Just before the sun set that evening, I made my way to the airport to see off Dewez and the last of the Belgian blue berets. The airport grounds were strewn with litter, and even cars vandalized by the Italian forces that had flown in to “help” with the French and Belgian evacuation. In the terminal itself, all the shops had been vandalized and destroyed. Windows were smashed and garbage was all over the place. Only European soldiers had used the terminal since the start of the war, along with the mostly European expatriates who had transited through, and I was struck by the blatant banditry and disdain they had demonstrated toward what was a national treasure to a poor country such as Rwanda.
Dewez and I spoke for a bit to confirm that all handover and military technical matters were sorted out. He was in terrible emotional straits as he described his overwhelming feeling of abandoning the mission in the face of the enemy. I did not make his departure any easier as he saluted for the last time and walked away from me to the Belgian aircraft, its engines already turning. The ramp closed as he entered the belly of the aircraft, and in no time the plane was moving. It lumbered its goose-like way along the runway and became airborne, climbing into a picture-perfect Rwandan sunset sky. The sounds of battle, for a while lost to me, became more and more loud as the plane escaped into the horizon.
I was beside myself with anger, and the gunfire only exacerbated it. Images of my father and father-in-law wearing their Second World War battledress seemed to leap out of the darkening sky. They looked tired, muddy and haggard and were in the midst of fighting for the liberation of Belgium. As Canadian soldiers fought tooth and nail against the Germans, King Léopold III of Belgium and his ruthless lackeys kept millions of black Africans in Rwanda and all of the Great Lakes region of central Africa under subjugation, raping these countries of their natural resources. And here I was, in the heart of one of the Belgian king’s former colonies, watching Belgian troops abandon us in the midst of one of the worst slaughters of the century because they had lost some of their professional soldiers to soldierly duties.
I stood watching the sky for a long time. Fifty years after my mentors had fought in Europe, I had been left here with a ragtag force to witness a crime against humanity that the Belgians had unwittingly laid the spadework for. With the noise of gunfire and grenades in the background, and the pitch-black night closing in around me, I gave myself over to hate of a nation that had not only lost its nerve to stay in the fight but that was prepared to sacrifice the names and reputations of its own soldiers to soothe its conscience. Marchal, Dewez, Ballis, Van Put, Kesteloot, De Loecker, Deprez, Puffet, Van Asbroek, Mancel, Podevijn, Maggen, Dupuis, Claeys, De Weghe, Yansenne and other loyal Belgian officers and NCOs to the mission would ultimately be the saving face of the Belgian government and people. And soon enough they would also become targets of disdain for those who should have given them medals, accolades and respect. They had single-handedly maintained the dignity and social conscience of a nation that, after being bloodied, turned its back on the plight of 8.3 million Rwandans in peril and the 800,000 women, children, elders and men who would die at the hands of extremists.
I finally returned to the Force HQ through the RGF para-commando lines, where a few bullets hastened my pace. I was determined not to go down in history as the commander who ran. Why send soldiers in at all if at the first casualties we are told to abandon the mission to protect our hides? I had to make sure the Ghanaians, the only truly organized force left to me, would not waver. I salute Henry Anyidoho, who at great personal risk, kept his government at bay for the rest of the war and genocide and kept the Ghanaian troops with us. He was a fine leader and a loyal servant to the mission. It was Henry on the night of April 18 who steadied my resolve not to withdraw.
Brent had been impatiently awaiting my return so that he could put my last comments into the Military Assessment of the Situation (MIR-19) in order to counteract the code cables ordering us to withdraw if there was no move toward a ceasefire. Once again I laid out the terrible situation as clearly as I could, along with all the tactical and moral reasons for keeping at least a small force inside the country. A total withdrawal of the force would be both dangerous and fraught with obstacles: “UNAMIR does not have the heavy weapon systems, ammunition, let alone secure transport to force its way out. Options like an internationally imposed truce or a guaranteed military supported extraction may have to be considered if UNAMIR is to successfully withdraw its personnel with safety from Rwanda.” Our withdrawal would clearly imperil the displaced persons in our safe sites. The best we would be able to do in such cases would be to gather lists of the names of the people and have Philippe Gaillard and the Red Cross oversee their handling by both sides. Since the Rwandans would be maltreated and possibly killed at the hands of the other side, we’d open up even more grounds for animosity and recrimination between the belligerents.
“The safety of our withdrawal is directly related to our keeping a foot on the ground in Rwanda for at least the short while,” I argued. “FC cannot stress this point emphatically enough. We await your decision on this matter.” I signed off and Brent sent it.
Just hours later, my strings were jerked yet again. In the early hours of April 20, I was woken up in order to read two code cables from the DPKO. One summarized the Security Council’s deliberations of the day before and contained a stunning fact: once again Colin Keating had delayed the decision on pulling UNAMIR by telling the members that UN-led negotiations between the belligerents would soon begin in Arusha, and that no decision should be taken before the results of this consultation were in. What UN-led negotiations in Arusha?
The other cable essentially ordered me to stop the withdrawal of my troops until further orders. Laying out three options in yet another draft to the Security Council, the report read, “One alternative that could be considered would be to reinforce UNAMIR and expand its mandate to attempt to coerce the opposing force into a ceasefire, and to attempt [to] restore law and order and put an end to the killings. If this scenario is to be considered, it must be kept in mind that it would require several thousand additional troops (Note: perhaps 10,000—figure being requested from UNAMIR) and UNAMIR may have to be given enforcement powers.” I, of course, had never requested ten thousand reinforcements. Reading between the lines, and catching the red flag of the suggested “enforcement powers,” which no Security Council member would wish to grant to UNAMIR, I suspected that the option may have been included only for the archives.
The other point in the draft report that caught my eye was this line: “Ultimately, it is only the parties who signed the Arusha Agreement, namely the government of Rwanda (or its successor) and the RPF, who must bear the reponsibility whether their country and people find peace or suffer violence.” The trouble was that the “successor” government in Rwanda was in no way a signatory to Arusha, being an expression of an extremist coup, but that distinction was becoming very fuzzy, considering among other factors that a Rwandan hard-liner was sitting on the Council in New York. But the secretary-general knew full well that the RPF would never recognize this government. And the extremists were not about to give up their power positions to a moderate or even mixed moderate-extremist government, so what was the UN political solution to the impasse? There wasn’t one. It behooved the Security Council to get off its butt and provide me with a mandate and the means to stop the killing and establish an atmosphere of security. I had to get on the phone with the triumvirate before it finalized this draft. Here I was sitting in the slaughterhouse of Kigali, parsing the bureaucratic entrails of misbegotten reports.
By mid-morning the next day I was fully informed about the plans for Arusha negotiations, which were set for April 23 and energetically supported by the secretary-general of the Organization of African Unity, Dr. Salim Salim. It turned out that the RPF vice-chairman had gone to Dar es Salaam to ask the president of Tanzania to get the parties together. I was incredulous when I learned this news. What was the RPF expecting, when it had been
the most inflexible in the ceasefire negotiations? Since Booh-Booh was invited, I decided I would send Henry to provide military input and be a witness and note-taker for me. We also had to provide transport for the RGF delegation as they had no means of getting there. Two significant points, among others that would be worked on: stopping the massacres using a combined UNAMIR and sub-regional observer force, and re-establishing the rule of law to find and prosecute those committing the massacres.
In the meantime we had to figure out how to restore the airport to some semblance of functionality. Neither the French nor the Belgians had left behind their air-control assets, so the search was on to find some qualified staff. With an RPF agreement in my pocket to respect the neutrality of the airfield, I sent another note to Bizimungu and the interim government in Gitarama to hasten their response. Meanwhile my MILOBs found the former airport manager at the Mille Collines and put him to work immediately—under heavy guard, for he was scared for his life. And quite rightly, since he was a Hutu helping UNAMIR to prepare (possibly) for the arrival of an intervention force.
On the morning of April 21, I held a special meeting with my subordinate commanders and senior staff about the holding of our position. The points raised varied from logistics to the size of force that would remain and the ability of the troops to sustain their security duties. All of them felt that we should try to keep more than 250 troops on the ground. I told them that the DPKO had left me with the task of deciding this once we were down to about six hundred of all ranks. At that point we had twelve days’ worth of food and water supplies at minimum rations. The last convoy of Ghanaians from the north had finally arrived, seriously starved and thirsty, and a number of them were suffering from malaria as their pills had run out.
On the military front, the RPF was still advancing and capturing substantial amounts of RGF equipment, including rockets left behind by the fleeing troops. All forces were converging on Kigali for a major battle, and the heavy exchanges of artillery and rocket fire in the city during the last two days pointed to a major confrontation on the way. Having taken Byumba, the RPF was conducting repeated ambushes on RGF troops trying to make it back to Kigali. The RGF was reporting heavy losses, and Mount Kigali and Mount Nianza near the city were the scenes of heavy fighting.
So there we sat, with new talks about to commence in Arusha; the humanitarian aid structure set to join the mission; the carnage continuing to spread unabated throughout the country; and both sides gearing up for a difficult and possibly decisive fight for control of the capital. The situation was normal.
After the meeting I prepared a code cable to the DPKO, stressing yet again the need for a final decision regarding the future of my forces on the ground. I received no solace when I raised the reinforcement option. Maurice and the other two simply responded that I should not expect anyone to wade into the mess in Rwanda. The reinforcement option would never see the light of day, and that was it. Many nations had turned toward Belgium, as the ex-colonial power, and its persuasive foreign minister for guidance. And Willy Claes put forth that the whole force needed to be evacuated before we were all massacred. Early on the morning of April 22, Brent brought me a fax from Riza, to which was attached Security Council Resolution 912. The Council had finally voted for the skeleton force option. The resolution’s phrases were pure UN-ese: “ . . . having considered . . . express regret . . . shocked . . . appalled . . . deeply concerned . . . stressing . . . expressing deep concern . . . condemns . . . strongly condemns . . . demands . . . decides . . . reiterates . . . reaffirms . . . calls upon . . . invites . . . decides to remain actively seized of the matter.”
As I write these words I am listening to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, which strikes me as the purest expression in music of the suffering, mutilation, rape, and murder of 800,000 Rwandans, with the help of the member nations of the only supposedly impartial world body. Ultimately, led by the United States, France and the United Kingdom, this world body aided and abetted genocide in Rwanda. No amount of its cash and aid will ever wash its hands clean of Rwandan blood.
With Resolution 912 now in writing, I ordered the accelerated withdrawal of about one thousand troops to Nairobi to be held there no more than three days so that I could perhaps get them back if a ceasefire was agreed upon in Arusha. By mid-afternoon, I was informed that the UN staff in Nairobi was redirecting the troops toward home as the Kenyan government refused to permit them to leave their camp at the airfield, and conditions there were appalling. Once they were sent home, even if still earmarked for UNAMIR, they would disappear in their garrisons and we would have to start again from scratch.
Some fine pickle I was in with my depleted command. I had to explain to my troops—many of whom were very tired and sickly because of the lack of proper food and medicine, while others were in a zombie state after living horrific and traumatic experiences in this cesspool of guts, severed limbs, flesh-eating dogs and vermin—that although acts of heroism had been performed by many of them, the world had decided not to support us in our efforts but instead to pull most of us out to safety. I told their commanders to stress to them that there was no shame in this withdrawal and that they should remain ready for a potential return.
To my great displeasure, later that afternoon I received a call from Riza asking me what was going on with the withdrawal. He said that the Washington Post had just published on its front page a large picture of UNAMIR soldiers rushing an evacuation aircraft like a scared herd of cattle. Some, he said, were actually kissing the aircraft while others were dropping belongings on the tarmac as they raced to the plane.
I asked Brent to look into this, and within fifteen minutes he confirmed that during the first airlift of the day, the Bangladeshi officers and NCOs—leaving their troops to wait for the next plane—had conducted a very embarrassing rush on the plane. All the other flights had gone smoothly and over six hundred troops had been airlifted out. What could I say? The harm had been done. The picture of a UN rout in Rwanda after the resolution to withdraw had been signed had already been flashed around the world. We were portrayed as scared rats abandoning a sinking ship. Even in their departure, the Bangladeshi contingent was able to bring my mission even further down in the eyes of those who saw us as a joke in the first place.
I had to bring the RGF and RPF leadership up to speed on the troop reductions and explain my new mission. I could not hope to bluff any longer concerning our ability to protect the roughly thirty thousand people now being held by us behind each belligerent’s line. The solution I was going to propose was to begin transfers of these people to safety on their own side and thus eliminate our need to keep our sites open and protected.
First I met with Seth at the CND. He wanted us not only to start the transfers but also to rescue the Rwandans in hiding. I replied that though I couldn’t intervene in the war, we would attempt to help. Second, I met with Bizimungu at the Diplomates, where Bagosora was again holding court with anxious and well-dressed men carrying briefcases. Bizimungu had no problem with the truce at the airfield to cover the UNAMIR withdrawal. But he had to get approval from the interim government about the transfers of refugees and the ongoing neutrality of the airport, which he indicated might be forthcoming. He recommended that I take up these matters with the prime minister himself the next day in Gitarama. Kambanda was not going to Arusha but was sending Colonel Gatsinzi, a powerless figure who would agree to nothing that would restrict the interim government because if he did, his life and the lives of his family would not be worth a nickel. The extremists were obviously emasculating this new attempt at a ceasefire although they overtly insisted they wanted it. And the RPF would not budge an inch. Once again the belligerents were set to outwit the regional and international diplomatic efforts to sort the situation out. Bizimungu ended the meeting by demonstrating considerable emotion about the RPF in the CND, and he asked me to remove all MILOBs and liaison officers from that site. I replied that I would not do so before I got a firm indication o
f when any artillery or ground attack would be conducted; my personnel were crucial in keeping me in touch with the RPF authorities.
I left him and headed for Mulindi, where Paul Kagame had finally agreed to meet with me.
The main road to Mulindi was still a battleground. On the back roads running through very small villages and over hilltops, I encountered ample evidence of the disastrous state of the countryside. Most of the area had recently been in RGF hands, and signs of fighting, including military casualties on the roads and in the ditches, littered our way. A few villages had been burnt to the ground, and bodies formed a carpet of rags in all directions. We took turns walking in front of my vehicle to make sure that we did not run over any of them. Even to this day, if I encounter an article of clothing dropped on the street, I go around it and must control the urge to check if it is a body.
Thousands of people of all ages, carrying what they could, lined dirt paths, huddled beside streams, built small shelters among the banana trees or simply sat in total despair. Everywhere one looked, children were crying, their mothers and sisters trying to console them. The putrid smell of decaying bodies in the huts along the route not only entered your nose and mouth but made you feel slimy and greasy. This was more than smell, this was an atmosphere you had to push your way through. Attempting to move bodies out of the way of the vehicle without touching them with our hands was impossible. With no real protection and amongst a population that had epidemic levels of HIV/AIDS, with every body that we moved, our hands became more covered in dried blood, in pieces of flesh. It seemed that traces of this blood stayed on my hands for months.