The Nation.

May 2. 1994

585

ARTICLES.
ARMS FOR RWANDA

Blood Money,and
Geopolitics

dI

FRANK SMYTH

he April 6 plane crash that killed the Presidents of

Rwanda and Burundi (they may have been shot
down) is only
the latest violent act for these neighboring Central African countries. Asmany as
100,000 people have died and more than a million have fled
ethnic and politically#basedattacks in recent years. Elements
of the Tutsi-dominated armyin Burundi assassinatedits prior
President, a Hutu, in October. Similarly, Rwanda's Hutudominated army is responsible
for most abuses there, according to Human Rights WatchIAfrica. On top of that, one in
eight people in Rwanda on
is theverge of starving, according
to 'a new report by aid agencies including Oxfam.
Rwanda's renewed terror broke out as it .was tentatively
moving towarda peaceful settlementof a three-year civil war,
which ended last
August. The conflict was fueled bythird-party
governments supplyingarms, which typifies,the accelerated
dumping of weaponsinto underdeveloped countries since
the
cold war ended.
In October 1990 guerrillas qf the Rwqndan Patriotic Front
(R.P.F.), seeking to overthrow the government of President
Juvhal Habyarimana, invaded the count3 from itsnorthern
border with Uganda. From around theworld camea steady
flow of weapons, including Kalashn'ikov AKM (AK-47) asmortars, 122-rrlillimeter
sault rifles, long-range 120-mi1imetei
howitzers and Soviet-made Katybsha multiple rocket
launchers, which can'cover with
shrapnel an areawider and longer
than a soccer field.Thousands died, both combatants and civilians, and 1milZion people were uprooted from their'homes.
"I think in this type of market everybody wantsto-get in,"
',
s+d James Gasana, Rwanda's defekmidster last year, adding that most countriesand indepedent healers that supplied '
the weapons were less'interestedin who won the war than in
making money 'on it.
The government forcesare made up primarily o'fHutu; the'
guerrillas, of Tutsi. Their conflict dates back
to the seirenteenth
century, whenthe Kingdom of Rwanda was established as a
highly organized and stratified state. Most nobles, military
commanders, local officials and cattle herders
were Tutsi, who
today are about14 percent ofthe population; the rest of the
people were Hutu, who wereand remain predominantly sub-

'

Frank Smyth is the author'of Arming Rwanda: The Arms

Trade and Human Rights Abusesin the'Rwandan War, availablefrom the Arms Project of Humun Rights Watch in New
York. Arms consultant Michael d Limatola contributed to
this mrivestigation. This article is dedicated to my Rwandan
sources, most of whom are now dead 0; missing.
1

sistence farmers. Their differences

are
tribal
not
but
ethnic
and social, with the Tutsi historically regarding themselves
as superior.
The lktsi monarchy dominqted Rwanda until it was overthrown by the Hutu in1961, a year before the country's independence from Belgium, which over the years had allied
itself withthe Tutsi but had shifted sides
in the late 1950s: One
of the new government'sfirst acts was to execute some twenty
prominent Tutsi leaders;
Hutu crowds killedup to 20,000 Thtsi
citizens. By 1964,
the Office ofthe United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees estimated that about 150,000Rwandan lbtsi had fled to Tanzania, Burundi, Zaire and Uganda.
Thenty-five years later,'these people and their descendants,
called Banyarwanda, had swollen to a population of some
500,000. Most lack citizenshipor legal residencein thecountries to which theyescaped, which hasleft them vulnerable
to deportation, displacement and harassment.

~CutcntrieslikeRwanda,
Kalcxslhnikovs are now more
common than bicycles.
In 1973 Defense Minister Habyarimana, a Hutu, seized
power. He promised to be fair to both Hutuand Tutsi; instead
he distributed most of the resources and key positions to family, friends and associates from the region of his birthplace
in northwestern Rwanda. Until recently, Habyarimana ruled,
the countryas a one-party state, and most governmentministers were related to him by either birth or marriage. After
the guerrillas invaded, Habyarimana's regime distributed at
least 500 Kalashnikov'assaultrifles to municipal authorities,
working in collaboration with militia from his ruling paity.
With governmentofficialsin the lead, thesemilitia organiied
mobs of agitated Hutu that went to villages and fields in
search of "utsi. They stole beans and slaughtered goats'dnd
cattle. They divided
up the meat along with
c1othes'befo"rektting many bamboo huts on fire. About '2,000 peoble died,
most of'them hacked to death by machete.The Habyarimana
regime arbitrarily arrested at least 8,000 others. Hundreds' '
were beaten, raped and tortured. The guerrillas
also committed
abuses, executing hundreds of civilians suspected ofcollab- ' '
orating with the Habyarimana regime, as well
as military prisoners. They forciblydislocated hundreds, if not thousands,
more, and forced an unknown number of civiliansinto slave
labor as porters for thetroops. Although the abuses on both
sides were documented by an international commission that
included Human Rights Watchand three Francophone organizations, both thegovernment and the guerrillas deny them.
,

I ,

ost of the countries and dealers facilitatingthe RwandaL

M
slaughter are similarly dldsemouthed.
The Russians and
other former Warsaw Pact membersare now prolificsufipliers
~

'i)

The Nation.

586
I

M a y 5 I994

of small arms. The collapse of Moscows central control has

given governments as well
as the officials left in charge of existing stockpiles a free hand. Since these weapons are already
paid for, theycan be loosed on the world market at prices below cost. With theRussian ruble losing its value, and Eastern
European nations also in need ofhard currency, their governments are likely to sell evenmore arms in years to come. They
are no longer constrained by the boundsof superpower loyalties; the only thing that counts now is cash.
Although exact numbers are unknown, Kalashnikov rifles
have beenflooding markets and wars throughout Africa and
Asia. As late as March 1992 belligerents in Central Africa
could pick them up in bulk for
$220 each; prices have since
dropped well below$200. In countries like Rwanda, Kalashnikovs wereonce more common than cars; now theyare more
common than bicycles. About 80 percent ofthe weapons used
by the R.P.F, guerrillas were Kalashnikovs, many of Romanian manufacture. Among those fighters who had uniforms,
most worerain-pattern camouflagefrom the former East Germany; these are now also available through commercial military catalogues. Africanarms dealers livingin Brussels appear
to have facilitatedthe delivery of WarsawPact materielto East
Africa. The trend is global and notlimited to guns and camouflage: In 1992 the U.S.Drug Enforcement Administration
confiscated Soviet-made AH-72 cargo jets that Colombias
Cali cartel had used to smuggle cocaine.
In South Africa, the government-ownedArmscor has for
years manufactured high-quality weapons for its securityand
defense forces, which could not buy guns abroad because of
a U.N. embargo. While this resolution was binding, another
one, against buying arms from South
Africa, was not; Rwanda hasignored it. According to Armscor invoices dated October 19, 1992, South Africa sold Rwanda at least $5.9 million

worth of lightarms, machine guns, mortars and ammunition.

About 3,000 Rwanda troops are now equipped-with the R-4
assault rifle, which is
superior to theKalashnikov. The status
of Armscor and its subsidiaries in thenew South Africa has
yet to be determined, but it is likelyto become a private in:
dustry. The lifting of stigma and sanctions against the former apartheid state will give Armscor the opportunity to
market its products openly and aggressively for thefirst time.
A weapons contract signed on March 30,1992, reads: The
BUYER and theSUPPLIER agree not toshow the contents of
this contract to third parties. The buyer was Rwanda
and the
supplier was Egypt, in a $6 million transaction that induded
Egyptian-made Kalashnikov rifles, anti-personnel mines, plastic explosives, mortars andlong-range artillery. Other documents indicate that the sale was financed by a first-rate,
international bank approved by Egypt. Rwanda
paid $1 million in cash up front andpromised to pay another $1 million
with the proceeds from 615 tons of harvested tea, and$1 million a yearover the next four years. Thefirst-rate inter.
national bank guaranteed Rwandas payment of the full
$6 million. Few private commercial banks, operating on the
profit motive, wouldtake on such a risk. But Credit Lyonnais
did. Although it may be privatized
soon, in March1992 it was
still a nationaIized bank of France. The sale was, in fact, a
secret military assistance credit from France to Rwanda.
This credit has since becomea subsidy. What Credit Lyonnais and Rwanda didnt count on was that theR.P.F. guerrillas would launch a new offensive in February 1993 and take
over the Mulindi tea plantation. The tea therespoiled and
never made itto harvest. Our economy wasalready ailing in
1990, and of course the war has not resolved anything, President Habyarimanasaid last October. NOWwe want to improve our macroeconomic outlook, but we have a serious
shortage of currency. As forRwandas outstanding debt,to
Egypt, Credit Lyonnais, and by extension France, is obligated
to pick up thetab.
The French governments willingnessto doso, and tokeep
propping upHabyarimana militarily, arise from itsdetermination to maintain its credibility in French-speaking Africa.
From Rwandas independence in
1962 until the war brokeout
in 1990, the nations main trading partner, political ally and
military patron was Belgium. But once the war began, that
role was assumed by France. Belgium unique
is
among NATO
member states in that its laws explicitlyprohibit it from selling or providing arms to a country at war. Shortly after the
1990 R.P.F. invasion, Belgium cut off all lethal aid. And last
year, followingthe release of the international commissions
human rights report, Belgium recalledits ambassador for consultation. Accusations that Belgium hasaided the R.P.F. are
false, and stem from the Habyarimanaregimes resentment
of Belgian neutrality.
French officials, however, havedefended the record of the
Habyarimana regime. Civilians were killed as in any wq,
said Colonel Cussac, the French militaryattache in the capital
of Kigaliand head of the French military assistance mission.
(In an apparent act of disdain for journalists and others who
question Frances role, Colonel Cussac declined to give me
his first name.) Are you saying that theproviding of mili-

May2,1994

The Nation.

tary assistanceis a human rights violation? he asked,

adding
that officials in the U.S. Embassy in Kigali supported French
policy. France and theUnited States have a common histow-for example, in Vietnam. In fact, all non-French Western
diplomats in Kigali are critical of Frances role.
Immediately after the war started, France deployedat least
300 combat troops in Rwanda, drawing
them fromits forces
stationed in the Central African Republic. Francealso rushed
in advisers, helicopter parts, mortars and munitions. After
the R.P.F. launched its offensive last February, the number
of French troops in Rwanda swelledto at least 680, comprising four companies, including paratroopers. French military
troops are herein Rwanda to protect French citizens
and other
foreigners, Colonel Cussac told me. They have never been
given a mission against the R.P.F. But Western diplomats,
relief workersand Rwandan army officers
all said thesetroops
have provided artillery
support for Rwandan infantry troops,
and that French advisers have been attached to Rwandan
combat commanders.
Frances Ambassador said the countrys presenceis necessary,to defend Rwanda against aggression from Uganda. It
is true that Uganda hasnot sat on the sidelines duringthe conflict, .although its government categorically denies this. Almost all of Uganda knew about the impending invasion in
1990,. a s Tutsi soldiers the
in Ugandan army openly bid farewell
to their families?andfriends. They traveled withtheir weapons, in,plainview of Ugandan authorities, over two days,and
then gathered in a soccer stadium in Kabale, about 200 miles
southbest of Kampalaand just north of the Rwandan border.
Their ,weaponry included land mines, rocket-propelled grenades, 60-millimeter mortars, recoilless cannons
and Katyusha
rocket launchers. According to Western diplomats, international military observers, Ugandanarmy officers andeyewitnesses ,who saw soldiers unloading crates of Kalashnikovs,
Uganda willingly provided more arms, food, gasoline, batteries and ammunition to the R.P.E throughout the war. We
are committed to theR.P.F., one Ugandan army operations
officer boasted after a few beers in Kampala. If they didnt
haveour support, they wouldntbe as successful as they are.
along with the Tutsi refugees who have served
in the Ugandan army; about 200,000 other ,Tutsi have been living in
Uganda. While President
Yoweri Musevenitries to rebuild the
couhtry in the wake of its wholesale destruction under Idi
Amin,. these refugees have competed, sometimes violently,
with Ugandans for water, land and other resources. In supporting the guerrillas, President Museveni seems lessinterested in claiming Rwandanterritory than in facilitating Thtsi
repatriation. Many top R.P.F. leaders also fought alongside
Museveni in Uganda with the expectation that some day he
would help .them invade Rwanda.
he R:P.F. and President Habyarimana signed a treaty last
TAugust,
but his untimelydeath provoked Rwandasmost

severe wave ofbloodshed since independence.

Hours after his
plane went down, the regimes Presidential Guard began targetingpolitical opponents and critics irrespective of ethnicity.
.
They included the interim Hutu Prime Minister, ten Belgian
peacekeepers whotried to save her, manypriests and nuns,

587

Bearing Witness

onique Mujawamariya slapped her hand

into mine and said Ga va? In Kigali a
year ago, her smile
was contagious, although the scars on three sidesofher
mouth were ugly.One of Rwandas most active human
rights monitors, she was cut in an accident whensomeone triedto run her car off the road.
Monique, as she is generally known,couldnt prove
who did it.But she was later threatened by Capt. Pascal Simbikangwa in front of Western witnesses. Simbikangwa is a member of the Akazu (the little house),
the clique of thugs
and top ministers that kept Preaident
Juvenal Habyarimana in power for so long through its
organization of the Presidential Guard and militia.
Akazu members deny responsibility for any abuses.
Many of Rwandas opposition party leaders have
been assassinated in recent years;Dissidents and Western diplomats suspect the,Akazu. Shadow groups are
behind the violence. But nobody can provide concrete
evidence, said Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye, a former
prime minister. Takethe example of the mafia: Their
chief may recruit
from churches, the government or private companies, which allow him to conduct criminal
activities without being seen.
This made for a dangerous climate. Because of it,
Human Rights Watch/Africa arranged for Monique to
meet withPresident Clinton last December in theOval
Office. Your courage, madame,
is an inspiration to all
of us, and we thank you, the President told Monique.
I want to assure you that theUnited States will continue to be in the forefront of nations pushing the cause
of human rights.
After President Habyarimana was killed in Kigali
on April 6, Monique felt she was in danger. She called
United Nations peacekeepers in Kigali,but they were
under siege and unable to help her.(Belgiumsays
ten of its peacekeepers were tortured and murdered
by the Presidential Guard.) Monique also appealed to
U.S. Embassy officials, who were busy safeguarding
Americans.
By then Moniquewas in touch with a friend in the
United States, historian Alison DesForges. Around
5 A.M. I called Monique and she said that she had seen
two [members] of the Presidential Guard go into a
house two removedfrom hers, DesForges wrote. They
brought out three people and shot them. Around 6
when I called the soldiers had entered the house next
door and had just
killed someone.I told her to stay on
the line with me, to open the doorfor them and totell
them that I was the White House. Instead, Moniique
hid for six hours on the ground in the rain and then
crawled into her ceiling space. They missed her, and
she survived.
F.S.

The Nation.

588

Muy2, 1994

after August1991, the triumphant defender ofthe White House

could get awaywith anything, whereas in 1994the man who :
stormed that building, and thenlost an election, is not in the
same position. It is symptomatic that, ina recent popularity
poll published in Nezuvisimuya Gazetu, he was overtaken by
his Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin. Friends and foes
alike are beginning ,to treat Yeltsin as yesterdays politician.
To suggest Yeltsinsimminent departure is to raise the dark
shadow of Vladimir Zhirinovsky
and that1 misnomer, his
Liberal-Democratic Party.The danger is real. His xenophobic
and racist movement
drew the highest proportion of
the vote23 percent-in last Decembers election. But those who praise
LETTER FROM EUROPE .
Yeltsins new Constitution andcurse Zhirinovsky should be
confronted with their inconsistency. That Constitution, enof some
dorsed narrowlylast December, possibly with the help
I
suspect miracles at the polls, had no chance whatsoever
without the backing of Zhirinovskys supporters; their leader
was, naturally, in favor of greater powersfor the President,
since he sees himself
as the likely successor
to thatoffice. More
generally, the advocates of shock therapy now shouting
DanDANIEL SINGER

ger, fascism! are like arsonists calling the fire brigade. They
ix months after the storming of Russias Parliament,
have manured the soil in which such a movement could grow.
BorkYeltsin and his backers, domestic
and foreign,
All ofEurope is now witnessing
the rise of right-wing extremmust have second thoughts about the wisdom ofthe
ists to varying degrees, reflecting
the relative sickness of
their
coup that climaxed in a massacre. On the face of it,
particular societies. If the shadow of Zhirinovsky isdarker,
the coups objectives have been achieved:
Yeltsin has his exsay, than that of Jean-Marie Le Pen, it is because Russia is
orbitant,prerogatives under
a Constitutionhastily cutto measin a much more explosive state than France.
ure, and parallel organs of presidential power are now filled
In Russia, luxury used
to be concealed behind curtains; now
with obedient servants. In terms of real power, however, he
it is flaunted. The gap between rich
and poor is widening fast;
has, increasingly, more the trappings than thesubstance.
according to official figures the income of the top 10 percent
The leaders of last autumns parliamentary resistance, relast year was eleven times higher
than thatof the lowest 10 perleased from jailat the end of February, were not humiliated
cent. Some are buried in a paupers grave; others in elaborate ,
and freed bythe Presidents gracious pardon. They wereuncoffins imported from the United States. Foreign-language
repentant beneficiaries ofaparliamentary amnesty. The new
ads for consumer goods enrage those whoye lost their savDuma is no more subservientthan theold Parliament,though
ings. All this is a perfect stage for
a man like Zhirinovsky who
it can no longer be dismissed as ill-elected. Yeltsin,
in response
knows how to address his public concretely.He talks about
to the clearly expressed mood of the people, has had to eat
the price of vodkaand cigarettes and uses words that ring a
his own words,and thoseof hisassistants, about thevirtues
bell (nationalismis an individual flat; internationalism, a
of shock therapy. His sudden disappearances, whether due
shared apartment,, examples all too familiar to Russians).
to poor health or drinking, are no longer the main reason the
Himself nevera Communist, though suspected ofa connecconviction is spreading in Moscow that he willnot complete
tion with the K.G.B., he can tell his angry audiences about
his first term, officially scheduled to end in mid-1996.
past grandeur and point to the people responsible for their
One must weigh such a prognosis against Yeltsins resilidegradation: the alien, the darksoutherner, the Jew, the costhe famous Russian doll
ence, his capacity to bounce back like
mopolitan, the American invader. Demagogues like Zhirinovand his readinessto doanything for thesake ofpolitical sursky, possibly wearing a uniform, will remain dangerous as
vival. Afterall, the former apparatchik from Svergoysk gained long as Russia doesnot make an economic recovery and the
popularity during thefirst phase of perestroika as thechamother parties do not provide more rational explanations and
pion of equality and the archenemy of privilege. Then, pushed a better prospect for change.
by thepriviligentsiu, he claimedthat for successful peoplethe
Nevertheless, if Zhirinovsky does not appear to be an imsky was the limit. Yesterday, he and his supporters argued that
mediate threat, it is not because of his ravingsabout secret
everything must be subordinated to thequick conversion to
weapons for Serbia or his other antics on foreign trips, It is
capitalism. Today, he mkntains thatthe task isto find a senbecause opinion polls and other indicators, for what theyare
sible correlation between the speed of reform and the realisworth, suggestthat the Russian people have not yet reached
the
tic social price to be paid for it. Indeed, Yeltsins pragmatic
state of exasperation necessaryfor a majority of themto turn
rule is have two different irons in the fire and pretend the one
to such a savior. If a presidential election were to be held toyou pull out is no different from the other. The snag is that
morrow, the real rivalfor Yeltsin would be his running mate of
1991and now his deadly eriemy, Aleksandr Rutskoi,the Afghan
Daniel Singer is The Nations Europe correspondent,
war heroand former vice president, ousted in,Yeltsins coup.
and journalists and humanrights monitors. While these victims, running into the thousands, were primarily Hutu like
the regime itself,the ruling-party militia along with bands of
soldiers and drunken armed Hutu men killed tens of thousands of Tutsi.Six days after the carnage started, thefirst of
the main body of n t s i R.P.F. guerrillas arrived in Kigali.
While Uganda harbored and largely armed the R.P.F.,
Egypt, South Africa and especially France armed
the Habyarimana regime, which is most responsible
for the recent bloodletting. Uganda denies it.Egypt and SouthAfrica will not
comment, and France has yet to fully disclose its role. 0

rn

Yeltsin, the
Lame-Duck Czar