Shake Hands With the Devil (44 page)

They told me not to risk
UNAMIR
troops, to help with the security of all
UN
civilians and dependants, to keep in close touch with the expatriate and diplomatic communities and to update my withdrawal plan and be ready to implement it. I hung up feeling angry, empty and in a state of moral and ethical conflict.

It was 0100 but, before going to bed, I went to see Faustin, who after he'd been rescued had spent the day listening to the radio. All day long
RTLM
had been reporting the murders of his moderate allies and their families. The station encouraged its listeners to kill Tutsis and called for the death of all moderate Hutus, calling them traitors. The statements were accompanied by taped music from popular singers, violence-provoking songs with lyrics such as “I hate Hutus, I hate Hutus, I hate Hutus who think that Tutsis are not snakes.” As far as Faustin was concerned, we had entered the apocalypse. What could I tell him? Only that he was safe at the Force
HQ
and we would try to find the members of his family who had fled. I left him in a state of mourning.

As I lay down, the window was open and there was the sound of gunfire and grenades coming from the east side of the city. My head was filled with sounds and images: The mangled bodies of my Belgian soldiers. Hélène, Lando and their beautiful children crying for help and then resigning themselves to their fate. The congealed blood and screams in the Kigali hospital compound. Bagosora's deceptive smile. The Presidential Guards and Interahamwe militiamen at the roadblocks, their faces filled with blood lust. The enigma of Ndindiliyimana. The voice of Prime Minister Agathe as she realized she could not get to the radio station to speak to her nation. Her children cowering in a dark corner of the bedroom, expecting the next footsteps to be those of their executioners. The shock in Robert's luminous face at the morgue.

My mission had failed. I, the stubborn lobbyist for and commander of
UNAMIR
, had failed. There was no chance of sleep.

My troops had died, not in the defence of their respective nations and citizenry but in the defence of decency and human rights. Was this the true price of peace? Was it an expense that the families, friends and governments of my blue berets were prepared to pay? The loss of the ten Belgian soldiers would be the defining factor: either the international community would give me more support and possibly stop this lunacy or, as in Somalia, they would use these deaths as an excuse to desert in the face of calamity.

Today would most likely be much worse than yesterday. If the killing continued and the
RPF
decided to engage the
RGF
below the
demilitarized zone, we would either be ordered out or reinforced. However, I might be asked to stay in place with only what I had. I wasn't going to run from this mess. Between Luc, Henry, Tiko, Moen, Yaache and myself, we would reposition the force, try to support the moderate
RGF
initiatives, seek help from the
UN
to stop the killing in its tracks, and launch ceasefire initiatives to get the
RPF
back north. I got up and scribbled some notes about this in my agenda, then lay down again and finally fell asleep.

It was the end of the first day of a hundred-day civil war and a genocide that would engulf all of us in unimaginable carnage.

^1
.
Though they had never co-operated with
UNAMIR
in the past—insisting that they could not serve their home governments, Rwanda and the
UN
mission at the same time—perhaps they would have had a change of heart and given us their insiders' view. I had often wondered about the stance of the Belgian military adviser. I could understand that he needed to be loyal to his original mission of advising the inner core of officers in the
RGF
, but why did he refuse to help
UNAMIR
, especially his countrymen?

^2
.
Even though we were in a francophone country, English was the mission language, as is usual in
UN
peacekeeping operations. Some exceptions had been made (in Western Sahara the mission had used French, and in Central America, Spanish) and I had strongly recommended French for
UNAMIR
in my technical report. I was turned down by the
DPKO
, the rationale being that we would not find enough French-speaking civilian personnel to staff the mission. I now regret not insisting on French.

I AWOKE AT
dawn on April 8 to the sound of heavy gunfire. Brent had scrounged a cup of tea for me, and after I drank it, I washed and shaved using a glass of water. This would be my morning routine for the next hundred days. The city water supply had already been cut off, and we had to conserve as much as we could of our bottled water for drinking. None of us would see a shower or bath for months, and we were rationed to a single glass a day for keeping ourselves clean. We began to save rainwater in order to wash our uniforms—by hand, often without any soap—and all of us soon carried a very distinct and unpleasant odour.

With the dawn, the mobs were back on the streets, and firing was being reported across the city. The
RPF
's attack on the Presidential Guard compound had been repulsed, and the
RPF
was consolidating their positions around the
CND
complex. Elements of the
RGF
and the Gendarmerie had joined the Presidential Guard and the Interahamwe in the rampages of the previous day, and it appeared that the power of the Third Force now extended well beyond the known extremist units.

All
UN
compounds were sheltering thousands of fearful Rwandans. I needed clarification from New York as to what authority I had to protect these people, whose plight posed both a moral quandary and a logistics nightmare. How could I possibly keep them safe? In the meantime, we continued to open our gates to all those seeking sanctuary. At the first morning prayers of the war, I directed that everyone entering the compounds be searched and disarmed. I also directed that the few hundred Rwandans already in the Force
HQ
be escorted to the Amahoro stadium as soon as possible. The lack of water and food would take a
toll over the next days and weeks. We protected these citizens from certain death at the hands of the extremists or the
RPF
, but then had to watch helplessly as some of them succumbed to dehydration, disease and ultimately hunger. Many of my troops living among them would also fall ill: they simply could not eat what little rations they had in front of starving people, especially children, and gave what they had at the expense of their own health. Humanitarian assistance was still a long way off.

I also directed that all staff officers be moved by convoy from the Meridien to Force
HQ
that day. If I could drive around the city with no escort, they could find a way here under guard. This was a priority: we needed to be fully staffed and as functional as possible. All sectors were to account for their people and to launch patrols to rescue any missing military and civilian personnel. I wanted to know that by nightfall everyone associated with
UNAMIR
was in a guarded
UN
compound. We were still faced with the restriction on our
ROE
that Riza had outlined, which made these rescue efforts a matter of luck and persuasion rather than of force. To make things even more complicated, just as my officers began these tasks, the telephones in the Force
HQ
went dead.

The day before, along with the killings of the Belgians, two of our Uruguayans, one Bangladeshi and one Ghanaian had been wounded, and I knew we were bound to suffer more casualties. Despite all our requests for resupply, even the field hospital's cupboards were bare; only the Belgian contingent had any medical supplies. The Belgian Hercules that had been denied landing on April 6 was sitting on the ground in Nairobi. The airport in Kigali was under
RGF
control and remained closed to traffic. Our two contracted helicopters had disappeared yesterday—with the country exploding, the pilots had fled to Uganda. They were both civilian contract employees, so who could blame them? But the result was that we were confined to Kigali with no ability to evacuate casualties. In all likelihood any seriously wounded would die. In every decision I was to take over the coming weeks, I had to balance the risk of the operation against the fact that we had no medical safety net, and a lack of ammunition.

Robert and I left for the home of the
SRSG
. The
CND
was taking fire from several directions, and the
RPF
were returning as good as they got.
Once again we drove through a battle in our four-by-four. Driving under a firefight is unnerving to say the least, especially in an unarmoured vehicle, but it would become a daily experience.

When we got to Booh-Booh's house, he and his staff were in a state of shock. I recommended that they all move to Force
HQ
where Booh-Booh could better control the situation and have satellite communications with New York. Clearly he had already been in contact with the
UN
by phone, and heaven knows what he had said or if the wrong people had been listening. He insisted on staying where he was, even though he was obviously overwhelmed and uncertain about what to do. I didn't understand why he was unwilling to move to a location where he could stay abreast of what was happening, especially as I thought we could guarantee his safety on the journey. Later that day, his house was caught in a crossfire between the
RPF
and the Presidential Guard, and the Belgians moved him and his staff to the Meridien hotel. It was an awkward command post, and Booh-Booh relied on his political adviser, Mamadou Kane, to shuttle between Force
HQ
, his rooms at the hotel and any political meetings we arranged.

I left for the
CND
. I wanted to get Kagame to halt his resumption of hostilities. We drove through what was now the no man's land between the
RGF
and the
RPF
. Ballis met me at the entrance to the
CND
building and whispered in my ear that the
RPF
was not listening to reason; it was sticking unwaveringly to its preconditions to negotiating any ceasefire and was preparing for military action. Many Tutsis, including members of the
RPF
's families, were being hunted down and slaughtered—a compelling argument for taking up arms. If the
RPF
went on the offensive, however, it would lead inevitably to civil war.

I met with what remained of the
RPF
political leadership in the grand hallway that separated the assembly building from the hotel complex, formally greeting Seth Sendashonga, Tito Rutaremara, Dr. Jacques and Commander Charles, who stood like dignitaries in a reception line. I followed them into a small, poorly lit conference room. The heart of my argument was that if the
RPF
resumed military hostilities, the moderates wouldn't be able to rally elements of the army and Gendarmerie to their cause. I urged them to keep the peace and permit me to organize
a meeting with the
RGF
moderates of the Crisis Committee. “What moderates?” Seth wanted to know. The prime minister and the other leaders had all been killed, and the extremists were obviously enacting their long-anticipated plan. If there were moderates still alive and in a position of power, Seth insisted that they show their hand, and quickly. Commander Charles would soon implement Kagame's orders, and
UNAMIR
better not get in his way. Seth left a small door open. If I could arrange it, the
RPF
would agree to meet with the Crisis Committee, which was a creature of the army, not the government. I pushed them to commit at such a meeting to negotiate for the resumption of the ceasefire status that existed under Arusha. As usual with this group, they told me they had to refer all decisions to the
RPF
high council. At least, I said, they could clarify their preconditions. Seth rhymed them off: (1) the slaughter of innocent civilians must stop; (2) the indiscriminate shooting by the
RGF
on the
CND
must stop; (3) the Presidential Guards must be disarmed, returned to their camp and arrested; (4) the Crisis Committee must openly condemn the actions of the extremists, particularly the Presidential Guard; (5) the telephone system must be fully restored; (6) the Crisis Committee must identify its leader; (7) the Crisis Committee should produce a joint communiqué with the
RPF
regarding the true state of affairs and broadcast it to the nation; (8) the Crisis Committee had to fully account for all the officials who had died or disappeared. Then and only then would the
RPF
be open to negotiating a ceasefire. The meeting came to an abrupt halt when some glass from the skylight came crashing down, the result of heavy machine gun-fire.

I had left my vehicle at the entrance with Robert, who despite all the shooting was still sitting in it. After a quick goodbye to Walter Ballis—he was a dependable, solid senior officer and I told him I still needed him to stay put with the
UNMO
s and wished him luck—we headed through the line of fire on a direct route to the Ministry of Defence to see if I could connect with Bagosora and the Crisis Committee. It took over half an hour to manoeuvre through the various roadblocks, many of which had now attracted spectators; it was as if each barrier had turned into a theatre of cruelty. Power was in the hands of vigilante groups. Closer to the Ministry of Defence, in the
inner city, the Presidential Guard and the Reconnaissance Battalion were still manning the roadblocks—we saw no civilians past the Mille Collines checkpoint. Soldiers stopped us at each one, glanced in at us and let us pass. I had the impression that instructions had been given to permit me to move freely and I hoped that such freedom would be extended to all
UNAMIR
personnel. I was mistaken.