Shake Hands With the Devil (30 page)

Above all, we needed a humanitarian coordinator and workers to help manage all the different
NGO
s and
UN
agencies who were dealing with the various crises in the country and to handle the future challenge that returning Rwandan refugees would create when they flooded back into the country once the
BBTG
was established. I told the
SRSG
that we desperately needed these advisers and coordinators so that when the people had questions, we could actually answer them professionally. We had been in theatre for over three months, and we were still ineffective in these critical areas. Booh-Booh knew these issues were important, but seemed reticent to throw his weight around. I left his office believing that there was never going to be a way of moving forward.

I took it upon myself to lobby the French, German and Belgian ambassadors for riot gear for the Gendarmerie, but neither country would commit those resources. This unwillingness puzzled me, as these countries
were the first to condemn civil violence and urge the Rwandan gendarmes not to overreact. But when they had the opportunity to actually commit some resources to match their words, they did nothing.

In the meantime, the bill was coming due for Rwanda. The political impasse was upsetting the country's principal creditor, the World Bank, which was threatening to cut Rwanda off from financing if the
BBTG
was not in place by March 1. Once the World Bank actually cut off funding, it would take six months for the institution to re-establish it; the chain reaction from other nations and organizations would be disastrous. It could lead to a total economic collapse in Rwanda, and the result would be more violence. We would find ourselves in a situation where ordinary people, such as the ones who had come to the meeting, would begin to wonder whether the oppressive but stable rule of Habyarimana was preferable to the current insecurity and hardship.

The other dire economic news came from a preliminary report on the demobilization process. The
IMF
and World Bank study on implementation wouldn't be completed before mid-March; that study would spark other planning exercises and studies. As a result, it would be another three to six months before the funding was in place and we could start demobilizing troops. The
IMF
and the World Bank also decided to off-load to us the first four months of taking care of the basic needs of the demobilized soldiers, at a cost they projected as close to $12 million U.S. But if all the potential troops—as many as forty thousand angry, hungry men—arrived at the demobilization centres at the same time, which was highly likely since neither the
RPF
nor the
RGF
would want to carry on supporting them once they could hand over the responsibility to us, we calculated that the cost would be more like $36 million U.S. We were supposed to carry this burden of demobilizing, retraining and integrating these forces over a nine-month period, when we couldn't even get our small peacekeeping force properly funded. The
IMF
and World Bank obviously did not understand the severe financial restrictions that
UNAMIR
was suffering under, and were in the middle of creating a plan that could never be successfully achieved.

Seeking to build momentum through the Joint Military Commission,
I once again proposed opening the major roadway that connects Rwanda with Uganda to commercial and humanitarian traffic. Except for the occasional aid convoy, the road had been closed since the hostilities in February 1993. It was well-built and still in good shape, though the bridge between Rwanda and Uganda had been damaged in the conflict and needed to be repaired, and the road would need to be swept clear of land mines. I was sure both tasks could be easily accomplished by the Bangladeshi engineers that I had stationed in Byumba near the demilitarized zone. Since the road sliced through parts of the zone controlled by either force, to open the road would require a major gesture of co-operation between them.

I planned for mixed
RPF
and
RGF
patrols, supervised by
UN
observers, to monitor the road; the larger aim was to build a rapport between the two forces. This time Bizimana readily agreed to my plan, but the
RPF
flatly refused, insisting that given the current political situation, they couldn't agree unless we opened the southern portion of the road first, from Mulindi to their compound in Kigali. I was angry at their inability to see beyond their own self-interest. Ordinary Rwandans were starving because humanitarian aid couldn't be properly distributed, and the bottle neck was not the section of road from Kigali to Mulindi. I was finally able to persuade the
RPF
to let me open the road to humanitarian convoys and
UN
staff, but they maintained their checkpoints along the route and refused to allow commercial or civilian traffic to flow freely through the area. Once again, the
RPF
proved how unwilling it was to give up any of its winning cards.

Things were coming to a head in Rwanda and also within the mission. On February 13, Per Hallqvist submitted his resignation. Mamadou Kane had pushed Hallqvist too far in ordering accoutrements. Booh-Booh's residence was already palatial, but Kane also insisted that the
SRSG
be ferried around the country in grand diplomatic style. At one point, Kane ordered the purchase of two Daewoo Super Salon vehicles and more furniture for Booh-Booh's residence, including oriental carpets and expensive easy chairs. Kane had also commandeered a Land Cruiser and driver so that Booh-Booh's staff could run errands and do
shopping, even as my
MILOB
s made do with too few vehicles. Hallqvist refused to purchase many of these items and complained repeatedly to the
SRSG
about Kane. But Kane enjoyed Booh-Booh's patronage, friendship and confidence, and in exasperation, the
SRSG
told Hallqvist not to approach him on any of these issues but to speak directly to Kane. Hallqvist was furious. In a long and damning letter that itemized his problems with Kane, Hallqvist resigned, taking his complaints with him to New York.

His resignation couldn't have happened at a worse time. The Bangladeshi contingent had completed its deployment on January 30, and the Ghanaian contingent had begun to arrive on February 9; in the space of two weeks, roughly 1,200 soldiers arrived at Kigali airport, ready to be accommodated and absorbed into their new duties. I personally greeted most of the flights to welcome the troops and their officers. When the Bangladeshis had arrived at the end of January, their commanding officer, Colonel Nazrul Islam, invited me to address them at their quarters at the Amahoro Stadium. He and his soldiers were exemplars of the old British colonial standards of dress and deportment. When I entered the soccer pitch at the Amahoro to address the newcomers, I was rather astonished at the sight of more than six hundred troops sitting several rows deep on the field, impeccably dressed and perfectly aligned. As my words of welcome and inspiration were translated for them, I realized that none of these men understood French, English or Kinyarwanda; only the officers spoke any English at all. The soldiers demonstrated strong personal discipline, deportment and excellence in drill. But I soon found out that this was the extent of their skills; they were as fragmented a collection as their large advance party and equally reliant on
UNAMIR
for the necessities of life and of soldiering.

The Ghanaians were a different story. Since they were moving directly north to their place of duty in the demilitarized zone, I addressed them as they arrived at the airport. To the amazement of their officers and
NCO
s, I motioned for the whole group of two to three hundred troops to gather around me—I practically disappeared inside the circle of blue berets as I spoke to them about the importance of their mission to Rwanda and the major role that they would play in its success as my
eyes and ears in the demilitarized zone. These men were generally tall, well-built and had a determined air about them. Though not as practised on the parade ground as the Bangladeshis, they bore the signs of a well-led, cohesive unit. They would distinguish themselves over the next couple of months and really come into their own during the war. They led the way on every new front and never wavered. They did not wait for supplies to come to them (if they had, they might have waited forever); they improvised, bartered and bent the rules, scrounging with the best of them. I felt a kinship with these men; after independence in the early sixties, the Ghanaian army had been trained by Canadians, and they shared our ability to make a military silk purse out of a sow's ear.

With them came a worthy successor to Colonel Figoli, the new demilitarized zone sector commander, Colonel Clayton Yaache, who was to become famous during the war. Sturdily built, bright, keen and unflappable, he brought the demilitarized zone under control in very short order and became a welcome addition to my group of immediate subordinates. He would distinguish himself during the genocide with his leadership of the emergency humanitarian cell within
UNAMIR
.

It was a good thing the Ghanaians were expert scroungers. Although a considerable staff effort had gone into identifying the interim requirements of these troops, Hallqvist and his civilian staff had not been able to arrange for their immediate needs for food and shelter. I felt we were being dragged backwards to the mad scramble of November and could ill afford the chaos. The Bangladeshis had nothing except their personal kit and weapons and weren't expecting anything to arrive from home. I didn't even have a proper kitchen for the eight hundred troops in the Amahoro Stadium, who had been making do with an outdoor affair and no proper sanitation. I had been begging Hallqvist for the funds to build a proper structure with basic plumbing facilities to no avail. Now he was gone. While Henry Anyidoho assured me that the Ghanaians would eventually be fully supplied, their equipment and stores were being shipped by slow boat from Ghana to Dar es Salaam and then had to travel by vehicle across eastern Africa to Kigali, a process that would take three months. I needed troops kitted and functional and deployed in the demilitarized zone as soon as possible.
With no facility to take care of them in Kigali, we shipped them out to Byumba, where they were accommodated in a school built by the Canadian International Development Agency (
CIDA
). We cobbled together what we could for them, undoubtedly breaking every rule in the
UN
book, with the help of Christine de Liso, a civilian staffer who became the acting
CAO
after Hallqvist left.

On the evening of February 13, we held another all-party meeting at the Amahoro; the next day was yet another deadline for the installation of the
BBTG
. We applied the code name “Grasshopper” to events such as these, which required a very high level of security. We provided
UNAMIR
escorts for most of the moderates and the
RPF
; the
MRND
was taken care of by the
RGF
; the
PL
, the
MDR
and many of the dissenting members or extremist factions had gendarmes. I would often wander off during a break in these sessions to watch the different groups of soldiers and militias milling around in the parking lot, all armed to the teeth and hyper-vigilant. We never had a shot fired in the numerous Grasshopper-coded events that we arranged, but the manpower required for these meetings put an added stress on my troops stationed in Kigali.

Near the beginning of this meeting, Booh-Booh announced that there were not going to be any more meetings: tonight they would solve the impasse. He then looked up from his notes to discover that the
MRND
representatives had not bothered to show up. There was an awkward pause and some stifled laughter before the politicians settled down and began marching out the same tired, circular arguments.

During the general discussion, an idea came up, which I had also been mulling over: why didn't we swear in those deputies and ministers on whom everyone had agreed, set up the transitional government, leaving the few positions that were so contentious unfilled, and then let the new government sort it out? At least then we could satisfy some of the conditions required for continued financial support from the international community, as well as send a message to Rwandans that we were advancing toward a solution instead of remaining stuck. The
PL
and the
MDR
shot this idea down in flames, worried that the Power wings would be given their parties' allotted portfolios and assembly
seats. After a couple of hours of wrangling, Booh-Booh suddenly pounded the table, startling us all, and got up, knocking his chair over in his haste. This meeting was going nowhere, he announced emphatically, and he was not going to waste any more of his time. In fact, he refused to chair any more such meetings. He packed up his things and stormed out of the room, leaving the rest of us dumbfounded.

Even though it was evident to me and just about everybody else left in the room that there was no point in staging another swearing-in ceremony, Booh-Booh contacted me later that night to make sure I had all the security arrangements in place for the affair. The following day I geared up for another day of escort details and crowd containment, but this time none of the parties showed up. Even the
RPF
, who were just on the other side of the complex, couldn't be coaxed into making an appearance. The only people who were there were Booh-Booh, some ambassadors and the press.

Demonstrators crowded around the complex, egged on by the Interahamwe and the usual cadre of Presidential Guards dressed in civilian clothes. Denied the spectacle of the ceremony, they began to get ugly. The brief flash of candour and accommodation that we had witnessed at the beginning of the month had now vanished without a trace.