Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Gone with a guilty conscience?

As a primary school novice in the mid-90s, you had to know the name Boutros Boutros-Ghali to pass one common question in Social Studies, although among the easiest, especially for kids that followed current affairs. Boutros died Tuesday, aged 93, most-likely with a guilty conscience. The Egyptian’s rise to the summit of international diplomacy becoming the first African to serve as Secretary General of the United Nations between 1992 and 1996 is largely attributed to his close French connections. It is also believed that those connections influenced his performance or lack of it while heading the UN and some writers have described Boutros-Ghali as ‘an old-fashioned diplomat who could accept nothing unless seen through the francophone prism.’ As an African, I’m naturally supposed to be proud of the continent’s high achievers, people like Boutros-Ghali and his immediate successor, the Ghanaian Koffi Annan. To a large extent, the same French factor that propelled Boutros-Ghali to the top also contributed to his downfall in 1996 when USA vetoed his appointment to a second term following his shambolic handling of developments in Rwanda that led to the 1994 Tutsi Genocide. The UN is blamed for failing to stop obvious plans to exterminate the Tutsi in Rwanda that eventually claimed over a million lives; that failure is linked to deliberate withholding of critical information from Rwanda by elements at the Secretariat that would have forced the Security Council to take firm action to avert calamity. Boutros-Ghali personally takes a fair amount of the blame for the UN’s failure in Rwanda because he by most accounts allowed himself to be blindly driven by his French handlers. Even before his appointment to the UN top job, as Egypt’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Boutros-Ghali was already deeply involved with Juvenal Habyarimana’s genocidal government. Linda Melvern’s book ‘Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwanda Genocide’ is a highly recommended account of how the UN, with a Secretary General that was firmly on the leash of the French politicians looked on as slaying grounds were prepared. Boutros-Ghali reportedly first visited Kigali in 1983 as Egypt’s then deputy foreign affairs minister; he was the one charged with all ‘high-level diplomatic traffic between his country and Rwanda. His second visit to Kigali was in 1988, five years later. It is also said that the fallen diplomat was a personal friend of President Habyarimana and in 1990, during his state visit to Cairo; Boutros-Ghali himself oversaw the delegation that accompanied the Rwandan President. A year earlier, in 1989, Boutros-Ghali had negotiated, with Casmir Bizimungu, Rwanda’s then Foreign Affairs Minister, a high-level co-operation agreement between the two countries which is also likely to have covered the arms deal in which Egypt would supply Rwanda weapons. The initial weapons’ deal was worth about US$6million as Kigali intensified efforts to arm militias in preparation for the massacres; Boutros-Ghali himself supervised the weapons’ transaction and transfer. However, as the Habyarimana regime stepped up its arming activities, Egypt reportedly supplied more weaponry worth over US$26 million, including thousands of mortar bombs, rocket launchers, grenades and guns used to kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. At the UN, Boutros-Ghali who held a doctorate in International Law from France will be remembered as an ‘up-front and confrontational Secretary General’ who couldn’t shy away from a public spat with his critics. In fact when confronted about his role in arming Rwanda’s genocidal government, he would defiantly retort back to his accusers arguing that it was part of his job description as foreign affairs minister to sell weapons on behalf of Egypt. Even with mounting evidence, Boutros-Ghali initially supported the French position claiming there was no genocide in Rwanda insisting it was a civil-war between the Hutu and Tutsi. It took several fights in the boardrooms of the UN headquarters in New York to have the Rwandan story finally conceded as a brutal Genocide. This April as Rwanda marks 22 years since the debacle, Boutros-Ghali’s body will have been long laid to his final resting place but his role and that of cronies will forever be felt with hurt in the hearts of survivors as they mourn relatives and friends that were mercilessly slaughtered. It is also a shame that instead of a celebratory obituary, I have to write this lampoon on a guy whose name helped me pass Social Studies with a distinction; unfortunately, that is the African tragedy. Two weeks ago, we discussed President Robert Mugabe’s call for reforms of the UN to give Africa more influence; but we should perhaps ask how people like Boutros-Ghali used their influence to Africa’s advantage while at the helm of the very institution that has failed us? Mr. Boutros-Ghali mostly served French interests at the UN at the expense of a continent he called home; he served them well that even when the Americans torpedoed him, France consoled him with a position of Secretary-General of La-Francophonie, an organization of French-speaking nations. On May 25, 1994 Boutros-Ghali told The New York Times, “Unfortunately, let us say with great humility, I failed. It is a scandal. I am the first one to say it.” May God judge him fairly… editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Gone with a guilty conscience?