Shake Hands With the Devil (43 page)

Then Ndindiliyimana took over. The first item on his agenda was to tell me that with the hate
RTLM
was spewing, and the mood of the army and the citizens of Kigali, it would be prudent to withdraw the Belgian contingent as soon as possible. I told him I would take the recommendation under advisement but first had to get my Belgian soldiers back. The camp was quiet now. Why hadn't they released my soldiers? Ndindiliyimana sent one of the officers to get me an answer.

The meeting droned on and on and the officer didn't come back. The Crisis Committee still hadn't issued the press communiqué that was supposed to calm the nation. Rwandans were listening to the non-stop hate and lies put out by
RTLM
. The only concrete sign of the committee's good faith would be the detention of the Presidential Guard in its garrison, the return of all units to
KWSA
rules, and an end to the killings. But no one in this group, well-intentioned though it might be, seemed to know just how to achieve all these objectives and prevent the looming war.

Suddenly everyone was standing up, stretching and collecting their papers, behaving as though this were a normal meeting on a normal day. It was then that I lost my temper. I banged on the table. “Enough is enough,” I yelled. No more time, no more excuses, no more discussion. I told them to either turn over my Belgian soldiers to me now or I wouldn't leave this headquarters and they would get absolutely nothing more from
UNAMIR
or me.

Ndindiliyimana got on the phone again and dispatched several more staff officers. After twenty minutes of silence, with me sitting immobile and furious, the phone rang. Ndindiliyimana picked it up and, after a murmured conversation, turned to tell me that my soldiers had been found in the Kigali hospital nearby. I announced that we were all going to the hospital, right now, and together we would secure the Belgians' release.

The hospital was only two hundred metres away. Several soldiers, including a number of wounded, were milling around the entrance. Ndindiliyimana took the lead at that point and got us through the crowd and inside. We nearly plunged into an operating theatre where the doors were open to let in fresh air. There was screaming, moaning, blood on the tables and floors, and staff in red-stained medical gowns. The room seemed full to overflowing with wounded, both military and civilian, lying on cots and even on the floors. The nearest doctor growled angrily at us to get out.

At the back door, an officer told Ndindiliyimana that the bodies of the Belgians were at the far end of the large courtyard in front of the morgue. The word
bodies
hit me right in the heart and shocked me for a moment. I heard gasps and other sounds of disbelief all around me. They were all dead. We made our way down the dark path toward a small hut with a twenty-five-watt bulb over the door. There were more injured in the yard, along with dozens of bodies. I could not believe that this scene was unfolding so close to the meeting room where I had sat all evening.

At first, I saw what seemed to be sacks of potatoes to the right of the morgue door. It slowly resolved in my vision into a heap of mangled and bloodied white flesh in tattered Belgian para-commando uniforms. The men were piled on top of each other, and we couldn't tell how many were in the pile. The light was faint and it was hard to identify any of the faces or find specific markings. We counted them twice: eleven soldiers. In the end it turned out to be ten.

I wanted to take justice into my own hands, an eye for an eye—the first time I had ever felt the toxic pull of retribution. I ordered Robert to photograph the bodies, and he went about the task numbed and silent. I asked the commanders who had done this. They said renegade
soldiers and amputee veterans in Camp Kigali. I asked them what they were going to do about it. Gatsinzi assured me he would investigate the incident and that all of those responsible would be brought to justice. I told him that these murders would be immediately reported to New York and that Rwanda could expect the wrath of the international community to descend upon its head. He and Ndindiliyimana were genuinely distraught. They apologized profusely, offered their condolences and sympathies—and pleaded with me that these deaths should not deter
UNAMIR
from helping their country.

I told them to have the bodies cleaned and properly laid out and demanded that a guard be put on them.
UNAMIR
forces would pick them up at first light. I said I would hold each of them personally responsible for my dead soldiers.

When I finally turned away, I nearly bumped into Dr. Kabia, who appeared to be praying. I made my way back up the path to the hospital, where the moans of the wounded and the shouts of the doctors and nurses seemed much louder than when we had arrived. Maggen had pulled up in front of the hospital, and there was a small crowd of injured soldiers and some civilians waiting near the vehicle. I looked at him and couldn't remember whether he had been with us at the morgue. What a day of fear and courage he'd been through.

Ndindiliyimana offered me his escort of six men and a vehicle to get us safely back to the Amahoro, giving his orders to them in French, no doubt for my benefit. He told them to defend me with their lives. We drove forward into the pitch-black night. Many of the street lights weren't functioning. Still I could see Robert's face in the back seat, bone white and motionless. Maggen, shaken by the deaths of his countrymen, was concentrating hard on the driving. In the distance we could see a few fires burning and could hear light weapons and the odd grenade explosion. The mobs were retiring to their homes, but a number of barriers were manned by aggressive militiamen.

The
RPF
and the Presidential Guard were still engaged in sporadic firefights near the Meridien hotel roundabout. To take the curve at a major intersection, we had to reduce speed, and we drove straight into an ambush. Several fusillades of machine-gun fire and red tracer bullets
streaked over our heads. The para-commando unit from Camp Kanombe had moved out and were controlling this intersection. The crack of bullets was piercing as they whizzed by our heads. My white vehicle, with
UN
painted on it in large black letters and flying both a large, blue
UN
flag as well as my smaller
UN
commander's flag, was distinctive. Clearly, we were now a target. Bullets struck the car. The gendarmes in the vehicle behind us returned feeble fire. I yelled and hit Maggen to push the gas pedal to the floor and race through the ambush site. The diesel engine didn't respond quickly, and we felt like sitting ducks for what seemed an eternity. Despite the bullet holes in the car, no one was hit. It was the first time I had ever been shot at. It had been twenty-four hours of terrible firsts. No one in the vehicle uttered a sound as we sped toward our headquarters.

The mob had been cleared away from the entrance to the Amahoro, and the gates were closed and well-guarded by Ghanaian troops. Once we were safe, my Gendarmerie escort did not want to risk the trip back to Camp Kigali to pick up Ndindiliyimana and decided to remain with us for the night.

As we entered the building, the noise from the operation centre was very loud. I told Maggen to carry on to his place of duty and get a grip on his duty officers. Dr. Kabia and Robert followed me up the stairs to the command offices, where Brent and Henry were hard at work and the phones were still ringing off the hook. Both of them were tired, red-eyed and nearly talked out. I told them to get an orders group together and I would brief them in the conference room beside my office. I spoke to Henry alone for a few minutes while Brent assembled the few officers at Force
HQ
. I had not radioed in the information that the Belgians were confirmed dead; this was news I needed to deliver in person. Henry grimaced at the realization of his worst fears. I told him I was not about to give up. I may have failed to prevent civil war so far, but I was not about to run for cover, leaving the country in this state. We were going to salvage whatever we could of Arusha. I emphasized the point that Bagosora and the
RGF
senior leadership wanted the Belgians to leave as soon as possible. If the Belgians left and we were not reinforced, the weight of the mission would certainly fall on the Ghanaians' shoulders. Henry
stood before me listening intently. He was my deputy force commander and chief of staff, but he was also the contingent commander of the 800 Ghanaian soldiers in
UNAMIR
, the majority of whom were dispersed in the demilitarized zone and at this moment extremely vulnerable. Without any hesitation and with a fierce scowl on his face, Henry said the Ghanaians were staying. It was not we who had failed, he said. He had always doubted that there was enough genuine good will and desire for peace on either side for anyone to succeed.

Next I called Luc at his Kigali Sector headquarters and told him that I had seen the bodies of his men at the morgue, that they had been mutilated and that I had counted eleven bodies. He uttered a short, cryptic, “Oui,” showing his distress only by the raggedness of his breathing. But no, he said, there must be ten. Ten soldiers were sent out to protect Prime Minister Agathe, a mortar section commanded by Lieutenant Thierry Lotin, and these were the only men not yet accounted for. He had been told earlier in the day that some of them were probably dead but not all. He couldn't believe the news I was giving him now. I offered my condolences and told him that the bodies were now under guard and should be picked up the next morning with an escort from the Gendarmerie.

Luc regained his composure and briefed me. I congratulated him on saving Faustin, and then I passed on my instructions for the next day. We all had to help Gatsinzi and Ndindiliyimana gain control of the Presidential Guard and stabilize the city. I was going to continue to pressure Kagame not to move south and pull his troops back into the
CND
. Luc said he would work closely with Ndindiliyimana so that his troops and the Gendarmerie could help each other with the escalating demands for assistance. I warned him about what Bagosora and Ndindiliyimana had said about the wisdom of pulling his contingent out, and Luc said the Belgian ambassador was demanding a lot of his time concerning the needs of the Belgian nationals and diplomatic corps. He was to consolidate his troops as much as possible, improve defensive postures and continue to provide support to those in peril. But one thing was certain: We were not pulling out. As we finished the phone call, I once again offered my condolences to him, to his troops,
to his government and to the families of the soldiers who had died.

Then I went in to talk with the orders group: the same officers I'd left in the morning were still running the show because the rest were stuck at the Meridien hotel, trapped by the firefights between the
RPF
and the Presidential Guard. I directed that all staff were to be at their place of duty just after dawn. Henry would coordinate this effort. And then I told them that the Belgian soldiers were dead. The news hit these tired men and knocked the last vestiges of energy out of them. Moen reiterated that all the rest of the missing men were now accounted for. The Belgians were freed at the airport but still could not get near the crash site. The
RPF
had no objection to having an outside investigation of the crash, but there was no answer from the
RGF
side. I moved on to instructions for the next day. I wanted Kigali Sector to consolidate its troops, with the airport as a priority, and we should do the same with our Force level unit troops, such as the logistics company. We were to continue helping Rwandans seeking refuge, supporting our own
UN
staff and any others in emergency situations. I closed the meeting by urging all of them to get some rest.

I took a walk around the
HQ
. There were a few hundred Rwandan civilians—men, women, children—asleep on the floor in our cafeteria and the hallways. Earlier in the day Brent had ordered the gates be opened to these people, but stipulated that they all be searched before they came in. He told me that Henry was quite angry at him for committing this breach of security and wanted him disciplined (nothing ever came of it). These people were among the thousands of Rwandans who had fled to
UNAMIR
compounds all over the city. Most were Tutsis, some were moderate Hutus, but all feared for their lives.

Some of our rescue attempts were successful, as with Prime Minister Faustin, but most were not—our patrols had been blocked time and again by drunken militia and hostile youths. In the midst of all this, Ottawa's National Defence Headquarters had called to demand bi-daily reports. They had never shown any particular interest in our mission and for the past six months had not responded to a single one of our weekly reports. I thought it was a little late for them to be showing an interest now.

We had no food stored at the Force
HQ
, but somewhere Brent had found some chocolates for sustenance. He'd also located an old mattress in a storage room out back and had torn down some curtains for blankets, making a bed for me on the floor of my office while I called New York. It was past midnight in Kigali, and about 1600 at the
UN
.

On the line were Kofi Annan, Iqbal Riza and Hedi Annabi. I went through the failures of the day: the deaths of my soldiers and the moderate political leaders, the systematic killings, the failed political meetings, Kagame's offers and threats, Bagosora's actions, the resumption of hostilities—but they had no suggestions on how to put the evil genie that had been released back in the bottle. I told them we had thousands of Rwandans from both ethnic groups in all of our compounds and that Prime Minister Faustin was in the Force
HQ
, and that we would not give him or any of the others up without a fight. They all reassured me that such an action was within my mission mandate.

I raised the possibility that the moderates might coalesce overnight and give us some opportunities to get things under control, at least on the military side. This would require me to show support and give them some sense that the international community would provide security. They told me no, I was to let the moderates come forward first. I was not to offer
UNAMIR
up as a protection force for a faction within one of the two belligerents. I was confused by this direction. The moderates wouldn't show their hand without me showing mine first. I said if we had a chance to put Rwanda back on the Arusha path, we must not let this opportunity slip by. Otherwise we would again be surrendering the initiative to the extremists and become nothing more than witnesses to a human catastrophe. The answer came back loud and clear: I was not to take sides, and it was up to the Rwandans to sort things out for themselves. I said that as long as the
RPF
did not cross the demilitarized zone I felt I still had a mandate. No one objected to that, and I was reminded to stay within its strict parameters.