Shake Hands With the Devil (10 page)

Rwanda achieved independence in 1962, after a popular uprising slaughtered or drove out the Tutsi elite, and installed a Hutu-dominated government led by the charismatic Gregoire Kayibanda. Over the next decade, a series of violent pogroms further targeted the Tutsi population of Rwanda and many more fled to the neighbouring states of Uganda, Burundi and Zaire, where they led a precarious existence as stateless refugees.

In 1973, Major General Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, toppled Kayibanda in a
coup d'état
and began a twenty-year dictatorship. It led to a degree of stability in Rwanda that was envied in the volatile Great Lakes region. But the expulsion and persecution of the country's Tutsis sowed permanent seeds of discord. Slowly, the Tutsi diaspora became a force to be reckoned with. Fuelled by the continued oppression in Rwanda and harsh treatment at the hands of their reluctant host countries, the diaspora finally coalesced into the Rwandese Patriotic Front. A small but highly effective military and political movement, the
RPF
proved capable of engaging and defeating the French-backed Rwandese Government Forces (
RGF
). By 1991, the Rwandan government was
caught between an increasingly formidable rebel army and international pressure for democratic reform. President Habyarimana began the on-again, off-again negotiations that formed the basis for the peace talks then taking place in Arusha, Tanzania.

A few short weeks of snatching at whatever material that came our way was not about to make Africanists of either one of us.

Downtown Manhattan in mid-July was hot, and the streets were littered with tourists. It was not the best time of the year to be in New York, but the shimmering glass tower of the United Nations headquarters beckoned, and sometimes I had to pinch myself to realize I wasn't dreaming.

Like many first-timers at the
UN
, I was impressed by the grandeur of the chambers of the General Assembly and the Security Council. But I soon learned that the real work went on in a rabbit warren of offices that lay just out of sight of the general public. The drabbest and most cramped offices seemed to belong to the
DPKO
. Staff were working in dreadful conditions: desks squeezed together, phones jangling constantly, outdated computers crashing (in some cases, employees were still using typewriters), people often short of the most basic office supplies. Not to put too fine a point on it, the
DPKO
was essentially a thirty-sixth-floor sweatshop. Its sorely under-equipped state was possibly part of the image game that the
UN
plays in order to avoid the wrath of irresponsible media and the international political vultures who use any excuse to accuse it of “wasting” money. But I soon noticed that other
UN
agencies, such as the United Nations Childrens Fund (
UNICEF
) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (
UNHCR
), were not only better quartered but enjoyed a better quality of life all around.

Maurice Baril was a member of a triumvirate that led the
DPKO
. The other members were Kofi Annan, the under-secretary-general of peacekeeping, and Iqbal Riza, who was Annan's number two and essentially the chief of staff for the department. The appointment of Baril in June 1992 had been celebrated as a coup for Canada. But the task he had set himself—building the office into an effective military-strategic, as well as operational, headquarters—was a huge challenge. Critics
charged that the
DPKO
was staffed by a bunch of incompetent boobs who kept bankers' hours and disappeared when situations in the field came to a head. Canada's Major General Lewis MacKenzie, who had led the
UN
peacekeeping contingent in Sarajevo, had heaped scorn on the
DPKO
for its generally negative attitude toward those in the field, its lack of response to immediate needs, and the way its staff and leadership seemed to be consistently unavailable when urgent decisions had to be made. His criticisms had made headlines in Canada and most of the capitals in the world and had sunk morale in the
DPKO
.

Maurice set up an operations room that was now staffed around the clock by talented and dedicated young officers. He'd begged and borrowed most of them directly from the permanent missions and managed to get their home nations to cover their costs as well. He would pose his request simply: “Don't you think it would be an irresistible training opportunity to have one or two of your better qualified officers loaned to me during my buildup of
DPKO
headquarters?” Many nations responded immediately and positively out of a kind of enlightened self-interest. He also began “borrowing” officers from the field missions in order to bring their expertise back to New York, where he gave them responsibility for sorting out problems that missions were facing on the ground.

Among his enormously diverse staff, he had created an atmosphere of good humour, hard work and co-operation that was quite remarkable under the circumstances. The number of
UN
missions had nearly tripled in just a few years to seventeen. They now involved more than 80,000 personnel from over 60 contributing nations, with unimaginable logistics, training, ethical and equipment problems, and were all being commanded from an ad hoc, under-staffed and under-funded headquarters in New York. I remember waiting in Maurice's office one time while he was on the phone trying to link up some ancient M-48 tanks from one army with a battalion from another army that was sitting on the border of Croatia, in need not only of tanks but tank training and maintenance. On a second phone, he was keeping U.S. officials in Germany on the line to provide ammunition and spare parts for the tanks, and he still needed to figure out where the mechanic instructors would come from.

Maurice's overextended desk officers particularly admired the way he stickhandled around the clumsy bureaucratic
UN
procedures and protected his staff so they could actually do their work. What won him particular glory from them was that he did not seem intimidated by the all-powerful Americans; he could negotiate with them and wasn't afraid to go one-on-one in the corner if the interests of the
DPKO
were at stake. Maurice was definitely in his element, using his shy, self-deprecating humour to win over the crustiest
UN
time-servers. I had been warned by friends back home that working for the
UN
could be a nightmare, but seeing the genuine esteem that Maurice had won within the institution in just one year made me think that I would be able to handle it.

I was also tremendously impressed by Annan and Riza. Annan was gentle, soft-spoken and decent to the core. I found him to be genuinely, even religiously, dedicated to the founding principles of the
UN
and tireless in his efforts to save the organization from itself in these exceptionally troubled times, where conflict and humanitarian catastrophes, often linked, were breaking out around the world. We were not facing a new world order, as George Bush had declared two years earlier, but world disorder, with the destruction of human life in “peacetime” at an all-time high.

Riza wasn't as personable as his boss, but he read his interlocutors rapidly and could set the tone of any encounter. Tall, thin and intense, he did not suffer fools and at times did not hesitate to make you aware of that fact. His occasional intellectual arrogance was offset by his sound common sense and political sophistication.

The relationship between these two men lay at the core of the
DPKO
as I knew it, Annan very human and concerned, and Riza the cool, calculating master of ceremonies. Articulate, businesslike and direct, Riza made the place dance to their tune. Along with Baril, these two éminences grises seemed determined to force change on their watch and eradicate the stain of recent failures in Somalia and the Balkans.

There was talk of mounting a larger peacekeeping mission inside Rwanda itself but only in passing. Some people in the
DPKO
thought that a small and quick success story in Rwanda might inspire member nations to place increased confidence in the
UN
's peacekeeping efforts and be more generous with military and financial resources. The trouble
was, as I was bluntly told on a few occasions, no one but the French and possibly the Belgians had any interest in that part of the world. Where would the political will and resources come from? This, at least, was the party line from Hedi Annabi, the head of the Africa Section in the political division of the
DPKO
. Still, as far as I knew and as far as Brent could find out, the parties in Arusha were close to putting the final touches on the peace agreement. Once that was in place, either the
OAU
or the
UN
would be called upon to help implement it. Maurice doubted that the
OAU
had the expertise or the resources or even the desire to mount a full-fledged peacekeeping operation in Rwanda, and he was certain the
DPKO
would be asked to pick up the slack. But at that point, the only people motivated to spend any time on preliminary activity for such a mission to Rwanda were my very small team.

From my conversations with Maurice, I was gradually working out the elaborate power relationships that he had to deal with. The
DPKO
was definitely further down the
UN
totem pole than the Department of Political Affairs (
DPA
), under Dr. James Jonah from Sierra Leone. The
DPA
was a very political place, indeed, where many officers flaunted their connections, particularly with the secretary-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Maurice told me that one of the most difficult problems he and his colleagues faced was the
DPA
's constant interference and manoeuvring without consulting the
DPKO
political staff who were in direct contact with the mission in the field.

Maurice and I had become close during our battles with the Ottawa mandarins in the late eighties, and I thought I knew him well. However, New York had changed him in an almost indefinable way. His earthy good humour was still there, but he had begun to take on the coloration of his surroundings. He was becoming more cautious and more politically sensitive. For instance, he and his staff always dressed in civilian clothes. He told me that he had instituted this policy because uniforms made the civilian staff at the
UN
uncomfortable and created unnecessary friction. The new, more astute Maurice understood that to woo allies he had to become more flexible than his military background generally allowed. He tried to pass this knowledge on to me, and Brent and I also donned civilian clothes, albeit with great reluctance.

Maurice had become masterful at marrying political, diplomatic, humanitarian and military imperatives in an organization full of internecine friction. Had he become more cunning or had he just matured at the grand strategic level? He certainly had become very skilled and attentive to the political dimensions of the use of military force. With so many factors at play when he had to make decisions, how was his fighting edge affected? All I can say is that while he was still a close friend, he had acquired a polished side that field soldiers do not readily understand.

The Security Council of the
UN
had approved
UNOMUR
in June, but we couldn't do anything until the Ugandan government signed the status of mission agreement, or
SOMA
, which would allow our troops to operate within the country. Mozambique had stalled the signing of the
SOMA
for the peacekeeping mission currently operating there and, when the
UN
had sent peacekeepers without the signature, they were hit with a crippling series of taxes on soldiers and equipment as soon as the mission arrived on the ground. At the Security Council, the British were refusing to let my mission deploy before the
UN
had the signed
SOMA
in hand. Brent became quite adept at collecting corridor intelligence. Some people speculated that the Ugandans weren't signing because they were in a mad scramble to find alternate routes to supply the
RPF
, while others cynically thought it was a ploy to try and extract cash from the
UN
.

We had produced the bulk of the necessary paperwork for the mission, including operational documents that still had to be confirmed on the ground; we had pushed all the possible buttons. We hadn't been able to persuade the desk officers from the relevant departments to have a final coordination session on our mission; such a meeting was nearly impossible to organize because the culture of the
UN
was one of jealously guarded stovepipe fiefdoms where information was power (not the best way to run a complex, multi-national, multidisciplined and international organization that was always in the poorhouse).

Cooling our heels while waiting for the
SOMA
to be signed was wasting precious time. I had left my family high and dry to serve what I thought was a greater good. At very short notice, they had been forced to vacate the beautiful and spacious garrison commander's home and
move into married quarters in a historic building that had been built in 1804 and was not in the best of shape. Brent's wife, Marge, was pregnant with their third child and was going through some difficult days. Finally, I requested leave, which was immediately approved by Maurice.

On the way back home, I stopped in Ottawa for an administrative and intelligence update: the update was, there was no intelligence. Canada's defence department was unconvinced that the Great Lakes region of central Africa was a priority.

In Quebec City I found it hard to gear down and act as if the long separation facing me and my family was just another posting. On the surface we were the perfect military family: three happy kids and a loving wife and mother who, after twelve years of teaching, had chosen to pack up her chalk and her workbooks and devote her time to raising our children and making a home for us all. Underneath there was trouble. Willem, my eldest, was fourteen and having difficulty at school; he was constantly being baited by his pro-sovereignist teachers about his staunchly federalist father. I could see that he was angry, isolated and confused, but I didn't have the time or the patience to connect with him. I had had all kinds of time for the young officers I had guided, mentored and nurtured over the years, but I was unable to offer the same love and support to my own son. Instead, I dealt with the surface details of trying to get my family settled in our new home.