TOWARD A COALITION GOVERNMENT
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church sought to organize dialogue between the RPF and the Rwandan government. How many of these contacts were carried out informally, the record will not show. But by October 1991, one year after the RPF invasion, the church mediated a meeting in which the contending sides committed to common principles.34 The church also sought broader political representation within the government through the establishment of a government of national unity that encompassed newly revived political parties. By February 1992, this effort had evolved into a ten-person “Comité de contact” of leaders from the Catholic Episcopal Conference and the Rwandan Protestant Council and brought together party leadership to work out their differences and seek a common future in the establishment of a coalition government.35 In March, the church leaders met with RPF representatives, including Commissioner Pasteur Bizimungu, in Nairobi to determine the extent of the Front’s commitment to negotiations with a broad coalition government.36
Even as talks moved forward on a multiparty government, new parties were proliferating. Some were based on sectarian loyalties, like the Islamic Party or the Catholic Christian Democrat Party. Others reflected aspirations of personal leaders. A significant party, the Coalition for Democratic Renewal (CDR), was based on the ideology of Hutu ascendancy. Formed by a charismatic but erratic Hutu civil servant who fell out with Habyarimana, the CDR became a party committed to preserving or enhancing the institutional stature of the Hutu majority, which the party saw as being jeopardized by negotiations with the RPF. Based in the president’s homeland in northwest Rwanda, where Hutu chiefs had ruled in precolonial days, the CDR had links to the president through his wife’s family. The party was not, however, invited to the dialogue that led to the signing of an interparty protocol on March 13 with a view to forming a multiparty “government of transition.” After long negotiations with major party leaders, Habyarimana, on April 16, finally invited Dr. Dismas Nsengiyaremye, a leader of the MDR/Parmehutu party to head a new coalition government.37
THE UNITED STATES EXPANDS ITS ROLE
Political opening within Rwanda induced new international interest in resolving the conflict between the Rwandan government, now largely representative of internal political forces, and the Rwandese Patriotic Front, still harrying Rwandan government forces in the north. From the beginning, the United States had been concerned about the war in Rwanda. The foundations for US policy toward Rwanda were found in the inaugural address of George H. W. Bush and in his first State of the Union message, both of which emphasized democracy and human rights.38 Thus, US policy viewed the conflict in Rwanda in terms of its larger international dimensions, namely, regional insecurity, refugee burdens and challenges to democratic governance, and fundamental human rights. But in an area where it had no significant stake, the United States deferred to regional players and to European partners with keener interests. As Mobutu, then other regional leaders and the OAU, and finally France moved to bring the parties together, the United States took a watching brief and played behind the scenes.
At the Department of State, Assistant Secretary Herman Cohen regularly received intelligence reports of the ongoing efforts to establish peace in the region. On learning of the RPF attacks on Ruhengeri in January 1991, he contacted President Museveni of Uganda by phone to ask Ugandan help in preventing the incursions and stopping the fighting.39 The department then instructed ambassadors in Kampala and Kigali to proceed by urging Museveni to deny Uganda as a sanctuary for attacks on Rwanda and asking Habyarimana to accelerate national reconciliation within Rwanda, to intensify direct talks with the RPF, and vigorously to pursue a comprehensive refugee agreement. In addition to this bilateral approach, the United States tried to encourage a joint demarche with the European Community in order to have a common message from all Western donors to both Rwanda and Uganda. The European Community would agree only to a more modest parallel demarche, and even then it had to drag a reluctant Great Britain in its wake.40
In April 1991, Cohen convoked American ambassadors from the region to a meeting in Bujumbura. The chiefs of mission concluded that there were “no vital US interests at stake [in the regional crisis], either internationally or domestically.” With regard to Rwanda, they recommended that the United States not assume a leadership role but, “in coordination with EC colleagues, exert influence selectively to uphold U.S. interests.” They felt the United States should use the crisis to encourage movement on democracy and human rights interests, to tell the RPF that the United States supported its democracy and political equality goals, and to seek a durable solution to regional refugee problems. Following their deliberations, the assistant secretary articulated the fundamental US approach to the conflict in a news conference:
We believe that the protection of refugees who return to their homes should be ensured by a democratic political system that provides to every citizen equal rights and defends human rights.
We condemn any use of force to settle the problems of refugees and ask all governments in the region to prevent any use of their territory for military action against their neighbors.41
The assistant secretary went from that convocation to meet with President Museveni and with the Ugandan foreign minister, pressing the Ugandan government to interdict military supplies to the RPF and to move the RPF toward negotiations. Meanwhile, reports from the field outlined the distance between the two sides. In Kigali, US ambassador Robert Flaten reported that President Habyarimana was still blaming the war on Museveni and holding that “Museveni has not changed at all!” According to the president, political dialogue was possible if the RPF took its place as a party among other parties within a pluralistic environment. Automatic integration of RPF forces into the Rwandan army was totally unacceptable. The military observer group set up under terms of the N’sele Accord had not inspected RPF positions and did not appear truly neutral.42
In Kampala, the US chargé stated that the ceasefire was not holding, that artillery and small arms fire along the border occurred daily, and that a major escalation was eminent. Thousands of Ugandans were displaced by the war all along the border. According to credible reports, the RPA had taken over portions of Kisoro District in Uganda, and the National Resistance Army still connived with or acquiesced in RPA activity. During the lull in fighting, both sides had had the time to reorganize, train, and equip.43
After the June 1991 OAU Summit at Abuja put Nigerian president Babangida in the chairmanship and confirmed Zairean president Mobutu as mediator of the Rwandan dispute, the United States asked the OAU leadership to do the following:
• To request both sides to observe the ceasefire
• To mediate the GOR/RPF dialogue on an urgent basis
• To request that Museveni permit the OAU-sponsored military observer group (MOG) to operate in Uganda
• To reiterate to Museveni the need to deny the RPF operational support in Ugandan territory
• To urge Habyarimana to implement programs of democratization and national reconciliation44
Babangida proposed a mini-summit of heads of state in the Central/East African region. US ambassadors in the region were instructed to inform their host governments that the United States supported the OAU’s renewed efforts to mediate the conflict. That same demarche also inferred Belgian and French preference for African mediation.45 Having sought OAU leadership in resolving this conflict, the United States, nonetheless, pursued a bilateral initiative when Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Irvin Hicks met informally with representatives of the Rwandese Patriotic Front and the Rwandan government in Harare.
The US hope was that, without impinging on other mediation efforts, this meeting might help revive the peace process and “lead to an agreement on a cease fire and to the RPF’s participation in the democratic process.” That hope was quickly dashed in a spate of acrimonious charges. The government representative, Augustin Ndindilimana, said he had come to inform the participants that Rwandan government forces controlled all national territory, that pushing back against incursions from Uganda was permitted under ceasefire