The paradox of military humanitarian intervention in Rwanda
By Ross Conroy, M.A. candidate in African Studies, Stanford University, focusing on politics and security in Central Africa.
In 1994 the country of Rwanda saw the world’s most abhorrent crime — genocide — perpetrated on a massive scale throughout its famed, ‘thousand hills.’ The world watched, but refused to intervene for months, as members of Rwanda’s Hutu ethnic majority murdered up to one million people, mostly of the Tutsi minority — until one country chose to act. With the support of the United Nations (UN), France led a military mission, codenamed Opération Turquoise, into Rwanda. The French mission was ostensibly meant to aid the Tutsi population being exterminated by the Hutu regime and dreaded Interahamwe militias; however, France in fact misled the UN and acted in its own interest. Rather than protecting the Tutsis under siege, France sided with its longtime ally, the genocidal Hutu regime, and ushered them safely out of the country into neighboring Zaire, providing them with weapons and logistical support along the way.
During my first research trip to Rwanda in 2016, I was unsure exactly what the topic of my research would be. I thought I would perhaps focus on the uniqueness of the country’s post-genocide development under an imperious regime. However, while visiting various genocide memorials, I was struck by one in particular: the Murambi Genocide Memorial. The Murambi Genocide Memorial, like so many others across the country, commemorates a massacre of thousands of Tutsis by Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Interahamwe militias. What makes this memorial unique is the role played by the French troops who were active in this area with Opération Turquoise. At Murambi, the French came across the remnants of the massacre some weeks after it had occurred. They discovered thousands of bodies of men, women, and children, strew haphazardly among the remnants of what had before been a primary school. It was here the Tutsi of that region had sought refuge.
The Tutsis had been told by the Rwandan government that they would be safe at the Murambi primary school, protected from the massacres, but they were misled. Instead, the government used this school as an abattoir, and once the school was filled with frightened Tutsis, government forces and the Interahamwe began slaughtering them mercilessly. When the French found thousands of these corpses, they quickly went about burying the bodies. However, rather than dignifying the slain civilians, they desecrated their graves and their memories by building basketball and volleyball courts atop the mass graves, in order to hide the disturbed earth. This was done to protect the image of the genocidal Hutu regime, the French’s longtime allies. Even after the genocide, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had taken the entire country and put an end to the genocide, the French lied, saying that no such massacre had occurred at Murambi. The RPF government, trusting the words of the few survivors, began digging around the Murambi primary school and soon unearthed the mass graves. It was a shocking cover up by a government and a military that was supposedly in Rwanda to aid those being targeted by genocide. After learning this history, my interest was peaked. I had to learn more. It was at Murambi that I dedicated my research to learning the long and short-term implications of this French intervention on the development, security, and reconciliation of the new Rwandan state.
During my first stint in Rwanda, I was able to gather information from interviews, books, primary source documents, and firsthand accounts of the French intervention in the country. The more I researched, the more harrowing my discoveries became. The French implication in other massacres, such as those at Bisesero and Kibeho for example, became even more evident. Their involvement in the Congo Wars, a series of conflicts that were sparked by the mass exodus of Rwandan Hutus and génocidaires after the genocide, became undeniably clear. After many weeks of research, I felt like there was still much more for me to learn, and thanks to the Stanford Global Studies Global Perspectives Award, I was able to do so.
During my research over spring break, I was able to visit the Rwandan National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide and access their library and archive. While there, I found a memoir of one of the French soldiers who was deployed with Opération Turquoise. He was appalled by what he saw in Rwanda, and by the way he felt the French government and his superiors misled him and his fellow soldiers. He explained how he had been briefed before arriving in Rwanda that it was the RPF perpetrating massacres against the Hutu population and their mission would be to protect those Hutu under siege. Upon arriving in Rwanda, he saw for himself that this was far from the truth, and that it was the Hutu government that was responsible for the killings against their own citizens. Soon after completing his mission, he left the French military, disgusted by what he had experienced.
I was also able to access the library and archive at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where I found many books, articles, and documents describing the French role in Rwanda. One of the most illuminating was a collection of 700 pages of declassified French documents that were written to then French President François Mitterrand concerning Rwanda from 1984 to 1996. These documents revealed some fascinating information, including the evolution of Opération Turquoise from its original proposal to its final form. One of the most shocking documents I came across was a cable written from a representative at the French Embassy in Rwanda to President Mitterrand in 1992 that states explicitly that the Tutsi in Rwanda were at great risk of being targeted by a potential genocide. The use of the word genocide two full years before it eventually occurred has massive implications, especially since the French failed to condemn the actions of its erstwhile allies during most of the genocide. One of the main reasons the French cited was a lack of evidence, but this cable reveals that at the very least, the French knew years in advance that there was a distinct possibility that genocide could occur.
Perhaps the most profound and moving experience during my research was my visit to the Bisesero Genocide Memorial. Bisesero, a small sector in Southeastern Rwanda near the town of Karongi, was one of the sites most notorious for French inaction. Before the genocide, the area surrounding Karongi (then called Kibuye) had one of the highest concentrations of Tutsis anywhere in the country. During the genocide, it was one of the only places were Tutsis formed an armed resistance to those plotting their annihilation. Fifty thousand Tutsis came together atop the hill of Bisesero and used traditional weapons, stones, and spears to fight off wave after wave of heavily armed FAR and Interahamwe attacks. They suffered many casualties, but were able to continue their resistance for nearly two months. It was at this time that the French passed through Bisesero. There, they discovered the beleaguered Tutsis, many of whom were emaciated and near death. Rather than staying to protect the Tutsis, the French left after one night, promising to come back to rescue them. While in Bisesero, the French saw and interacted with Interahamwe militias, and as soon as the French left, these militias closed in for the kill.
Upon their arrival back at their base, the French soldiers were ordered by their superiors not to return to help the Tutsi at Bisesero. Three days passed and after intensive lobbying by the commanding officers on the ground in Rwanda, their superiors granted them permission to return. What they found upon returning to Bisesero still haunts many of the soldiers to this day.
Where before there had been almost 25,000 people, they instead found over 20,000 corpses. During those three days, the Tutsi defenses finally gave way, and only between 500 and 2,000 were able to escape the bloodbath. The rest were butchered, most by machetes, soon after the French left. While at the Bisesero memorial I was able to interview the guides working there, and they were most willing to share every detail of the French implication in that massacre. It was a grizzly contrast, as Bisesero is one of the most beautiful locations I have been to in Rwanda, with picturesque views of Rwanda’s famed thousand hills falling slowly down into the calm blue of the enormous Lake Kivu. This beauty juxtaposed against hundreds of skulls, many bearing machete marks, bullet holes, and massive fractures inflicted by traditional clubs, was a tortuous contrast that encapsulated the terror of the genocide. Indeed, so too was it reflective of the French ineptitude in the face of such barbarity.
My time in Rwanda, as it always is, was full of these contrasts. Today, Rwanda is thriving. It is one of the fastest growing, safest, and stable countries in Africa. Its people are some of the most friendly, industrious, and thoughtful that I have ever met. Their beauty, and the beauty of the country’s rolling hillsides makes it all the more difficult to believe the horrors that took place there more than twenty years ago, and yet there are reminders everywhere. This research trip has highlighted once again the importance of learning lessons from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, so that the phrase ‘Never Again’ may one day become a reality.
There are many lessons to be learned, but my study focused on one specific aspect — humanitarian military intervention. Humanitarian military intervention has been derided in many contexts because of its unintended and intended consequences. Opération Turquoise is no different. I believe there is an important lesson to be learned about the intention of foreign intervention, and that when it is undertaken to protect those facing persecution, violence, death, and even elimination, it must be done to serve only the interests of those in peril. Opération Turquoise was undertaken to promote French political interests first, not primarily for humanitarian purposes. It is imperative that the international community learn from such lessons when designing military interventions in the future. Recent conflicts, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, prove that as of yet, we still have a lot to learn.
Visit the Center for African Studies website for more information about the master’s program in African Studies at Stanford University. Global Perspectives Grants provide funding for graduate students to pursue research abroad, for more details about this program, click here.
