United Nations High Commission for Refugees
(UNHCR)
UN
[2009 Jan] Ben Affleck, Rwanda, and Corporate Sustained Catastrophe by Keith Harmon Snow (part 1)
[2009 Jan] Ben Affleck, Rwanda, and Corporate Sustained Catastrophe by Keith Harmon Snow (Part 2)
[2009] Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the
Propaganda System by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
An investigation in July and August 1994, sponsored by the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to document Hutu massacres of Tutsis, found
instead massacres of Hutu civilians in RPF-controlled areas of Rwanda on the
order of 25,000-45,000. This finding led the UNHCR to take the extraordinary
step of blocking Hutu refugees from returning to Rwanda in order to protect
them. Prepared by Robert Gersony, the report, covered in the New York Times,
“concluded that there was ‘an unmistakable pattern of killings and persecutions’
by soldiers of the [RPF]…‘aimed at Hutu populations.’” But the Gersony report
“set off a bitter dispute within the world organization and led the Secretary
General to demand that the United Nations officials refrain from discussing it,”
in an effort to placate the RPF and, more importantly, its Western sponsors.
Officially, the report “does not exist” at the United Nations, and Gersony was
instructed never to discuss his findings (a ban he has largely respected).
A memorandum drafted in September
1994 for the eyes of Secretary of State Warren Christopher reported that the
UNHCR team “concluded that a pattern of killing had emerged” in Rwanda, the
“[RPF] and Tutsi civilian surrogates [killing] 10,000 or more Hutu civilians per
month, with the [RPF] accounting for 95% of the killing.” This memorandum added
that “the UNHR team speculated that the purpose of the killing was a campaign of
ethnic cleansing intended to clear certain areas in the south of Rwanda for
Tutsi habitation. The killings also served to reduce the population of Hutu
males and discouraged refugees from returning to claim their lands.” The added
significance of this campaign was that the south of Rwanda shares a border with
northern Burundi, where a majority Tutsi population long has dwelled.