By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG — The Rwandan Patriotic Front, on the verge of taking power in the traumatised central African country of Rwanda, says it will "do all that can be done" to resist a French military intervention. Speaking here on June 21, the RPF's assistant director of international relations for Asia and Africa, Dr Ben Rugangazi, said that France was an ally of the genocidal Rwandan government. French intervention would be aimed at defeating the RPF and saving a regime responsible for slaughter of as many as 500,000 people.
France announced on June 18 that it would send 2000 troops to Rwanda. Paris claimed that its "humanitarian" mission would "protect" refugees from the Hutu ethnic group in RPF-controlled areas and stop the massacre of Tutsi people by the government.
There is no evidence that Hutu refugees are at risk from RPF guerillas. Government militias, on the other hand, have singled out for genocide the Tutsi people as well as people of all ethnic groups who are in opposition to the regime.
The United Nations Security Council on June 22 endorsed the intervention, but the force will be under French control and independent of the UN. The UN is also trying to construct another force made up primarily of troops from African countries to protect civilians. This force will not be fully deployed for up to three months according to UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who urged the Security Council to endorse the French intervention.
Accomplice
The RPF, said Rugangazi, "have no problem with the UN resolution which is proposing sending a humanitarian force. That is acceptable to us. We have agreed to that. These countries were making good progress in getting this UN force ready. But what we are opposed to is this French initiative.
"In the first place the French have been partisan in the conflict. They have fought alongside the government. There is no way they can say they are coming in for a humanitarian role. We know they have armed the government troops, they have armed and trained the government militia. They have fought alongside them. There is no way that can be impartial."
Rwanda has faced a "tragedy" since Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash 10 weeks ago, Rugangazi said. The government and its militia immediately began a mass extermination of three groups of people: members of the political opposition and human rights activists; the minority Tutsi ethnic group; and "the children, parents, spouses, sisters or brothers of anybody who belongs to any political grouping that is opposed to the regime. This is a special category because it has a deterrent effect. If you want to go into politics, into the opposition, if you want to challenge the establishment, you do not only endanger yourself but you put in danger the lives of your whole family."
The French government is an accomplice of the government, Rugangazi said. "Since 1990, and throughout 1993, the government of France deployed troops in Rwanda. They fought alongside the government forces of the dictatorial regime.
"Throughout 1992 and 1993 the French troops went to the extent of controlling roadblocks in Kigali, the capital, and checking identity cards. In Rwanda, identity cards show the ethnic grouping. People who belonged to the political opposition or the Tutsi ethnic group were detained. The French have participated in the segregation and harassment of the Tutsi people of Rwanda."
Rugangazi dismissed claims that the intervention is aimed at halting the massacres. Paris did nothing to stop the killings earlier. The UN mission in Rwanda, UNAMIR, was under heavy French influence, he said. UNAMIR's commanders knew that France was arming and training the government militias throughout 1992 and 1993. After April 6, when the massacres began, UNAMIR troops did not disarm the militias. Instead the UN troops pulled out, allowing the massacres to take place without hindrance. "Now it's too late", he said bitterly.
"France to this day is sending arms and ammunition to the militias who are still carrying out killings", Rugangazi charged. "They are using Zaire to ferry the weapons. The military attache in the French embassy in Kinshasa is preoccupied in arming these militia. This is going on despite the UN arms embargo." The governments of France and Zaire are working in concert. Zairean troops have also fought side by side with the Rwandan regime.
Will resist
A French military intervention would be a "serious threat to the people of Rwanda. We condemn it in the harshest terms possible. We are not going to accept it, we are going to resist it. We shall use all means possible to resist this invasion of our motherland." The intervention "would jeopardise the cease-fire negotiations" between the RPF and the government forces.
The RPF would also have to "re-evaluate" its commitment the proposed UN humanitarian mission. Rugangazi questioned Boutros-Ghali's neutrality and accused him of "colluding" with France "to bypass the normal channels of the UN Security Council".
The RPF leader said that most journalists have presented a "simplistic" view of the Rwandan conflict in their reporting. "This problem in Rwanda is not an ethnic problem ... The truth is that you have had an elite in government who want to stay in power. The strategy they have used is to divide the people along ethnic lines. They tell the Hutus their enemy is the Tutsis and keep everybody busy fighting each other."
Rugangazi said that many Hutu opposition leaders were among the first to be killed by the government. "The night the president's plane crashed, 12 top politicians from the opposition were killed. Only one was a Tutsi; all the rest were Hutus. So it is not a ethnic problem, it is a political problem."
Rugangazi said the RPF supports a peaceful solution. "We signed a peace agreement in Arusha, Tanzania, on August 4 last year. We agreed to the introduction of rule of law. We agreed on the establishment of a broad-based transitional government that would later lead to national elections. We also agreed to the integration of the armies.
"But the regime did not want to implement it. It should have been implemented within 37 days ... Up until April, when the president died, he had frustrated the implementation of this peace agreement.
"We have been trying to negotiate a cease-fire with the government soldiers. The single condition we have put to them is that they stop the massacres ... But they have not stopped the killings and we are not going to stand by and let people be killed when we have the means, and the moral and political obligation, to protect our people."
'Suspect'
Rugangazi is not alone in doubting the French government's motives. The head of the French medical charity Medecins du Monde, Bernard Granjan, said on June 20 that France is a "suspect party" because of its close ties to the Rwandan government.
The French newspaper L'Humanite reported on June 17 that in at least one recent massacre of children, those responsible were financed and instructed by French officers; even after the killings started, France multiplied its delivery of arms to the assassins and continued covertly to train Rwandan officers. The newspaper also reported that during the siege of Gitarama, the French Ministry of Cooperation rented a cargo plane to fly Rwandan army officers into the city.
Another French newspaper, Le Monde, reported recently that had it not been for French intervention in 1990, the RPF would have toppled the Rwandan government. Seven hundred French troops bolstered the Rwandan army and staved off the rebels.
Yet another French newspaper, Liberation, claimed recently that French artillery experts stopped an RPF offensive in 1992. Motivated by its desire to protect its "special relationship" with Francophone Africa from inroads by a movement France claimed was backed by Uganda (and therefore likely to shift allegiance to British and US-dominated English-speaking Africa), Paris supplied and serviced Rwanda's heavy artillery, assault vehicles and helicopters. France also sold Rwanda sophisticated missiles.