Aid, armaments, and interference 3,400 characters by Eric Toussaint [Eric Toussaint works for the Campaign to Abolish Third World Debt (COCAD/CADTM) in Brussels.] This article is the introduction to the special feature on the Great Lakes crisis in the January issue of *International Viewpoint*. These materials are also being published in the December issue of our French monthly *Inprecor* and circulated on our (free) French-language listserv. Adam Novak IV/Inprecor ----------- Over the last two years, a large part of Western "humanitarian aid" supposedly destined for Rwandan refugees in Eastern Zaire has been used to buy arms for their butchers. The racist interhamwe militia and the remnants of the armed forces of Rwanda's deposed Habyarimana regime have used "aid" funds to prevent hundreds of thousands of refugees from returning to Rwanda. The refugee camps in Easter Zaire became a virtual dictatorship. The imperialist governments were well aware of all this. But Northern arms-dealers couldn't resist the opportunity to cut deals with local warlords, before, after and even during the genocide. In 1990, President Habyarimana accepted an International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment" plan for Rwanda. This plan, and related World Bank-imposed measures, hit the country's small (mainly Hutu) coffee producers particularly hard. The younger men flocked into the armed forces (which grew 400% between 1990 and 1994) and the inerhamwe militias. Their wages and weapons were paid for by money borrowed under the new international financing agreement which had destroyed the coffee-growers' livelihood. The result was a meticulously-planned genocide, which obliterated almost one million lives in three short months between April and July 1994. Today The World Bank and IMF expect the new regime in Rwanda to honour the debt run up to finance the genocide. The northern governments and financial institutions which closed their eyes to the preparation and realisation of the genocide demand the repayment of the money borrowed to buy the French, British and Belgian weapons with which the Tutsi population was slaughtered. The massive spontaneous return of Rwandan refugees from eastern Zaire has upset European and North American military strategy for the region. But there is no question of extending humanitarian aid to Rwanda unless the country accepts the stationing of foreign troops as well. Northern governments, France in particular, are extremely concerned about the de-stabilisation effect of this crisis on the Mobutu regime in Zaire. France has troops in place to ensure the old dictator can once again impose his corrupt regime on this vast, mineral-rich country. There are no simple solutions to Rwanda's problems. But here are a few common sense suggestions... * Open the books! We have the right to know the detailed truth about past and present "aid" which has benefited the genocidal butchers of the region. * The interhamwes and the remains of the Rwandan army should be disarmed. * Those suspected of genocide should be tried, in Rwanda. * No to any foreign military intervention! * Send the necessary humanitarian aid to the refugees, without the imposition of an expeditionary force. * International support for Rwandan efforts to re-insert the refugees, in the best possible conditions. * Cancel Rwanda's foreign debt, and the restrictive elements of the structural adjustment programme. * Establish an international programme for reparations to the families of the victims of genocide. The Northern governments and multi-lateral institutions which share responsibility for the slaughter should pay compensation to the people of Rwanda. * Support efforts in Zaire to topple the Mobutu regime. Expropriate the Mobutu clan's property abroad, and return these riches to the people of Zaire, from which they were plundered. ------------------------ TWO Business is business Western profiteers fuelled the genocide in Rwanda 2,700 characters Eric Toussaint Britain The genocide started on April 6th 1994. Eleven days later, Mil Tec Corporation delivered a shipment of Israeli ammunition to the Rwandan army. On May 3rd, they supplied the butchers with mortars and AK 47 rifles. On May 9th, Mil Tec delivered a further 2,500 AK 47's, 500,000 bullets and 2,000 60mm mortar shells, of Albanian origin. On may 17th, the United Nations decreed an arms embargo on the region. The following day Mil Tec supplied another cargo, this time including RP G7 rocket launchers. The last recorded Mil Tec shipment to the authors of the genocide was on July 13th, when another Albanian cargo was delivered, via the Zairian capital Kinshasa, to the town of Goma, at that time controlled by the French army. Belgium The former colonial power contributed to the slaughter through Fabrique Nationale de Herstal, a subsidiary of the French state-owned arms producer GIAT. Rwandan Hutu extremists hidden in the Kivu region of Eastern Zaire were the lucky recipients of 1,500 Chinese and Rumanian kalashnikov assault rifles, officially destined for Saudi Arabia. Belgian authorities covered the shipment with an export certificate for Saudi Arabia. Proof of the deal was uncovered when soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (APR) overran a position of soldiers of the former Rwandan army on Iwawa island, on lake Kivu. The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has so far refused to respond to a United Nations Commission enquiry about the motive for the delivery. France Evidence of France's military and diplomatic support for Rwanda's Hutu regime in the years leading up to the genocide is available from a range of sources. On May 5th, the part-nationalised SOFREMAS company quoted its price and conditions for the delivery of spare parts for the armoured personnel carriers of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). The letter was later discovered in the Mugunga refugee camp. In late May and early June, i.e. after the UN voted an embargo on arms deliveries, French suppliers landed artillery, machine guns, assault rifles and ammunition at Goma airport on at least five occasions. In each case, the customer was the genocidal Hutu regime. Jean-Claude Urbano, the French Consul in Goma, justified these deliveries as representing contracts signed with the Rwandan government before the embargo. Sources: (Britain) The Times, 18 November 96, (Belgium) UN Commission on arms deliveries to the belligerent parties, (France) Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, May 1995, Francois-Xavier Verschave in Rapport 1995 de l'Observatoire permanent de la cooperation francaise, published by Desclee de Brouwer, May 1995.