A report of stunning illogicality

To pay reparations to the Rwandans is tantamount to rewarding them

Anthony Daniels

National Post

The word "genocide" is often used loosely, for rhetorical effect, but there is no other word adequate to describe what happened in Rwanda in 1994. And it is only right that so terrible an event should inspire soul-searching even among those not directly affected. The deliberate slaughter of up to three-quarters of a million people in three months, as happened in Rwanda, makes most of our concerns look pretty trivial.

The Organization of African Unity -- an ironically named international body if ever there was one -- commissioned a report by an International Panel of Eminent Personalities, including Canada's former ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis, to discover the antecedents and causes of the genocide, to establish what could have been done to prevent it, and to make recommendations. It has now published its report.

In the face of a man-made catastrophe of such dimensions, it must have been very difficult indeed to think of sensible or worthwhile things to recommend. When one stares into the abyss of human wickedness, one is reduced to silence. Still, the bathos of a sentence such as: "We urge all Rwandans, both in government and civil society, to work together to forge a united society based on the inherent strength and rich heritage of Rwanda's diverse ethnic heritage," would make one laugh, if "Rwanda's diverse ethnic heritage" had not resulted in one of the bloodiest episodes of a very bloody century.

One of the recommendations of the IPEP that has been given the widest publicity is the call for reparations. The panel, having accurately stated that the world stood by and watched as the genocide progressed, recommended that: "In the name of both justice and accountability, reparations are owed to Rwanda by actors in the international community for their roles before, during and since the genocide." And it added that "The case of Germany after World War Two is pertinent here."

The illogicality of this is stunning. It is as if reparations for the atrocities of the Second World War had been demanded not of Germany, but of the big powers that failed to prevent the Nazi genocide. The fact is that it was Rwandans themselves who were responsible for the genocide that took place in their country. Now to pay reparations to them is tantamount to rewarding them for it.

Of course, any major historical event has many antecedents and takes place in a complex environment, in which bystanders may behave well or badly. But if blame for the Rwandan genocide is to attach not only to those who actually wielded the machetes, but to everyone who exerted or could have exerted any influence on events, this report is notable for two striking omissions: the demand that the entire current government of Rwanda be severely punished for its part in producing the catastrophe, and the demand that the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, be likewise punished for his part in it.

There is little doubt that until the Tutsi guerrillas led by members of the present government invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, the government of Juvenal Habyarimana was not bent on genocide. Dictatorial as that government undoubtedly was, it was not genocidal, for until the invasion, there had been ethnic peace under its rule for 17 years. Moreover, given that Rwanda's southern neighbour, Burundi, where the minority Tutsi held all the reigns of power, had experienced many massacres of Hutu, including one in 1972 when virtually every Hutu with secondary education was killed, it was entirely predictable that Rwanda, where the Hutu were in control, would react with large-scale massacres of Tutsi if a Tutsi movement attempted to seize power there. But the leaders of the Tutsi guerrillas were more interested in achieving power than in the fate of their fellow Tutsi, and went ahead with the attempt to overthrow the Rwandan government anyway. And it is to this group of criminally ambitious people that we are now expected by the International Panel of Eminent Personalities to pay reparations.

As for President Museveni, he not only trained and armed the Tutsi guerrillas, but in effect encouraged them to invade their former homeland. Certainly he put no obstacles in their path. The guerrillas who invaded Rwanda in 1990 were mainly Tutsi refugees from the early 1960s, who had fled to Uganda after an earlier round of ethnic violence in their country. They had been extremely important in Mr. Museveni's accession to power, numbering 4,000 of the 14,000-strong guerrilla army that overthrew the government of Uganda; but afterwards, Mr. Museveni denied them Ugandan citizenship, despite their presence in the country for 30 years. He discriminated against them, and thereby drove them to the conclusion that, having no future in Uganda, they might as well try their luck back in Rwanda.

The panel makes little of the current Rwandan and Ugandan government's role in the genocide, reserving its moral outrage for the French and Americans (whose own role, it must be admitted, was far from glorious), who are always easy and popular targets. OAU documents do not generally condemn incumbent African governments, for obvious reasons.

Nothing, however, can detract from the primary moral responsibility of those who planned, incited and performed the attempted genocide in Rwanda. It might or might not be humane to give aid to Rwanda, but it would definitely not be an act of reparation to do so.