May 2. 1994 The Nation. 585

ARTICLES. ARMS FOR RWANDA sistence farmers. Their differences are not tribal but ethnic

Blood Money,and and social, with the Tutsi historically regarding themselves as superior.

The lktsi monarchy dominqted Rwanda until it was over-

Geopolitics FRANK SMYTH

T 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 neigh- boring Central African countries. As many as

100,000 people have died and more than a million have fled ethnic and politically#based attacks in recent years. Elements of the Tutsi-dominated army in Burundi assassinated its prior President, a Hutu, in October. Similarly, Rwanda's Hutu- dominated army is responsible for most abuses there, accord- ing to Human Rights WatchIAfrica. On top of that, one in eight people in Rwanda is on the verge of starving, according to 'a new report by aid agencies including Oxfam.

Rwanda's renewed terror broke out as it .was tentatively moving toward a peaceful settlement of a three-year civil war, which ended last August. The conflict was fueled by third-party governments supplying arms, which typifies, the accelerated dumping of weapons into 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 its northern border with Uganda. From around the world came a steady flow of weapons, including Kalashn'ikov AKM (AK-47) as- sault rifles, long-range 120-mi1imetei mortars, 122-rrlillimeter howitzers and Soviet-made Katybsha multiple rocket launch- ers, which can'cover with shrapnel an area wider and longer than a soccer field. Thousands died, both combatants and ci- vilians, and 1 milZion people were uprooted from their'homes. "I think in this type of market everybody wants to-get in," s+d James Gasana, Rwanda's defekmidster last year, add- ing that most countries and indepedent healers that supplied ' the weapons were less'interested in who won the war than in making money 'on it.

The government forces are made up primarily o'f Hutu; the ' guerrillas, of Tutsi. Their conflict dates back to the seirenteenth ' century, when the 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 about 14 percent of the population; the rest of the people were Hutu, who were and remain predominantly sub-

Frank Smyth is the author' of Arming Rwanda: The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the'Rwandan War, avail- able from 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

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dI thrown by the Hutu in 1961, a year before the country's in- dependence from Belgium, which over the years had allied itself with the Tutsi but had shifted sides in the late 1950s: One of the new government's first acts was to execute some twenty prominent Tutsi leaders; Hutu crowds killed up to 20,000 Thtsi citizens. By 1964, the Office of the United Nations High Com- missioner for Refugees estimated that about 150,000 Rwan- dan 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 citizenship or legal residence in the coun- tries to which they escaped, which has left 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 Hutu and Tutsi; instead he distributed most of the resources and key positions to fam- ily, friends and associates from the region of his birthplace in northwestern Rwanda. Until recently, Habyarimana ruled, the country as a one-party state, and most government min- isters were related to him by either birth or marriage. After the guerrillas invaded, Habyarimana's regime distributed at least 500 Kalashnikov'assault rifles to municipal authorities, working in collaboration with militia from his ruling paity. With government officialsin the lead, these militia 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"re kt- ting 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' ' I

were beaten, raped and tortured. The guerrillas also committed abuses, executing hundreds of civilians suspected of collab- ' '

orating with the Habyarimana regime, as well as military pris- oners. They forcibly dislocated hundreds, if not thousands, more, and forced an unknown number of civilians into slave labor as porters for the troops. Although the abuses on both sides were documented by an international commission that included Human Rights Watch and three Francophone organ- izations, both the government and the guerrillas deny them.

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ost of the countries and dealers facilitating the RwandaL ~ , slaughter are similarly dldsemouthed. The Russians and

other former Warsaw Pact members are now prolificsufipliers 'i)

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586 The Nation. May5 I994

of small arms. The collapse of Moscow’s central control has given governments as well as the officials left in charge of ex- isting stockpiles a free hand. Since these weapons are already paid for, they can be loosed on the world market at prices be- low cost. With the Russian ruble losing its value, and Eastern European nations also in need of hard currency, their govern- ments are likely to sell even more arms in years to come. They are no longer constrained by the bounds of superpower loy- alties; the only thing that counts now is cash.

Although exact numbers are unknown, Kalashnikov rifles have been flooding 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, Kalash- nikovs were once more common than cars; now they are more common than bicycles. About 80 percent of the weapons used by the R.P.F, guerrillas were Kalashnikovs, many of Roma- nian manufacture. Among those fighters who had uniforms, most wore rain-pattern camouflage from the former East Ger- many; these are now also available through commercial mili- tary catalogues. African arms dealers living in Brussels appear to have facilitated the delivery of Warsaw Pact materiel to East Africa. The trend is global and not limited to guns and cam- ouflage: In 1992 the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated Soviet-made AH-72 cargo jets that Colombia’s Cali cartel had used to smuggle cocaine.

In South Africa, the government-owned Armscor has for years manufactured high-quality weapons for its security and 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; Rwan- da has ignored it. According to Armscor invoices dated Octo- ber 19, 1992, South Africa sold Rwanda at least $5.9 million

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worth of light arms, machine guns, mortars and ammunition. About 3,000 Rwanda troops are now equipped-with the R-4 assault rifle, which is superior to the Kalashnikov. The status of Armscor and its subsidiaries in the new South Africa has yet to be determined, but it is likely to become a private in: dustry. The lifting of stigma and sanctions against the for- mer apartheid state will give Armscor the opportunity to market its products openly and aggressively for the first time.

A weapons contract signed on March 30,1992, reads: “The BUYER and the SUPPLIER agree not to show 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, plas- tic explosives, mortars and long-range artillery. Other docu- ments indicate that the sale was financed by a “first-rate, international bank approved by” Egypt. Rwanda paid $1 mil- lion in cash up front and promised to pay another $1 million with the proceeds from 615 tons of harvested tea, and $1 mil- lion a year over the next four years. The “first-rate inter- .

national bank” guaranteed Rwanda’s payment of the full $6 million. Few private commercial banks, operating on the profit motive, would take on such a risk. But Credit Lyonnais did. Although it may be privatized soon, in March 1992 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 become a subsidy. What Credit Lyon- nais and Rwanda didn’t count on was that the R.P.F. guerril- las would launch a new offensive in February 1993 and take over the Mulindi tea plantation. The tea there spoiled and never made it to harvest. “Our economy was already ailing in 1990, and of course the war has not resolved anything,” Pres- ident Habyarimana said last October. “NOW we want to im- prove our macroeconomic outlook, but we have a serious shortage of currency.’’ As for Rwanda’s outstanding debt,to Egypt, Credit Lyonnais, and by extension France, is obligated to pick up the tab.

The French government’s willingness to do so, and to keep propping up Habyarimana militarily, arise from its determi- nation to maintain its credibility in French-speaking Africa. From Rwanda’s independence in 1962 until the war broke out in 1990, the nation’s main trading partner, political ally and military patron was Belgium. But once the war began, that role was assumed by France. Belgium is unique among NATO member states in that its laws explicitly prohibit it from sell- ing 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, following the release of the international commission’s human rights report, Belgium recalled its ambassador for con- sultation. Accusations that Belgium has aided the R.P.F. are false, and stem from the Habyarimana regime’s resentment of Belgian neutrality.

French officials, however, have defended the record of the Habyarimana regime. “Civilians were killed as in any wq,” said Colonel Cussac, the French military attache in the capital of Kigali and head of the French military assistance mission. (In an apparent act of disdain for journalists and others who question France’s role, Colonel Cussac declined to give me his first name.) “Are you saying that the providing of mili-

May2,1994 The Nation. 587

tary assistance is a human rights violation?” he asked, adding that officials in the U.S. Embassy in Kigali supported French policy. “France and the United States have a common histo- w-for example, in Vietnam.” In fact, all non-French Western diplomats in Kigali are critical of France’s role.

Immediately after the war started, France deployed at least 300 combat troops in Rwanda, drawing them from its forces stationed in the Central African Republic. France also 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 swelled to at least 680, compris- ing four companies, including paratroopers. “French military troops are here in 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 workers and Rwandan army officers all said these troops have provided artillery support for Rwandan infantry troops, and that French advisers have been attached to Rwandan combat commanders.

France’s Ambassador said the country’s presence is neces- sary,to defend Rwanda against aggression from Uganda. It is true that Uganda has not sat on the sidelines during the con- flict, .although its government categorically denies this. Al- most all of Uganda knew about the impending invasion in 1990, . a s Tutsi soldiers in the Ugandan army openly bid farewell to their families?and friends. They traveled with their weap- ons, in,plain view of Ugandan authorities, over two days, and then gathered in a soccer stadium in Kabale, about 200 miles southbest of Kampala and just north of the Rwandan border. Their ,weaponry included land mines, rocket-propelled gre- nades, 60-millimeter mortars, recoilless cannons and Katyusha rocket launchers. According to Western diplomats, interna- tional military observers, Ugandan army officers and’eyewit- nesses ,who saw soldiers unloading crates of Kalashnikovs, Uganda willingly provided more arms, food, gasoline, bat- teries and ammunition to the R.P.E throughout the war. “We are committed to the R.P.F.,” one Ugandan army operations officer boasted after a few beers in Kampala. “If they didn’t haveour support, they wouldn’t be as successful as they are.”

along with the Tutsi refugees who have served in the Ugan- dan army; about 200,000 other ,Tutsi have been living in Uganda. While President Yoweri Museveni tries 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 sup- porting the guerrillas, President Museveni seems less inter- ested in claiming Rwandan territory 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.

T he R:P.F. and President Habyarimana signed a treaty last August, but his untimely death provoked Rwanda’s most

severe wave of bloodshed since independence. Hours after his plane went down, the regime’s Presidential Guard began tar- getingpolitical opponents and critics irrespective of ethnicity. . They included the interim Hutu Prime Minister, ten Belgian peacekeepers who tried to save her, many priests and nuns,

Bearing Witness

M onique Mujawamariya slapped her hand into mine and said “Ga va?” In Kigali a year ago, her smile was contagious, al- though the scars on three sides of her

mouth were ugly. One of Rwanda’s most active human rights monitors, she was cut in an accident when some- one tried to run her car off the road.

Monique, as she is generally known, couldn’t prove who did it. But she was later threatened by Capt. Pas- cal Simbikangwa in front of Western witnesses. Simbi- kangwa 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 Rwanda’s opposition party leaders have been assassinated in recent years; Dissidents and West- ern diplomats suspect the,Akazu. “Shadow groups are behind the violence. But nobody can provide concrete evidence,” said Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye, a former prime minister. “Take the example of the mafia: Their chief may recruit from churches, the government or pri- vate 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 with President Clinton last December in the Oval 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 the United States will con- tinue 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. (Belgium says 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 Monique was 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 removed from 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 door for them and to tell 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.

588 The Nation. Muy2, 1994

and journalists and human rights monitors. While these vic- tims, 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 thou- sands of Tutsi. Six days after the carnage started, the first 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 Habyari- mana regime, which is most responsible for the recent blood- letting. Uganda denies it.’Egypt and South Africa will not comment, and France has yet to fully disclose its role. 0

rn LETTER FROM EUROPE .

Yeltsin, I ’ the Lame-Duck Czar DANIEL SINGER I ’

S ix months after the storming of Russia’s Parliament, BorkYeltsin and his backers, domestic and foreign, must have second thoughts about the wisdom of the coup that climaxed in a massacre. On the face of it,

the coup’s objectives have been achieved: Yeltsin has his ex- orbitant,prerogatives under a Constitution hastily cut to meas- ure, and parallel organs of presidential power are now filled with obedient servants. In terms of real power, however, he has, increasingly, more the trappings than the substance.

The leaders of last autumn’s parliamentary resistance, re- leased from jail at the end of February, were not humiliated and freed by the President’s gracious pardon. They were un- repentant beneficiaries of aparliamentary amnesty. The new Duma is no more subservient than the old Parliament, though it can no longer be dismissed as ill-elected. Yeltsin, in response to the clearly expressed mood of the people, has had to eat his own words, and those of his assistants, about the virtues of shock therapy. His sudden disappearances, whether due to poor health or drinking, are no longer the main reason the conviction is spreading in Moscow that he will not complete his first term, officially scheduled to end in mid-1996. ’

One must weigh such a prognosis against Yeltsin’s resili- ence, his capacity to bounce back like the famous Russian doll and his readiness to do anything for the sake of political sur- vival. After all, the former apparatchik from Svergoysk gained popularity during the first phase of perestroika as the cham- pion of equality and the archenemy of privilege. Then, pushed by thepriviligentsiu, he claimed that for successful people the sky was the limit. Yesterday, he and his supporters argued that everything must be subordinated to the quick conversion to capitalism. Today, he mkntains that “the task is to find a sen- sible correlation between the speed of reform and the realis- tic social price to be paid for it.” Indeed, Yeltsin’s pragmatic rule is have two different irons in the fire and pretend the one you pull out is no different from the other. The snag is that

Daniel Singer is The Nation’s Europe correspondent,

after August 1991, the triumphant defender of the White House could get away with anything, whereas in 1994 the man who : stormed that building, and then lost an election, is not in the’ same position. It is symptomatic that, in a 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 yesterday’s politician.

To suggest Yeltsin’s imminent 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 vote- 23 percent-in last December’s election. But those who praise Yeltsin’s new Constitution and curse Zhirinovsky should be confronted with their inconsistency. That Constitution, en- dorsed narrowly last December, possibly with the help of some suspect “miracles” at the polls, had no chance whatsoever’ without the backing of Zhirinovsky’s supporters; their leader was, naturally, in favor of greater powers for the President, since he sees himself as the likely successor to that office. More generally, the advocates of shock therapy now shouting “Dan- ger, fascism! ” are like arsonists calling the fire brigade. They have manured the soil in which such a movement could grow. All of Europe is now witnessing the rise of right-wing extrem- ists to varying degrees, reflecting the relative sickness of their particular societies. If the shadow of Zhirinovsky is darker, say, than that of Jean-Marie Le Pen, it is because Russia is in a much more explosive state than France.

In Russia, luxury used to be concealed behind curtains; now it is flaunted. The gap between rich and poor is widening fast; according to official figures the income of the top 10 percent last year was eleven times higher than that of the lowest 10 per- cent. Some are buried in a pauper’s grave; others in elaborate , coffins imported from the United States. Foreign-language ads for consumer goods enrage those who’ye lost their sav- ings. All this is a perfect stage for a man like Zhirinovsky who knows how to address his public concretely. He talks about the price of vodka and cigarettes and uses words that ring a bell (nationalism is “an individual flat”; internationalism, “a shared apartment,’, examples all too familiar to Russians). Himself never a Communist, though suspected of a connec- tion with the K.G.B., he can tell his angry audiences about past grandeur and point to the people responsible for their degradation: the alien, the dark southerner, the Jew, the cos- mopolitan, the American invader. Demagogues like Zhirinov- sky, possibly wearing a uniform, will remain dangerous as long as Russia does not make an economic recovery and the other parties do not provide more rational explanations and a better prospect for change.

Nevertheless, if Zhirinovsky does not appear to be an im- mediate threat, it is not because of his ravings about secret weapons for Serbia or his other antics on foreign trips, It is because opinion polls and other indicators, for what they are worth, suggest that the Russian people have not yet reached the state of exasperation necessary for a majority of them’to turn to such a savior. If a presidential election were to be held to- morrow, the real rival for Yeltsin would be his running mate of 1991 and now his deadly eriemy, Aleksandr Rutskoi, the Afghan war hero and former vice president, ousted in,Yeltsin’s coup.