KIGALI’S REACTION
Back in Kigali, Rwandan political forces did not universally welcome the ceasefire. Some were suspicious of the sincerity of the RPF in entering into negotiations, believing that it might use negotiations as a blind to cover rearmament and an enhanced field position. Others wondered if Habyarimana’s trip to Europe was not a way of getting support for toning down provisions of the ceasefire. An insider from the Revolutionary National Movement for Development (MRND) said that many party stalwarts believed that the government had given away too much at the ceasefire talks. On his return from Europe, Habyarimana urged all Rwandans to support the agreement, and the president of the MRND accepted the principles of the agreement as long as they did not “call into question either the political system or the republican institutions already existing in the country.”
The nascent CDR, however, came out categorically against the ceasefire, denouncing the agreement point by point and claiming that all concessions had been on the Rwandan side, that Uganda should be party to the agreement (in line with the thesis that the RPF was a Ugandan front), that the RPF should not have parity with government either in negotiations or in the Joint Political Military Commission, and that the CDR should be accepted in the government and participate in the next negotiations. Its rhetoric heightened in subsequent weeks as CDR leaders called for the prime minister’s resignation and urged the creation of a new government that would protect Hutu interests.92
As a result of changes in internal administration, strife erupted between youth wings of the major parties.93 The MRND Interahamwe showed its strength and connections to the security apparatus as the youth corps barricaded traffic in and out of Kigali under the benign eye of the Kigali prefect, gendarmerie captain, and the prosecuting attorney. Although the purpose of the demonstration was to protest intimidation by other youth militia against MRND incumbents, the fact of interparty strife accentuated the divisions within Rwanda even as the government sought to organize a united front for political negotiations.94
CHANGED PERSPECTIVES
The two days of disjointed but intense negotiations that constituted the Arusha ceasefire talks changed the dynamics of the peace process in two ways. First, there was enough in the details of the agreement to offer promise of implementation through the Joint Political Military Commission, the Neutral Military Observer Group, and the Organization of African Unity’s clear mandate for oversight. Second, whatever their ultimate goals regarding control in the country, the two Rwanda parties did commit to the logic of peace built around discussions on the rule of law, military integration, and power sharing, and to a warrant searching for common ground in subsequent talks.
Meanwhile, the context of international intervention had changed. Mobutu, the mediator, held on to his title but was too busy parrying with the Zairean National Conference by this time to give much thought to Rwandan negotiations. Instead, OAU secretary general Salim Ahmed Salim presided over the talks, while Tanzanian foreign minister Diria “facilitated” the negotiations with a certain heavy-handed determination that finally won concessions and agreement. Finally, under the able leadership of Senegal’s ambassador Louis Pape Fall, the Observers gained cohesion as a group.
PERSISTENT PROBLEMS
For all the changed dynamics of the peace process, many things remained the same. The distance between the two parties was palpable in the tensions of the negotiations and in the rhetorical attacks of formal presentations. Both parties anchored their strategies in positions that seemed irreconcilable: radical change of Rwandan governing institutions on the one hand, or continuity and defense of those same structures on the other.95 The exiles carried in their conceptual baggage long years of participation in Museveni’s National Resistance Movement. The government brought thirty years of experience in governing or contesting for governance in Rwanda. The question was whether the parties—given their long, separate histories and contrary perspectives—would find common ground. The conflict that had settled into a stalemate now had a sustainable ceasefire, but was the crisis “ripe for resolution”?96
Lessons We Learned
The search for a durable ceasefire in Rwanda took over twenty-one months and involved states and organizations of the subregion, major partners, and international organizations. Lessons learned in this multi-stakeholder pursuit of peace include the following:
• Outbreaks of international violence are seldom predictable. Both President Habyarimana and President Museveni were playing on the world stage in New York when the Rwandese Patriotic Front attacked across their mutual border into Rwanda.
• Conflicts between states and insurgencies usually need outside intervention to bring both parties to the negotiating table. In Rwanda’s case, it took a high-level intervention by France backed by the United States at a meeting in Paris to set up the eventual framework of the Arusha talks.
• A willingness to talk comes out of a mutually hurting stalemate. Parties will stop the fighting and pursue peace only when they see a greater longterm advantage in political dialogue than in continued armed conflict.
• Along the path to a cessation of hostilities, return to fighting can be expected. Contenders will use violence to demonstrate their capacity to harm before engaging seriously in negotiation. In Rwanda, the government abetted ethnic violence, whereas the RPF used unexpected strikes against strategic targets.
• Failed attempts at a durable ceasefire have a certain utility. In Rwanda, identifying the parties, drawing out their commitment to negotiations and to peace, mobilizing international concern, and outlining the elements of a peace process all came out of aborted ceasefire negotiations.
• A carefully tailored agreement might not last if power holders are uncertain that the negotiation satisfies their interests. In the case of Rwanda, Habyarimana almost backed out of the ceasefire agreement until reassured by a presidential letter from the United States.
TWO
Law
In a ceasefire agreement hammered out in the early morning hours of July 12, 1992, the Rwandan government (GOR) and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) decided that political negotiations should include the “establishment of the rule of law that is based namely on national unity, democracy, pluralism, and respect for human rights.”1
International participants in the negotiations applauded the wisdom of this intention. After all, since ancient days, law has been linked to state founding, whereas in modern times, the rule of law has been seen as a fundamental building block of international peace and domestic tranquility. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) built its ethos on the notion that “societies based on the rule of law are prerequisites for . . . the lasting order of peace, security, justice, and cooperation.”2 Boutros-Ghali saw the rule of law as intrinsic to peacekeeping. “There is an obvious connection between the rule of law and the achievement of true peace and security in any new and stable political order.”3 Kofi Annan considered the rule of law and fair administration of justice as essential to the consolidation of peace in a postconflict situation.4 “A government of laws and not of men,” John Adams’s prescription for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has become a formulaic mantra of numerous governmental and nongovernmental agencies seeking to promote stability and order.5
This chapter will first review the issues confronted in negotiations on the rule of law. Since this was the first session of the political negotiations, I also look at the context of the policies and strategies being developed on both sides before considering the physical space across which the negotiations were conducted. For the international interveners buttressing the talks, the questions under debate took on curious twists of meaning, but the signing of the first protocol raised hopes for