Shake Hands With the Devil (42 page)

If Bagosora was genuinely committed to Arusha, surely he would want to tell the
RPF
directly and make the necessary guarantees to prevent a resumption of hostilities. If he was opposed to Arusha and peace, he would have no interest in speaking to the
RPF
. Or he would continue to follow his usual path: appear to be co-operative as part of a deception to mask his true intentions. So I confronted Bagosora again on the issue of moving the rogue units back to their barracks and getting rid of the roadblocks. He was shuffling papers and signing them at his enormous desk, looking every inch the bored bureaucrat. Sunlight was pouring through the window onto the freshly painted walls, no phones were ringing, there were few visitors. He waved me over to the sofa where Ndindiliyimana was sitting, apparently relaxed, but I didn't want to sit. He offered me tea or coffee, as if this were an ordinary visit on a slow day at the office.

Prime Minister Agathe was confirmed dead, I said, killed by the Presidential Guard. Bagosora responded that he was sorry, that this was just another example of the difficulties he was facing in trying to regain control of the rogue troops still reacting to the death of their beloved
leader. I asked why he hadn't resolved the standoffs at the airport and the crash site or been able to secure the release of my Belgians. I told him he had to guarantee freedom of movement to
UNAMIR
. Bagosora pleaded for time; both he and Ndindiliyimana were having logistical and transport problems. He had called and given orders to sort out the airport problem. As for the crash site, he said the Presidential Guard was operating on its own. The Guard appeared to be behind all the altercations and killings around town, I said. Bagosora claimed he was negotiating with their commanding officer to get them back into their garrison. There was no panic, no sense of urgency animating this man. Bagosora was either the coldest fish in Africa or he was the ghost of Machiavelli executing a subversive plan.

I told him that in order to prevent a full-scale civil war he should talk to the
RPF
directly, outlining the measures he was taking to calm things down. Bagosora sat back, unimpressed with my suggestion and returned to his papers. But Ndindiliyimana thought this might be a good idea and asked me if I could arrange a meeting. I told him I would do everything in my power to make it happen.

I left to make the calls, but the phones were jammed at the Force
HQ
and the
CND
. While I was trying to get through, I watched a large, ugly
RGF
colonel enter Bagosora's office and close the door behind him. I had never seen him before and didn't see his face again until years later, when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (
ICTR
) showed me his picture. He was one of the military leaders of the genocide, and one of the most ruthless characters in the slaughter that was about to unfold.

When I finally got through to Ballis at the
CND
, he said that the
RPF
had been under direct fire from the area of the Presidential Guard compound and that they were taking down the fences and preparing for military action. The Tunisians were in a very precarious situation, sitting between the two forces, and had spent most of the day holding the gate closed and digging their trenches deeper. I told Ballis to inform their commander to reduce their presence around the perimeter and consolidate most of his force in their protected area inside the
CND
offices and in trenches outside. If the
RPF
decided to punch out, all of the Tunisians were to withdraw without confrontation to their safe area.

I then asked Ballis to bring any one of the
RPF
's political leaders to the phone. Major figures, such as Pasteur Bizimungu and Patrick Mazimhaka, had gone to Mulindi several weeks earlier, leaving three second-string politicians behind in Kigali. There didn't appear to be a well-defined hierarchy among them: none of them ever claimed to be in charge. The one I negotiated with most often was Seth Sendashonga, who was also the most vocal of the three. A Hutu who had fled Rwanda and joined the
RPF
in Uganda, Seth spoke fluent French and a little English. He was extremely self-confident, ambitious and aggressive. It was Seth who came to the phone, and he was quite cold to my suggestion of talking directly to Bagosora. He said that he would consult first and get back to me. This was typical for the
RPF
political leaders, who always needed to consult with their peers. The clock was ticking on Kagame's deadline.

I called Force
HQ
and dictated my responses to Kagame's six points to Brent, spelling out extensively my response to point F: “
UNAMIR
wouldn't conduct any offensive operations as it is mandated for defensive peacekeeping tasks only.
UNAMIR
with the Gendarmerie and elements of the Army loyal to Rwanda are attempting to stabilize the situation.
UNAMIR
is not in an offensive posture and if the
RPF
initiates action at the
CND
and/or
RPF
offensive in the
DMZ
tonight, this will be deemed to be a serious ceasefire violation.
UNAMIR
's peacekeeping mandate will be totally violated. Request you reconsider these actions as loyal forces and
UNAMIR
are attempting to establish order and control on aggression in Kigali.”

I asked Brent to send this message to Kagame as soon as possible with a copy to the
DPKO
. Since it didn't look like I'd be back at the Amahoro any time soon, I also asked him to forward the written sitrep to New York. There had been no movement on the political front and no word from Booh-Booh, though with the shooting increasing near the
SRSG
's residence, Henry was planning to escort Booh-Booh and his staff to the Meridien hotel, which had become a safe haven for
UN
personnel.

I returned to Bagosora's office as the huge
RGF
colonel was leaving, after receiving some last words of instruction in Kinyarwanda. Again I harangued Bagosora and Ndindiliyimana over the violence that was
breaking loose throughout the city, over the release of my soldiers and over their seeming detachment from the whole catastrophe. I asked when the Crisis Committee would hand over control to the politicians. And who were the politicians, since many of the ministers named to the
BBTG
were unaccounted for? All the hardline ministers had disappeared before midnight last night. Madame Agathe was dead. Who would be the chair? Bagosora responded that the politicians were gathering to take over the situation within the next day or so. I demanded that Booh-Booh be invited to assist. Bagosora refused to answer and returned to his papers. Ndindiliyimana was nearly asleep beside me.

Out of the blue, Bagosora suddenly volunteered that there was something I should think about: it might be best to get the Belgians out of
UNAMIR
and out of Rwanda because of the rumours that they had shot down the presidential airplane. What had been happening in Camp Kigali might happen to the rest of the Belgians if the Crisis Committee continued to have problems regaining control of the situation.

Was he hoping that the best combat unit in
UNAMIR
would desert the field? This was the first time I had ever heard a senior leader of the Habyarimana government even mention that they did not want the Belgians here. If the Belgians withdrew, New York would surely order
UNAMIR
's departure.

A short time later, the phone rang in the little office I had been using. It was Seth confirming that he would talk to Bagosora. I told him to call back on Bagosora's number and headed for his office. His phone was ringing as I entered the room, and Bagosora picked it up. If he was a man intent on saving his country from civil war, there was no sign of it in his voice. After a few words, he passed the receiver to Ndindiliyimana. That conversation was a little longer and more amiable. When Ndindiliyimana hung up, he said that there was nothing to be done—the
RPF
insisted that the Presidential Guard be arrested and jailed and the killings stopped immediately. Ndindiliyimana had told Seth that they were doing their best to regain control, but from Seth's negative reaction, he concluded that the
RPF
would most likely attack soon. Bagosora was nonchalant in the face of this new crisis. He told me that the interim chief of staff of the
RGF
, Colonel Marcel Gatsinzi,
would arrive in Kigali in time for a meeting of the Crisis Committee at army headquarters around 1800 and invited me to attend. I said I would, but I wondered why Bagosora had chosen to appoint Gatsinzi, a southern Hutu from Butare, a known moderate and an honest man.

There were about two hours left until twilight and the only chance to avoid a civil war had just been lost. When hostilities broke out, we could expect that large numbers of innocent people would be slaughtered, as had happened in Burundi after the coup in October. I decided to stay for the upcoming Crisis Committee meeting. Maybe Gatsinzi's presence would encourage Ndindiliyimana to try to wrestle control from Bagosora. Half an hour later, Ballis called to say that the
RPF
battalion had just broken out of the
CND
at company strength and were advancing toward the Presidential Guard's camp.

I needed some political advice on how to move this situation out of the hands of this military clique as soon as possible. I decided to send Maggen and Robert to pick up Dr. Kabia and bring him here. I waited outside in the compound in the cool breeze of the early evening. There were long shadows cast by the tall trees, and a disarming serenity barely touched by the echo of distant gunfire. A sense of despair suddenly overwhelmed me; the path to war and slaughter was now open. It was high time to consolidate my troops to ensure their safety, do what we could to keep our safe havens open for civilians from both sides and try to flush out the nature of the politics at work behind Bagosora. What was I going to do if the 450 Belgians had to withdraw under pressure from the
RGF
, or were pulled by their own government? I would be left with a very lightly armed, nearly useless Bangladeshi contingent of about 1,100 soldiers, an excellent Ghanaian battalion of about 800, mostly deployed in the demilitarized zone with no operational equipment or vehicles, 300 or so unarmed military observers scattered around the country, and a ragtag Force
HQ
, undermined by the loss of the Belgian staff officers and manned by Bangladeshis who listened to their contingent commander and not to me. My headquarters support group as well as my logistics group were made up of civilians, and they would surely be evacuated for safety reasons. And what of the thousands of civilians under our protection? Our food, water and medical supplies
were barely enough for my force, let alone these displaced persons. The dispassionate professional side of my nature was telling me to cut my losses and get all my troops to safety. My gut, my emotions—my sense of the right thing to do—was telling me to do everything I could to stop the coming onslaught.

I was still struggling with my thoughts when Dr. Kabia, Robert and Maggen drove into the compound at about 1730. They had been threatened and had turned back on their first attempt to get through the roadblocks and had commandeered a Gendarmerie escort to try again. Hundreds of barriers were now going up all over the city, manned by militia, military, gendarmes and civilians, all of them angry and armed with clubs, axes, machetes, Belgian FN rifles and even the odd AK-47. The radio in the vehicle was crackling with descriptions of the
RPF
assault on the Presidential Guard—a vicious firefight in which the
RPF
was being held just short of the Presidential Guard's camp.

It was almost 1800, so we drove to the Crisis Committee meeting. For the first time that day, we were allowed inside the gates of Camp Kigali, passing through a gauntlet of steel barriers, past an armoured car and a large group of guards with machine guns. Where were the mutineers? I left Maggen and Robert with the vehicle, and Dr. Kabia and I headed for the same conference room as the previous night. As we reached the top of the stairs, the newly promoted Major General Gatsinzi came forward to welcome us, with Ndindiliyimana close behind. It was good to see Gatsinzi and we exchanged regards. Bagosora was nowhere around.

As the meeting began, I wondered if Gatsinzi and Ndindiliyimana were simply Bagosora's puppets. Of the two, I was certain that Gatsinzi was more at risk from the hard-liners: he had been a member of the group of moderate army officers who had warned me of the third force in their open letter of December 3. Could he actually be in control of the army? Why would Bagosora countenance it?

The briefing was sombre. The Presidential Guard had captured and, as far as Gatsinzi knew, executed all of the moderates in the government who hadn't been able to escape. He read the list of persons who were killed or missing. Two survivors were Faustin Twagiramungu and
Anastase Gasana, the foreign minister. Faustin was at Force
HQ
, and Gasana was in Dar es Salaam after Habyarimana had unceremoniously kicked him off his plane to seat the president of Burundi. Gatsinzi also confirmed that command of the
RGF
had broken down, particularly in Kigali. He assured me that he was committed to Arusha and would do all he could to get the Presidential Guard under control and the
RGF
units back in their barracks. He urged me to inform the
RPF
that he wanted peace but needed time to exert control over his forces.

I believed him. Here was my hope. The forces in southern Rwanda were mostly moderate. Gatsinzi could perhaps rally these elements and suppress the Presidential Guard, the Interahamwe and the third force. I had to talk to Kagame and get him to wait.