Peacekeeping, Regime Security and ‘African Solutions to African Problems’: exploring motivations for Rwanda's involvement in Darfur

Abstract

Rwanda is not a traditional provider of troops for peacekeeping missions, yet since 2004 it has been the second largest contributor to both the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) and its successor the hybrid African Union–UN Assistance Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). This paper analyses some of the key motives for Rwanda's contribution to these missions, situating its actions within a wider framework in which African states benefit in specific ways from being seen to contribute to ‘African solutions to African problems’. Highlighting changing narratives on Africa's role in international security, I argue that Rwanda's ruling party has been able use its involvement in peacekeeping to secure its position domestically and to attract or retain the support of key bilateral donors. I briefly explore the implications of these dynamics for Rwanda's political development, suggesting in conclusion that the focus on building military capacity for peacekeeping purposes may contribute to future African, and Rwandan, security problems as much as to potential solutions.

Notes

1 P Williams, Keeping the Peace in Africa: Why ‘African’ Solutions are not Enough, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, 2008, p 310.

2 S Klingebiel, ‘Africa's new peace and security architecture: converging the roles of external actors and African interests’, African Security Review, 14(2), 2005, p 40.

3 G Cleaver & R May, ‘Peacekeeping: the African dimension’, Review of African Political Economy, 22(66), 1995, p 485.

4 J Cilliers, ‘Peacekeeping, Africa and the emerging global security architecture’, African Security Review, 12(1), 2003, p 1.

5 US Department of State, ‘Military Assistance: International Military Education and Training, Foreign Military Financing, Peacekeeping Operations’, at http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/42247.pdf, p 213.

6 For further information on this changing security framework, including the perceived links between underdevelopment and insecurity, see M Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001; P Lyman & JS Morrison, ‘The terrorist threat in Africa’, Foreign Affairs, 83(1), 2004, pp 75–86; Cilliers, ‘Peacekeeping, Africa and the emerging global security architecture’; J Prendergast & C Thomas-Jensen, ‘Blowing the horn’, Foreign Affairs, 86(2), 2007, pp 59–74; and R Abrahamsen, ‘A breeding ground for terrorists? Africa & Britain's “war on terrorism”’, Review of African Political Economy, 31(102), 2004, pp 677–684.

7 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: White House, September 2002, p 11; and T Dagne, Africa and the War on Terrorism, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2002. The USA has also pursued this objective through its support for other military training programmes in Africa, including the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative and Pan Sahel Initiative. See S Ellis, ‘Briefing: the Pan-Sahel Initiative’, African Affairs, 103(412), 2004, pp 459–464.

8 Commission for Africa, Report of the Commission for Africa, London: Department for International Development (DFID), 2005, p 66. On the concerns around ungoverned spaces, see also Dagne, Africa and the War on Terrorism, pp 18–20; Lyman & Morrison, ‘The terrorist threat in Africa’; and ‘Africa and the war on terror: policing the ungoverned spaces’, The Economist, 14 June 2007, p 26.

9 UK Ministry of Defence, ‘Deployments in Africa: background information’, at http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/DeploymentsInAfricaBackgroundInformation.htm.

10 European Union, ‘Council Common Position 2005/304/CFSP of 12 April 2005 concerning conflict prevention, management and resolution in Africa and repealing common position 2004/85/CFSP’, Official Journal of the European Union, L97, 15 April 2005, p 57.

11 Ibid, p 59.

12 Cilliers, ‘Peacekeeping, Africa and the emerging global security architecture’.

13 J-F Bayart, ‘Africa in the world: a history of extraversion’, African Affairs, 99(395), 2000, pp 224–226

14 Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars, p 8.

15 S Browne, Aid and Influence: Do Donors Help or Hinder?, London: Earthscan, 2006, p 45.

16 On the process of selectivity with regard to good governance and other criteria, see C Santiso, ‘Good governance and aid effectiveness: the World Bank and conditionality’, Georgetown Public Policy Review, 7(1), 2001, pp 1–22; G Harrison, The World Bank and Africa: The Construction of Governance States, London: Routledge, 2004; and Browne, Aid and Influence.

17 Prendergast &Thomas-Jensen, ‘Blowing the horn’.

18 Personal communication, Mrs Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan State Minister for Co-operation, Rwandan Patriotic Front, Kigali, 2 February 2006.

19 In Article III, section 2, member states ‘declare and affirm their adherence to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of states’. O Umozurike, ‘The Domestic Jurisdiction Clause in the OAU Charter’, African Affairs, 78(311), 1979, pp 197–209.

20 W O'Neill & V Cassis, Protecting Two Million Internally Displaced: The Successes and Shortcomings of the African Union in Darfur, Brookings Institution/University of Bern Project on Internal Displacement Occasional Paper, November 2005, p 16.

21 N Grono, ‘Briefing: Darfur—the international community's failure to protect’, African Affairs, 105(421), 2006, p 626.

22 African Union, ‘Communiqué of the Seventeenth Meeting of the Peace and Security Council’, 20 October 2004.

23 Both Houses of the US Congress adopted resolutions describing the situation in Darfur as genocide on 22 July 2004.

24 Personal communication, Mrs Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan State Minister for Co-operation, Rwandan Patriotic Front, Kigali, 2 February 2006; Williams, Keeping the Peace in Africa, p 324; and BBC News Online, ‘Rwanda threatens Darfur pullout’, 14 March 2007, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6449319.stm.

25 US Department of State, ‘Press Statement: African Union to expand peacekeeping mission in Sudan’, 29 April 2005.

26 All figures on troop contributions taken from ‘UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations Monthly Summaries of Contributors of Military and Civilian Police Personnel’, at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/.

27 Williams, Keeping the Peace in Africa.

28 F Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, ten years on: from genocide to dictatorship’, African Affairs, 103(4), 2004, pp 177–210; ‘Disappearances, arrests, threats, intimidation and co-option of human rights defenders 2001–2004’, Frontline, 2005, at http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/files/en/FrontLineRwandaReport.pdf; and G Prunier, ‘The Great Lakes crisis’, Current History, 96(610), 1997, pp 193–199.

29 UK MOD Request Reference: PS 04-10-2006-141347-004.

30 Zaire was renamed DRC in May 1997 after President Joseph Desire Mobutu was ousted by Laurent Kabila.

31 P Verwimp & M Verpoorten, ‘“What are all the soldiers going to do?” Demobilisation, reintegration and employment in Rwanda’, Conflict, Security and Development, 4(1), 2004, pp 39–57.

32 K Fidler, ‘Ward leads Africa Command delegation to Rwanda’, US AFRICOM Public Affairs, 22 April 2009, at http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=2931.

33 CM Waugh, Paul Kagame and Rwanda: Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, London: McFarland, 2004; and W Cyrus Reed, ‘Guerrillas in the midst: the former government of Rwanda and the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo–Zaire in Eastern Zaire’, in C Clapham (ed), African Guerrillas, Oxford: James Currey, 1998, pp 134–155.

34 United Nations, Report on the Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Sources of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo, New York: United Nations, 2001.

35 B Barber, ‘Feeding refugees, or war?’, Foreign Affairs, 76(4), 1997, pp 8–14.

36 George Monbiot, ‘The victim's license’, Guardian, 13 April 2004.

37 Personal communication, Mrs Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan State Minister for Co-operation, Rwandan Patriotic Front. Kigali, 2 February 2006. This was confirmed by a UK Ministry of Defence representative, who also indicated that the UK would be supporting Rwanda in its downsizing, in discussions with the author in September 2009.

38 Author's interview with Judy Walker, Senior Social Development Advisor, DFID Rwanda, Kigali, 28 October 2005.

39 ‘US ambassador to Rwanda: political solution needed in Darfur’, Focus (Kigali), March 2006, p 6.

40 ‘Kagame extols RDF on discipline’, The New Times (Kigali), 30 September–2 October 2005, p 1.

41 ‘Sudan UN mission force set to leave’, The New Times, 21–22 November 2005, p 2.

42 Information provided under author's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request 4 October 2006. Report on BPST(ea) Visit to Rwanda 14–16 July 2004 (Ref: BPST G3/02/07).

43 The bulk of Rwanda's forces were removed under the Pretoria Agreement in 2003, although they have maintained influence through periodic incursions into Congo and through ties with sympathetic militia leaders in DRC. Joint operations have also been held involving Rwandan and Congolese troops from early 2009 to tackle Rwandan militia based in the eastern regions of DRC. See D Beswick, ‘The challenge of warlords to post conflict state building: the case of Laurent Nkunda in eastern DR Congo’, The Round Table, 98(402), 2009, pp 333–346.

44 Personal communication, Mrs Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan State Minister for Co-operation, Rwandan Patriotic Front. Kigali, 2 February 2006.

45 Ibid.

46 J Pottier, Reimagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p 151.

47 The USA has provided vital air transport to move the RDF to Darfur in order for it to carry out its duties with AMIS and later UNAMID, and provided assistance under ACOTA and the Excess Defence Articles programme. The UK has also provided training for the Rwandan military and police services prior to deployment as part of its more general relationship with the RDF.

48 Human Rights Watch, ‘Rwanda: observing the rules of war?’, Human Rights Watch, 13(8), 2001; and Amnesty International, ‘Rwanda: further information on fear for safety/possible “disappearance”/incommunicado detention’, 16 March 2004.

49 Information provided under author's FOIA Request, 4 October 2006 (email from UK Directorate of Overseas Military Activity–Africa [DOMAAF], August 2002).

50 Information provided under author's FOIA Request, 4 October 2006 (BPST (EA) PSO Module for Rwandan Officers, 15–19 November 2004. REF: BPST/G3/02/07).

51 FOIA Request, email from DOMAAF.

52 Author's interview with Judy Walker, Senior Social Development Advisor, DFID Rwanda, Kigali, 28 October 2005.

53 Ibid.

54 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Part IV.

55 D Beswick, ‘Managing dissent in a post-genocide environment: the challenge of political space in Rwanda’, Development and Change, 41(2), 2010, pp 225–251; ‘Disappearances, arrests, threats, intimidation and co-option of human rights defenders 2001–2004’; Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda ten years on; Christian Aid, It's Time To Open Up: Ten years after the Genocide a Christian Aid Report on Government Accountability, Human Rights and Freedom of Speech, London, March 2004; and E Jordaan, ‘Grist for the sceptic's mill: Rwanda and the African peer review mechanism’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 25(3), 2007, pp 339, 343–345.

56 Pottier, Reimagining Rwanda, p 202.

57 Author's interview with an international human rights observer, Kigali, March 2006; and Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda ten years on’.

58 See, for example, the following pieces in The New Times: ‘Regional stability an obligation—Gen Gatsinzi’, 3–4 March 2004, p 3; ‘Last AU–rdf batch to be airlifted to Darfur’, 30 September–2 October 2005, pp 1–2; ‘Kagame extols RDF on discipline’, 30 September–2 October 2005, p 1; ‘Sudan UN mission forces to leave’, 21–22 November 2005, p 1; and ‘Police hailed over Darfur mission’, 24–25 February 2006, p 3.

59 ‘US ambassador to Rwanda: political solution needed in Darfur’, Focus, March 2006, p 6.

60 Author's interview with the Kigali-based head of an NGO whose work is funded by European donors including the UK and Belgium, March 2006; and Pottier, Reimagining Rwanda, p 207.

61 Ibid, p 202.

62 HE President Paul Kagame, ‘First Annual Nelson Mandela Lecture at the Royal United Services Institute’, London, 18 September 2006, at http://www.rusi.org/events/ref:E44EC5DA215BFC/info:public/infoID:E450ECDBB49D83/. Kagame also spoke at Princeton University on 21 September 2006 and at the University of South Africa on 19 October 2006.

63 Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars; and Abrahamsen, ‘A breeding ground for terrorists?’.

64 F Reyntjens, ‘Briefing: the second Congo war: more than a re-make’, African Affairs, 98(391), 1999, pp 241–250.

65 Author's interview with Arne Strom, Counsellor for Development Co-operation to the Swedish Embassy in Rwanda, Kigali, 3 March 2006.

66 Klingebiel, ‘Africa's new peace and security architecture’, p 42.