The bad and the ugly of the UN in the Great Lakes region

Rwanda’s severance of diplomatic relations with Belgium has triggered a debate about Belgium’s role in the current conflicts in Africa’s great lakes region. President Paul Kagame accused Belgium of sowing the seeds of division and waging an international hostile diplomatic campaign against Rwanda in favour of DR Congo. ALSO READ: Kagame warns Belgium against undermining Rwanda’s progress It is this accusation that raised people’s interest in different platforms especially on social media to start scrutinizing the role of Belgium in the region ever since colonial rule to present day. Proving moral and criminal responsibility of the state of Belgium in atrocities and conflicts that have happened in this region is not difficult, and it is not unprecedented for Belgium to adopt the old colonial strategy of divide and rule. However, what is worth investigating is the fact that there are actors who still believe that Belgium can be a neutral interlocutor in whatever that is happening in the great lakes region of Africa. This is interestingly shocking given the fact that Belgium’s human rights record in the region is well known. Otherwise, the idea that former colonial powers should speak on behalf of their former colonies is to maintain a skewed world order. ALSO READ: A historical timeline of Belgium's divisive politics in Rwanda Belgium’s impartiality is well documented. In this ongoing debate, several documents supporting this conclusion have been shared. One letter petitioning the United Nations written in 1959 by Abadahemuka, an association of Banyarwanda and Barundi residents of Uganda (T/PET.3/110 of 27 January 1960) was circulated in different social media chat groups. In that letter, petitioners argued the UN to “intervene and restore peace and order in the Trust territory of Rwanda.” One of the reasons for petitioning the UN was to bring to its attention the fact that Belgium could not be considered an impartial actor in what was happening. The petitioners’ description of what was happening in Rwanda in 1959 was that Belgians were directly and indirectly responsible for the troubles in nation. The petition provides evidence showing that in the Pre-European Rwanda, “the poor Batutsi and the poor Bahutu were treated alike as were the rich Bahutu and rich Batutsi.” It is the Belgians who laid the foundations for sectarian strife and, in the recent past, actually stirred and encouraged it. ALSO READ: Africa’s Berlin conference hangover: When European ambitions undermine African solutions The 1884-1885 Berlin Conference placed present-day Rwanda and Burundi under German East Africa. It is after the First World War that these two territories were assigned to Belgium, which had taken them from Germany in June 1916. The 1922 decision of the League of Nations, awarding Rwanda and Burundi to Belgium as a mandate was endorsed by the UN in a trusteeship agreement (A/l59/Bev.2) of December 12, 1946. This was the beginning of worst decisions of the United Nations/League of Nations. ALSO READ: Berlin Conference’s impact on EAC development 140 years after divide of Africa The Trusteeship Agreement was clear that the Administering Authority was doing so on behalf of the United Nations. Belgium was supposed “to co-operate fully with the General Assembly of the United Nations and with the Trusteeship Council in the discharge of all their functions.” However, despite numerous reports, Belgium unabatedly ruled Rwanda through a racialized system of governance. Belgian authorities introduced the infamous ethnic based identity cards to Rwanda, in the 1930s, that were to become one of the basis for the identification of the victims of the genocide against the Tutsi decades later. Planting the seeds of societal divisions was, in a way, contrary to the UN’s mission of promoting the well-being of people and “respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction.” Thus, the UN failed to properly undertake its supervisory role. Later, the United Nations watched as Belgium orchestrated the persecution of the Tutsi, in 1959 and the early 60s, in collaboration with Hutu extremists, using the Force Publique to massively drive a large section of the Rwandan Tutsi population out of the country. Established on the orders of Belgium’s King Leopold II, the Force Publique (French for Public Force) was the military of the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo from 1885 to 1960. It was especially heavily involved in atrocities in the Congo Free State. UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolutions on the question of the future of Ruanda-Urundi did not condemn all these atrocities. This precedent of lack of accountability planted a culture of impunity for systematic attacks against the Tutsi between 1962 and 1991. The UN’s list of bad and ugly decisions in the period leading to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda is endless. Rwandans witnessed a complicit criminal silence of the UN’s refusal to take action following the U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR)’s commander Gen (Rtd) Romeo Dallaire’s warnings to the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) that Hutu extremists were planning a campaign to exterminate the Tutsi. Instead of intervening, the UN chose to withdraw most of the UNAMIR contingents at the height of the genocide. The failure of UN contributing to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi is directly linked to the ongoing crisis in eastern DR Congo. The UN knows all too well that the decision of authorizing the infamous Operation Turquoise gave France, whose vested interests were clear, an opportunity to provide cover for génocidaires to settle and start regrouping in eastern DR Congo with the intention of returning to attack the new government in Rwanda. These génocidaires of 1994, presently known as FDLR, continue gaining support from international actors and successive governments in Kinshasa. ALSO READ: UN official echoes warning over risk factors for genocide, crimes against humanity in DR Congo The similar failures are being reproduced in eastern DR Congo. The UN has failed to contribute to the implementation of different peace agreements that have been signed, including the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO)’s failure to disarm armed groups. Lack of decisive action in addressing the sources of the conflict is, arguably, attributable to a pursuit of different interests and values by actors involved. Whereas Rwanda is concerned with the existential threat posed by FDLR, a genocidal militia which is integrated in the Congolese army, FARDC, international actors are more focused on the control of natural resources, preferring to ignore the security aspirations of communities living in and around those mining sites. These different actors have mobilized diverse communication strategies that deliberately simplify a complex situation and gives importance to their false narratives. ALSO READ: Belgian lawyer on why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires It is important to remind ourselves that disinformation may prolong the process of finding solutions, but it cannot change realities. As the saying goes, facts are stubborn things! For instance, disinformation cannot make all the different Congolese Tutsi communities in refugee camps disappear, nor can it prevent their children from aspiring to return back to their ancestral land. The more the UN participates in rhetorical coercion, the more it prolongs the suffering of Congolese people. In 1994, it is on record that different UN officials contributed to the genocide against the Tutsi, including Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the then Secretary-General of the UN. Today, we detect similar conducts at the UN, where some officials are engaged in manipulation of information to fit a certain narrative. The author is a senior lecturer at University of Rwanda’s School of Law.

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The bad and the ugly of the UN in the Great Lakes region