to answer first or collect?
- [51:02]
C
I think all right.
- [51:04]
A
There was someone up there.
- [51:08]
D
Hi, my name is Adrian Cavo. I, I used to work for the UN in Rwanda until two years ago. So I witnessed a bit of the inefficiency of the UN there. Well, 13 years later, my question was more, as you said, the focus on the Security Council of the UN as bearing the responsibility. How do you estimate, how do you define the role and the influence of the presence of Rwanda within the Security Council as a member of, as one of the non permanent members of the Security Council.
- [51:42]
B
Thank you.
- [51:44]
A
And over there, please.
- [51:48]
D
Sorry, mine is going to be two questions. Perhaps you want to answer the first two first? No, perhaps do you want to answer the first two questions first? Because I've got two questions.
- [52:00]
C
Shall I take the answer then? Yes. There have been Freedom of Information requests and the response has been so far from the British government that any release of documents would affect, adversely affect the relationship with another country. And I'm assuming this is France. When I interviewed David Hannay in December 1999, he said to me, as well as saying that we were extremely unsighted, he said that we also, as a country believed what the French were telling us. So one can only assume that that is the reason why documents have not yet been released in the U.S. i have just put in an FOIA request. Some documents have been released. I expect you know the work of Samantha Power in Atlantic Monthly, who wrote a long piece about how in the US in Washington the knowledge of the genocide was known. I think that this is quite clear now, but it's a minimal number of documents. There's an awful lot more that needs to be done. And I would like to say here that in the last 15 years it's students who've shown an interest in this. In many cases, in many of the areas that I'm still looking at where there are huge gaps, it's students who are working on it. And if anyone wants any subjects for PhDs, I could give you a dozen from the top of my head on this because there's so much that needs still to be Dug out. The French belligerence is extraordinary and one can only assume that the French still have an awful lot to hide. I think that it's really very disturbing indeed that French officers who were embedded in the Rwandan army, in those units that started the genocide on April 7, have given testimony in an international court in defence of Jeannot. I think that what we know about the French role is the tip of the iceberg. And I think that President Sarkozy is really very reluctant indeed to open up that particular can of worms. But one day, I'm sure with the work that's being done in France, we should know that much more than we do. Rwanda as a member of the Council. There was not one attempt in the three months that the genocide took place to expel the Rwandan ambassador from the council. In April 1994, Rwanda had been selected by the General assembly, assembly of the UN as a non permanent member of the Council. So a representative of a government that is perpetrating genocide sat in the Council for those three months. And as Dallaire said to me, the interim government, the extremists, were much better informed of what was being said in the Council than he was. The ambassador was only expelled in July, and the first the interim government had any indication at all that they had finally become pariahs was because the United States government withdrew the invites to Rwandan ambassadors for the July 4th celebration. That was the first indication that in fact, this was a pariah government conducting a genocide against its own people. No explanation has ever been given as to why that ambassador was allowed to sit in the Council.
- [56:16]
D
Before I come to the question, you mentioned that there was there is to be a Royal United Institute conference taking place. Could you say where it's taking place, when it's taking place and whether it's open to the public? That was now the question I wanted to ask. You mentioned that client privilege had been used or cited so as not to divulge information. I've never heard of this term. Could you explain what exactly is client privilege and can it be challenged? Is there any sort of legal redress against this or would it lead to them then citing, oh, well, anyway, we're being breached the Official Secrets Act. Is there any way of trying to get this information divulged because of this? And how many people were citing this client privilege? The other question, main question is. Do you approve of the combined action in Congo of the Congolese government and forces from Rwanda to seek out the Interahamwe remaining in? Do you believe that they constitute the majority of the murderers caused the genocide because this action is taking place. Do you not think that that would even need to have a sort of resurrection of some kind of tribunal because an awful lot more people will suddenly become available to be prosecuted? I'm a little bit unhappy to ask this question, but because there are so many people who ask this, I feel it should be put to bed. There is this contention, the bizarre claim that it was Tutsi action or even stated Paul Kagame, which led to the taking out of the Hutu head of state in this air accident, which wasn't an accident, which led to the explosion of the violence. There are many people who cite this. Can you put to bed. Can you answer whether or what exactly is your understanding of this claim? Because it's something which keeps on being stated.
- [58:53]
A
Okay, I have you on the list, and I think then you should get a. An opportunity to answer. And you, and you, and you in the next round.
- [59:06]
D
Yeah, just a question about Parliament here. Was there an inquiry by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs? And have you actually spoken to Douglas Hurd? I mean, for all the incompetence of governments, I go with chaos rather than conspiracy. He's certainly got a reputation and I've worked for him as a humane man and just want your point on that. You made the point about the FOI request, and I just wonder whether you'd appeal to the effort to the Information Commissioner, because, of course, the Commissioner has begun to establish, I'm glad to say, a bit of a reputation of actually finding against the government and forcing them to open things up. And the final point is about the European Union and the European Parliament. You know what I mean, what involvement there was, whether in fact they aired the subject at all, in terms of committees at the European Parliament or in the Chamber itself.
- [60:00]
C
First of all, on the Royal United Services Institute, I have a form which I can give you, which details this conference on May 21st. Client privilege. The phrase was used by Sir Franklin Berman himself, and I assume that what he meant was that the British government was somehow a client of his, so he could not talk about the advice that he gave. I understood that he was a civil servant, but this is a phrase that he used, and I quote him in the new edition. It is beyond my remit. The Congo. My own work, if you like, starts now, in 1894, when a German count was first welcomed at the court of the Rwandan king, and it ends on July 17, 1994. My whole focus has been the genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda and what happened during that period. I do not go beyond into the Congo. You mentioned the assassination on April 6 of President Juvenile Habi Yahiramana as his plane came into land at Kigali International Airport. We may never know who downed the plane. Fifteen years has gone by, and it is extraordinary that there was not at the time an. An international inquiry. The International Civil Aviation Authority in Montreal held one meeting to discuss this and then adjourned, waiting for information from Belgium. Lt. Gen. Dallaire promised the people of Rwanda there would be an inquiry. The Security Council of the UN promised there would be an inquiry. The There has been no inquiry. Instead, we have rumor and speculation, I expect you know, of the report prepared by a French judge, Louis Brugiere, into this assassination. And he claims, using witness testimony, that it was the present president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. There is not one shred of evidence to prove that at all. And the major witnesses for this French inquiry have retracted. This leaves the French government with the problem that nine international arrest warrants have been issued for serving members of the Rwandan government. When I write about this, I wrote a piece about this for Prospect last year. I started by saying that we may never know. We may never know who shot down that plane. And I think that that is scandal itself. The Rwandan government, however, I think, has prepared an investigation and is looking at ballistic evidence, I think, and is due to report. On Douglas. Was there another Douglas Hurd? No. I have read everything that Douglas heard, has written about this, including his book, and I'm sure that perhaps afterwards, you know, until we have an inquiry, how can we know why he behaved as he did and why he still believes that nothing could have been done? Surely, for an informed debate, we need government information. I know that David Hannay still believes, and I quote him in my book, that nothing could have been done, given the intent of the Hutu extremists on eliminating every single Tutsi, that it wasn't possible. But this is a minority view. General Dallaire believes that 5,000 to this day could have prevented the spread. The Carnegie Endowment inquiry. Military officers that I've spoken to in Washington. There does seem to be now a consensus of opinion that military action could have first stopped the genocide from starting once it began, from stopping it spreading. It didn't spread south until April 21, and it only spread south, it is believed, on April 21, because the Security Council of the UN decided that day to pull out the bulk of the peacekeepers. This sent a terrible signal to Hutu power that it could continue with its work. Thank you.
- [65:15]
A
Thank you. There was no Tom. Okay, let's start with you.
- [65:24]
D
Tom Goodfellow from the lsp. One of the things I find most extraordinary about the French role and in some ways the failure of everybody else to act is the idea which you suggested and comes through in some of the literature that in some way some kind of old colonial rivalry between the British and the French has some part to play in what the French were doing. And it seems most extraordinary that so recently something like that could have the kind of consequences it did. And I just wanted to know what. Because you do know so much about the talks that were happening in secret and you've investigated this so much, what was going on bilaterally between Britain and France at this point. If Mitterman really did believe that there was some kind of Ugandan backed involvement with the RPF and given the influence that Britain have in Uganda, what was going on between Britain and France? Is there anything that you've uncovered there? And a second question I have is to do with the arrest of Rose Kabuye several months ago, who I believe is very close to the President, was an RPF commander or very senior in the RPF and was arrested in Germany under the accusation of having shot down the President's plane. And I just wondered why you thought Germany had decided to get involved in this way at this time. So, yeah, just more to do with those European relations. Thank you.
- [66:59]
A
There were two other hands on the left hand side. More up please. Yes.
- [67:10]
D
Just to reiterate that one of the long list of questions before was have you appealed to the information Commissioner who, who has been giving judgments against the government? Have you tried that? But also moving on to the European angle, the whole of the EU seems to defer to whoever was the pre colonial power. And I wondered, and Britain, I've seen it in other places in Africa doing the same thing. I wonder, has Britain learned that actually maybe they shouldn't believe everything France says? And the other colonial power, is there any evidence that Britain has learned from, from their mistakes in that respect?
- [67:45]
A
Thank you. And one more please.
- [67:47]
B
Yes, thank you very much. Your book talks about the responsibility of the west in the, in the genocide. And I'm inclined to ask you about what do you think of the responsibility of other African countries in the impunity or failing to bring the ringleaders of the genocide to account. I come from Kenya, in Nairobi, and for the last like four or five years we've been living under the impression that a gentleman by the Name, Felician Kabuga, who is thought to be the ringleader, the mastermind of the genocide, actually lives in Nairobi. And it's very hard to arrest Kabuga. Even the CIA has tried. They have not been able to get him. They tried to use a gentleman who was, I think, an informer. And he was mysteriously murdered in an apartment in the city and is believed to be a rich guy with investments. And people actually believe that he lives in Nairobi. There are other suspects who live in Cape Town and I'm told, also in Algeria. How come these people have not been arrested? And to whom should we lay the blame on the arrest? I'm told others are also in Belgium. And Juvenile Habiramana's wife, I think, lives in Paris.
- [69:11]
C
Very difficult question about the relationship between Britain and France. I wish I knew at that time. What we do know from the release of documents from the Mitterrand archive is how certain Mitterrand was that the invasion by the Rwandan patriotic front in October 1990 on behalf of the refugees was an invasion by a foreign power by Uganda determined to create what was called a Tutsiland in the region. There is no mention in any of the documents that I've seen so far that he was concerned in any way whatsoever with the refugee problem. As far as Mitterrand and the Africa Unit were concerned, this was not a refugee problem. This was an invasion by Uganda on a neighboring state in order to take control of it. But as I say, there's an awful lot more that we need to know on the Rose Kabuyi arrest. Rose Kabuyi is the President Kagame's chief of protocol. She was a colonel in the rpf and she was arrested in Germany as she was hoping to prepare a visit of the president to that country.
- [70:44]
B
Country.
- [70:46]
C
I understand it this way, that in fact, the Rwandan government may have been warned that her arrest was likely. And the Rwandan government took this as an opportunity to test the French case in court, to test Jean Louis Brugierre's report in court. And that's as far as I know. And this has happened. I mean, as you know, Rose Caboot is now back in Rwanda. I've read the Brugiere report, the part of it that has been published, and it is deeply flawed. And I think it's also some concern that Brugiere is very close to one of the mercenaries, at least Captain Paul Barill, who was involved in the affairs of Burundi and in Rwanda at the time. It's this tip of the iceberg. We know Very little about this at the moment. No, I have not tried an appeal to the commissioner, but I will. Responsibility of other countries. The organization Redress estimates that there are thousands of genocide suspects all over the world who escaped thanks to the French operation when the genocide was over. As you all know, in this country, four suspects have recently been released and are now living back openly in London. Felicia Kabuga is apparently still in Kenya. There are dozens, if not hundreds of genocide suspects in France. This is a huge problem for international justice. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was established after the genocide was over, has perhaps some 60 people either convicted or still undergoing trial. But the list of category one, that is those who planned and perpetrated the genocide, runs to 240. And it would seem that with the closure of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is now being mandated by the Council, the majority will escape unless individual governments decide. Decide to put suspects on trial. That is one of the only solutions possible. Thank you.
- [73:53]
A
I'm sorry, but with respect to the time, we are only able to listen to two short question, please, and two short answers. And that is you, Peter. And you can. Okay, one more, one more. Three short questions, please. You are aware it will be after eight. All right, four short questions.
- [74:25]
B
I'm sorry, I'm not going to ask a question. I just want to make a comment for the audience here that when you look at what is happening in Africa vis a vis Europe, I'm afraid we have to go right back to 1800 because France and England will not sell each other if they think one of them is going to lose. What they are fighting for are the minerals in Africa. And we, as Africa, Africans are there. We are just nothing. We are not even puppets on a string. We are just literally nothing. If they can get the African presidents to be hung or to shoot each other, all the better. Africa does not manufacture these weapons that are killing us in Africa. It is France, it is Germany, it is England, it's America. They know that once they given you this material and you are angry with your next of kin or whoever, you are going to use them. And after the war, you owe them so much. So the thing that makes money for Europe is the manufacture of weaponry. And they have to sell this weaponry by any means possible. So to be saying so and so has done this and so and so has done that. I've spent my whole life like that gentleman at the back there who said he comes from Kenya and is wondering why so and so is walking freely and somebody who has killed is not Being arrested. We live through these lives and for as long as we are looking at the participants through moral eyes, we will always be frustrated because these people are selling. They are in a marketplace. They can sell anything for anything as long as they get a bit of money. And in fact, it's not a small bit of money, it's a hell of a lot of money. The Congo right now is dying because of what minerals it has. I went to Belgium one time and was shocked to find a map. Sorry, a map has been biggest one of what side they had all the parts of the Congo where they are getting wet minerals. And it is for this reason that Africans are dying. And England is not free, France is not free, America is not free. So thank you very much for trying to expose these people. But exposure is. That's your only weapon, moral weapon. And I'm glad that there are people like you who spend their lives trying to expose these people. But we have no power. We just have moral questions which will not. Which mean nothing to the people who own them. The minerals of Africa.
- [77:27]
A
Thank you very much. It's your turn now.
- [77:33]
D
Thank you. Thank you very much. I was very interested in your presentation, particularly the way you were trying to distinguish between the responsibility of the international institutions and their failure and the culpability of individuals, particularly politicians. I wonder whether in the years that have gone by and the research that you've done, whether you could comment now on where we are today in relation to another instance of this breaking out. I'm particularly interested in the advancement of the concept of the responsibility to protect within the international community when such an incident starts to occur. And how do you think nowadays we would see the interplay of the European Union and its security and defence policy? I'm thinking of the EU ability now to launch an intervention through a peacekeeping force, something that is relatively new. And I'm also thinking, of course now of the increased effectiveness of the African Union in its peacekeeping role. But fundamentally, have we now got the strength within our international institutions to override the individual culpability of the ambitions of, shall I say, politicians in the wider sector?
- [78:46]
A
Thank you, Peter. The microphone is Mr. Rogan.
- [78:52]
D
Thank you.
- [78:52]
C
This is not a question, it's a very brief follow up to Linda's response to the gentleman behind me who asked.
- [78:59]
D
About the RUSI conference, because I think other people might like to know too. This is being held on the 21st of this month at the RUSI offices in Whitehall and you can find out about it if you go on their web rusi.org it's a free full day conference.
- [79:20]
C
It costs £40 unless you're a student. When it's £20.
- [79:28]
B
Okay. Has it been reduced to 10?
- [79:31]
D
You're more up to date than I am. Thank you.
- [79:35]
A
All right, thank you. And please, the last question or comments and then Linda.
- [79:44]
B
That'S very kind of you.
- [79:45]
D
Thank you. My question is about the four suspects.
- [79:50]
B
Who have just been raised by the.
- [79:51]
D
British judge here, citing Rwandan justice system weaknesses and the lack of legal system to try them here.
- [80:01]
B
My question is, is that the end of it all? This guy is now going to be free to live in this country.
- [80:05]
D
Thank you.
- [80:08]
A
Okay.
- [80:10]
C
Yes. The responsibility to protect, known as R2P is, I thought, quite an extraordinary initiative. But I did wonder why we need it when we have the Genocide Convention. Doesn't the convention, even though lawyers will argue whether there's any a legal or a moral obligation, but it's at the apex of international law and I rather look to the Convention rather than the responsibility to protect. On the European Union. Yes, it is interesting. Someone said to me once that if in the Security Council of the UN there had been a joint European Union seat, not France, but a joint European Union seat as one of the five permanent, the genocide may never have happened at all because this rivalry would not have existed. Perhaps that's in an ideal world, strength to override the bullies who take over the playground. I don't think so. It's not something that we've seen, certainly. Looking at the role of Monouk, is this the end of it all? We've just released four genocide suspects. There are possibly hundreds more in London. I sincerely hope not. I hope that something will happen and if there's an expert here who can explain, explain it to me. For us to put them on trial, for them to be put. If it's not possible to extradite to Rwanda, and if the court, the International Criminal Court, because of finance apparently is closing, then this is just not acceptable. They have to be put on trial in this country. Is there somebody over there there who knows a bit more about this, please?
- [82:27]
D
This is directly relating to the four Rwandan suspects and any other suspects. There's a small group of NGOs, lawyers and members of Parliament and Lords putting through an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill Bill at the moment, or alternatively a private member's bill through the House of Lords, which will retrospectively apply the jurisdiction of British courts before 2001, when the International Criminal Court act, further back, perhaps to 1969, when the Genocide act came into existence in the UK and will give us extraterritorial jurisdiction. If successful, this campaign would not need some support from people like yourselves to write to your Member of Parliament asking them to investigate why there are four suspects who couldn't be tried. Because there's a gap or a loophole in British law at the moment. So if you, after today went to, as well as donating to Ryico, also went to theyworkforyou.com and then wrote to your local Member of Parliament asking them to investigate and remain right to the Justice Minister, Jack Straw, then you will play a small part in hoping to change that law tonight.
- [83:39]
C
Thank you.
- [83:43]
D
The website theywork4u.com it just enables you to write to your Member of Parliament. And there's details about this on the Aegis Trust website, but we've also been doing it in conjunction with Redress, Amnesty, Human Rights Rights Watch and many others.
- [84:01]
A
Thank you very much, Linda, thank you very, very much for sharing this wealth of information and of detail with us. Thank you very much for coming. Before I thank everybody else for coming, I would like to mention again, Rieko, they are outside with the table and you know that your donations, your support for people in Rwanda would be more than welcome. So on top of coming, please consider that. Thank you very much.