Prelude to Genocide. David Rawson

the scenes on a more flexible and compromising approach. This was a negotiation in which both sides should take away something of value, not a “winner-take-all” scenario.

       Negotiating across the Divide

      On August 11, a multicentered government delegation and a highly focused RPF team gathered on either side of the negotiating forum under the eyes of international Observers and the guidance of Tanzanian foreign minister Diria as Facilitator.⁴³ Other than the distance across the room, there was not a lot separating the parties, or so it seemed. Though they spoke formally in English or French at plenary sessions and required documents in both languages, the parties were, in fact, of the same culture, speaking the same language, sharing the same history, and given to the same habits of life. Ethnic, regional, and physical stereotypes failed to explain their separation at the negotiating forum. Observers, even African neighbors, would have been hard-pressed to tell who belonged to which supposed ethnic group.

      More important, the parties had covenanted at the July ceasefire talks on the logic of peace: “the cessation of all hostilities for the purpose of dialogue and serious negotiations between the two parties.” They had agreed on the structure of that peace: “establishment of the rule of law; formation of a national army; and, establishment of power sharing within the framework of a broad-based transitional government.” What remained for the time allotted to political negotiations, from August 10 to October 10, was to work out the “modalities” of the interim order.⁴⁴

      It was not to be that simple. The parties came at those principles from very different perspectives. It was fundamentally a question of what kind of change was necessary to build the Rwanda of the future and who should control that change. Habyarimana and his cohorts in the MRND wanted to preserve the institutions of state, a political culture that still in large part reflected the ethos of the one-party state. They would accommodate enough change to end the war and to secure the presidential and MRND supremacy within the transitional order. In this regard, they were for quick elections, before the party grip on the hinterland eroded.

      The internal opposition wanted to use the democratic process and the threat of RPF arms to break down MRND power and circumscribe the president, to whose role each political leader no doubt aspired. The parties’ role in the political game, however, was determined by the 1991 constitution and the interparty protocol of March 13, 1992. The institutions and arrangements within those documents were intrinsic to their political survival. As the Rwandan political parties had agreed in developing a common position for the political negotiations, the government would, at the negotiating table, seek to preserve the democratic gains of the previous two years and negotiate within the framework of existing laws and institutions. As Foreign Minister Ngulinzira explained it to Kigali’s diplomatic corps, “The RPF must accept to integrate into the existing system and into the democratization process already underway in Rwanda.”⁴⁵

      The RPF, on the other hand, wanted revolutionary change. The constitution, the CND, the judiciary, appointments to the bureaucracy, and the pattern of local government all reflected the design and the power of the Habyarimana regime. Encamped on a small sliver of northern Rwanda, the RPA had repeatedly proved its capacity to move forward at will and to counter any effort to dislodge its positions. Observer states like France, which was training and supplying government forces, or Tanzania, which was the purportedly neutral Facilitator, recognized RPF military prowess.⁴⁶ The Front hoped to use its military capacities to force change and its political skills to win over the FDC to a radical remake of Rwandan polity. Thus, in spite of a common culture, a mutual commitment to peace, and an engagement in a diplomatic process of negotiation, the parties were deeply divided in perspective, purpose, and quest for power.

      LAY OF THE LAND

      The two contending parties were to gather at the old East African Community headquarters in Arusha along with the official Mediator of the ceasefire (Zaire), the Facilitator of the ceasefire talks (Tanzania), and the Convener of political negotiations (the Organization of African Unity, or OAU). Also present were representatives of the official Observer nations: Senegal (representing the chair of the OAU), Burundi, Uganda, France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States.