International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills
was not deployed until August, and without proper support. The French Opération Turquoise, rather than reflecting the “never again” norm, was a reflection of pure national interest. The intervention came too late and was focused on protecting French allies. The French use of “never again” rhetoric illustrates the power of the norm—not to force timely action to stop genocide, but rather to enable non-normatively based action—that is, to serve as a cover for other action. It is only in the aftermath of the genocide that international norms began to peer above the parapet—if only briefly.
From Genocide to Humanitarian Crisis
By the time the genocide ended, the focus had moved from the genocide itself to the humanitarian aftermath. If the international community did not seem interested in stopping 800,000 people from being killed, it was much more worried about the large numbers of refugees generated by the conflict. The humanitarian crisis illustrated the dilemmas and dangers of responding to large-scale humanitarian situations.
The first mass exodus of refugees occurred in late April when 170,000 people fled to Ngara in western Tanzania in twenty-four hours. They kept fleeing, with an additional 500,000–800,000 fleeing to North Kivu in eastern Zaire on 14–17 July, after the RPF had taken control of most of the country.77 These refugees were not Tutsi fleeing the Hutu génocidaires, however. Rather, they were Hutu fleeing the oncoming RPF fighters. In the end, more than two million Hutu refugees fled Rwanda to escape the RPF. About half of these fled to eastern Zaire, with the rest spread among neighboring countries—in particular Tanzania and Burundi.
These Hutus included génocidaires—those who had participated in the mass slaughter—and many ordinary Rwandans who played no role in the genocide. The reason why the former group fled is obvious—they feared what would happen to them if the Tutsi RPF caught up with them. The second group had more, and more complex, reasons for leaving. First, some, like refugees around the world, simply fled the brutal fighting. Second, they were afraid the RPF would indiscriminately go after any and all Hutu. This fear was exacerbated by propaganda put out by the génocidaires. Third, many Hutu were forced into refugeehood by their fellow Hutu, to serve as shields for the leaders who planned and executed the genocide. They were intimidated by the génocidaires. Further, the refugees stayed as a result of a defining feature of Rwandan society—pervasive top-down control and decision-making. The individuals were not used to making decisions on an individual basis; rather, decisions were made for them, as part of a group.78 This combination of factors led to one of the central dilemmas of the crisis. How should humanitarians deal with humanitarian action that could possibly prolong or expand a conflict, or, alternatively, be used as an excuse for others not to engage in actions that address the situation?
Supporting Hope, Covering Up Inaction or Supporting Génocidaires?
Although the United States was loath to be involved in, or support, any effort to stop the genocide or protect civilians during the genocide, it did participate in a very significant—and public—if somewhat short-term, response to the aftermath of the genocide. By late July the story had moved from genocide to cholera. The camps in eastern Zaire were the perfect breeding ground for disease. At least 50,000 people died in Goma, Zaire, within a month after the mass exodus. J. Brian Atwood, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, described the situation as “chaos.”79
Before discussing the actual U.S. response, let us pause to consider the import of these words. Apparently the mass murder of 800,000 people over one hundred days is not worthy of being called chaos, but the same number of people crammed into refugee camps, combined with disease, does rise to this level. The refugees are victims of “chaos.” They are not victims of the aftermath of the most intense period of mass killing the world has ever seen. This is the same as saying that “mistakes were made.” It passively depoliticizes the situation and avoids apportioning blame or responsibility. “Chaos” has no political antecedent; rather, it is a state of being that apparently arrives fully formed out of nowhere. Refugees died because of “chaos,” not because of disease that was the direct result of a mass exodus in the context of a genocide in which the United States and other actors refused to lift a finger. Further, “chaos” acquires a further descriptor—cancer—and the U.S. had arrived to provide palliation and possibly a cure. By preventing the cancer of chaos from spreading, it would prevent further death from the chaos. Yet, returning to the discussion in Chapter 1, we can see that Atwood had the diagnosis wrong. The cancer that was killing refugees was not “chaos”—the apolitical and meaningless term used when one wants to avoid a correct diagnosis. By treating the symptoms of the chaos—the United States and the rest of the world did not even try to treat the “chaos” itself—USAID and the U.S. military were global hospice workers engaged in superficial palliation. They kept some people alive permanently, while others were kept alive for a while, only to die as a result of disease once the hospice workers left, or at the hands of either the Hutu militants who were running the camps or the Tutsi-supported troops who came to eject them.
What did this palliation look like? Operation Support Hope80 involved 3,000 troops—troops that might have been used earlier to stop the genocide, or might have been used to address the growing insecurity in the camps. Instead, they were used to help provide food and water and shelter. In 1994, the United States spent $231.9 million on humanitarian assistance for the region outside Rwanda (vs. $73.3 million within Rwanda). This assistance amounted to $242.2 million in 1994 and $177.9 million in 1996.81 The aid was brought in via highly publicized airlifts. On 22 July 1994, five days after the first cases of cholera were reported, President Clinton announced he would send troops to the region to help carry out the humanitarian mission. By the time U.S. troops left Goma on 25 August—just a month after they had arrived—the U.S. military had airlifted in massive amounts of equipment and aid.82 These actions undoubtedly saved many lives. But even if the war on cholera had been temporarily won by the U.S., as it supported hope, the suffering that was relieved was just a drop in the ocean of the suffering that had occurred and was yet to occur in Zaire.
Operation Support Hope was pure and unadulterated palliation. Given the speed with which the U.S. military responded to provide humanitarian assistance, it could have also deployed to protect people during the genocide. The United States used this very public operation to show the world that it cared and was doing something about the situation in the Great Lakes region. But it was just a mop-up operation, dealing with the loose ends—the “chaos”—after the genocide. Yet, the chaos was decontextualized and depoliticized. Furthermore, although Atwood called for war criminals to be tried, the U.S. troops had no mandate to arrest anyone. It was purely humanitarian: palliation but no prosecution, even though a few months later the U.S. would help set up an international court to try those who participated in the genocide. This palliation without prosecution had a devastating long-term effect. More than one million refugees were still in Zaire. Most would stay there for two more years, allowing growing insecurity to fester.
This large numbers of refugees allowed the approximately 50,000 former Rwandan soldiers of the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) and militia83 to hide out and organize themselves for a return to Rwanda to retake power. Exile was “the continuation of the war by other means.”84 Former high-ranking officials in the Rwandan government, ex-FAR, and militia controlled the camps, prevented refugees from going back home, and organized the military actions that ultimately destabilized the border area and beyond.85 The massive refugee camps provided cover for the génocidaires and those who wanted to regain power in Rwanda. Thus, a main responsibility for the leaders was to keep the refugees from returning. This task was facilitated in a couple of different ways. It was very hard for individual refugees and families to make the decision to return home, absent such a decision by the leaders, because of the collective decision making in Rwandan society. This situation was further reinforced by the propaganda spread by the leaders, which misrepresented the situation in Rwanda at the time.86 While the new government might have wanted to marginalize the returning Hutus,87 it was the Hutu leaders who were in the most danger. Yet, in order to scare the refugees, the situation was made to sound significantly more dangerous than it actually was.
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