United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

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UNAMIR / MINUAR
operation area Rwanda
German name United Nations Support Mission to Rwanda
English name United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
French name Mission des Nations unies pour l'assistance au Rwanda (MINUAR)
Spanish name Misión de Asistencia de las Naciones Unidas para Rwanda
Based on UN resolution 872 (October 5, 1993)
Other UN resolutions 929 (June 22 1994)
Type of mission Peacekeeping Mission
Beginning October 1993
The End March 1996
status completed
management Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh ( Cameroon )
November 1993 - June 1994
Shaharyar M. Khan ( Pakistan )
July 1994 - March 1996
Operating strength (max.) 2,217 soldiers , 331 unarmed military observers , around 60 police officers and civilian employees
Deaths 27
costs US $ 453.9 million (net)
Location of the operational area LocationRwanda.svg

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda , UNAMIR I and UNAMIR II for short (German support mission of the United Nations for Rwanda ) were two United Nations missions to implement the Arusha Agreement .

It is by far one of the greatest failures in the history of the UN peacekeeping mission , as it did not prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 despite previous warnings. In particular, the passive behavior, the restrictive mandate, the reduction in the number of deployments when the conflict broke out and the insufficient number of staff were criticized.

mandate

The mandate for UNAMIR I included in accordance with Resolution 872 (1993) of the UN Security Council

  • safeguarding the capital Kigali,
  • monitoring the peace agreement,
  • the establishment of a demilitarized zone and
  • monitoring the security situation in the country.

Surname

The suggestion for this name comes from the military chief of the mission, Major General Roméo Dallaire . Although the abbreviation UNAMIR was misinterpreted as “Mission in Rwanda ” in some public appearances by UN employees , Dallaire emphasized in his book Shake Hands with the Devil that this linguistic difference was important to him when he came up with a name.

Organization and commitment

The operation was led by the Peacekeeping Operations Department (DPKO) of the UN Secretariat . Head of this department at the time was Kofi Annan (also there: Iqbal Riza and Major General Maurice Baril).

The missions lasted from October 1993 to March 1996. During that time, the following people were UNAMIR leaders :

  • Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh (Cameroon): November 1993 to June 1994
  • Shaharyar M. Khan (Pakistan): July 1994 to March 1996

Heads of the UN troop contingent were:

To fulfill the mission, the heads of UNAMIR I originally (until April 1994) had 2,217 soldiers , 331 unarmed military observers (MILOB - Military Observer) and around 60 police officers and civilian employees at their disposal. This contingent was mainly used in the demilitarized zone and in the Rwandan capital Kigali to monitor the ceasefire. It became Bangladesh with 942 soldiers, Ghana with 843 soldiers and Belgium with 440 soldiers, the largest contingents. A total of 24 nations were involved, including Germany (see below). The Belgian military provided a major part of the contingent . This was a big problem, as extremist forces in Rwanda in particular saw them as a colonial army rather than a UN army.

After the unrest broke out in April 1994, UNAMIR II officially reduced the number of soldiers on site to 270.

During the entire mission, 27 UNAMIR members - 22 soldiers, three military observers, a police officer and a local worker - lost their lives.

history

Memorial in Kigali for the blue helmet soldiers killed as part of UNAMIR

It is occasionally seen as a mistake in the Arusha Peace Agreement that no statement was made about the future treatment of the Hutu elite then ruling (e.g. in the form of an amnesty). The political leadership of the Hutu hardliners could not be sure that they would not be punished after the change of power and held onto their power for as long as possible. It undermined the peace process, which intended to significantly curtail its power. Some of the Hutu extremists formed various militias such as the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi and operated the hate radio station Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).

UNAMIR was a peacekeeping mission under Chapter 6 of the United Nations Charter . In contrast to a Chapter 7 peace enforcement mission, such as in Somalia in 1993, it was a purely defensive operation. Nevertheless, the rules of engagement for this mission stipulated that in the event of crimes against humanity, armed violence could be used by the UN troops in order to prevent them.

When the mass murder began, the blue helmets were forbidden from any use of armed force by the DPKO. They were only allowed to defend themselves. The withdrawal of large troops made matters worse after ten Belgian blue helmets had been murdered in the first few days.

In the later course of the crisis, UN resolution 929 of June 22, 1994 (UNAMIR II) led to an intervention by a Chapter 7 mission, which was mainly made up of French troops and was known as Opération Turquoise . Their task was to prevent a possible humanitarian catastrophe. Since the French had previously made military advisors available to the government troops, conflicts arose with the RPF .

The mission, which was now called UNAMIR II because new contingents arrived, failed. Although the few survivors of the politicians involved in the transitional government were reintegrated into the political process and a new government was created with the political leader of the RPF Pasteur Bizimungu as president, equal treatment of all Rwandans remained an illusion for a long time. In addition, the UN troops could not prevent the genocide, which, depending on the estimate, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people fell victim.

Politicians in the Western world and in the UN avoided using the word genocide to describe the perpetrators' actions, instead speaking of acts of genocide or ethnic cleansing. This enabled them to bypass the UN rules that provide for immediate community intervention in the event of genocide.

German contingent for UNAMIR

From July 18 to December 31, 1994 the Bundeswehr Air Force also took part in the UN mission UNAMIR II with an airlift. 30 Air Force soldiers were deployed for this purpose, 80 operational flights with a Boeing 707 aircraft and 208 operational flights with two transport aircraft of the type Transall C-160 flew. The airlift from Nairobi (Kenya) and Johannesburg (South Africa) to Goma and Kigali served to supply Rwandan refugees with material, equipment and tents.

Furthermore, a total of 15 German police officers from Rhineland-Palatinate were deployed . These were used in the police component of UNAMIR, the CIVPOL (Civilian Police). The main task was to monitor the development of the peace process on police and humanitarian issues, for example the situation in the extremely overcrowded prisons. The fact that the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate was involved in this is a novelty and is justified by the fact that a close partnership (so-called grassroots partnership; for example a school in Rhineland-Palatinate specifically supports a certain school in Rwanda) between the State and Rwanda existed since 1983. The Rhineland-Palatinate officials were deployed in Rwanda from January 1995 to December 1995. During this time there were also massacres in the refugee camp of Kibeho in the south of Rwanda, in which around 5,000 people were killed.

literature

  • Roméo Dallaire : handshake with the devil. The global community's complicity in the genocide in Rwanda . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-86150-724-2 .
  • Roméo Dallaire: handshake with the devil. The global community's complicity in the genocide in Rwanda . zu Klampen !, Springe 2008, ISBN 978-3-86674-023-5 .
  • Roméo Dallaire: Shake Hands with the Devil. The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda . Arrow Books, London 2004, ISBN 0-09-947893-5 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Melvern, Linda: UNOMUR - UNAMIR I (English) . In: Koops, MacQueen, Tardy, Williams (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations . Oxford University Press, 2015.
  2. ↑ UNAMIR. Retrieved August 17, 2017 .