Rwanda Report Could Have Saved Lives

Publication of a report could have prevented massacres in Zaire, says Rwanda expert.

By Gunnar Willum

[Please note: This is a somewhat sketchy translation that I have not had the time to review myself]

If the UN leadership had chosen to publish a report on a counter-genocide of between 30,000 to 45,000 civilian Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, it could have prevented further attacks, says a professor in a statement on the so-called Gersony report. A high-ranking official in the UN system now acknowledges its existence. The Tutsi-dominated rebel army RPF carried out this `counter- genocide` when it took power in 1994. These massacres were documented in the Gersony report, which as previously described by Information, is still being kept secret.

"By not publishing the Gersony report and other information about RPF´s massacres, a blank cheque was issued to continue the murders," says the Rwanda expert Filip Reyntjens, who is a professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. The RPF filled in this blank cheque in 1996, when Rwanda invaded Zaire under cover of Laurent Kabila´s uprising army against Mobutu. The aim of the operation was to dissolve the camps that not only gave shelter to hundreds of thousands of refugees but also accommodate what was left of the genocide militia. According to the Human Rights Organisations, the Rwandese government, in this operation killed up to 200,000 Hutu refugees.

"Publication of the report would have prevented the RPF to commit the massacre of over 200,000 Hutu refugees in Zaire," says Reyntjens. "The RPF has used the genocide to legitimate massacres on this civilian population. The same way that Israel has used the holocaust to legitimate attacks on the Palestinians," says Reyntjens. But in reality it is not the RPF-Tutsis who were victims of the genocide, points out Reyntjens. The RPF-Tutsis came from Uganda and other neighbouring countries where they had lived in exile for many years and were therefore not in Rwanda when the genocide occurred. It was the so-called "internal," the Rwandese Tutsis, who were victims of the genocide. They are like the Hutus today excluded from power and opposed to the RPF-Tutsi regime."

There have been rising doubts about the Gersony Report's existence. But yet another source confirms it.

"The report exists. I have read it myself," says a high-ranking diplomatic source, who demands anonymity, to Information. Both UN and UNHCR deny that the report exists at all. Annan and Boutros-Ghali suppressed the report, according to Human Rights Watch, after pressure from the Rwandese government and USA. The UN leadership's lack of effort under the genocide made it susceptible to blackmail from the Rwandese government. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recently summoned the Rwandese UN Ambassador in order to ask the Rwandese Government to soften his criticism of Annan in connection with an internal UN enquiry of the UN Secretariat's role in the genocide in 1994. The enquiry was carried out, as a result of Information´s disclosures in autumn 1996, that UN top officials received many warnings that a genocide was under way, which they ignored.

The UN top officials were frightened, according to the Human Rights Watch, that the Gersony Report would discredit the UN further, as UN peacekeeping forces, which were stationed in Rwanda, did not know anything about the attacks. USA kept the secret in fear that publication of the report could weaken the increasingly weak Rwandese government.

A former analyst in the American Intelligence Service says to Information: "Basically there were three possibilities: We could continue to support the old regime, which had committed the genocide. That was not possible. We could avoid supporting any of the partners and risk that the Hutu extremists came back to power. It was not possible either. We could support the new Tutsi-dominated government. That was possible."

Filip Reyntjens rejects this scenario and says: "The Americans think in ´good guys and bad guys." The Hutu extremists, who committed the genocide, were clearly evil. As a result the RPF Tutsis had to be good. By considering the situation in that way, the third possibility was ruled out: The moderate Hutus who were neither involved in the genocides or were in the RPF."