RWANDA-U.N.: Documents Show Boutros-Ghali Knew of 1994 Massacre

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 28 1996 (IPS) - A document that has circulated privately in the United Nations for months suggests that Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and other top U.N. officials were informed as early as January 1994 about a plot to massacre tens of thousands of Rwandans.

But U.N. officials kept quiet, even after a genocide directed mainly against Tutsi Rwandans was launched immediately after the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana in a plane crash Apr 7 of that year.

For many diplomats here, the idea that Boutros-Ghali kept information about a planned genocide hidden for several crucial months is a major blow at a time when the Egyptian diplomat is counting on African support for his re-election to second five- year term as U.N. chief.

The explosive document consists of a telegram by the senior U.N. military commander in Rwanda at the time, Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, about remarks made by a senior Hutu leader closely associated with the Habyarimana government.

Dallaire wrote U.N. headquarters on Jan 11, 1994, saying that an informant “has been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali (the capital). He suspects it is for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1,000 Tutsis.”

U.N. sources have since confirmed that Dallaire’s informant was Jean-Pierre Turatsinze, a high-ranking member of Rwanda’s rightist and ethnic Hutu paramilitary forces, called the Interahamwe (“those who stand together”).

In fact, following Habyarimana’s still-unexplained death, thousands of Tutsis and families of moderate Hutu politicians were slaughtered by the Rwandan Army and Interahamwe. As many as one million Rwandans out of an estimated eight million were killed between April and July.

Dallaire also cited Tartsinze as warning that “Belgian troops were to be provoked and, if Belgian soldiers resorted to force, a number of them were to be killed and thus guarantee Belgian withdrawal from Rwanda.”

Ten soldiers in a Belgian contingent of U.N. troops were abducted, tortured and killed a day after Habyarimana’s death, prompting Belgium — Rwanda’s colonial master — to pull out of the country. That left only a minimal U.N. presence in Rwanda during the height of the genocide.

Despite such warnings, the United Nations did not acknowledge any plans to commit genocide to the U.N. Security Council once the killings began.

In a report released earlier this year, Boutros-Ghali explained, “Such situations and alarming reports from the field, though considered with the utmost seriousness by U.N. officials, are not uncommon within the context of peacekeeping missions.” But the U.N. troops, he emphasised, never had the authority to act on Dallaire’s warnings.

Rwandan officials argue that, even without the Dallaire telegram, the United Nations should have been aware that massacres were planned.

“There was prior knowledge, where political parties wrote to U.N. headquarters,” Rwandan envoy Pierre-Emmanuel Ubalijoro told IPS. “A lot of former government officials had warned through (the U.N. troops) of the killings. But no response was given.”

Some of the blame for the lack of information has been levelled at the then-U.N. envoy to Rwanda, Ambassador Jacques-Roger Booh- Booh of Cameroon, and at Under-Secretary-General Kofi Annan of Ghana, head of U.N. peacekeeping.

At the time, U.N. officials, according to some diplomats here, were wary of making any peacekeeping operation more assertive so soon after the failed U.N. intervention in Somalia. That may have contributed to the world body’s failure to respond to warnings.

Rwanda’s current government, which includes many survivors of the 1994 massacres and members of a Tutsi-led rebel force that unseated the post-Habyarimana government, lays much of the blame squarely on Boutros-Ghali himself.

“The system is headed by one person, the secretary-general, and the secretary-general is the one who is responsible,” Ubalijoro said. “You know very well our position on him…We were not pleased by the (United Nations’) handling of the situation.”

Although the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has endorsed Boutros-Ghali for a second term as U.N. head, Rwanda (along with Ghana and Ethiopia) objected. The United States has vetoed Boutros- Ghali and is seeking other African candidates for the job.

Diplomats here do not discount a Washington hand behind the surfacing of the telegram now.

“It is a set-up,” said one African diplomat. “This is being used to smear Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan.” Until now, Annan has been considered Washington’s favourite to replace Boutros-Ghali.

It was the Danish media which first reported on the document after its government’s aid agency, DANIDA, published a critical report about the U.N.’s role during the Rwanda crisis last March. In recent days, the story has been picked up by U.S. and British outlets, including London’s ‘Telegraph’ and ‘The Boston Globe’.

At the same time, at least one African leader — Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi — has written to President Paul Biya of Cameroon, the current OAU chair, to urge that other African candidates for secretary-general besides Boutros-Ghali be considered.

“We should, as we swiftly move now to ensure a second term for Africa, avoid presenting only one African candidate for the position, with the view of avoiding any risk of failing to achieve our objective,” Meles wrote Monday.

“The necessary lobbying should and must start right away,” he added. “Any further delay, I am seriously concerned, would result in a fatal blow to this African chance.”

Boutros-Ghali is so far the only African candidate for secretary-general in a race for which all nations, including the United States, have pledged a broad preference for African candidates. A new U.N. head must be found before Dec 31.