democracy.”52
The conclusions of the “specialists” convinced the director of Central African affairs, Ambassador Robert Pringle, to push for a higher US government profile in seeking peace for Rwanda, thus bringing into play the third reason for US engagement: high-level policy activism. Assistant Secretary Cohen convened a Policy Coordinating Committee on Rwanda and Burundi. The committee’s conclusions followed both the track set down in Bujumbura nearly a year before and the way forward envisioned by the panel of specialists: democratization and ethnic reconciliation through diplomatic pressure and program emphasis on these issues by USAID, USIS, and military assistance. The committee also concluded that “if a coalition government acceptable to the opposition is formed in Rwanda, we should urge the French to restart the GOR-RPF negotiations, offering to assist by urging the Ugandans to end their support for the insurgency and help bring the RPF to negotiate.”53
The African affairs “front office” quickly engaged to implement the new approach. Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Houdek visited Kampala in April right after the formation of a multiparty government in Kigali. He confronted Museveni with the outside world’s perception that the RPF was operating from Uganda: “A definition of sovereignty is that you control your own territory.” In Houdek’s view, the Rwanda/RPF conflict was igniting “ethnic tinderbox situations in Rwanda and Burundi.” The American envoy left Kampala with demurrals from the Ugandans and a plea from Rwandan ambassador Kanyarushoki that the United States get involved again in trying to bring the sides together.54
After Houdek’s visit to “test the winds,” Assistant Secretary Cohen followed up with a May visit to Kampala and Kigali. In Kampala, he heard an RPF plea for direct intervention in the peace process, the integration of RPF into the Rwandan army, guarantees of RPF safety, and internationally observed right of return for all refugees. From Museveni, he heard, but disputed, the usual demurrals about Ugandan complicity in the conflict. Cohen agreed to US participation (if all parties assented) as an observer in a French-led meeting to help along the democratic process and jump-start negotiations. He suggested the possibility of US technical assistance in setting forth the parameters of a viable ceasefire and in promoting democratization.55
The assistant secretary carried to Kigali assurances from the Patriotic Front that it was ready to negotiate and to work toward an observable ceasefire. Refugees should be able to return freely (a nonnegotiable demand) and the RPF should be integrated into the Rwandan Army. The RPF doubted, nonetheless, the capacity of the new Rwandan government to govern and to carry forward an effective negotiation. Museveni, for his part, was still insisting that the war was between the Rwandan government and the RPF. He continued to promise full citizenship to Rwandan refugees who did not want to return to their country and expected that most of them would want to remain in Uganda.56
Cohen proposed that the Rwandan and Ugandan governments negotiate a security pact that would “lock in” commitments of both sides to peace. The international community would guarantee such a “mutual security” agreement. Cohen found support for this notion within Ugandan leadership and from the foreign minister of Rwanda, but he met with initial resistance from President Habyarimana, who wanted to maintain the posture that Uganda was responsible for the RPF incursion. Cohen also suggested to his Rwandan hosts that the integration of armies and the demobilization of forces be linked and that the right of refugee return be included in an eventual peace agreement. He told the Rwandan government, as he had offered to the Patriotic Front, that the United States would be willing to participate as an observer in future negotiations and would provide US technical assistance in preparations for the talks, if all parties requested a US presence.57
The Rwandans welcomed a possible US participation as observer at negotiations with the Front. Minister of Foreign Affairs Boniface Ngulinzira told Cohen that Rwanda proposed a two-pronged strategy for resolving the war: political dialogue with the Rwandan Patriotic Front and normalization of relations with Uganda. It was significant to the diplomatic structure of the talks that the Rwandan government would no longer demand a mediating message carrier between the two parties but would seek “facilitation” of direct, face-to-face negotiations.58
As a follow-up to this approach, and after having checked with the French, Cohen had Ambassador Johnnie Carson in Uganda facilitate a face-to-face meeting between the Rwandan government and the RPF in Kampala. In late May, Foreign Minister Ngulinzira (accompanied by the interior minister and the minister for refugee affairs) traveled to Uganda to initiate talks with the RPF and with the Ugandan government. The talks, delayed a week by hesitations on both sides, were finally held on May 24.59 Ngulinzira later asserted that Cohen’s role had been indispensable in arranging the projected meeting.60
The French foreign ministry immediately followed up those talks with an invitation to the two parties to meet in Paris. The parties could set the agenda and determine the extent of French participation. The ministry also informed the parties that, in view of the recent visit made by Mr. Cohen in the region and the discussions he had there, France had invited the United States to be associated with the meeting.
To Arusha through Paris
As the Rwandan government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front prepared to meet each other again, this time in Paris, it was in the context of a dramatically changed peace process. For one, the conflict was lasting longer than either side had expected. The RPF had hoped for a quick victory and enthusiastic reception in 1990. Instead, it found a population that fled before it and a GOR military that eventually dealt it some losses. Initially, the Rwandan army thought they had won as the RPF forces withdrew to the mountains between Uganda and Rwanda. Yet a year and a half later, the sputtering confrontation of forces was taking on the characteristics of an intractable conflict.
Second, the internal situation within Rwanda had changed significantly as well. Since the incursion of October 1, 1990, the Habyarimana regime had released thousands imprisoned for suspected RPF sympathies, promulgated a new constitution allowing multiparty government, committed itself to the programmed return of refugees, offered amnesty to persons who had joined the RPF cause, and finally, after eight months of negotiations and an aborted first attempt, set up a multiparty coalition government to rule until the next elections. That government now included parties, such as the so-called Democratic Forces of Change, determined to replace the established regime through constitutional processes. The government’s position in any two-party talks was thus greatly complicated, and Habyarimana’s freedom of maneuver significantly limited.
For all of the changes on the political front, the war that impelled those changes had drawn to a stalemate. Despite a huge increase in recruitment and operational expense, the Rwandan government forces were not able to dislodge or push back RPF forces entrenched in the Virunga Mountains, or to protect front lines from lightning incursions. The RPF forces were not able, or not yet willing, to leave their mountain redoubts and advance southward.61 What united politicians of all stripes within Rwanda was a desire to end the war that had depopulated large parts of Rwanda’s fertile north, created over a million internally displaced persons, ruined the economy, and bankrupted the country.
Third, peacemaking had failed, whether under auspices of the Great Lakes Community and President Mobutu, the interventions of Tanzanian president Mwinyi, or the efforts of the Organization of African Unity. For all the presidential summitry, subregional and regional organizations had not been able to organize an international presence in Rwanda as a guarantor of the peace process. As Foreign Minister Ngulinzira was later to note, “Rwanda has had two unfortunate experiences with African observer forces, one ineffective, the other nonexistent.”62 The RPF and the government met and signed a ceasefire agreement at N’sele and amended it at Gbadolite, but these had not diminished hostile posturing or armed conflict along the border. By the admission of all sides, this “African” problem no longer admitted a purely “African” solution.
Finally, the position of donors had evolved.
