On the other hand, after a 1988 international conference, in Washington, DC, on Rwandan refugees, the RPF began to build up financial support among the Tutsi diaspora and moral support from sympathetic foreigners. Most important, in launching its adventure into Rwanda, the RPF had expropriated armaments from Ugandan army connections and continued to receive support from elements within the government sympathetic to the Front’s cause, perhaps even from President Museveni. The smuggling of gold and diamonds along the Zairean border provided funds for weapons purchased on the international arms market. Thus, both contenders in the Rwandan crisis depended on support from states and third parties outside of Rwanda’s borders.
Are the contenders ready for a settlement? Has a culture of peace prevailed over a culture of war? The 1990 incursion had quickly evolved into a rhetorical confrontation, with skirmishes along the border, but not into a “mutually hurting stalemate.” Since both sides felt they could ultimately win, the conflict was hardly “ripe for resolution.”20 As the RPF tactics changed to guerrilla raiding, the conflict settled into a protracted, irregular war, all the more disturbing to external third parties who wanted to quickly restore peace.
If third party intervention becomes possible, who should mediate in the dispute? The Rwandan conflict was of immediate concern to neighboring states and a source of long-range anxiety for donors vested in large development programs and now burdened with humanitarian assistance within the Rwandan state. Who should mediate this troublesome conflict, and under what auspices? The Africans wanted an African mediation, but which personality or which state should lead?
Zaire’s president Mobutu was a dominant figure among African chiefs of state but had hostile relations with Uganda’s Museveni. As friend and protégé of Habyarimana, Mobutu would hardly be evenhanded in this matter. Finally, he was a sick man whose influence was fading abroad and whose rule was being challenged by “democratic” forces at home. Mobutu’s capacity to sustain a mediation seriously engaging both sides was very much in question.
On the other hand, an insurgency launched and sustained from the southern reaches of Uganda into a landlocked neighboring state must have had Museveni’s nod of approval. Moreover, Museveni and Habyarimana neither liked nor trusted one another. Museveni was in no position to mediate between the insurgents and the Rwandan government.
Burundi was the neighbor to the south whose history, politics, and social divisions mirrored those of Rwanda. However, Rwandans of all stripes considered themselves superior to their traditional enemies in Burundi. Additionally, by 1990, Burundi’s military president, Pierre Buyoya, had recently put out the fires of a major ethnic blowup in Burundi’s north and was too enmeshed in his own ethnic difficulties to provide mediation in Rwanda’s conflict.
The country with the least vested interest or diplomatic liabilities among Rwanda’s neighbors was Tanzania. While Prime Minister Malecela and several within the ruling Tanzanian elite were friendly toward Habyarimana’s regime, in 1990, both Tanzanian president Mwinyi and foreign minister Diria were from coastal Swahili backgrounds and had no affinity with either side. Moreover, conflict within Rwanda created insecurity on a distant western border. Tanzania had a vital interest in seeing peace restored.21
Regional Summitry
EARLY SUMMITS
Notwithstanding the inherent issues involved, neighboring chiefs of state rushed to bring the Rwandan conflict to a close. Within a fortnight of the October 1 incursion, Tanzanian president Mwinyi hosted a summit with Museveni and Habyarimana at which the Rwanda government agreed to dialogue under OAU auspices and Tanzania and Uganda agreed to pressure the RPF to accept a ceasefire.
On October 23 and 24, the heads of state of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi), meeting at Mobutu’s home in Gbadolite, proposed establishing a peacekeeping force and noted Mobutu’s effort to facilitate dialogue between the Government of Rwanda and the Rwandese Patriotic Front. Two days later, a second summit convened at Gbadolite at which Museveni, now chairman of the OAU, confirmed Mobutu as mediator. The chiefs of state authorized a military observer group of officers from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zaire, and the RPF to be established under OAU supervision.22
When the military observer group convened November 12–19 in Goma, Zaire, to draft the terms of a formal ceasefire, they touched the foundations of the conflict’s intractability. While it had agreed to dialogue with the Patriotic Front, the government of Rwanda would not accept that group as representative of the refugee community nor admit wholesale repatriation of refugee populations. The RPF on the other hand wanted full recognition as an opposite in the negotiations, as an internal armed force whose interests had to be accommodated.
By this time, the Rwandan government thought it had repulsed the invasion; many of the insurgents had fled back to Uganda, and the rest were scattered along the frontier trying to pull together under Major Kagame’s leadership. Neither side was particularly anxious to accommodate an international intervention and mediation. The OAU was not able to get the RPF and the Rwandan government to agree on terms of a ceasefire or on deployment of a military observer group. Mediation was instead being imposed by self-interested neighbors and patrons.
In a pattern that would be reiterated numerous times, this blockage led to military pressure from the RPF, which was countered by repression and ethnic violence abetted by the government. During the months of November and December, the Rwandan government pushed back RPF attacks along the Uganda-Rwanda border. In January 1991, the RPF returned to the attack along the northern border, briefly occupying the regional capital of Ruhengeri and freeing prisoners held in the local prison, including prominent political prisoners like former chief of security Theoneste Lizinde. In reprisal, the government, exercising state-of-emergency powers, arrested over eight thousand persons suspected of supporting the RPF. Attacks against Tutsi Bagogwe in the government heartland of Gisenyi/Ruhengeri area killed more than two hundred civilians.23
SUMMITS IN ZANZIBAR AND DAR ES SALAAM
Increased violence again drew in regional summitry. Meanwhile, President Habyarimana, having failed to stop repression at home, lost ground in regional discussions. On February 17, in a hurriedly convened mini-summit on Zanzibar between the presidents of Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda, Habyarimana at last accepted the principle of a ceasefire.
Two days later, at a regional summit on refugees at Dar es Salaam (Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zaire attending), Habyarimana agreed in principle to the right of refugee return, and neighboring chiefs of state covenanted to facilitate naturalization for refugees who wanted to stay put. Significantly, the Dar es Salaam Declaration thanked Mobutu for instituting dialogue and urged him to maintain the momentum of dialogue “between the Rwandan government and the armed opposition.” The declaration thus confirmed Mobutu as mediator and recognized the RPF without naming it as the opposite party in the conflict. The notion that Uganda was attacking Rwanda through its cohorts no longer held water with presidents of the region. With diplomatic optimism, the declaration held that dialogue would find “a solution to the problem facing the parties concerned.”24
FROM N’SELE TO GBADOLITE
In March 1991, as ceasefire talks began at N’sele, Zaire, President Habyarimana announced his intention to offer an amnesty for those who had taken up arms against the Rwandan government.25