In 1994, as the UNHCR and the U.S. Embassy in Kigali encouraged
Rwandan Hutu refugees to come back to Rwanda, reports of wide
scale massacres emanated out of the countryside. The UNHCR
appointed a team (led by Robert Gersony) to investigate. This
team was unique because it was the only team that was allowed to
travel freely though the country without RPA escorts. They
visited 41 communes and 9 refugee camps to collect evidence. In
his findings, Mr. Gersony states he believes that the RPA
committed genocide against Hutu in Kibungo, Butare, and parts of
Kigali and between early April to mid-September 1994, the RPF
killed between 25,000-45,000 Rwandans, both Hutu and Tutsi. At
times, Hutu prisoners were used as slave labor to dig the mass
graves and dump the bodies in.
The report was so damaging to the UNHCR, RPF and UNAMIR that UN
officials covered it up in October 1994, despite the fact UNHCR
officials on the ground (on the order of UNHCR head Ms. Sagato
Ogata) stopped encouraging Rwandan Hutu refugees to return to
Rwanda because of the killings, as reported in the New York
Times at the end of September. Mr. Gersony was instructed never
to talk about it publicly. The public would even be told in
later years that the report never existed. In her book "The
Turbulent Decade," Ms. Ogata describes Gersony "formalizing his
report for presentation to the commision of experts" on October
11, 1994. In his recent book on the Congo, Mr. Gerard Prunier
said Kofi Annan told then VP Kagame, the late Seth Sendashonga
(then Interior Minister), PM Faustin Twagiramungu, and President
Pasteur Bizimungu the UN would withhold the report to allow the
RPF government time to consolidate after providing them with a
copy of the report. The report made its way to the UN Commission
of Experts on Human Rights via then UN Secretary General
Boutros-Boutros Ghali. Mr. Gersony briefed the commission in
Geneva. However, they inexplicably basically dismissed the
report (pg. 15). Mr. Gersony later allegedly told Mr. Prunier
during a meeting with him that he had never written a "fully
developed version" of his findings because he knew they would
not be published. Instead, he had only "field notes" in
"documentary form." (pg. 466) When Alison des Forges made
several requests to the UN for the report, she was told the
report didn't exist.
The report was also potentially damaging to the United States, a
strong supporter of the new Rwandan government. As described by
Mr. Prunier in his book, then Undersecretary of State for Global
Affairs Timothy Wirth was given orders by the State Department
to discredit the report. Mr. Wirth travelled to Kigali and
several places in New York, spreading disinformation by
attacking Gersony's methodology and claiming it was a "Hutu
conspiracy." He also delivered carefully crafted propagandic
press statements. (pg. 31)
Though a physical report itself doesn't appear to exist, a cable
from Mr. Shaharyar Kahn to UN HQ in New York gives the findings
and is available below. Mr. Gersony and his team subjectively
concluded from the investigation that the RPA committed genocide
against the Hutu. The cable also shows Kofi Annan (then Under
Secretary General for Peacekeeping) and Mrs. Sagato Ogata, head
of the UNHCR, expressing their concerns if the report were to be
released publicly. According to Mr. Kahn, he and Mr. Annan later
concluded that RPA massacres did occur, but they were not
genocide, contradicting the findings of Mr. Gersony, a seasoned
investigator.
"By not publishing the Gersony report and other information
about RPF´s massacres, a blank cheque was issued to continue the
murders," said academic Rwandan expert Dr. Filip Reyntjens of
the University of Antwerp to Denmark newspaper "Information"
writer Gunnar Willum. Dr. Reyntjens went on to say in the
article of 28 June 1999, "Publication of the report would have
prevented the RPF to commit the massacre of over 200,000 Hutu
refugees in Zaire," says Reyntjens. "The RPF has used the
genocide to legitimate massacres on this civilian population.
The same way that Israel has used the holocaust to legitimate
attacks on the Palestinians," says Reyntjens.
According to the same article, then UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan summoned the Rwandese UN Ambassador in 1999 in order to
ask the Rwandese Government to soften its criticism of Annan in
connection with an internal UN enquiry of the UN Secretariat's
role in the genocide in 1994. The enquiry was carried out, as a
result of the newspaper Information´s disclosures in autumn 1996
that UN top officials received many warnings that genocide was
under way, which were all ignored.
The second cable is from Refugees International, who had a
station across the Tanzanian-Rwandan border. It describes in
detail some of the RPA massacres and served as input for the
Gersony Report.
Cable
1: (Gersony Cable)
Cable
2: (Refugees International)
Thanks to Canadian Barrister and ICTR defense counsel Mr. Chris
Black for providing these pdf documents. References to Mr.
Prunier's book do not necessarily constitute an endorsement of
his book