Published on Monday, July 10, 2000 in the International Herald Tribune
After Rwanda,
The World Doesn't Look The Same
by Stephen Lewis
NEW YORK - I sat down on Thursday and reread our Rwanda report from
beginning to end, and I thought to myself what an odyssey of pain this
has been. Pain at what we saw, pain at what we heard, pain at what we
learned.
It's impossible to undertake a study of this kind without shattering
emotional consequence. It's true what people say: You never quite see
the world the same way again.
But it's not just emotional. It's intellectual. The conclusions we came
to were pretty shocking. They may not have been revelatory (Rwanda has
been talked of and written of a great deal) but the inescapable
conclusions distressed all of us greatly.
We repudiate the position of the government of France, the position that
asserts that they had no responsibility. They were closer in every way
to the Habyarimana regime than any other government; they could have
stopped the genocide before it began. They knew exactly what was
happening.
Worse, under the cover of Opération Turquoise, which had a limited
humanitarian dimension, they facilitated the exodus of a huge number of
génocidaires, thereby ushering in the larger Great Lakes catastrophe.
They even engaged in the shipment of arms throughout the genocide and
after. There is almost no redemptive feature to the conduct of the
government of France.
The role of the United States at the Security Council, in determinedly
blocking a more effective UN intervention force throughout the genocide,
is an almost incomprehensible scar of shame on American foreign policy.
The United States, too, knew exactly what was going on. It's simply
beyond belief that because of Somalia, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans
needlessly lost their lives. I want to say, as a personal observation, I
don't know how Madeline Albright lives with it.
We do, however, know how the Canadian general Romero Dallaire lives with
it. He doesn't. In many ways, he's a broken man. But our panel
absolutely endorses General Dallaire's submission that with a sufficient
UN force, he could have stopped the genocide completely, or at the very
least saved hundreds of thousands of lives. If there is one exemplary
human being in all of this, it's General Dallaire.
And I want to make the additional point: When the Western nations wanted
to get troops into Rwanda quickly, it could be done in the flash of an
eye. Witness the evacuation of foreign nationals; witness the
astonishing rapidity with which Opération Turquoise was assembled.
The government of Belgium has a great deal to atone for. Its panic in
the face of the death of its 10 peacekeepers turned into an inglorious
effort to throttle United Nations involvement. Very sad, really, because
before that the Belgians had played an honorable role.
As to the UN Secretariat, a directive was sent from headquarters in New
York to General Dallaire indicating that the UN forces could, if
absolutely necessary, exceed their mandate in one solitary circumstance:
the evacuation of foreign nationals. We, the panel, viewed the directive
with incredulity. It was a shocking double standard. No such directive
was ever issued on behalf of the rescue of Rwandans.
Everyone responsible, in one respect or another, has at least
apologized, with the exception of the government of France and the
Catholic Church. We specifically name the Catholic Church because its
involvement with President Juvénal Habyarimana before the genocide,
and the involvement of some of is leaders during the genocide, was
entirely unforgivable.
The reverberations of the genocide continue to be felt throughout the
Great Lakes, and here again the so-called international community has
behaved inexplicably. The failure to disarm the refugee camps, once the
génocidaires had crossed into the then Zaire, was not only politically
and morally incomprehensible, it led inexorably to the quagmire with
which the world is now confronted.
As always, violence begets violence, madness begets madness. We, the
panel, sadly came to the conclusion that the Rwanda Patriotic Front
during the civil war of 1990 to '94, and then the forces of the present
Rwandan government during the refugee crisis post-genocide, committed
grave abuses of human rights.
The abuses are intolerable and unacceptable. But history tells us that
the potential for those abuses will never end until the génocidaires
are disarmed and Rwanda's borders are secure.
Rwanda is a state struggling with demons. It is remarkable how well it
is doing despite a genocide just six years ago. It deserves massive
assistance from the rest of the world, particularly from those countries
who betrayed Rwanda when it needed the world most.
That is why, among our many recommendations, the proposal for
reparations seems to us to have particular cogency. If the
secretary-general of the United Nations can find the formula, and we
believe that to be possible, then the international community will have
come some small way to restoring its tattered moral core.
Mr. Lewis, a former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, was
appointed by the Organization of African Unity to an International Panel
of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and
the Surrounding Events. This comment has been adapted by the
International Herald Tribune from his opening statement when the panel's
report was presented at UN headquarters on Friday.
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A grief comment-
What is so mind and spirit stunning about this report, is that one
realizes that the crimes of the US, France, and The Catholic Church are
so gigantic in scope, that one almost feels a sense of total void in
this condemnation by Mr. Lewis.
After all, if this was the behavior of these institutions in Rwanda
alone, how much more horrible is their support of genocide throughout
the rest of the entire world? Rwanda just being a minute section of
world society.
The lack of publicity or debate given to this report is almost as
horrifying as the report itself. It's as if all concerned people in
our society are like Alice in Wonderland or Gulliver in their travels.
.............Tony
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