Kagame speaks about the lessons from Rwanda's experience with international intervention and conflict prevention

During his recent visit to the US, President Kagame spoke to the Reuters bureau chief in San Francisco, Adam Tanner, about the lessons that can be drawn from Rwanda's experience in 1994 with multilateral and unilateral intervention to prevent or stop crises like genocide. Kagame also spoke about the release of 40,000 genocide suspects earlier this year and fighting in northeastern DRC.

EDITORS NOTE: This interview took place before the commencement of war against Iraq.

Excerpts below:

Question: Mr. President, in cases where the international community is involved with countries militarily, right now Iraq is in the news, or the case of Afghanistan last year, and Rwanda being an example where intervention didn't go so well in 1994, I wonder if you could outline your thoughts on how to approach this problem of intervention?

Answer: I should make it clear from the beginning that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to these problems. I think each situation, individually analyzed, calls for its own unique solution. In the case of Iraq, I cannot claim to be an authority on what is happening there, but I believe that the UN Security Council should have sufficient information and that would give them a good basis for forming positions on how to solve the problem.

However, based on the strength of information and evidence they have, they should be able to say 'this is not a situation we should play around with.' If indeed Saddam has these weapons, and the international community is convinced that he should be disarmed, then he must do it. It is not a question of bargaining with him. The international community should not go on with this endlessly. They should be decisive about it. If they feel that it is not a serious matter, then they can wait to see how things evolve.

In the case of Rwanda, very clearly it was a failure of the international community because they had all the information. Several countries and the UN had the information about what was happening. They were getting information from multiple sources, including ourselves, with evidence that people were preparing for genocide. Genocide had taken place before in Rwanda, because these killings started way back in 1959. It continued in the 1960's, 1970's and again in 1990. These massacres were singularly aimed at a section of our population.

In 1994, it was clear that the former government was not interested in implementing the peace agreement which we had negotiated in Arusha. They were recruiting militia, preparing the army, buying weapons and machetes. The international community had informants from within the very camps that were actually planning and organizing all of this. They were giving them evidence about all these things. The UN staff on the ground passed the information on to their headquarters.

If a situation erupts as it did in Rwanda, with all that history of clear evidence and information that was flowing to the UN and the international community, then you must indeed count it as a terrible failure on their part. They should have acted on this information.

Rwanda's case was also a lot simpler than Iraq. Rwanda was not as developed or powerful with all sorts of weapons. There was also no danger of the international community being sucked into a situation that would overwhelm them. Also, the RPA forces were on the ground, and that would have made their work easier because we were fighting the government that was carrying out the genocide.

Even after failing to prevent the genocide, what excuse is there for them to fail to do something to stop it? Let us for one moment assume that they failed to stop it because they lacked information. Even when it was clear that massacres were taking place all over the country, what stopped them from acting? Once the genocide started, it was clear what was going on, but they still failed to stop it. Instead they played with all sorts of arguments, looking for which words to use to describe the situation. They were more involved in semantics than dealing with the situation decisively and saving lives.

Question: What is your answer, why was the world silent, was it because Rwanda was of no strategic importance?

Answer: That is a possibility. But I do not understand how the world does not consider a problem that cost one million lives to be of strategic significance. How can it not be of strategic importance to deal with a phenomenon that the world had sworn should never happen again? It happened before with the holocaust. How can this not be of strategic importance?

Question: Do you think that perhaps there is a racist factor, the world does not care about Africa?

Answer: Honestly, it is a question which I am still trying to figure out. I am still trying to get clear answer. But there was certainly indifference.

Question: But when you look at the Iraq situation, where it is not really an imminent threat in and of itself, you have a dictator who is probably very brutal, perhaps is developing weapons, but it doesn't appear to be an imminent threat to anyone tomorrow, next week, or next month. This is unlike the slaughters that were taking place in Rwanda.

Answer: But I wonder whether one has to wait until the situation has developed into a crisis that is threatening people. Do you have to wait for Iraq to overrun Kuwait in order to act? If you have a whole build-up of a situation which you can interpret as leading to danger in the medium or long term, then at some point, depending on how convinced one is, decisions can be taken.

Question: To invade militarily?

Answer: Yes. I don't think people should avoid military solutions for the sake of avoiding them. One has to balance. War is a terrible thing indeed there is no question about it. It really consumes lives. But one should always weigh it against the cause. What is the cause? You might avoid war, but by avoiding war you lead to a worse situation. That is why I gave the comparison of Rwanda in 1994. The international community avoided war and we ended up with genocide that cost one million lives. I don't think any war waged by the international community in Rwanda in 1994 would have consumed as many lives. You would have had perhaps one thousand dead, but not one million.

Question: I read your statement on the issue of war in Iraq at the Africa-France summit last month. You appear to have been in favour of war in Iraq and critical of demonstrators who oppose the war…

Answer: I made those remarks in a particular context. If you read the statement you will see that there is a context. The context is whether the demonstrators understand the issues at play and whether debate is about peace or war. The statement I made is very clear. The choice is not between peace and war as far as I am concerned. My worry is that perhaps the demonstrators feel that the choice is simply between war and peace. My understanding is that the choice is between war and getting rid of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Iraq. My worry is that the demonstrators are not seeing the problem as it is. I also gave a comparison with our own experience in Rwanda. If you read the statement carefully, you will see that what I said had a very clear context and was very straightforward.

Question: Do you think that the world community should act only with the full backing of the UN Security Council?

Answer: The Security Council can be wrong. It was wrong in Rwanda. The Security Council was wrong in Rwanda about the genocide and we lost one million people. We did not wait for the UN to authorize us to fight to stop the genocide and protect our people. Even if in 1994 there had been a UN resolution telling us not to fight to save our people and stop the genocide, we would have simply ignored it because they were wrong. For us, saving our people outweighed obedience to a Security Council that had clearly taken a wrong decision.

There is a complex interplay between individual countries, events and international organizations, which were really created to deal with these situations but act wrongly because of external factors or interests. This is the complexity of the world we live in.

Question: So if for example we are the Security Council and I am against intervening in Rwanda and you are for it, and you feel very strongly about wanting to a prevent or stop a massacre, do you think that it is ok to go in alone and take action if the council is not prepared to act?

Answer: One must, of course, first exhaust diplomatic options in making the Security Council understand that there is a serious impending crisis. If after having done this, the Security Council fails to act, then one could act alone. And that was the case in Rwanda. Even if the whole world had told us the RPF not to act to stop the genocide, we would have still acted and we did act to stop the genocide. This is because the alternative was much worse, and there is no doubt about it.

It depends on how strongly convinced you are that the crisis you are talking about is happening or is about to happen. But if you are using a pretext of some kind to do something that is wrong, then that is a problem.

Question: So after the terrible tragedy of the slaughter in your case in 1994, what assistance should countries like Rwanda get from the international community? How involved should they be in the recovery of a post-war situation?

Answer: There is no question that they should be involved. There is a great amount of wealth, only a small fraction of which would be sufficient to rebuild some of these countries emerging from crisis. The international community not only failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda and stop it once it had started, it has also failed to help reconstruct Rwanda effectively. This is not to say that we have not received some help. My point is that more could have been done. But we receive support from a number of bilateral and multilateral partners and this has enabled us rebuild our economy, and make progress on other processes we are involved in to bring the country back together politically and socially.

Question: Let me ask about the 40,000 prisoners you recently released, some critics have said that their release could intimidate others who want to testify in future trials. How do you think this will play out?

Answer: Unfortunately, there is nothing in our difficult situation that does not attract criticism, for or against what we are doing. Either way we must keep moving on. The measure of progress should always be on the ground, at the grassroots. If look at the amount of security and stability we have across the country, then I think it is a heartening indication that these efforts are paying off.

In that context, it was not an amnesty that we gave the 40,000 prisoners. It was simply logically managing a situation based on the laws already in place. Firstly, the Gacaca law provides for people to serve their sentences outside prison. Secondly, the law also provides for sentences to be reduced if someone makes a confession. If, for example, the maximum charge for the crime someone has committed is fifteen years, and that person confesses, apologizes and helps the whole justice process, then the sentence can be halved to seven and a half years.

We found that people charged with crimes with maximum sentences of 10-15 years, have already served half their sentence. So they deserve to be released, as long as they have confessed. Otherwise you would end up removing the incentive for them to confess. It was on this basis that we acted to release these people.

Question: Do you not think that the scars are too fresh?

Answer: Yes the wounds are still fresh. But we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Keeping people in prison endlessly is not a cure to our problems. We have to administer justice and carry out reconciliation. The balance is really so complicated. Of course the wounds still fresh and I understand people who find some of these decisions difficult to accept, especially the victims. I am also one of the victims, but I find myself in a position where sometimes people think I am insensitive to their problems. But that is the price you pay for being in leadership.

Question: Fighting has been raging on in the northeast and MONUC says Rwandan troops are still there, despite the promise of complete withdrawal. Why are they still there?

Answer: MONUC is confused. We have never been in the northeast of Congo. Never. So even if one falsely accused us having not withdrawn fully from Congo, it would be in other parts of the country, not the northeast where we had never been in the first place. The northeast is an area that has been occupied by Uganda for the last three years, with all the rebel groups, the MLC and about six other factions in that area. There is no presence of Rwanda in that area, and there never has been.

One should also look at the origin of the problem in that northeastern part of Congo and who caused it. This is a problem that started three years ago, and we are only now being falsely accused of being there. But the problem started with massacres of the Hema and Lendu, then these two factions fighting each other, Uganda helping one group against another one day, and then supporting another group the next day. So ask Uganda, which has been in control of that area for the last three years what they are doing there. What is the world doing about people who are being killed there in their hundreds?