INTERVIEW
Witnessing ‘the worst of times’
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With fighting raging in and around Rwanda's capital city of Kigali, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Peter Hansen on 23 April led an inter-agency advance humanitarian team there shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, to initiate aid efforts in close collaboration with the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Efforts to gain access to World Food Programme food stocks, however, were repeatedly blocked by hostile fire.
During a second mission, from 24 to 28 July, following the formation of the new Government, Mr. Hansen took steps to ensure coordination measures were in place. These included a clear division of responsibilities among UN organizations, an overall strategy to meet the extraordinary humanitarian challenge before them, and a decision to move the headquarters of the UN Rwanda Emergency Office from Nairobi to Kigali. In meetings with the new Government, Mr. Hansen and the Secretary-General's Special Representative to Rwanda, Shaharyar Khan, secured commitments to encourage refugees to return to Rwanda, ensure their protection, and permit hill access to all those in need in Rwanda. The following are excerpts from Mr. Hansen's recent interview with the UN Chronicle.
How did conditions in Rwanda differ during the April and July missions?
In April, we came in during the worst of the times. Kigali was a war zone and UNAMIR forces were being pulled out. In fact, the team had to fly into Kigali on empty planes returning to pick up more UN soldiers to bring them back to Nairobi, Kenya. Fighting was going on in and around the capital. The airport was itself part of the battle zone. The city was virtually deserted, except for militias and others terrorizing the population. There were perhaps between 12,000 and 15,000 people in Kigali, and they were scared—mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus massed together in the stadium and in King Faisal Hospital. They were living under indescribable conditions: there was literally no floor place at the Hospital for the sick; they had insufficient food, no access to water, no basic sanitation. They lived under the most terrible physical conditions and under the terror of shells and grenades that were being lobbed into the stadium and at the Hospital. People were killed in several instances by the weapons fire.
You could not see much of Kigali then. The only way to move around was by armoured personnel carriers or APCs. Bodies were littered all around. What could be done at the time was very limited, but we did manage to put in the Team, who stayed on during the worst of the fighting.
The remaining UNAMIR forces, numbering about 400, carried on their absolutely heroic work under the leadership of General Dallaire, tbe Force Commander at the time. They did everything possible to assist the Team in its humanitarian task, including helping it make its way through the front lines to negotiate with the advancing RPF army in the north and the retreating Rwandese Government Army in the south concerning arrangements for delivering aid across the border—in the north from Uganda and in the south from Burundi-into their respective territories. It was crucial that we had that Team there, that we had that access, so there could be some organization in the delivery of food and other aid. Cooperation among the agencies and the non-governmental organizations was tested, and it stood the test very well. There was total cooperation from everybody.
In July, the situation was quite different. Most of the country, except for the southwestern sector, had by then been taken over by the RPF, and the region was faced with a massive outflow of refugees. The fastest "flash flood" of refugees ever was into Ngara, United Republic of Tanzania, where the ability of the international community to cope with such an unprecedented flow was tested again. By miracle and the hard work of everyone concerned, Ngara was organized as a refugee population that, in effect, constituted the second largest city in Tanzania.
Had anybody predicted at that time that the international community could have coped as well as it did with an outflow that was more than twice as large as that into Goma, no one would have believed it. It was an overwhelming situation. But in the weeks that followed, the massive influx of aid helped to establish the camps—however squalid and unsatisfactory they were—which helped save a lot of lives.
There was also a great contrast in Kigali between April and July. By July, life in the city was beginning to return to "normal"—if you can use that term about a country that has gone through what Rwanda went through. People were trickling back into a city that had been a ghost town just a few months before. The marketplace was beginning to come alive with people trading whatever little they had to trade.
The contrast with Goma in Zaire was particularly great. Bodies were piled everywhere in Goma. You couldn't turn without seeing dozens, many dozens, of bodies. It was at the time of the cholera outbreak, which caused so many casualties that there was even a crisis in burying the bodies of the victims.
Was there any one scene that you will never forget?
Probably the most terrible picture had to do with the demonstrations in Goma at the time directed against the refugees. Roadblocks were being set up by the demonstrators, and the most available material to build the roadblocks were the corpses, which were being stacked across the road to hinder traffic.
Were there other indicators then that the security situation in the camps would have evolved in the direction we are now seeing? Could anything have been done?
There were certainly indicators of that. During the press conference I gave while visiting, there was unrest outside the tent in which the conference was taking place. Some militia groups were apparently dissatisfied with the answers that this UN official was giving. And whatever it was they did not like in my answers, they began making moves toward the tent. I had to be hustled out the back to avoid an incident and possible attack—something which in itself indicated an emerging security problem.
In order to cope with the extreme situation, the international agencies bad to rely very much on the structures that had been, as it were, "exported" from Rwanda—particularly from the north-west, the core of Hutu extremism. In order to have a minimum of organization and of mechanisms for distributing the food, there had to be a great reliance on those structures: the old prefectures, the officials and the leaders. This was done to meet the urgent needs of the situation, but it also helped to reinforce those structures and make the refugee populations an instrument or weapon in the hands of the people who were behind the Hutu extremism, who were behind tbe genocide that had been perpetrated inside Rwanda.
You indicated that this emergency had also been a good test of the cooperation possible between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN humanitarian agencies. Can you enlighten us on same of the major difficulties that have arisen in coordinating humanitarian relief among those various agencies and NGOs?
Well, given the sheer number of UN agencies and NGOs involved and the differences in their locations and mandates, you are certainly dealing with a very high degree of complexity. However, from day one, tbey collaborated intensively with each other. Whatever the differences in interpretation of what each could do, all knew it was essential that everyone work together in a joint effort—wbich tbey did.
My second mission was unusual in so far as there was a great interest on the part of NGOs to join it. And major NGOs did join, at very senior levels. Throughout, it was a team effort. We worked together, irrespective of whether we came from a UN agency or from a non-governmental organization.
By mid-July, a dangerous scenario looked as if it might unfold in the southwest. We knew the French-led multinational force, "Operation 'Turquoise", was to withdraw at a certain time. We also knew that unless we acted, once that happened, the more than 1 million internally displaced people in the zone would very likely walk across the border to Bukavu, where there were already 450,000 to 500,000 refugees. Then, we would have had an even greater catastrophe on our hands than the one in Goma. So, in identifying this risk early on, the mission was able to make certain judgments as to where the efforts of the international community would be best concentrated.
I think it is one of the untold stories of Rwanda that, indeed, that catastrophe did not occur. This was because it was one of those instances where we could foresee what was coming, and do something to prevent it. By getting all the UN agencies and NGOs together to focus an the south-west, the area was flooded with international organizations bringing relief supplies. That also served as a visible sign to the people in the zone that life would be sustained there as "Operation Turquoise" withdrew.
It was a case where we were successful in prevention, and there was no catastrophe to report. But if we were always successful in prevention, there would not be the resources coming in that were needed. Because if you don't see the terrible things, well, what is there to worry about?
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22 February: Rwanda and Uganda call for military observers to be deployed along common border, after renewal of heavy fighting in the north between the Government and the RPE.
16 March: Interrupted peace talks resume in Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania.
22 June: The Security Council adopts resolution 846 (1993), establishing UN
Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR) on Ugandan side of border.
4 August: Warring parties sign peace agreement in Arusha, calling for a democratically-elected government and a broad-based transitional government until the elections. They also request a neutral international force to help implement the agreement.
5 October: The Security Council by resolution 872 (1993) establishes the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), stressing the urgency of an international neutral force, and integrates UNOMUR within it. Mandate to end following elections and installation of new government. |
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5 January: Major-General Juvénal Habyarimana sworn in as President of Rwanda. Rstablishment of a transitional Government and National Assembly delayed.
6 April: Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi killed in a plane crash a day after the Security Council extends UNAMIR. Hostilities break out.
8 April: Provisional Government disintegrates and "interim Government" proclaimed, but is later forced from the capital as fighting intensifies.
21 April: By resolution 912, the Council adjusts UNAMIR's mandate, autborizing a force reduction and calling for an end to the "mindless violence".
23 April: UN advance humanitarian team arrives in Kigali.
13 May: Secretary-General reports a "major humanitarian crisis" has developed, with nearly 2 million people displaced.
17 May: Council resolution 918 (1994) expands UNAMIR mandate to enable it to protect refugees and civilians. UNAMIR strength authorized up to 5,500 troops.
25 May: Human Rights Commission appoints Special Rapporteur, René Degni-Ségui subsequently undertakes two missions.
20 June: Security Council resolution 928 (1994) endorses recommendation that ONUMUR be closed down by 21 September.
22 June: The Security Council by resolution 929 (1994) authorizes Member States to set up a temporary multinational operation for humanitarian purposes until UNAMIR is strengthened. French-commanded "Operation Turquoise" is launched.
1 July: Shaharyar Khan appointed to succeed Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh as Secretary-General's Special Representative. The Council, in resolution 935, requests creation of an impartial Commission of Experts to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law.
2 July: "Operation Turquoise" establishes a humanitarian protected zone in south-western Rwanda.
18 July: The RPF unilaterally declares cease-fire, effectively ending the civil war.
19 JuIy: Broad-based Government of National Unity formed.
22 July: UN Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Persons Affected by the Crisis in Rwanda launched by the Secretary-General.
24-28 July: UN relief assessment mission visits Rwanda and region.
2 August: Pledging conference held in Geneva.
3 August: Secretary-General reports the RPF has established military control over most of Rwanda. The protracted violence has created an "almost unprecedented humanitarian crisis".
10 August: The Council encourages the new Government to cooperate with the UN in ensuring that those guilty of atrocities are brought to justice.
12-16 September: Special Representative visits Zaire and the United Republic of Tanzania to discuss security situation in refugee camps.
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