Opération Turquoise was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
military operation in
RwandaThe Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. Home to approaching 10 million people, Rwanda supports the densest population in continental Africa, most of whom...
in 1994 under the mandate of the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
On 6 April 1994 Rwandan President
Juvénal HabyarimanaJuvénal Habyarimana was President of the Republic of Rwanda from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year dictatorship he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi government...
and
BurundiBurundi , officially the Republic of Burundi, is a country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its size is just under 28,000 km² with an estimated population of...
an President
Cyprien NtaryamiraCyprien Ntaryamira , was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994....
were
assassinatedThe assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994 was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda...
, sparking the
Rwandan GenocideThe Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by Hutus under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 500,000...
. The
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
already had a
peacekeepingPeacekeeping, as defined by the United Nations, is "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace." It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....
force, the
United Nations Assistance Mission for RwandaThe United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda was a mission instituted by the United Nations to aid the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed August 4, 1993, which were meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996...
(UNAMIR), in
KigaliKigali, population 851,024 , is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is situated in the centre of the nation, and has been the economic, cultural, and transport hub of Rwanda since it became capital at independence in 1962. The main residence and offices of the President of Rwanda are located...
that had been tasked with observing that the
Arusha AccordsThe Arusha Accords were a set of five accords signed in Arusha, Tanzania on August 4, 1993, by the government of Rwanda and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front , under mediation, to end a three-year long Rwandan Civil War...
were being carried out. Following the start of the genocide and the deaths of several kidnapped Belgian soldiers,
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
withdrew its contribution to UNAMIR, which was commanded by
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
Roméo DallaireLieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, OC, CMM, GOQ, MSC, CD is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general...
; Dallaire was prohibited from involving the force in the protection of civilians.
Opération Turquoise was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
military operation in
RwandaThe Republic of Rwanda is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of east-central Africa, bordered by Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. Home to approaching 10 million people, Rwanda supports the densest population in continental Africa, most of whom...
in 1994 under the mandate of the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
Background
On 6 April 1994 Rwandan President
Juvénal HabyarimanaJuvénal Habyarimana was President of the Republic of Rwanda from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year dictatorship he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi government...
and
BurundiBurundi , officially the Republic of Burundi, is a country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its size is just under 28,000 km² with an estimated population of...
an President
Cyprien NtaryamiraCyprien Ntaryamira , was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994....
were
assassinatedThe assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of April 6, 1994 was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide. The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda...
, sparking the
Rwandan GenocideThe Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by Hutus under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on 6 April through mid-July, at least 500,000...
. The
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
already had a
peacekeepingPeacekeeping, as defined by the United Nations, is "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace." It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....
force, the
United Nations Assistance Mission for RwandaThe United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda was a mission instituted by the United Nations to aid the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed August 4, 1993, which were meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996...
(UNAMIR), in
KigaliKigali, population 851,024 , is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is situated in the centre of the nation, and has been the economic, cultural, and transport hub of Rwanda since it became capital at independence in 1962. The main residence and offices of the President of Rwanda are located...
that had been tasked with observing that the
Arusha AccordsThe Arusha Accords were a set of five accords signed in Arusha, Tanzania on August 4, 1993, by the government of Rwanda and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front , under mediation, to end a three-year long Rwandan Civil War...
were being carried out. Following the start of the genocide and the deaths of several kidnapped Belgian soldiers,
BelgiumThe Kingdom of Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters, as well as those of other major international organizations, including NATO...
withdrew its contribution to UNAMIR, which was commanded by
CanadianCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
Roméo DallaireLieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, OC, CMM, GOQ, MSC, CD is a Canadian senator, humanitarian, author and retired general...
; Dallaire was prohibited from involving the force in the protection of civilians. By late April, several of the nonpermanent members of the
United Nations Security CouncilThe United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
(UNSC) were trying to convince the major powers to agree to a UNAMIR II. As opposed to UNAMIR, which had a peacekeeping mandate under Chapter VI of the
U.N. CharterThe United Nations Charter is the treaty that forms and establishes the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the Herbst Theatre of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on June 26, 1945, by 50 of the 51 original...
, UNAMIR II would be authorised under
Chapter VIIChapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council's powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military and nonmilitary action to "restore international peace...
to enforce a peace.
The French had provided the
HutuThe Hutu are a Central African ethnic group, living mainly in Rwanda and Burundi.-Population statistics:Despite the 1972 Burundi Genocide where an estimated 100,000...
-dominated Habyarimana government with extensive military, and diplomatic support, including a military intervention to save the government during an offensive by the rebel
TutsiTutsi are one of three native peoples of the nations of Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa, the other two being the Twa and the Hutu.-Origins:...
-led
Rwandan Patriotic FrontThe Rwandan Patriotic Front abbreviated as RPF is the current ruling political party of Rwanda, led by President Paul Kagame...
(RPF) in 1990. Immediately after the genocide began, the RPF began
another offensiveThe Rwandan Civil War was a conflict within the Central African nation of Rwanda between the government of President Juvénal Habyarimana and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front...
to overthrow the genocidal government and steadily gained ground. By late June, the RPF controlled much of the country and was nearing a complete victory. RPF units carried out retributive attacks within areas they controlled, but they were not of the scale and organisation as those carried out in the genocide.
Implementation
On 18 June, the French government made an announcement of their intentions to organize, establish and maintain, a "safe zone", in the south-west of Rwanda. At the brink of defeat and retreat, the news of an intervention from their allies was broadcast across the country by the genocidaires, with a consequent increase in their confidence, and the continuation of their hunt for genocide survivors. The French said the objectives of Opération Turquoise were:
to maintain a presence pending the arrival of the expanded UNAMIR … The objectives assigned to that force would be the same ones assigned to UNAMIR by the Security Council, i.e. contributing to the security and protection of displaced personA displaced person is a person who has been forced to leave his or her native place, a phenomenon known as forced migration.- Origin of term :...
s, refugeeUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s and civilians in danger in Rwanda, by means, including the establishment and maintenance, where possible, of safe humanitarian areas.
On 20 June, France sent a draft resolution to the UNSC for authorization of Operation Turquoise under a two-month Chapter VII mandate. After two days of consultations and the personal approval of the
U.N. Secretary GeneralThe Secretary-General of the United Nations, acronym UNSYG, is the head of the Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations....
, it was adopted as UNSC resolution 929 (1994), on 22 June, with 10 votes of approval and five abstentions. The first contingents of the force of 2550 French troops and 500 African troops from
SenegalSenegal , officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. Senegal is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south, and it also encircles The Gambia on its three sides,...
,
Guinea-BissauThe Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in western Africa, and one of the smallest states in continental Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....
,
ChadChad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
,
MauritaniaMauritania , officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west, by Senegal on the southwest, by Mali on the east and southeast, by Algeria on the northeast, and by the Morocco-controlled Western Sahara on the northwest...
,
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
,
NigerNiger , officially the Republic of Niger is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
and the
Republic of the CongoThe Republic of the Congo , also known as Congo-Brazzaville or the Congo, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated...
entered Rwanda the next day. The equipment included 100 APCs, 10
helicopterA helicopter is an aircraft that is lifted and propelled by one or more horizontal rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades. Helicopters are classified as rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft to distinguish them from fixed-wing aircraft because the helicopter achieves lift with the...
s, a battery of 120 mm
mortarA mortar is a muzzle-loading indirect fire weapon that fires shells at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It typically has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber.- Function :...
s, 4
Jaguar fighter bombersThe SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet ground attack aircraft still in service with several export customers, notably the Indian Air Force and the Royal Air Force of Oman. It was among the first major Anglo-French military aircraft programs...
, 8
Mirage fightersThe Mirage III is a supersonic fighter aircraft designed in France by Dassault Aviation during the late 1950s, and manufactured both in France and a number of other countries. It was a successful fighter aircraft, being sold to many air forces around the world and remaining in production for over a...
, and reconnaissance aircraft.
There was an evacuation of the population westward, under the enforcement of the Hutu regime, now set to flee from the Tutsi rebels, after it had been made clear the French were only there to provide a "safe zone", rather than assistance in the conflict. Unfortunately, there were roadblocks and checkpoints along the way, and the Tutsis left alive, and even the Hutus without an ID card, were killed.
The area of French influence, known as
Zone Turquoise, within the
CyanguguCyangugu is a city and capital of the Rusizi district of West Province, Rwanda. The city lies at the southern end of Lake Kivu, and is contiguous with Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, but separated from it by the Ruzizi River...
-
KibuyeKibuye is a city in Karongi district, and the capital of West Province in Rwanda. The city lies on the eastern shore of Lake Kivu, about halfway down, and between Gisenyi and Cyangugu. It is known as a beach resort and is home to a genocide memorial marking the massacre of 90% of the town's Tutsi...
-
GikongoroGikongoro is a city in Nyamagabe district, South Province, Rwanda.Gikongoro was also one of the former twelve provinces of Rwanda and is situated in the southwest of the country. The former province had an area of some 2,146 square kilometers and its population was estimated at 467,300 prior to...
triangle, was spread across a fifth of the country. Although, it was ultimately meant to save lives and stop the mass killings, several killings did occur. When the Hutu government moved the radio transmitter for Radio Télévision Libre des Mille-Collines, a key tool in encouraging Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors, into the Zone Turquoise, the French did not seize it. The French did not detain those government officials that they knew had helped coordinate the genocide. When asked to explain that in the French parliament, the French foreign minister of the time argued that the UN mandate given to the French contained no authorization to investigate or arrest suspected war criminals. Regardless, French President
François MitterrandFrançois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand served as the President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the Socialist Party . First elected during the May 1981 presidential election, he became the first socialist President of the Fifth Republic and the first left-wing head of...
claimed that the Operation had saved "tens of thousands of lives".
The force left as the mandate of the operation expired on 21 August. The RPF immediately occupied the region, causing another refugee outflow.
Controversy
Opération Turquoise is controversial for two reasons: accusations that it was a failed attempt to prop up the genocidal Hutu regime and that its mandate undermined the UNAMIR.
The RPF, well aware that French assistance to the government had helped blunt their 1990 offensive, opposed the deployment of a French-led force. By early June, the RPF had managed to sweep through the eastern half of the country and move south and west, while besieging Kigali in the center. The advance resulted in a massive refugee outflow, though the Hutu government was also implicated in encouraging the flight. (
See Great Lakes refugee crisisThe Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu ethnics fleeing the...
) Regardless, the Zone Turquoise was created in the steadily shrinking areas not under RPF control. The RPF was one of many organisations that noted that the French initiative to safeguard the populace was occurring six weeks after it had become apparent mass killings were occurring in Rwanda. On 22 July, French Prime Minister
Edouard BalladurÉdouard Balladur is a French right-wing politician. He served as Prime Minister during the second "cohabitation", under François Mitterrand, from 29 March 1993 to 10 May 1995...
addressed the Security Council, stating that France had had a "moral duty" to act without delay and that "without swift action, the survival of an entire country was at stake and the stability of a region seriously compromised."
In May 2006, the Paris Court of Appeal accepted six courtsuits deposed by victims of the genocide to magistrate Brigitte Reynaud. The charges raised against the French army during Operation Turquoise from June to August 1994 are of "complicity of genocide and/or complicity of crimes against humanity." The victims allege that French soldiers engaged in Operation Turquoise helped Interahamwe militias in finding their victims, and have themselves carried out atrocities. The former Rwandan ambassador to France Jacques Bihozagara testified, "Operation Turquoise was aimed only at protecting genocide perpetrators, because the genocide continued even within the Turquoise zone." France has always denied any role in the killing.
UNAMIR Force Commander Dallaire had also opposed the deployment, having sent extensive communication back to U.N. Headquarters that the placement of two U.N.-authorised commands with different mandates and command structures into the same country was problematic. Dallaire was also a strong proponent of strengthening UNAMIR and transitioning it to a Chapter VII mandate, rather than introducing a new organisation. Concern over conflicting mandates led to five countries on the UNSC to abstain in the vote approving the force. The UN-sponsored "Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the UN during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda" found it "unfortunate that the resources committed by France and other countries to Operation Turquoise could not instead have been put at the disposal of UNAMIR II." On 21 June, Dallaire replaced 42 UNAMIR peacekeepers from Francophone Congo, Senegal and
TogoTogo is a country in West Africa bordering Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located...
with UN staff from
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
after the negative reaction of the RPF to Opération Turquoise. Over the two months of the mandate, there were confrontations, and risk of confrontations, between RPF and French-led units around the zone, during which UNAMIR was asked to convey messages between the two. The UN independent inquiry drily noted that this was "a role which must be considered awkward to say the least."
External links