It was late fall 1994 and I had just finished another scouting trip through the Rwandan refugee camps in the area outside Goma, Zaire.TP[1]PT  I did not like what I had seen:  the ex-FAR area remained a uniformed camp with heavy weapons visible in various places and the so-called "purely civilian" camps at Kibumba and Katale, some 30 and 65 kilometers to the north, were taking on an air of permanence as the former regime authorities structured the camps to recreate Rwanda's civil structure.  War was coming.  Soon afterward, Ambassador David Rawson and I as his Defense Attaché coauthored a cable to Washington--including the White House, the Joint Chiefs, the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense--stating that a Central African War was likely. Our central thesis was that the Rwandan war was not over and that an insurgency launched from the camps outside Rwanda could take Zaire, Burundi, and even Uganda into a full-scale regional war that could last years.TP[2]PT We asked for a permanent attaché office to cover the conflict area. Remarkably the cable drew but a limited response. My headquarters at the Defense Intelligence Agency, especially the mid-level bureaucracy, did not support the idea of making my acting position permanent. In contrast to the DIA, the Army Staff's strategy bureau did.  No one else said a word about the fact David Rawson and I had gone on record warning that a war larger than the supposedly concluded Rwandan civil war and genocide was coming.

DEVISING a CAMPAIGN plan

The next spring I grew concerned that we as a country team and Washington D.C. as a collective were not synchronized.  I suggested to Ambassador Rawson we formulate a campaign plan for Rwanda and the surrounding areas, a somewhat unusual step for a small embassy to take but one that seemed quite necessary at the time.  To our mind, U.S. policy toward Rwanda since the April 6, 1994 downing of the President's plane, the genocide, and the resumed civil war had been reactive.TP[3]PT  I will relate the approach we took to the Rwandan problem as it then existed and concentrate on my own experiences as the acting Defense Attaché.  I believe that our experiences then illuminate many of the issues we as a nation and a military face today in the War on Terror.  A greater understanding of what country teams and especially military attachés do--or should do--would serve many of our civilian and military leaders well, especially when you consider that these relatively small enclaves of American diplomatic, military, and economic power, and policy constitute much of our nation's front lines in the current war.

The central objective of our campaign plan was to limit the killing by offering assistance to increase stability inside Rwanda and to reduce external threats. A return to genocidal civil war was very much on our minds. We sought to build self-confidence in a nascent government emerging from an exterior-based insurgent movement with a skewed view of Rwandan politics, society, and culture.TP[4]PT  We believed--perhaps hoped--that fostering such self-confidence would slow the new government's instinct to strike back at its enemies, again reinforcing the central objective to limit the killing we saw coming.  Put another way, we sought to buttress the ability of the new government to govern legitimately.

LOGICAL LINES OF OPERATION

As a country team, Ambassador Rawson divided our portfolios according to agency; a small job as there was but three of us in the policy "shop" of the mission. Put in today's vernacular, we followed three logical lines of operation that would lead us toward our central objective.  These were not distinct paths:  the Rwandan Civil War and the Genocide were manifestations of the political struggle to define the Rwandan people. The Hutu Power extremists held that only Hutus were Rwandan.  The RPF offered a position that all Rwandan ethnic groups were Rwandan.  A political initiative to draw the two extremes closer had to address justice after the genocide and it had to be offered in a secure environment for all Rwandans.

Political Reconstruction and Reconciliation

Ambassador Rawson of course led the political effort internally in Rwanda with the new government, championing the issues of reconstruction, reconciliation, and restraint through the offices of the President and the Prime Minister, and externally on the international field with Department of State policy makers, the few Western countries seriously engaged in the Rwandan scene, and the United Nations operational elements in the greater Rwandan crisis. As we in the U.S. Embassy envisioned, the RPF's central political goal then in post-genocide Rwanda was to incorporate an essentially hostile population of 5 million Hutu inside the borders of Rwanda and reach out to the other 2 million outside the country. Given that large numbers of those 7 million Hutus had participated in the genocide, the RPF's challenge in getting the same Hutus to accept an inclusive definition of the Rwandan people was extreme.

Justice and Law Enforcement

Our second line of operation ran through the US Agency for International Development Mission (USAID) mission in Kigali. Technically a separate mission from the embassy, USAID Kigali's Mission Director sat in every country team meeting.  In fact, Richard McCall as the USAID Chief of Staff--number three in the agency--came out to Rwanda for months at a time.  The main objective of the USAID mission focused on justice with secondary functions into areas of law enforcement and investigation. Rwanda was a country where all the judges and all the police were either dead or in exile. If you accept that 800,000 died in the genocide and you assume that an average killer--whether an ex-FAR soldier armed to the teeth, a militia member with a pistol, or Hutu peasant with a machete--probably killed an average of five victims, then you have a criminal population of at least 200,000.  That does not include those who planned and directed the campaign. Granted many of those killers were outside the country but many were not.  At its best, the Rwandan prison system was capable of holding 10,000 prisoners; by 1996 it had 70,000 and would nearly double over the next two years.  After Peter Whaley arrived as our Political Officer in 1995, he assumed much of the political reporting issues associated with the justice sector, especially prisons. Given that the country remained very much a humanitarian crisis, USAID backstopped the Kigali AID mission with a full time Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to assist in coordinating humanitarian assistance with the government, the UN agencies, and the NGO community.

Military and Security Considerations

I pursued our third line of operation focused on the military and security.  Ambassador Rawson recruited me to work with a military-dominated government, primarily through the office of the Vice President and Defense Minister Major General Kagame and the RPA general staff.TP[5]PT  Externally, my portfolio extended to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. European Command as well as the National Security Council officials concerned with Rwanda.  Concurrently, I was the country team's primary interface with the military side of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Finally, my mission in pursuing these contacts was targeted toward our primary objective in limiting the killing by increasing internal stability and reducing external threats.  To support our plan, I had to maintain a clear picture of military and security events inside and outside Rwanda affecting the country. That was our country team and that was our plan. Ambassador Rawson at once guided, directed, and mentored us as we faced daily challenges and at the same time looked to the future. We channeled our energies and our time into goals set forth in our plan.  I will now concentrate on my role, relating it to our overall goal and associated efforts as necessary.

The RPF as a Collective Body

In our very first conversation in Goma the previous August, Ambassador Rawson asked me to join him in Rwanda because he felt that a military man would be better able to relate to the RPF as an insurgent military force struggling to become a government.  My first challenge was in understanding how these former insurgents approached decisions.

Consensus Through the Council Of Colonels

As I built contacts and relationships over the coming months, I came to see that the RPF functioned as an insurgent organization based on consensus.TP[6]PT  Real power in the RPF resided in an organization commonly referred to as the "Council of Colonels."  Not all were colonels.  Not all were even military.  Nearly all were Anglophone Tutsi who had been in Uganda, making them RPF "plank holders."  The composition of the council changed with the issues brought before it; opinions from those on the political side of the RPF weighed more heavily when political affairs were on the table.  The reverse held true if the issue was military.TP[7]PT

A Preference for the Offense

The other RPF characteristic I would note is these former insurgents preferred to maintain the initiative whenever possible. To them status quo equaled stalemate. Both RPF politicians and RPA soldiers preferred the attack, especially with an oblique approach.  Their frustration with the UN in general and UNAMIR in particular was that the UN was slow to start, slow once started, slow to change course or adapt, and almost impossible to stop.TP[8]PT By combining a consensus approach with a natural activist bent, the new government in Kigali--with the RPF as its central core--moved relatively quickly to address the situation. RPA officers operated according to the intent of such consensus based decisions. Events, actions, and reactions occurred in parallel, coordinated and synchronized to achieve maximum effect.TP[9]PT

MILITARY AND SECURITY ISSUES

Many casual observers immediately assumed that as a former insurgent movement, the RPF saw the Rwandan struggle purely as a military issue.  To the contrary, the RPF leaders saw any such military-centric approach as a formula for defeat.  Senior officers in the RPA told me on more than one occasion, "We know we cannot hold this country with a gun. We have to build confidence in a Rwandan people." 

Discipline in the RPA

Even though the RPF enjoyed a tremendous reputation for its discipline during the war, the first military issue I faced was that of RPF atrocities against the Hutu, surfaced by the circulation of the "Gersony Report," claiming that the RPF had systematically killed 30,000 to 50,000 Hutus in the immediate aftermath of the war. TP[10]PT  As reported by western observers (including me), the RPF did not shy from executing RPF soldiers engaged in theft, rape, or murder.  Nevertheless discipline became an increasing problem for the RPF leadership as the genocide began and the war resumed in April 1994. Though massacres did occur, they generally were spontaneous events, often set off in response to the genocide. The more common occurrence was individual revenge killings. Closer analysis of this issue pointed to the rapid expansion of the RPF ranks with lesser-trained soldiers during 1993 and 1994 as a primary source discipline problem.TP[11]PT

The RPF or its military arm the RPA was not without fault.  Individual soldiers did go berserk in post-genocide Rwanda.  And unit commanders--some of whom were probably Tutsi hard-liners--did loose control of their units or even direct their units to commit murders against Hutu civilians.  I observed and reported on the resultant investigations. But the crux of the Gersony issue was whether revenge killings or large-scale murders were politically manipulated and top-directed. Senior UN officials like Major General Tousignant and SRSG Shaharyar Khan along with Ambassador Rawson and others dismissed such allegations, as did the new government.  Kagame and other RPA officers admitted that revenge killings had occurred and that more were taking place.  Kagame also said soldiers and officers involved were in detention.  Although getting an accurate list of names of those detainees later became a political issue between the U.S. and the new government, I knew one of the officers. And I considered him one of the best RPA brigade commanders I met.  One of his companies went wild in following up an insurgent attack and killed nearly 100 villagers; he was relieved and detained.TP[12]PT 

The Effects of RPA Indiscipline

The impact of such killings--especially an incident such as the Kibeho camp massacre discussed below--was felt well beyond Rwanda's borders.  It was grist for the "Double Genocide" disinformation mill; that particular Hutu Power line was that any "Tutsi genocide" was balanced by"Hutu genocide" at the hands of the "Tutsi RPA."  It was a propaganda line that was especially prevalent in France and the French government all the way to President Mitterrand.  At a lower level, such killings and the often inflated reports emanating from them--Kibeho's 2,000 dead jumped to 8,000 in some reports--fueled fears in the countryside. And in many ways, the same killings and reports rearmed and legitimized the extremists in the camps in Zaire.

Cooperation and Friction with UNAMIR and the UN Agencies

The issue of RPA discipline could be partially tied to the pressing security issues challenging the RPF.  Even after the departure of French forces deployed as Operation Turquoise in the southwest quadrant of the country, a resurrected UNAMIR with 5500 troops and an obsolete mandate to protect peoples at risk remained in the country. Although the RPF saw the UN peacekeepers as superfluous, the RPF leadership had recognized the political necessity of cooperation.  Our role in the U.S. Embassy was to act as a useful bridge between the peacekeepers and the new government. Frankly we saw the UN peacekeepers as a testament and a boon to Rwandan stability. The widespread presence of UN blue berets provided unbiased international force observing and reporting to the world through the United Nations.  In a country torn by war and genocide, blue berets were reassuring.  Keeping them on the ground as long as possible was, therefore, in the best interests of U.S. policy in Rwanda.  As the U.S. Defense Attaché, I worked closely with the UNAMIR Force Commander Major General Guy Tousignant and Ambassador Rawson worked closely with the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Shaharyar Khan. Both General Tousignant and Ambassador Khan were quite resourceful in seeking ways to help the Rwandans and the new government, especially when UN bureaucracy stood in their way.

The Internally Displaced Person Camps

The most immediate security problem in the country was the large number of IDP camps still operating in the southwest with UNAMIR, other UN agencies, and NGO assistance.  Indeed, UNAMIR--especially the Ethiopian Battalion in the southwest corner of the country--was instrumental in forestalling another Hutu exodus into Zaire when the French withdrew in late August 1994.  UNAMIR working with the government and the UN agencies and NGOs soon began a series of operations to deconstruct these camps by encouraging the occupants to return home.  It was not a message or intent well received by all players; certain NGOs and players within the UN agencies were against such returns for a variety of reasons. One can be certain that the Hutu hard-liners inside the camps did not want to return to their villages. To counter the extremist viewpoint, UNAMIR Radio began broadcasting in early 1995, a step long over due.

The new government saw these camps for what they were: extremist-operating bases inside Rwandan territory. Vice President Kagame and other government officials made it clear the camps had to go.  As the UNAMIR operations proceeded, they met with some successes. The RPA mounted its own parallel information operation to encourage those successes. RPA teams slipped into the camps on the eve of their closings by UNAMIR with a simple message, "leave with the UN or leave later with us." Some of the "DPs" as they were called did go home; others slipped into other camps or across the border. TP[13]PT

The Kibeho IDP Camp Tragedy

By the spring of 1995, all the camps except the one at Kibeho were closed.  Given the distillation of hard-liners from the other camps and their relocation to Kibeho, it is not surprising that the UNAMIR-sponsored return process had died.  Certain NGO and UN agency resistance against the return program did not help. General Kagame ordered the RPA to close the camp against the advice and will of the UN agencies and the NGOs.  Acting in understandable defiance of UN headquarters, Major General Tousignant kept Zambian troops on the ground at Kibeho and reinforced them with an Australian medical contingent as an RPA brigade closed around the camp. Hard-liners turned against any of the DPs who cooperated and soon the camp was fleeing inward toward the Zambian positions.  Hard-liners drove other DPs like cattle to try and break through RPA lines and the RPA commander lost control of the situation.  RPA troops and Hutu hard-liners massacred some 2,000 people one evening before the situation was brought under control.TP[14]PT 

Our role as the U.S Embassy was to put the Kibeho massacre in perspective.  The 2,000 deaths were tragic; on the Rwandan scene the killings were hardly a major roadblock to further progress.  Compared to the 800,000 dead in the genocide, the 2,000 dead was but a speed bump. And despite many accounts at the time and since, the RPA neither initiated the slaughter nor did all the killing. People involved in the 1994 genocide heavily populated the camp at Kibeho and the camp was an active insurgent base.  The UN and the international community had failed to close the camp; the new government after repeated warnings to the UN did so.  All of the IDP camps inside Rwanda were now closed, leaving the external camps as the RPA's next logical target.

The Refugee Camps as an External Threat

The more long-term problem, the Rwandan Hutu refugee camps--especially those in Zaire--were the most serious threats to the RPF's control of Rwanda. Even the term "refugee" was laden with political judgments; the international agreements that supported the UNHCR's mission in aiding refugees prohibited support to criminal fugitives. And UNHCR support could not be given to "armies in being."  The ex-FAR and the militias had taken control of the camps. Their immediate ability to challenge the RPF was almost non-existent.  But their ability to dominate the refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania was well established. That made them the center of Hutu Power and the physical embodiment of the Hutu center of gravity in the Rwandan identity struggle. The extremist government responsible for the genocide was resurrecting itself and attempting to recast the genocide as an unfortunate extension of the civil war, suggesting the RPF was an equal participant in slaughtering Hutus. Moreover, the international donor community was spending millions to support those camps, support that only reinforced the extremists' control, even as the same international community dodged the issue of disarming the camps. 

International Dithering

International efforts since July 1994 to come to grips with the "Camps Issue" floundered repeatedly.  Even as UNAMIR 1 fell apart and UNAMIR 2 slowly flowed in to replace it, Major General Romeo Dallaire, a true hero in every sense of the word, floated a plan, Operation Homeward Bound that would supposedly draw the refugees back into Rwanda.TP[15]PT  Planners for Operation Support Hope later echoed Dallaire's plan in laying out the U.S. military solution to get the refugees home.  Neither had a snow ball's chance in hell of returning the refugees, certainly not the particular hell of those camps nor the hell those same "refugees" had enacted inside Rwanda, because word leaders were unwilling to address the key issue of disarmament.TP[16]PT Later that fall the UN would look at the camp issue and even went so far to survey the problem using elements of UNAMIR.  Again a lack of international will undermined that initiative.  The sole step taken was to hire portions of the Zairian military as a mercenary force on contract to the UNHCR to improve security in those camps, largely for the international workers.TP[17]PT

Insurgency and Militarization of the Camps

Meanwhile, the insurgency I had feared began to raise its ugly head in the fall of 1994.  Its beginnings came as isolated raids, murders, and thefts along Rwanda's western border.  At first many of the incidents were regarded as banditry but over time a pattern began to emerge suggesting that the attacks were deliberately intended to garner support among the Hutu peasants and to spark RPA heavy-handed responses.  Increasing reports of active training inside the Zaire refugee camps as well as reliable reports of semi-clandestine arms shipments flowing into Goma paralleled those internal security improvements. The training and rearming of the camps became so blatant that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) issued a report condemning the militarization of the camps and withdrew its support from their operations.TP[18]PT  In contrast, UNHCR Goma and the remaining NGO community moved closer to open relationships with the resurgent hard-line forces in Zaire. By late 1994 and early 1995, the ex-FAR had shifted southward from Goma to the Bukavu area, a move that better positioned their forces for operations into southwestern Rwanda and western Burundi. 

Addressing RPA Security Concerns

My contacts in the RPA from the Vice President on down began by late 1994 to voice their concerns over the growing threat.  Their concerns were at first secondary to the threat from the IDP camps inside Rwanda but after Kibeho Kagame and the RPA general staff pointed westward when the subject of security came up.  Ambassador Rawson and I began to push the idea of expanded security assistance to the new government. TP[19]PT

We resumed Expanded-International Military Education and Training (E-IMET) programs and I successfully started a Rwandan-U.S. Demining Training program.  Still RPA leaders like Colonel Sam Kaka--the RPA Chief of Staff--looked for what Sam called "real training" for his soldiers.  Finally in mid-1995 the U.S. Department of Defense green lighted me to unofficially canvas the RPA for a list of its needs in non-lethal materials. With Ambassador Rawson's full support, I soon had a cable on its way to Washington describing a "Border Security Package" built largely around increased transport--land and water given the fact that Lake Kivu accounted for much of Rwanda's western border with Zaire--and improved communications.TP[20]PT  Shortly afterward Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Joseph Nye and his deputy Mr. Vince Kern flew to Rwanda for direct talks on the border security initiative and larger security issues.

The RPA Clears Iwawa Island

In November 1995, the RPA mounted a night attack over 20 kilometers of Lake Kivu to hit tiny Iwawa Island just inside Rwandan territorial waters.   The attacking force used two high-speed patrol boats towing larger fishing boats to land a 100-man assault force along the south edge of the island.  Another 150 RPA troops were shuttled in behind them.  The attackers surprised some 300 to 400 ex-FAR and militia members.  The RPA suffered less than 50 total casualties and destroyed the hard-liners force, taking some 50 prisoners. TP[21]PT

This attack and the proof I obtained in visiting the island as RPA forces completed secondary clearing operations documented the threat from the Zairian camps.TP[22]PT But events internal to Rwanda affected our external security assistance planning for Rwanda.  In the course of the Nye and Kern visit, Major General Kagame had promised to provide a list of RPA officers and soldiers then currently in detention for various revenge killings and larger massacres like Kibeho.  When I pressed the Ministry of Defense to supply the promised list, I was formally rebuked for interfering in Rwandan internal affairs. It would take time and RPA movement on the military discipline issue to move the border security package any further along.TP[23]PT

A New Genocide?

In the interim the external threat to Rwanda kept growing. By the fall of 1995, a new group of refugees appeared on the Rwandan scene.  Ethnic Tutsis from Zaire's Kivu province were arriving in Rwanda after suffering depredations, persecutions, and massacres at the hands of Hutu extremists in the camps and local allies in the Kivus.TP[24]PT  Reports from the area made it clear the Rwandan Hutu extremists were at their old tricks again. By early 1996, some 15,000 "Zairian" Tutsi refugees were encamped near Gisenyi.TP[25]PT 

As Ambassador Rawson departed at the end of 1995, he and I both felt Rwanda was on the edge of another precipice.  We had repeatedly drawn U.S. government attention to the issue and we had a security assistance program ready to implement. We believed Kagame's threats to take action against the camps were real. Washington seemed inclined otherwise. Ambassador Robert E. Gribbin, another experienced Rwanda hand, became my ambassador for my last three months in country. In his first meeting with General Kagame, the Vice President warned Ambassador Gribbin about the camps, exactly what I told him Kagame would say. Ambassador Gribbin also believed him.

SUMMING UP

I started this paper by relating a conversation I had in late 1994 with the head of the UNHCR in Goma.  My purpose was to show that we--the US Embassy Kigali country team--were greatly concerned by the prospect of renewed war and possibly genocide.  I believe that our efforts as a team pushed Washington as a collective of various agencies and agendas to remain aware if not focused on events.  Indeed after the U.S. government's failure during the 1994 genocide, Rwanda became one of two standing items for discussion at every meeting of the National Security Council through 1995 and on into 1996 when I departed.  I believe equally that Ambassador Rawson did an extraordinary job leading us under extraordinarily difficult conditions. 

But I must also say that when Ambassador Robert E. Gribbin took charge in January 1996 the overall Rwandan situation remained hung up like a boat on the three pillars of our campaign plan.  Political reconciliation across ethnic lines could not take place as long as 2 million plus Hutu refugees remained under hard-liner control just outside Rwanda's borders.  The hardliners controlled the refugees by fear: fear of the hardliners if they tried to leave and fear of the "Tutsi regime" in Kigali. The latter fear would not ease until the new government could guarantee security in the countryside from revenge killings, attack by insurgents, or arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.  The RPA with its own challenges of discipline could not fully defend its borders from within Rwanda and faced an international backlash if it crossed those borders.  Justice need trained courts, investigators, and an agreement or concept for administering justice to hundreds of thousands of killers.  And justice demanded access to those killers who lived in relative comfort in the refugee camps.  Something had to give.

In November 1996, the Rwandan government using client militias established among the Tutsis in eastern Zaire and allies of convenience to threaten, disrupt, and then attack the camps in South and North Kivu. As a result half a million former refugees walked home and the extremist forces were driven further into Zaire with as many as 200,000 other refugees.  This draconian step did not end the insurgency inside Rwanda but it did allow the RPA to more easily get at the insurgents.  When exterior support to the insurgency continued, the Rwandan government using the same client forces, elements of the RPA, allies in Uganda and even Angola conquered the sad remnants of the Mobutu regime in Zaire and set off the Central African War that David Rawson and I predicted two years earlier.  At last count the number of dead in the resultant struggle has exceeded 3 million.

Lessons Learned

After admitting that lessons learned are often a function of viewpoint of the person drawing such lessons and that a certain level of egotism is involved in offering such lessons (the person offering inherently assumes such lessons are worth learning), I offer ten that I took from my experiences in Rwanda.  The order they are listed does not reflect a priority because they are equally important.

1. Cultural, ethnic, and racial differences are often political in their effects simply because they define who has power and who does not.  Such differences cannot be erased by decree but they can be mitigated over time through communication and education. The "Tutsi Question"--an inherently political issue--drove the Rwandan Civil War and the Genocide.

2. Foreign policy and its instrument diplomacy are about influencing people not controlling them.  If you don't talk to them, you lose control.  The exclusion of Hutu hard-liners from the Arusha talks and resultant accords was a critical diplomatic mistake.

3. Those who believe that genocide is unthinkable are not thinking. They are wishing. Man's capacity for genocide comes from our capacity for mercy.  Hutu Power extremists planned and directed the Rwandan genocide.  In the prism of Rwandan politics, it was a Hutu Power political victory, regardless of the resultant international condemnation.

4. Will power is the true test of military strength.  A country with the best-trained military in the world must have the will power to use its strength appropriately or not at all. UNAMIR 1 failed because the UN and western leaders like the U.S., Great Britain, and Belgium failed to listen to Major General Dallaire.  The RPF/RPA won the civil war militarily because they fought for a cause under highly skilled leaders.  The RPA won great international legitimacy by stopping the genocide. But slippage in RPA discipline near the war's end and continuing on through 1998 directly fueled the resurrection of Hutu Power in the camps and on the international scene.

5. Civilians on the battlefield in counter insurgency are not only part of the battlefield; they are the objective. There are no collateral casualties. All non-insurgent casualties are friendly. As a force born in Uganda's wars, the RPF's leaders had fought as insurgents and as counter-insurgents in Museveni's struggle to gain and maintain power in Uganda. The Rwandan civil war and aftermath was in many ways a replay of those events (with the major exception of the genocide).  When the RPF treated the Rwandan people as the objective it made great gains; when it did not, it suffered severe setbacks.

6. Information warfare as a political struggle is about perceptions not facts. That means that a counter insurgent force or an insurgent force must first identify its own weaknesses because such weaknesses fuel perceptions.  In the case of the RPF, its greatest weakness was its largely Tutsi exile composition.  The Hutu hard-liners use of that RPF weakness fueled the Hutu Power information campaign that culminated in the genocide.

7. Ignorance is dangerous. Taking action or prompting action based on ignorance is lethal. The RPF view of Rwanda was in many ways ignorant of Rwanda's internal situation.  The RPF nearly met total disaster in its initial foray into Rwanda as a result. The Hutu hard-liners used the ignorance of the Rwanda Hutu peasant to co-opt and coerce them into genocide.

8. Keep talking to your enemies until you have to kill them.  They might be civilians at heart.  The RPF did in fact act on this principle.  The reintegration of ex-FAR leaders and soldiers in accordance with the modified Arusha accords was a critical step toward pacifying Rwanda.  The exclusion of the Hutu hard-liners at Arusha offers a clear counter point.

9.  Deliver on promised support. Deliver it on time. And deliver more than promised.  The United Nations greatest failure in Rwanda was that it promised much and delivered little when it was most needed.  Our greatest strength as a country team in Kigali was that we clearly identified what we could deliver before we offered it.  And when given the opportunity to do more than anticipated, we acted.

10. Technology cannot tell you what your enemy is thinking.  His neighbor can make an educated guess.  One of the RPA's greatest strengths was its use of human intelligence.  I believe that our successes as a country team in Rwanda came largely from the fact that none of us spent much time inside the embassy; we were out looking at the situation and talking to the participants.  And we listened to what they had to say.  UN successes were similarly achieved; UN Military Observers, UN Human Rights Monitors, and UN Field Workers provided critical insights on the Rwandan situation.  Both UNAMIR Force Commanders established intelligence shops to process such information.

And a free tip from my Navy Chief gave me as he left Rwanda, "Remember machetes don't click on empty."

THOMAS P. ODOM is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He served as an army strategic scout for over fifteen years, with five tours in the Middle East and Africa, and as the U.S. Army’s intelligence officer on the Middle East during the first Gulf War. Among his previous publications are two books on hostage rescues in the Congo. He is a coauthor of the U.S. Army’s history of the Gulf War.

 

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