Opération Turquoise

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Opération Turquoise was a French military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the United Nations.

1 Background
2 Establishment
3 Controversy
4 Notes and references
5 External links

[edit] Background

On 6 April 1994 Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated, sparking the Rwandan Genocide. The United Nations already had a peacekeeping force, known as UNAMIR, in Kigali that had been tasked with observing that the Arusha Accords were being carried out. Following the start of the genocide and the deaths of several kidnapped Belgian soldiers, Belgium withdrew its contribution to UNAMIR, which was commanded by Canadian Roméo Dallaire; Dallaire was enjoined from involving the force in the protection of civilians. By late April, several of the nonpermanent members of the United Nations Security Council (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. Charter, UNAMIR II would be authorized under Chapter VII to enforce a peace.

French relations with the Hutu regime carrying out the genocide had been warm and the French had intervened to support the government during an offensive by the rebel Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1990. Immediately after the genocide began, the RPF began an offensive 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 organization as those carried out in the genocide.

[edit] Establishment

In June 1994, the French government declared that they would set up a "safe zone" in the southwest of the country. The French described the objectives of Opération Turquoise as: 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 persons, refugees and civilians in danger in Rwanda, by means, including the establishment and maintenance, where possible, of safe humanitarian areas.^[1]

On 20 June, France introduced a draft resolution to the UNSC that authorized their plan under Chapter VII for a two-month mandate. After two days of consultations and the personal approval of the U.N. Secretary General, it was adopted as UNSC resolution 929 (1994) on 22 June with 10 votes of approval and five abstentions. The first of what would become a force of 2550 French and some 500 African troops from Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Mauritania, Egypt, Niger and the Republic of the Congo entered Rwanda the next day. The equipment included 100 armored personnel carriers, 10 helicopters, a battery of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, and 8 Mirage fighters and reconnaissance planes.^[2]

The resulting "safe zone" within the Cyangugu-Kibuye-Gikongoro triangle, known as the Zone Turquoise, comprised a fifth of the country.^[3] While the establishment of the zone saved lives and largely stopped the mass killing, several smaller scale Hutu operations to kill remaining Tutsis in the Zone Turqoise continued. 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. Nor did the French detain those government officials that they knew had helped coordinate the genocide. Regardless, French President François Mitterrand claimed that the Operation had saved "tens of thousands of lives".^[4]

The force left as the mandate of the operation expired on 21 August. The RPF immediately occupied the region, causing another refugee outflow.

[edit] 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 crisis) Regardless, the Zone Turquoise was created in the steadily shrinking areas not under RPF control. The RPF was one of many organizations 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 Balladur 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."^[3]

In 2006, Rwanda began a domestic tribunal to look into French complicity in the Rwandan Genocide. 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.^[5]

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.-authorized 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 organization. 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 Togo with UN staff from Kenya 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."^[1]