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"An Attempt of Explaining: The UNs Failure in Rwanda"

Aktuelle Studie vom 12.09.2007

In spring 1994 800,000 Rwandan people were killed right under the eyes of western governments. A genocide took place that resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power. Governments in France, Belgium, USA and the UN failed to act accordingly to their own moral convictions for weeks and months when even small measures would have saved a lot of lives.
How can we understand an incredible and horrendous thing like the genocide in Rwanda under the eyes of the UN and western governments after the international community promised “never
again”?
Surely one must at first take a historical point of view and trace back the different events that led to the situation of interest. This is what I’ll do in the first part of this paper. I will introduce the main actors and then recapitulate the different phases from colonialism to the aftermath of the genocide. A main focus will be laid on the role of the International Community, especially on the UN.


In the second part of the paper I will try to explain why things happened. To do this, I will apply a theory to the case of Rwanda that examines the psychological dimensions of policy disasters. The theory of Preference Falsification by Timur Kuran focuses on the actors as members of a pressure group who act according to punishment-reward considerations.


The Main Actors

When talking of actors in the case of Rwanda one has to differentiate between local and foreign actors.
In the country itself two major tribes exist called Tutsi and Hutu. The Hutu make up the majority of the population. During the time of colonialism separation between the two tribes increased more and more. Years after the independence from Belgium the Tutsi-dominated militia RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) started a civil war against Hutu-dominated single party government MRND (Movement Révolutionaire National pour le Dévelopement).
This civil war was to be ended in 1992 by the Arusha Accords that proved to be ineffective. In 1994 the civil war increased to a genocide. Hutu military, militias like the Interahamwe (Those who stand together) and civilians killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsi and moderate Hutu.
All this happened while the UN Mission UNAMIR was in the country. They were originally sent to Rwanda to survey the Arusha Accords. Their force commander, General Romeo Dallaire regularly reported to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) that at that time was involved in 20 missions and didn’t support UNAMIR sufficiently, and the Security Council who overestimated the willingness of Hutu and Tutsi to maintain the peace agreements and constrained the mandate of UNAMIR during genocide.
National Governments that are permanent members of the Security Council like the US, France or Belgium acted incorrectly. The US Government tried to avoid costs by ignoring the genocide, France even supported the Hutu Regime due to personal friendships and interest in francophone influence in the region while Belgium, at first the main contributor of soldiers to the UN Mission, after the deaths of ten Belgian soldiers changed its policy completely and pushed for an absolute drawback of the mission.
During the genocide, all these governments and the Security Council completely ignored the term “genocide” as the use of this term has legal implications that make intervention compulsory.
Other international actors like donors or NGOs remained passive throughout the genocide. The International Red Cross was the only NGO to stay in the country.

After the introduction of the main actors, local and international, I’ll now trace back the different events that are important for an analysis of the genocide and the failures of the International Community.


Colonialism – Separation of Hutu and Tutsi

During the time of Belgian colonialism in Rwanda which took place from 1918 to 1968 the Belgian colonists made the minority Tutsi superior to the majority Hutu. Tutsi were consequently favoured over Hutu. The Belgians “systematically removed Hutu from positions of power and they excluded them from higher education, which was meant mostly as preparation for careers in the administration. They thus imposed a Tutsi monopoly of public life not just for the 1920s and 30s, but for the next generation as well” (DesForges 1999:34). This of course left the Hutu very unsatisfied with their situation and therefore set the stage for future conflict between Hutu and Tutsi.
In the late 1950s with the end of colonial rule and increasing pressure from the UN who supervised the Belgian rule in Rwanda under the trusteeship system, the Belgians began to end discrimination against Hutu. This frightened the ruling Tutsi but left the Hutu still unsatisfied. This is why 1959 there were struggles between radical Hutu and Tutsi during that “several hundred people were killed before the Belgian administration restored order” (DesForges 1999:36).
Finally, in September 1961 the Hutu won municipal elections. Many Tutsi fled the country as the Hutu regime now used the ideas of Tutsi distinctiveness and earlier suppression of Hutu to justify the violence of the revolution and following discrimination.


Post-Colonialism – Constant Conflict

In the following years ruling Hutu continued to discriminate against Tutsi. In 1973, General Joseph Habyarimana took power to unite Hutu in north and south of Rwanda and to establish the second republic. He also established a single-party state under the MRND. Under this party Tutsi discrimination continued throughout the years and the number of Tutsi in exile increased to about 600,000 people. About 7 000 of those people were determined to get back into their country, “ouster Habyarimana and establish a more democratic government” (DesForges 1999:42). These men united under Paul Kagame’s RPF.


Build-Up and Civil War

In October 1990 the RPF decided to invade Rwanda to realize their goals. For Habyarimana this meant a possibility to openly go against all Tutsi and opposing Hutu in Rwanda. He duped that the RPF attacked Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. With this move, he hoped to silence or even eliminate opposition and ensure help from friendly foreign nations.
As hoped for, Belgian, Zairian and French troops helped him push the RPF back out of the country. The French stayed and became a constant support of the Habyarimana regime. All measures taken after the outbreak of the civil war “convinced [Rwandan] people that there was a real danger of enemy infiltrators” (DesForges 1999:43).
The RPF continued to attack Rwanda in a series of guerrilla incursions that were repulsed by the Rwandan army that in 1991 had started training and arming civilians and a militia known as Interahamwe. This militia later became one of the driving forces during the genocide.

Ineffective Cease-Fires

In April 1992 when Habyarimana faced pressure from opposition and coalition parties MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain), PL(Parti Libéral) and PSD(Parti Démacrate Chrétien) the RPF and the Rwandan government entered negotiations which resulted in cease-fires including the Arusha Accords.
Although Habyarimana had just signed the cease-fires he clearly rejected the Arusha Accords three months later. As there was no confidence in any of the peace-agreements both opposing parties continued to purchase arms.
The Rwandan Army purchased some 581,000 machetes as cheap and efficient weapons. Also the Hutu regime prepared lists for the identification of Tutsi that later served as “death lists”.
The RPF continued to enlist young people as soldiers and trained them. They were poorly equipped but their existence was used by the Hutu regime to support fears of the RPF.

Propaganda and Hate-Radio

In September 1992 the Hutu regime started propaganda against Tutsi and moderate Hutu supposedly helping the RPF from inside the country. The Radio RTML (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines) played a central role as the medium of Hutu hard-liners agitating and campaigning to get Hutu supporting their policy. Constantly there were minor attacks against Tutsi and moderate Hutu.
During this time of civil war the Rwandan Hutu regime learned that the international community would hardly intervene and easily accept violence in Rwanda when convinced that the outbursts were of a tribal nature. Therefore the authorities claimed they “had been simply unable to control the outbursts of spontaneous, popular rage” (DesForges 1999:73). On the other hand, foreigners like diplomats, aid experts, technocrats or clergy had an interest of “maintaining the positive image of this clean, well-organized, hard-working little country” (DesForges 1999:73). As a result, Habyarimana was encouraged by the non-reaction of other nations to continue his course.

UN-mission: A weak start

Nonetheless, there had been voices calling for a UN-mandate to survey the Arusha-Accords very soon after the signing. To understand the very slow and small reaction of the United Nations one has to bear in mind that the UN and especially the USA still were shocked by their experiences during the UN mission UNOSOM in Somalia which failed terribly and resulted in the deaths of 19 US soldiers.
As a result, the UN member states failed to devote the resources necessary to Rwanda, partly because they counted on early success, partly because they did not want another failed mission in Africa and did not see any national interests in Rwanda.
With a delay of weeks the UN agreed on the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda UNAMIR under General Romeo Dallaire with only about 2,500 troops instead of the recommended 8,000 that had great lack of basic reserves as food, medicine and military supplies.
The tasks of this force were to survey the cease-fire agreements. According to Paragraph 17 in the Rules of Engagement that translated the mandate of the Security Council into regulations the soldiers also had the authority to “take the necessary action to prevent any crime against humanity.”
Had the situation remained stable maybe there had been a chance for Dallaire’s troops to reach their goal. But instead, on October 21 Ndadaye, President of neighbouring Burundi was assassinated by Tutsi extremists. This murder led to massive struggles between Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi as well as in Rwanda. Even worse, this deepened the separation and hatred between Tutsi and Hutu. This situation fuelled the violence and preparation for genocide continued under the eyes of UNAMIR.

“Do not intervene!”

On January 11, Dallaire decided to act and seize illegal arms. He strongly warned the UN Headquarters that the situation was likely to get out of control if nobody acted. He was very soon informed that he was to do nothing but watch and talk to Rwandan authorities. All of his following requests concerning a bigger contingent of forces and broader conception of his mandate were declined by the headquarters. Consequently, the force lost rapidly in credibility as they were incapable of stopping any bloodshed in the following months.
In April 6, 1994 the plane that was supposed to bring President Habyarimana home from Dar es Salam was shot down. It is still not clear today who committed the murder but it is clear that the Hutu regime exploited that event immediately by starting to slaughter opposing or moderate politicians. With Habyarimana‘s death Colonel Bagosora took charge. Under his command the civil war resumed and the genocide against Tutsi and moderate Hutu commenced.


The Genocide

During the next two months the long planned death-machine of the Hutu-Regime worked almost perfectly. Key players were the Interahamwe militia, the Rwandan military and administration and the hate-radio RTML. Together these actors followed three different strategies: “They wanted to confuse foreigners in order to avoid criticism and perhaps even to win support; they wanted to mislead Tutsi to make it easier to kill them; and they wanted to manipulate Hutu into participating energetically in the genocidal program” (DesForges 1999:192).

“Get the Belgians out!”

Another goal was to get the UN forces out of the way. The Hutu Regime knew about the fears and anxieties after the failed mission in Somalia. So when they killed 10 Belgian soldiers who were supposed to protect the Prime Minister they got the exact reaction they had hoped for: Belgium, at first a decided supporter for a broader and stronger mandate, pulled back its soldiers and urged the Security Council to fully withdraw UNAMIR. This manoeuvre, according to Allison DesForges, “meant to disguise and lessen Belgian responsibility for deserting Rwanda, coincided with the US policy to end UNAMIR in Rwanda and was probably encouraged by US authorities with whom the Belgians were in close contact” (1999:475).
With the Belgian soldiers removed, only a small token force under Dallaire remained in Rwanda and could do nothing but watch the slaughter of 800,000 people, protect themselves and a few safe-havens. By that time western governments knew about the terrible situation in Rwanda as they had sent evacuation forces into the country to get their citizens home safely. Nonetheless, they were in a denial process that was harder and harder to stop. In the first days and weeks it would have been comparably easy to stop the killings but the later and worse the situation got the costlier an intervention would have been. Also, the later it got the harder it was for the governments to admit they had misjudged the situation.

The “G-Word”

Instead of judging the situation correctly as one of the most terrible genocides in the 20th century, the UN and the western governments, especially the US government carefully avoided the use of the term “genocide”. According to Samantha Power, professor at Harvard University they “were afraid that using it would have obliged the US to act under the terms of the 1948 Genocide Convention. They also believed, rightly, that it would harm US credibility to name the crime and then doing nothing to stop it” (Powers 2002:359). On American and British pressure the UN Security Council excluded the word “genocide” from its statements.
When in end of April it was impossible to deny the genocide, Boutros-Ghali, Secretary General of the UN first used the term genocide to describe the situation in Rwanda. Still, nothing happened until on May 17th when the Security Council decided to strengthen the mandate of UNAMIR. Because the deployment of material and personnel was so slow nothing happened until the genocide was over.
It was only end of June when US officials due to “severe internal and external pressure” admitted that they were dealing with genocide instead of “acts of genocide”(Powers 2002:364).
In the end it were the Tutsi themselves who saved their lives. From End of May to June 1994 the RPF advanced throughout the country. On July 2nd they took Kigali and the Hutu elite responsible for the deaths of their people fled Rwanda.


The Aftermath

When the genocide was over the international community seemed shocked. Many politicians said they had just misperceived of the situation and tried to excuse their non-action with journeys to the country and visits to mass-graves. The UN installed the United Nations Human Rights Field Organization HRFOR to deliver justice to Rwanda and help reconstruct the country. This mission was only little later gravely criticized as “a waste of hope” that even worsened the UNs loss in reputation (Omaar/de Waal 1995).

International Justice?

Three weeks after the start of the genocide the Security Council asked the Secretary General to investigate whether the Rwandan government was committing genocide. In November 1994 after the UN special rapporteur for Rwanda had concluded both “that Rwandan authorities had committed genocide and that soldiers of the RPA were guilty of violations of international humanitarian law” (DesForges 1999:569) the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up. The tribunal was not able to proceed quickly, “in part because of administrative problems, such as assuring the attendance of witnesses and counsel for the defence, in part because of extended vacations taken by the judges” (DesForges 1999:571).


An Attempt of Explaining: Preference Falsification


After summarizing the events that led to the catastrophe in Rwanda and talking about the critical events that determined the situation and actions of the main actors one still can’t understand why things happened the way they did. To understand the incomprehensible actions of actors like the UN or the US Government from today’s perspective I will try to apply a theory to the case that might shed a bit of light on the facts and still unanswered questions. The theory of Preference Falsification tries to explain things from a psychological and actor-centred point of view. As Kuran says, “the »why questions« cannot be answered without an analysis of the decision-making process” (Kuran 1995:13).

Denial of Private Preferences

The theory of Preference Falsification was developed by Timur Kuran in 1995 and has since been an important theory for explaining reasons for revolutions and policy disasters.
What Kuran defines as Preference Falsification is the “act of misrepresenting one’s genuine wants under perceived social pressures” (Kuran 1995:3). The individual has to decide whether to give in to the group’s pressure and maintain his status or rather be true to his own convictions. The choice of the public preference over one’s own private and true opinion is made on the basis of the expected rewards and punishments by the other members of the group.

Suppression of Knowledge

Consequently, not only by the group unwanted private opinions but also knowledge is suppressed: “ We must reinforce our preference falsification through knowledge falsification. In doing so, we distort, corrupt and impoverish the knowledge in the public domain” (Kuran 1995:19). Negative effects like “intellectual narrowness and ossification” are not surprising. Inefficiencies and ignoration of alternative actions are the consequences.
For the pressure group that shares the public preference the benefits of Preference Falsification are for instance political stability and control over other people’s public preference through social pressure. The interaction between the individuals is harmonized. Also, by silencing disagreements social cooperation is easier to achieve.
For the group’s members a situation like that means they permanently have to decide between “outer security and inner peace, between social approval and personal approval” (Kuran 1995:32). One can speak of a certain kind of opportunism.


Application of the Theory to Rwanda

If we want to apply the theory of Preference Falsification to the failure of the international community in Rwanda we first have to make some assumptions.
Basis to the explanation will be that the private preference of the political leaders at the time from April to July was the comprehension that a genocide was taking place, that there was an international responsibility for the Rwandan people and need for a real intervention. The public preference was the complete opposite. The majority of leaders claimed that in Rwanda a cruel civil war but no genocide was taking place, that they were dealing with the usual tribal violence in another African failed state and the like.

Information was available!

As pointed out before, this position was not due to lack of information. Many observers were well informed about the situation in Rwanda. Westerners were quickly evacuated from Rwanda to save them from the Interahamwe and the Rwandan military, so even at the highest level of politics the dramatic situation must have been clear. The choice of the public over the private preference probably was made on basis of punishment-reward measures. Leaders didn’t see sufficient gains from an intervention in Rwanda.
We’ll assume that the politicians were constantly trading off between their public and their private role. Obviously it took too much time until the switch-over point was reached and the public preference changed so public and private preference were identical. By then many people had paid with their lives.
In the following steps I’ll check whether the theory of Preference Falsification fits to the case of Rwanda. I will do that by applying the effects of Preference Falsification that Kuran describes to the international community’s failure in Rwanda.

Unamity in the Group

The positive effects for the members of the pressure group I’ve already talked about before are harmonized interaction in the group, social agreement by silencing opposition and regulation of other’s opinion.
These phenomena were obvious in the actions of the Security Council’s members. Due to pressure mainly from the US government the members of the group acted cohesively in terms of an intervention and use of the term “genocide”. Also, when Belgium pulled back its troops because of the deaths of ten Belgian peacekeepers they pushed the other members to support their policy of drawback. “Policy […] could be described simply: no US military intervention, robust demands for a withdrawal of all Dallaire’s forces, and no support for a new UN mission that would challenge the killers. Belgium had the cover it needed” (Powers 2002:367).
From today’s perspective it seems quite sarcastic to call these effects “positive” but for the agenda setters in the UN at that time regulation of the other members’ preference was essential.

Inefficiencies and Confusion

Of course from that restriction negative effects resulted. Kuran argues that Preference Falsification “generates inefficiencies, breeds ignorance and confusion and conceals social possibilities” (Kuran 1995:6). These effects are also to be seen in the case of Rwanda. For example one can see inefficiency and confusion in the lack of accurate communication about the situation in the UN. “The Council, like the secretariat staff, fell into vague and confused statements that failed to come to terms with the real nature of the genocide” because “staff of the secretariat heard two quite different voices from the field, that of Booh-Booh [head of UNAMIR] and that of Dallaire” (DesForges 1999:478). Also it seems there has been some information loss from the field to the Council.
Finally, the whole failure of the international community in Rwanda can be seen as one big inefficiency. From today’s perspective it would have been far less costly to send troops to Rwanda and therewith avoiding the severe loss in credibility that resulted from the non-actions.

Closed-Mindedness

We observe as well the ignorance of alternative actions and possibilities. Measures like spamming the radio station RTML, stopping financial support for the Hutu Regime or just admitting the seriousness of the situation were basically ignored. This fact can also be interpreted as the above mentioned “knowledge falsification” where knowledge is suppressed because it is not wanted and does not contribute to the individual status in the group.


Critique

The application of the Preference Falsification theory to the case of Rwanda certainly has its weak points. A major point of critique is that the basic assumptions are questionable. There is no chance to get any information about the private preference of any political leader. We can only make assumptions about their personal struggle when trading-off between their public role and the information they knew of that shaped their private preference.
We don’t know whether they maybe just didn’t care about the fate of the people in a small African country, whether they thought economically and rational and therefore decided it was too risky and costly to go into Rwanda or whether they did falsify their personal preference because of the pressure of other group members.

Many remaining Questions

Certainly Preference Falsification is a useful theory and explains a good deal of the case of Rwanda but it is not capable of explaining the whole catastrophe and a lot of questions remain unanswered. How is the mission statement of the UN compatible with the ignorance of a genocide in Africa? Why were field-staff and experts not heard when they spoke up? What about the case of Sudan - is it comparable to the Rwandan disaster?
In the end, the horrors of the genocide in Rwanda can certainly not be explained by only one theory. If in general it is possible to understand at all why things happened the way they did, we have to apply a number of theories to such a complex and dense case. This will be the job of another paper.


Literature

DesForges, A. (1999): Leave None to Tell the Story. Genocide in Rwanda. Paris/NewYork: Human Rights Watch.

Kuran, T (1995): Private Truths and Public Lies. The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Omaar, R./de Waal, A.(1995) : Rwanda, A Waste of Hope. The United Nations Human Rights Field Mission. London: African Rights.

Power, S. (2002): A Problem from Hell – America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.

Vita Thormann

HAUS RISSEN HAMBURG
Internationales Institut für Politik und Wirtschaft

E-Mail: thormann(a) hausrissen.org

© 25.07.08 21:32 HAUS RISSEN HAMBURG