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Many foreign governments and the United
Nations had taken a prominent role in Rwanda's 
transition
to multi-party democracy in the early 1990s including Belgium
and Germany. A number of Rwandans believed in the international
community's mission, that they were acting on behalf of them to
install a functioning multi-party system. They had faith in the
process and the protection which the world had promised to provide
in order to avoid a violent transition.
The United Nations Assistance Mission
to Rwanda (UNAMIR) was first deployed in October of 1993, commanded
by Major General Romeo Dallaire, in order to stabilize the nation
while opposition political leaders and international 
organizations
worked at the implementation of the Arusha Accords which called
for the integration of opposition parties into the government,
including the Rwandan Patriotic Front which had been warring with
the existing government since 1990. (See Organization
Page for the 5 Protocols of the Arusha
Accords). As outlined in Security Council Resolution 872, UNAMIR's
, mandate was as follows:
(a) To contribute to the security of the city of Kigali, inter alia, within a weapons-secure area established by the parties in and around the city;
(b) To monitor observance of the cease-fire agreement, which calls for the establishment by the parties in and around the city;
(c)To monitor the security situation during the final period of the transitional Government's mandate, leading up to the elections.
(d)To assist in mine clearance, primarily through training programs;
(e) To investigate at the request of the parties, or on its own initiative, instances of alleged non-compliance with the provisions of the Protocol of Agreement on the Integration of the Armed Forces of the Two Parties, and to pursue any such instances with the parties responsible and report thereon as appropriate to the Secretary General.
(f) To monitor the process of repatriation of Rwandese Refugees and resettlement of displaced persons to verify that it is carried out in a safe and orderly manner;
(g) To assist in the coordination of humanitarian assistance activities in conjunction with relief operations;
taken from: The United Nations and Rwanda:1993-1996
(h) To investigate and report on incidents regarding the activities of the gendarmerie and police.
It was apparent as the year 1994 got under way, that things were going terribly wrong and some sort of showdown between the RPF and the government was inevitable. Random violence against Tutsis and political opponents increased and tension was high around the country. The government increased its doses of hate-filled propaganda. A frenzied environment developed. It was as if the nation was waiting for the straw that would break the camel's back, when all the tension and frustration would be released.
As there were many United Nations officials working with the democratization process in Rwanda it would have been almost impossible to miss the tension and warnings of the violence to come.
"We are very, very disappointed in the U.N. And there's no excuse for their failure. They were well aware of the situation before 6 April. CLADHO wrote to Booh Booh asking him to provide protection for members of political parties and senior magistrates who were being targeted for assassinations. We gave copies of these letters to diplomats in Kigali. No, I didn't expect UNAMIR to protect each and every person who felt vulnerable. But what we could not understand is that after the assassination of the president of the CDR, they would pass people being killed and houses being burned and they did nothing." -Jean Paul Biramvu, activist for the human rights org. CLADHO; taken from: Rwanda: Death, Despair and Destruction
General Dallaire, on January 11, 1994, sent a fax entitled, Request for the Protection for Informant to the his superiors at the United Nations. Dallaire told of a man who worked for the government, training bands of interahamwe militia. The man was said to have outlined plots to murder opposition leaders and Belgian soldiers and to actively seek a civil war with the RPF. He informed them of the location of a major weapons stockpile, and suggested that he suspected plans of a Tutsi mass murder.
Dallaire requested that the U.N. grant
the informant's wish of UNAMIR protection for himself 
and
his family and that they proceed with the with the raid of the
weapons stockpile immediately. U.N. officials responded to Dallaire's
fax by suggesting that he inform President Habyarimana of everything
he had learned, even though Dallaire stated in the fax that these
plans were devised by government officials. Dallaire was to assume
that Habyarimana was unaware of his government's own plans.
U.N. officials also told Dallaire to inform American, Belgian, and French ambassadors to Rwanda, which he did. The fax and its contents, however, were never officially mentioned to the Security Council.
The full text of General Dallaire's fax to
the United Nations Peacekeeping Headquarters
U.N. Secretary General Booh-Booh's response
to General Dallaire concerning the fax
When the murder began on April 6, 1994,
many Rwandans targeted for assassination depended on UNAMIR's
protection, but most were sadly disappointed in the services they
received. Of course, many of those who might have been disappointed
with UNAMIR were killed as a result of UNAMIR's failings. Under
the U.N. mandate, UNAMIR soldiers could not use force unless force
was first used against them. As a result, peacekeepers sometimes
witnessed murders, but 
could
not intervene.
After the murder of ten Belgian soldiers, Belgian decided on April 12, 1994 to withdraw all its peace keepers and attempted to convince other nations to do the same. A mass exodus of soldiers ensued until only 270 remained from the original 2,500. Up until that point, Belgium had been the main international authority. After Belgium left, France, who was known to be on friendly terms with the Rwandan government, took the reigns. From then on, France's complacent policies towards the Hutu power government became the world's policies.
After the Security Council passed Resolution 912 on April 26, which called for the reduction of troops from 2,500 to 270, international humanitarian groups expressed their disapproval at the move. Three days later, Rwanda was back on the Security Council agenda. While the council admitted that something needed to be done, they still did not offer to increase the number of international peace keepers.
From the very beginning, the international community insisted on remaining neutral in the conflict between the RPF and the existing Rwandan government. They chose to ignore the signs of government sponsored atrocities in order to not choose sides. The fact is that only when the RPF ousted the interim government in July of 1994 did the genocide stop. Had the international community opened their eyes to signs of government sponsored crimes against humanity and supported the RPF in their quest to halt the genocide, many more Rwandans would be alive today. Their insistence of a cease fire stalled the advance of the RPF and stalled the end of the genocide.
"According
to some people, neutrality is a duty that the international community
must impose on itself in order to intervene effectively in a 'humanitarian
disaster' like that of Rwanda...A neutral attitude implies that
they are all the same, that their history is too complicated to
understand, that there must be guilt on both sides, and similar
theories. Why do some people refuse to identify the killer and
the victim of a crime that was committed in broad daylight?"
-Faustin Kagame, "The Artificial Racialization at the Root
of the Rwandan Genocide" -Genocide in Rwanda: A Collective
Memory
The International Response to Conflict and
Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience
Kofi
Anan addresses Parliament in Kigali May 6, 1998 - offers apology
and promises future support
INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS
Belgium had taken the international lead
in Rwanda after the RPF invasion in 1990. They played 
a
large in role in Rwanda's democratization process in the early
nineties and contributed the most soldiers to the UNAMIR force.
Belgium's efforts were not, however, rooted purely in goodwill.
Belgium's involvement in Africa legitimized their need to maintain
a large army in the post-Cold War environment, while most nations
were cutting back on defense spending. After ten Belgian soldiers
were brutally murdered in first days of the genocide, the government
and citizens of Belgium, on the whole, called for an all out withdraw
of troops.
"Belgium Apologizes
for inaction during genocide" The Gazette, April 8,
2000
After Belgium's pullout, France stepped
in as the new leader. France's President Mitterand and Rwanda's
President Habyarimana had been good friends before Habyarimana's
death. In fact, the plane that had been shot down on the evening
of April 6, 1994, killing Habyarimana, had been a gift from Mitterand's
son, an arms dealer. France had trained and supported Rwanda's
army and specialty militias. There is evidence
too that France continued to supply the government with weapons
well into June of 1994. Needless to say, France was not a neutral
party and is often credited with preventing the RPF from defeating
the Rwandan government much earlier.
Although France did not have any specific interests in Rwanda, France was very much concerned with its international reputation and wanted to continue to play an important role in the former European colonies of Africa. It has also been said that France has an obsession with the international prominence of the French language. Rwandans then spoke French as its second language. Was the prospect of a government takeover by the English educated RPF enough to scare the French into assisting a brutal regime?
A French government report absolving itself
from any responsibility (In French)
The United States played an important
role in stalling the redeployment of troops into Rwanda when the
United Nations had finally decided they needed to act. When the
security council agreed on May 10 to send a force consisting of
troops from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Senegal, 
and
Ethiopia, the U.S. prevented a speedy deployment by insisting
that a cease fire be agreed upon before the troops' arrival. The
U.S. was able to stall several more times due to the Presidential
Decision Directive No. 25 which could be applied to any situation
involving United States troops or money. The directive again called
for a cease fire between the Rwandan government and the RPF before
deployment. Until that happened only a small number of soldiers
would be allowed into Rwanda. The directive also insisted on extensive
pre-planning.
Finally on May 16, the Security Council passed Resolution 918 which called for the deployment of 5,500 soldiers; however, the U.S. again slowed the process, and the soldiers were not actually sent until June 8, three weeks later. By this time, most of the victims had already been murdered. The U.S. also promised to send a number of armored personnel carriers, vital to the evacuation of citizens from danger zones. The U.S. again prevented another important element necessary for rescue of Rwandan citizens by insisting that the United Nations pay for the shipment of the carriers. The carriers eventually arrived on June 23.
Ironically, while the U.S. was hesitant
to become involved in the fight to stop a genocide, they 
could not run fast enough to assist
in the humanitarian crises along Rwanda's borders. The reason:
the media had begun to broadcast images of poor starving children,
and an American public outcry ensued which the government could
not ignore. While it is true that there were poor starving children
in the refugee camps, it is also true that the camps were safe
havens for fleeing genocidal murderers. The murderers were never
separated from the legitimate refugees, and the U.S. government,
in the end, supported the killers of those they had ignored months
earlier.
President Clinton's apology speech in the
Kigali Airport - March 25, 1998