Shake Hands With the Devil (61 page)

And the place did not seem touched by the war, except that there were no children playing in the schoolyard. We noticed only a few very timid adults peering at us from their doorways. As I walked around, under the watchful eyes of my African escort, in my mind's eye I could see the children wearing their bright blue-and-beige uniforms, the overworked but smiling teachers, the little brothers and sisters dragged to school by the older kids in order to let their mothers work in the fields, the boys racing after a banana-leaf soccer ball at recess. I sat at the end of the schoolyard and looked at the scene below. Tea and coffee fields, once precisely groomed, looked scraggly and in need of tending. The hundreds of small garden plots running up the sides of the hills were now overflowing with weeds. The landscape used to feature spectacular splashes of colour from freshly washed clothes, laid out neatly in the sun on green patches of grass beside brown huts with thatched roofs. They were all gone. I looked out over burnt huts, some still smouldering, carrion birds overhead, black lumps in rags moving ever so slowly downstream as others piled up on a curve in the river. I was filled with a sense of gross ineptness. I had come to paradise in full bloom and now, on my favourite hillside, I saw myself walking these hills and valleys, crossing streams and sitting in the shade of banana trees, talking without anyone being there, ripped apart by failure and remorse. I had come to Kinihira looking for a little peace, but peace had been murdered here, too.

I was brutally brought back to the moment by my aide-de-camp, who handed me the Motorola radio. The
DPKO
wanted our response
ASAP
and I was required to review yet another document before it was sent. We drove back in silence.

Back at headquarters, Yaache had news for Henry and me. That day the
RPF
had held a humanitarian coordination meeting with the
UNHCR
and sixteen
NGO
s at Mulindi. I had not been informed, and our military observers with the
RPF
were also kept in the dark. “The bastards,” I said. With huge problems delivering aid to the
RGF
zones, efforts in the
RPF
area had to be absolutely transparent. In no way could aid resources be
siphoned off to Kagame's troops. Thus started a running battle between me and the
UNHCR
, which lasted right through the over-aid crisis in the Goma camps that was still to come.

At that moment, Phil Lancaster stuck his head into the office to inform me that we had an unannounced visitor. I was in no mood. Before Phil could say anything more, Bernard Kouchner—a former French minister of health, a founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and now the president of a humanitarian action group based in Paris—came through the door. I asked him to return to the hallway before he could even introduce himself. After Henry and Yaache left my office, Phil came back in with one of Kouchner's handlers, who in very rapid French explained to me who the man was and why he was here. I said I would be happy to receive him now.

Though he had blown his top while waiting out in the hall, he came in now with a smile and a most courteous manner and immediately cut off my excuses so that he could apologize himself for barging in and expecting preferential treatment. We got along famously after that. He was here on his own initiative, he said, to get a better feel for the situation and to provide whatever help he could over the next few days. I called Henry back in and we spent the next couple of hours together, mapping out his schedule. I asked him to meet with the
RGF
leaders and also with the interim government and beat them down as regards to the killings, the insecurity for humanitarian aid, and the forced movement of nearly two million civilians. I told him I suspected that the
RGF
and the interim government had taken a hard look at the situation and realized that they should conduct a strategic withdrawal into the Kivu area of Zaire and be ready to fight another day. I needed them to stop scaring the populace by portraying the
RPF
as devilish child-eaters. He told me he had already met with the
RPF
as he had come into the country through its lines a day or so ago. He had not succeeded in making their position more flexible.

I asked him what he wanted from this trip. The answer was straightforward: he wanted to save a bunch of orphans in Interahamwe-held territory. He wanted to fly them out of the war and then bring them back when things were calm. He said the French public was in a
state of shock and horror over the genocide in Rwanda and was demanding action.

I told him that I was totally against the export of Rwandan children, orphaned or not. They were not a means for some French people to feel a little less guilty about the genocide. He asked me to give the matter some more thought and said that while I did, he would take on the extremists and visit a few of the orphanages. He travelled with a coterie of journalists to help him make his point.

The following day I sent Tiko with Kouchner to go and meet the interim government in Gitarama. Tiko did not speak French, but he was fearless and I believed that their travels would go well. Kouchner would then come back and join me in a meeting with the military heads. As I was preparing for the meeting with Bagosora and the two chiefs of staff at the Diplomates, I got a call from
UNOMUR
telling me that the Dutch minister for development had entered the
RPF
zone through the Katuna border post and had gone to Mulindi to discuss humanitarian activities. What was this about? I asked that he come to Kigali for a meeting.

At the Diplomates, we rode the usual merry-go-round of issues. But at the end, Bizimungu said he wanted to start the transfers again the next day and Bagosora claimed he had made arrangements with the Interahamwe, which was ready to help. When Kouchner arrived at the hotel, we all sat down together. Kouchner pulled no punches. Though he was in Rwanda on his own hook, he told them that France and the world were beside themselves with disgust at what was happening here. The killing had to stop. The
UN
was about to approve a new mandate for
UNAMIR
and was clearly going to identify the catastrophe as genocide, not as an ethnic war. Kouchner would report on this trip directly to the secretary-general himself, who had personally facilitated his visit. (That explained why neither I nor the
DPKO
had known he was coming.) Bagosora and Bizimungu made the usual protestations, and only Ndindiliyimana finally said that they needed to stop the killing but that a ceasefire was an essential first step.

Kouchner interrupted. Do not wait for the ceasefire, he said. Show good will and change the psychology of the situation. As an example,
let him pull out orphans from the militia-controlled areas and take them to safety in France. I admired his chutzpah. I volunteered that
UNAMIR
could help but I needed firm guarantees of security. If such an attempt failed, it would be a disaster for the children.

The meeting ended with Bagosora and the chiefs committing to help evacuate orphans, Kouchner at the front of such a procession with lots of media. I hated Kouchner's argument that this action would be a public relations coup for the interim government. I already didn't like the idea of exporting Rwandan children, but to do it to give the extremists a better image made me ill. However, if such an exercise inspired the
RGF
and the interim government to sign the ceasefire, including the neutrality of the airport, I was willing to co-operate. Kouchner was a very experienced internationalist and had seen many other such situations. This manoeuvre to assist the
RGF
and the government had not been in the cards he'd displayed when I'd met with him the day before. I made a mental note to keep a careful watch on Kouchner's motives and actions.

Since I had some time before my next meeting at the hotel with the Interahamwe leaders, I decided to deal with a problem at the Red Cross hospital. Militiamen were barring the entrance to those seeking help. I arrived at the gate at a fair speed, the powerful diesel motor of my
SUV
grinding loudly as I made my way up the hill. My escort was very close behind, and by the time I leapt out of my vehicle, three of them had come running to my side. Two more aimed the barrels of the machine guns on their Toyota pickup trucks right at the militiamen, who observed my guys very closely while trying to feign cockiness. I marched up to the one who looked like the leader and threatened him with grave consequences if they continued to obstruct the entrance or tried to get inside. Though my Ghanaian escort did not understand a word of French, they relished the moment and moved to separate the thugs from the onlooking crowd. A near-instantaneous change of atmosphere came over the scene. Respectfully, the Interahamwe said they would not take any action here and, in fact, would leave the area. After a few words with the Red Cross people at the gate, I headed back to the Diplomates.

This time as I was removing my pistol, which was the etiquette for
such meetings, I hesitated, certainly long enough to be noticed, then let my gun drop on the sofa. I don't know what the three Interahamwe leaders made of the gesture, but I was fighting a terrible compulsion to shoot them on the spot. This was no fleeting urge. I had to consciously take my weapon off and put it away from myself. Why not shoot them? Wouldn't such an act be justified? They spoke their words of welcome, and I let the chance go. I still debate the choices of that moment in my head.

The three riders of the apocalypse were all smiling at me, apparently proud of the fact that I had come to see them again. Kajuga, Mamiragaba and Nkezabera were confident and neatly dressed—no blood spatters this time—and very attentive to every nuance of my opening comments. Kajuga read my eyes more than he listened, I believed, trying to discern any sign of weakness or doubt. I said that I wanted to operate with all forces in Rwanda, including them. I told them that
UNAMIR
2 would be a humanitarian-focused mission, not an intervention force. Kajuga assured me again of the movement's cooperation. The Interahamwe pledged to work diligently for the halt of the massacres and the return to peace. I told them the transfer exercises were going to start over the next days, and the world would be watching. We parted as politely as we could.

In the next couple of days, I learned that Yaache and his team had stopped the Kouchner orphan rescue because the Interahamwe had continued to raise problems, arguing that
UNAMIR
was simply helping the
RPF
to empty the
RGF
zone of Tutsis preparatory to an attack. The militia told Yaache that it wanted me to be present at the loading site. Then Bagosora asked Yaache to come and explain why he had cancelled the transfer when it was so important for his government's image. When Yaache told him of the militia's intransigence, Bagosora apologized for the problems the Interahamwe had raised and said he had not been aware of them before. He assured Yaache that the government was committed to the orphan transfers and asked if the problems could be resolved within twenty-four hours, obviously before Kouchner left town with all his journalists. Yaache said he would have to have another meeting with these seemingly fickle militia leaders. I agreed with Yaache that we had to go slowly. Yaache said Bagosora seemed desperate for the
transfer to take place right away. By losing the chance to use Kouchner to show that the extremists were really trying to sort things out, he would lose a major opportunity in the eyes of the French authorities and population, and in front of the world.

I was running on adrenalin that evening and decided to take another look at the concept of operations for
UNAMIR
2. With the diligence for which I was always grateful, the staff stayed with me in the operations room to help me put a further response and assessment together. The interim government, the
RGF
, the Gendarmerie, even the Interahamwe, were suddenly co-operative and speaking with one voice, under the apparent leadership of Bagosora: it had to mean that something or somebody had changed the extremists' strategy. Had they realized that the
RPF
was not going to settle for half of the country and then decided to show a supportive attitude to the
UN
and the international community while bargaining for time? Did Kouchner's sudden appearance have some effect? He was close to the government in France, and perhaps France had some plan in motion that I didn't know about.

I needed to rethink the deployment of
UNAMIR
2, as every passing day brought more chaos and change. I had to come up with alternate deployment sites that would concentrate the new forces more quickly if I was still going to have a chance to influence the situation. I made another plea for a sixth battalion and for my
UN
bosses to consider peripheral airfields and new secure operations and logistics centres. Finally I called it a day. I remember someone brought out a case of beer and we all had a cold one. Where did the beer come from? It was not the horrible Rwandan Primus. The Ghanaians must have brought it; they loved their beer and once in a while arranged for an emergency supply to come in on the Hercules.

I went to bed and prayed for a better day.

On May 17, Henry chaired the first ceasefire Standing Operating Procedures meeting at the Hôtel des Diplomates. The
RGF
officers were led by the operations head, a known hard-liner. The
RPF
did not attend, claiming it had not had enough time to review the proposed procedures. As far as headway went, Henry concluded that the next meetings had better
take place inside Force
HQ
—relatively neutral ground. Kouchner left that morning, still confident of having made a difference in Rwanda but furious that the orphan evacuation had failed. I had appreciated his efforts and his courage in attempting to come to our aid.