Yet, despite maladroit handling of issues, including dismissal of a hard-won agreement on a buffer zone, Minister Diria persisted. On the night of July 11, he kept delegations locked in discussions until fundamental agreement had finally been hammered out in the early morning hours. Technical framing from the Observer group, including the proposal of a “mixed commission” to oversee the peace process, contributed significantly to an early morning consensus. An agreement was in hand by July 12 and finally signed on July 13. Under its terms, a truce would take effect on July 19 with the full ceasefire to go into force on July 31. Political negotiations were to begin on August 10 and conclude no later than October 10 with the signing of a permanent peace treaty. Measures in the peace agreement were to be implemented by January 19, 1993.
The ceasefire agreement reestablished the Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG) made up of contingents from West and Southern Africa and officers from the contending parties. The group would verify and control the ceasefire and report violations to the OAU secretary general and a Joint Political Military Commission (JPMC). This mixed commission, which Observers had pressed on the negotiating parties, would be composed of five representatives each of the opposing parties, with the OAU, neighboring countries, Belgium, France, and the United States invited to participate as Observers. The JPMC would follow up implementation of the ceasefire and of the peace agreement, once it was signed. Its first session was held in Addis within a fortnight of the ceasefire agreement, another meeting convened in Addis on September 25–27, and two more met in Arusha on October 25–26 and December 22–23. In those early days, absent the expected deployment of the NMOG and given the tough jousting of political negotiations, the JPMC became guardian of the ceasefire and a channel of dialogue between parties.
Under Article V of the agreement, the signatories accepted political principles whose “modalities of implementation” were to be specified during subsequent negotiations:
• establishment of the rule of law on national unity, democracy, pluralism, and respect for human rights
• formation of a national army of government forces and those of the Rwandese Patriotic Front
• establishment of power sharing within a broad-based transitional government82
The United States, which had wondered if there would be a ceasefire worth supporting, now wanted to buttress the first realistic ceasefire document in the war’s nearly two-year history. In an official statement, the Department of State said it was “greatly encouraged” by the signing of the ceasefire agreement and gave credit to both parties, as well as to the government of Tanzania which hosted the negotiations, to the Organization of African Unity which would supervise the military observer group and to the government of France for its lead role in organizing the negotiations.83 The Department of State immediately dispatched letters of congratulations to President Habyarimana, RPF chairman Kanyarengwe, and the chief negotiators.84
Residual Issues
CONCESSIONS AND COMPROMISES
A quick look at the simple language of this brief agreement shows how much is granted by both sides. At the Paris meeting, the RPF urged dissolution of the current regime and the constitution of a new order in which the RPF would be a major partner. The Rwandan government wanted to preserve the 1991 constitution and to insert the RPF as a political party within the emerging democratic process. The ceasefire called for an “enlarged, broad-based” interim government, suggesting deeper changes in established institutions than the government might have wanted. The RPF wanted the “dissolution of the Rwandan army and its reconstitution as a new entity with full integration of RPF soldiers.” The Rwandan government was willing to accept only integration of select RPF officers. That the ceasefire formula called for “formation of a national army consisting of Government forces and those of the Rwandese Patriotic Front” implies that the RPF won the day on the military side.85
What is missing from the scope of the ceasefire principles is any mention of refugee return. After the June three-day, closed-door session in Paris, Foreign Minister Ngulinzira told Ambassador Davidow that there was still no real agreement on the refugee issue. The Rwandan government was prepared to permit the return of qualified professionals, but “a mass return of peasants without lengthy careful preparation would bring insurmountable problems.”86 At his news conference at the conclusion of the Paris meeting, Ngulinzira reaffirmed the Rwandan government commitment to the February 1991 Dar es Salaam Declaration on refugees. The Patriotic Front, however, did not want Rwandans’ right of return contravened by any schema, whether Rwandan government or international. That is one of the reasons they launched the war.87 Yet, the ceasefire agreement, other than mentioning the Dar es Salaam Declaration on refugees in its preamble, did not set forth the refugee issue as a matter of future negotiation.
PRESIDENTIAL HESITATION
There was as well a structural and political difference in this ceasefire negotiation. President Habyarimana or his cohorts had agreed to the two previous ceasefires. Despite the fact that one had been ineffective and the other nonexistent (to use the characterization of Foreign Minister Ngulinzira), the president had been engaged in the process. This time, the foreign minister, coming from an opposition party in the coalition government, negotiated the ceasefire. The agreed political agenda conceded ground that the Rwandan government had adamantly held on continuity of the government and on integration of forces. There was a question whether the president would accept the handiwork of the Rwandan government delegation.
Immediately following the ceasefire signing, President Habyarimana went off to Belgium. At his meeting with King Baudouin on July 20, Habyarimana seemed hesitant in his support for the ceasefire terms. But at his later meeting with Foreign Minister Claes, Habyarimana came out solidly in support of the ceasefire. What happened in between was that the US embassy tracked down the president in his hotel and delivered a letter from President Bush congratulating him on “his success in bringing Rwanda one step closer to peace.” Having read the letter, Habyarimana gave his “personal and unwavering commitment to continuing the peace process” and asked that that oral response be conveyed to the president.88 The Belgians saw the quick and unambiguous support of the United States for the ceasefire as the element that tilted the Rwandan president, publicly at least, in its favor.89 Whether the president would buy into subsequent negotiations carried out by the coalition government remained a problem to the very end.
MUSEVENI’S ROLE
Perhaps pivotal to the success of this ceasefire’s implementation was a new engagement by President Museveni. He had, heretofore, claimed innocence regarding the RPF incursion and had perfunctorily attended peacemaking summits. Now he called in the American chargé and told her that, although he “didn’t know what was happening in Rwanda” and in view of the fact that he was being held responsible, he had asked his people (the NRA) to find out who was responsible for the fighting in June. He also sent a message to the RPF informing them of his strong support for the ceasefire. The president took the occasion to complain that the French were arming the Rwandan army with a new long-range gun, which French instructors had fired at the RPF. Museveni’s positive support for the ceasefire, his apparent efforts to rein in the RPF, and his strong criticism of the French put the jinx on a joint French-US demarche to Museveni being proposed in the capitals. The chargé concluded, “This meeting would seem to make a joint French-U.S. demarche . . . superfluous.”90
NMOG IV
The text, mainly at the insistence of US technical advisors, contained a provision for establishment of a “neutral corridor” separating the two respective forces so as to facilitate monitoring of the ceasefire by the Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG). This monitoring group was not a new idea; the Gbadolite Summit, the N’sele ceasefire agreement, and the 1991 OAU Summit outlined a monitoring group in different iterations.
At the Arusha discussion, the parties decided to reconstitute the fifty-officer Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG) under direct OAU authority, giving it responsibility for verification and control of the ceasefire. The group was to be deployed on July 31, but the international community was not prepared to fund deployment of the force. Equipping of the NMOG was still