The General's Trial: More Dallaire X -- 5 December 2006
[Just outta the toaster--trippings to arrive directly]
THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR RWANDA
CASE NO.: ICTR-00-56-T THE PROSECUTOR
CHAMBER II OF THE TRIBUNAL
v.
AUGUSTIN NDINDILIYIMANA
FRANÇOIS-XAVIER NZUWONEMEYE
INNOCENT SAGAHUTU
AUGUSTIN BIZIMUNGU
TUESDAY, 5 DECEMBER 2006
(1300H)
CONTINUED TRIAL
Before the Judges:
Judge Joseph Asoka de Silva, Presiding
Judge Taghrid Hikmet
Judge Seon Ki Park
For the Registry:
Mr. Roger Noël Kouambo (Canada)
Mr. Issa Toure
Mr. Abraham Koshopa
For the Prosecution:
Mr. Ciré Aly Bâ
Mr. Segun Jegede
Mr. Moussa Sefon
Mr. Abubacarr Tambadou (Canada)
For the Accused Augustin Ndindiliyimana:
Mr. Christopher Black
For the Accused François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye:
Mr. Charles Taku
Mr. Hamuli Rety
For the Accused Innocent Sagahutu:
Mr. Fabien Segatwa
Mr. Seydou Doumbia
For the Accused Augustin Bizimungu:
Mr. Ronnie MacDonald
Court Reporters:
Ms. Leslie Todd
Ms. Kirstin McLean
Ms. Sithembiso Moyo
Ms. Sherri Knox
WITNESS
For the Prosecution:
ROMÉO DALLAIRE
Cross-examination by Mr. MacDonald 4
EXHIBITS
Exhibit No. D. 154 (Bizimungu) 7
Exhibit No. D. 155 (Bizimungu) 16
Exhibit No. D. 156 (Bizimungu) 18
Exhibit No. D. 157 (Bizimungu) 61
Exhibit No. D. 158 (Bizimungu) 63
Exhibit No. D. 159 (Bizimungu) 64
Exhibit No. D. 160 and D. 160A (Bizimungu) 72
P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. PRESIDENT:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The Court is in session. Please enter the appearances.
Yes, Prosecution?
MR. BÂ:
Mr. President, Your Honours, the Office of the Prosecutor is represented this afternoon by Mr. Moussa Sefon, legal -- Mr. Jegede; Madam Ellen, assistant in the Office of the Prosecutor; Mr. Minega, legal assistant. My name is Ciré Aly Bâ.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Defence, please.
MR. MACDONALD:
Good morning, Your Honours -- good afternoon. Ronnie McDonald for General Bizimungu, assisted by Mr. Etienne Mutibazi, legal assistant, and Sara Bowghanmi, legal intern.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Thank you.
MR. BLACK:
Good afternoon. Christopher Black for General Ndindiliyimana, with my assistant, Leopold Nsengiyumva. I'm sorry about the other day, but --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Your co-counsel has not informed that --
MR. BLACK:
No. I'm sorry. He left to go back to Belgium to work on the Defence case, and I understand he spoke to the registry about -- I wasn't aware of the order you gave until the weekend and he had already left, but I understand he spoke to the registry, I think Laura Westland, and it seemed to be okay.
MR. PRESIDENT:
(Inaudible) ... it is okay.
MR. TAKU:
Your Honours, Charles Taku for Major François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye. With me today is Ms. Coralie Colson, my legal assistant, and Tharcisse Gatarama, my legal assistant.
MR. SEGATWA:
Good afternoon, Mr. President, good afternoon, Your Honours. My name is Segatwa, Fabian, and I'm with co-counsel, Seydou Doumbia, representing the interests of Innocent Sagahutu. This afternoon, I have with me an investigator. Thank you.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, the registrar -- the three Accused have not come today. Have you informed them and what is their response?
MR. TOURE:
Thank you, Mr. President. Your instructions were followed. We contacted the accused persons in question, and they informed -- the information, with the exception of Françoise Nzuwonemeye, the three others stated that they were not going to be present. They believe that they are adequately represented by their counsel.
Thank you, Mr. President.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald.
MR. BLACK:
I'm sorry. Just briefly, I don't want to interrupt too long, just one minute. My instructions are to comment on something so that you can pass it along to Judge Møse as president of the Tribunal. We received a few days ago a press communiqué from the special government representative of Rwanda to the Tribunal about a press communiqué issued by the Association of Defence Lawyers here in which that spokesperson called us fanatics, French agents, professionally insane and asked for the Tribunal to have us all arrested for criminal slander against the Rwandan regime and any other crime that the Tribunal can think of. This is dated 22 November 2006. I would just like to ask you to note this and pass it on to President Møse that the spokesperson for the Rwandan government here should be either ejected from the Tribunal or reprimanded or that some action should be taken with the government of Rwanda to protest this out -- over attack on Defence counsel, which can only be taken as a threat, because it's a very serious thing to call us fanatics, French government agents and ask for our arrest. It is designed to intimidate us, to influence you, and, hopefully, you may take the same view that this spokesperson does, and it redounds to the prejudice of the clients. So I would ask you to use your good offices to take back to Judge Møse our protest and ask him if he could do something or say something to this man or to the Rwandan government rejecting this statement they put out.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, Counsel, I think -- I don't think that we should get involved in this. You have your association; you can have direct access to the President. Why should you want to get the Court involved in this?
MR. BLACK:
Well, my client instructed me to do both. We were going to issue another release about it but we also ask that the Judges pass that to Judge Møse and convey --
MR. PRESIDENT:
You can have a direct consultation with the President.
MR. BLACK:
All right. Thank you.
MR. SEGATWA:
Mr. President, this is just to get some information on when this session is coming to an end so that we can do our bookings. So when does this session end? Thank you, Mr. President.
MR. PRESIDENT:
I intend terminating the session on Thursday evening, and if you wish you can do it even before that. It all depends on how much time you take with the witness. So you have three more days, three full days between the two, and if you finish early, we can go early. Otherwise, we will go up to Thursday.
MR. BLACK:
Maybe I misunderstood. I thought we were going with Dallaire to the 8th.
MR. PRESIDENT:
The 7th. Yes, the 7th.
MR. BLACK:
I understood the 8th, because Mr. MacDonald is going to take up today -- how long are we sitting today?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Until eight.
MR. BLACK:
Till eight. So that's a full day. And then tomorrow, the same?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, the same. Three full days we have.
MR. BLACK:
Okay.
MR. MACDONALD:
Okay. Well, I was also expecting to go on the 8th -- until the 8th, Your Honour. May I enquire as to the reasons why we are not, or is that personal reasons, or is that due to, again, General Dallaire's agenda?
MR. PRESIDENT:
No. No. It is according to my agenda.
MR. MACDONALD:
It is your agenda?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes.
MR. MACDONALD:
Can't complain. So, does that mean that I -- I thought, Your Honour, that I was --
MR. PRESIDENT:
(Microphone not activated) ... tomorrow half day as well.
MR. MACDONALD:
Your Honour, could I ask you to instruct General Dallaire as we go along -- we all understand General Dallaire has a wide military culture and he likes to express it, and that's all to his honour, but given the fact that we have time constraints, could you, as we go along, instruct General Dallaire to perhaps give us short answers if he can?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes. And I will also tell you if you put short questions, you might get short answers.
MR. MACDONALD:
The problem is I have a 43-page outline, and I can't break it down to very, very short questions because I'm not going to get past five or six pages, so I'll have to --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Try to make it as short as possible so we can get short answers.
MR. MACDONALD:
I will, Your Honour. I will, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
And also keep in mind that these two stenographers are working from morning and we are to be a little considerate.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes. That is right.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, you may start.
ROMÉO DALLAIRE,
CROSS-EXAMINATION (continued)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, are you there?
A. Good morning.
Q. Good morning, General. General Dallaire, regarding the issue that we discussed last week, the last two weeks, regarding Agathe and more specifically legitimacy as someone acting or replacing the president, I submit that from the strict legal standpoint, the 1991 constitution of Rwanda provided in article 42, in the event of the death of the president, the chairman of the CND shall succeed him. Was that to your knowledge at the time of the events?
A. No, that was not.
Q. You knew, or at least you know it today, that the chairman of the CND at the time was that very person who was appointed interim president, acting president, on the 9th of April 1994, that is Sindikubwabo? Was this known to you at the time of the events?
MR. BLACK:
Excuse me. I'm sorry, General. The translation is coming across as president of CND, not MRND, so I think the translators made an error. They are talking about the president of the CND, but it is MRND.
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
For the record, Mr. President, Counsel did say CND.
MR. MACDONALD:
It is the president of the parliament who was Sindikubwabo at the time, and he was -- under the constitution, he was supposed to substitute the president, so I will stick with that: CND, of parliament.
THE WITNESS:
That point was never raised by any of the people at the meeting, either on the 6th or the 7th, nor on the 8th, by either Colonel Bagosora or anyone else.
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
There is an overlap. Can counsel wait until the French interpreter is through? We didn't hear counsel's question because there was an overlap with the French booth. If counsel wants to repeat it.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald, you can repeat the question. The interpreters did not get it.
MR. MACDONALD:
Certainly.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, that information which I have just put to you, to the effect that the president of the CND was the president who succeeded the president of the republic, that is, Sindikubwabo, I understand that's not your knowledge following the events; is that correct?
A. That possibility was never raised at any time on the 6th, 7th or 8th by anyone in any shape or form, to my attention.
Q. At least in your presence.
A. Well, it would have been smart to raise it in my presence. Seeing as though I was raising the question of who was running and how they were going to hand over to the political structures, it would have been smart to tell me that from the start.
Q. Still looking at it from a strictly legal standpoint, was it to your knowledge or within your knowledge on the 6th, 7th of April that the Arusha Accords, more specifically its article 47, provided that in the event of the death of the president, that the MRND will submit two names to the national assembly for this body to appoint a successor to the president? Was this information within your knowledge on the 6th or 7th of April?
A. I don't recall that being raised, nor by my staff or myself at that point. I was working purely on the knowledge of a political system in which I am familiar with, which meant the prime-minister designate, who would -- correction, not the prime minister -- that Prime Minister Agathe would have been the logical or normal political person to continue to take on the responsibilities of the government.
Q. Still on the dates of the 6th, 7 and even 8 and 9 of April 1994, did you seek an opinion from the legal department of the United Nations so as to know what the position was with regard to the legal successor to President Habyarimana? Did you take any such measures?
A. The only measures I took was to confer with my political leader, which was the representative of the secretary general, whose responsibility was to guide me in all political matters, if I had so a duty to accomplish, and that point was never raised by him, nor raised by anyone else at that time.
Q. Are you aware, yes or no, if the special representative of the United Nations secretary general sought opinion of the legal department of the United Nations? I just want a "yes" or "no" answer.
A. No, I have absolutely no knowledge of any communications of that nature.
Q. Thank you, General. Now, if we should go beyond the strictly legal dimension of the issue, was it to your knowledge -- was it known to you that Madam Agathe had problems during the periods of April, March 1994 with the various MRND ministers? And, more specifically, that Madam Agathe had herself demobilised to convene the council of ministers? And I refer to a letter dated 28th March 1994, which is addressed to the prime minister with 13 signatures who were ministers who deplore -- who deplore the prime minister's insistence on not convening the council of ministers' meeting?
A. My recollection of the information that I know of the workings of the government was from conversations from her and the political staff of the mission, indicating that she had on several occasions as of January onward attempted to bring together her cabinet. And that the MRND ministers were refusing to attend. This was confirmed in conversations directly with her in February, and I know of no change to that situation up until the 6th.
Q. It is my impression that she was not very honest with you, because in that letter of March 1994, the various ministers deplored her obstinance in not convening the council of ministers on account of the fact that the last one was convened on the 24th of February 1994, and the letter is dated the 24th March, and if various ministers were trying to get Madam Agathe to convene a council of ministers' meeting, it is because she seemed to have appeared -- she seemed to have refused to convene one.
MR. MACDONALD:
But you have it under 232, so I would like to introduce this. I think Mr. Bâ has a copy of that. And that, as you will note, on the left-hand corner has been introduced in the Bagosora case by the Defence team. So I would like to introduce it as a P.
MR. PRESIDENT:
What is the marking --
MR. MACDONALD:
As a "D." I'm sorry.
MR. PRESIDENT:
D --
MR. BÂ:
Would that be document number 32?
MR. MACDONALD:
Given the fact -- again, time constraints, we are always under the impression that we are double parked when we are examining in this room, is it possible to have these documents deposited at the end of General Dallaire's cross-examination?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, but we have to give it a marking immediately.
MR. MACDONALD:
Oh, you have to. Okay.
MR. PRESIDENT:
So this is marked as D. 154, the letter dated --
MR. MACDONALD:
The 28th of March 1994.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Bearing what number?
MR. MACDONALD:
Bearing no number, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay.
MR. MACDONALD:
We don't have a K-number.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay. It doesn't matter.
MR. MACDONALD:
Okay. Thank you.
(Exhibit No. D. 154 (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, I put it to you, as was the case in Military I when you were testifying that the Belgian Professor Rentjens refers to the meeting of soldiers that purportedly was held at Agathe's residence on the 4th of April 1994 with a view to fomenting a coup d'état, the question was put to you on the 22nd of January, page 76, would that rumour of an attempted coup d'état have come to your attention, that is, in the days following the 4th of April 1994?
A. I have no recollection of that information at that time.
Q. Now, General, could you tell us what your purpose was when you called on Agathe to speak to the people? That is, in the night of the 6th to the 7th of April, what was the purpose of that exercise?
A. Well, repeating myself from already that question last week, my purpose was, in my estimation, she had previously spoken to the population over the radio when things were quite tense in February. She, in my opinion, was the head or the political head of the government that was remaining, and that her voice over the radio would provide a calming effect on the population, a reassurance to the population, and that is what I recommended to the SRSG who agreed with that.
Q. But how could you entertain that kind of hope, General, when you know -- and I agree with you that Madam Agathe had already spoken to the people in February following the assassination of Gatabazi and Bucyana of the CDR -- you would remember that following those murders at that time, the country was plunged into turmoil, and that Madam Agathe's statement did not change anything at all -- would you agree with that -- at least in the short term?
A. Her not changing anything because -- we have absolutely no proof of that, her not changing, her participation, our presence, anybody else who was on the net, even the minister of defence, with establishing the curfew, all were instruments in attempting to bring a certain semblance of order back and reduce the tension, so she was part of a process.
Q. I do understand. But, General, what I'm seeking to obtain from you is whether you agree that following Madam Agathe's statement to the people in February 1994 that nothing, absolutely nothing, changed? In spite of her statement, the killings and the demonstrations continued, at least in the short term, that is, two, three, four days after she made the statement. Would you agree with that? You see, in Military I, you say --
A. I --
Q. Go ahead, General. I'm sorry.
A. I respond the same way I just did. She was part of the overall process to bring calm and assess -- she was not at the time -- it seemed to me, a reasonable process, it is one that I'm familiar with or would expect, and so that is why I simply suggested that. If that was not correct, then, you know, I would stand to be corrected by the SRSG and something else would have been done.
Q. General, without questioning the fact that as prime minister, Agathe could have, in her own right, spoken to the people or not, would you -- wouldn't you think that her previous statement was already an indication that Madam Agathe didn't have any following under those circumstances? I do understand your motives, I do understand when you say that you insisted on getting her to speak over radio, but there was a president, General, which indeed should have pointed to you that people who were not attentive to her, that she had no authority over the people. It is in this regard that I wonder about the relevance of your approach or legitimacy, as it were, of your approach.
A. My decision was done in good faith in regards to the possibility of resolving tensions at the time. I was told that by the military personnel there that she had no following in their opinion and no authority. They at no time offered any other option in resolving or in presenting an alternative to that, nor did they even introduce the fact that, "Hey, she is not even in the right stream of command or of legitimate authority; the president of the CND is." That was never raised, and had that been raised, we would have been in a different scenario. So in that ignorance, I pursued what I thought was reasonable, as I suspect the SRSG did the same thing.
Q. I disagree entirely with you, because there is clear evidence to the fact that the position taken on the night of the 6th to the 7th of April was one of waiting for the interim government to be put in place and then calling on the leader of that interim government to speak to the people. That was the situation, and it was clearly pointed out to you, isn't it?
A. That is absolutely false. Nothing of that nature was either -- was raised with me at all. And that didn't even appear until the 8th and, let alone, until the government was nominated on the 9th. That night if they had indicated that they are contacting and they are in contact with the president of the CND, who is the legitimate authority, we would have been in a totally different exercise. They never even hinted at that possibility, nor did they throughout the whole day of the 7th. And if Madam Agathe was so ineffective, then why were they so absolutely reticent in her getting on to the radio station and ultimately why was she killed?
Q. With all due respect, General, you seem to be mixing up things here. Did you take down any notes at that meeting, either at the general command headquarters on the night of the 6th or on the 7th, General? Would you have any personal notes of those meetings or those meetings?
A. No.
Q. I, therefore, understand that you are testifying from your best recollection of the events. Is it so?
A. Yes. Yes, and also my assistant who was with me, he did take notes.
Q. To wrap up on that point, I believe that either when you were being led in chief or in cross-examination, you stated that Mr. Higiro, the director of ORINFOR, had had discussions with you that night, that is, the night of the 6th to the 7th, and I believe that you may have had one, two or three conversations with him, but ultimately what Mr. Higiro told you was that your suggestion to take Agathe to the radio house was rather dangerous. That was his opinion. Would you agree with that?
A. I do not remember the name of the individual. All I know is he was the director of the radio station. In my first conversation with him, he was in agreement that Madam Agathe could come to the station. And in my second conversation with him, he indicated that she could not come because the Presidential Guard was there and would prevent her from coming and he was fearful of, in fact, permitting her to come and fearful for his own life. I asked him if we could then do a phone patch through -- from her phone through to the radio station, and he even refused that. Then I subsequently called RTLM to see if she could go on that radio station, and they laughed and said absolutely not.
Q. Who did you talk to at RTLM?
A. I have no recollection of who the individual was. He seemed a person in authority, but I don't know who I -- I asked for the manager, so I don't know who I actually got.
Q. Finally, General, wouldn't it be correct to say that you were personally -- and, please, this is not an attack -- that you were personally blamed by the Belgian commission for having demonstrated some lack of caution with respect to the escort that should have been extended to Madam Agathe. Would you agree with that?
A. I don't agree in any way, shape or form with that. I conducted what I considered to be a responsible decision, and the troops acted accordingly.
Q. General, my question does not seek to know what your opinion is, but rather the opinion of the Belgian commission, which ascribes some measure of negligence to you in respect of Agathe's death.
A. So what? I didn't read their whole commission, so I don't see what the point is.
Q. The point is that it was one of the first commissions set up to investigate the events in Rwanda, and that commission met over several weeks, Colonel Marchal and several others of your colleagues were heard by that commission, Judge Bruguière of the Paris high court also drew inspiration from the testimonies before that commission, to come to the conclusion that there was some measure of responsibility there -- there was clearly responsibility on Kagame and the RPF in the matter of the assassination of the president. Are you saying, General, that you did not read those parts of the Belgian commission report as well, and are you saying that today or prior to this day nobody has ever mentioned to you that you have been mentioned as one of those responsible for -- or you have been referred to as one of those who did not uphold fully their responsibilities in respect of providing full protection to Agathe?
A. No, and don't put words in my mouth, Counsel. I read portions of it; I didn't read every page of it. I'm aware of their general conclusions on my performance, and that is their conclusions, and that's that.
Q. Okay. General, I would now like to deal with the issue of the Interahamwe in respect of your testimony-in-chief on the 21st of December, page 41 and 54 -- or, rather, page 35. At page 40, you state that you were present at a meeting which you say was held on the 1st of May 1994. In summary and in order to move on quickly, you make reference in your testimony to a first meeting and a second meeting with the Interahamwe. That would be on page 42. The Prosecutor, Counsel Bâ, put the following question to you: "Who organised the meeting of 1 May?" And your answer, in general terms, was that all your contacts with the Interahamwe were made by your staff; that is what you say generally, that it was your staff which contacted some individuals to arrange those various meetings. Would that be correct?
A. No, my staff arranged meetings for me with whoever, and in order for me to meet the Interahamwe, it was always done by either Colonel Bagosora or General Bizimungu, and it was through them that we established contacts with the Interahamwe. I did not have, nor did my staff have, direct contact in regards of those meetings -- I mean, my personal staff with the Interahamwe.
Q. Wouldn't it be correct to say, General Dallaire, that all contacts or attempts to contact with -- to communicate with government or military officials at that time were facilitated by Colonel Rwabalinda who had been designated as the liaison officer between the government and UNAMIR? If that were the case, as indicated on pages 40, 41, 42, that the contacts were made in order to meet the Interahamwe, I put it to you that the person who facilitated those contacts was Rwabalinda; is that correct?
A. The liaison officers to my headquarters are extensions of my staff, and Ephrem was our normal contact with all matters regarding the government, be they the military, the gendarmerie or meeting with the minister, and that was our conduit that was normally taken, unless we were not able to reach him or for some reason he wasn't available, then my staff would go directly.
Q. General, would you kindly tell the Court in respect of that meeting of the 1st of May, and provide as much detail and as precisely as possible on the manner on which those arrangements were made and who made those arrangements.
A. It is my recollection that I met with General Bizimungu that morning, and we discussed the meeting with the Interahamwe, and specifically him saying he was getting them or whether it was Bizimungu, I honestly cannot recall specifically who actually was mandated at that moment to establish the link with the Interahamwe.
Q. You mentioned General Bizimungu's name twice. Am I to understand that it was either General Bizimungu or Colonel Bagosora? Is that what you mean? Who was in charge of establishing that link between yourself and the Interahamwe at that time?
A. Well, specifically that day, I do not recall. I recall only the methodologies by which we did that, and that was either directly with General Bizimungu, asking him to pass on information or to gather information or to touch base with -- directly with Colonel Bagosora who, in fact, offered on a number of occasions to establish that communication and -- through Ephrem Rwabalinda. And my recollection is that through those mediums, my meeting was held on the 1st of May.
MR. PRESIDENT:
When you mention names, please, try to give the spellings to assist them.
MR. MACDONALD:
Rwabalinda, Your Honour?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes.
MR. MACDONALD:
Rwabalinda is W-R-A-B-A-L-I-N-D-A (sic).
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Still on that meeting on the 1st of May, General -- and I just want to make sure that I clearly understand you on that meeting -- I do understand, therefore, that you don't have a clear recollection of the exact manner in which those contacts were established, but you believe that it was possibly through General Bizimungu who may have then contacted Colonel Bagosora, but you do not exclude another possibility, namely, that once again your staff may have established contact directly with Ephrem Rwabalinda in order to facilitate the holding of that meeting. And I'm referring only to the meeting of the 1st of May, not to all the meetings in general.
A. You are correct in my recollection of whether or not it was Bizimungu or Bagosora who specifically coordinated or called for the Interahamwe. Rwabalinda was the liaison officer with the government and not with the Interahamwe, and at no time do I ever recall Rwabalinda ever mentioning his personal contacts or him specifically making contact with the Interahamwe. However, I do recall that quite clearly on a number of occasions from the other two gentlemen.
Q. Did the UNAMIR meet the Interahamwe or at least some members of the Interahamwe before the 6th of April 1994? If yes, how were the contacts established?
A. As best as I can recollect, and I'm talking now -- I think it's February or March, surely March, we set up a meeting with the Interahamwe and that was done, I believe, by the minister of defence, and it was a meeting in which my deputy, General Andyidoho, was to meet with the Interahamwe to discuss their continued actions in regards to being so, I would say, unruly and undisciplined and attempting to garner from them more cooperation in bringing about a more secure environment in the KWSA.
Q. Did that meeting effectively hold and was it chaired by your deputy?
A. I'm left with the impression yes, but I cannot specifically remember the details of that meeting. I'm sorry.
Q. Wouldn't it be correct, General Dallaire, to say that this kind of request that the UNAMIR frequently made to the government or the Rwandan armed forces, wouldn't it be correct to say that, in very general terms, you always enjoyed the full collaboration of government authorities of the Rwandan armed forces, namely, that if you wanted to meet some people or you wanted to go to some location, it would generally be true that the Rwandan government and the Rwandan armed forces always fully extended their collaboration for the UNAMIR?
A. Well, I'm at a -- we are speaking of two periods here: Pre-war and during the war. Pre-war, we had a number of occasions where the government was not responsive to coming to meetings, using often the excuse that they didn't have fuel and the like, and whether that was posturing or otherwise, we could only speculate at the time. During the wartime, on so many occasions we were not able to move through different areas because of the actions of the Interahamwe, with at times some military and some gendarmerie who were preventing the movement of my forces, even though at times it had been previously even coordinated. And so I can't say no, that at all times I had full support, or whether or not that support was actually played out on the ground with the Interahamwe, as we so often found ourselves at odds with them and their willingness to cooperate in stopping the killing and permitting humanitarian convoys, people transfers and the like.
Q. Well, you will agree with me -- well, a question before that: Do you have any explanation to give to that, if you refer to this non-cooperation during the war, and your definition is during the war is after the 6th of April -- mine is not exactly the same -- but give us some examples with as much clarification as possible about this non-cooperation and dates.
A. I mean, we were working under a continuous -- an extremely sensitive and difficult set of circumstances with the people who were on the barriers, be it the Interahamwe or the general population or the soldiers or the gendarmes, depending on where we were going, what we were trying to do in moving people or simply getting through to conduct our observations on the ground. When we tried to get the reaction from the authorities, be they General Gatsinzi or Bizimungu or Colonel Bagosora regarding the Interahamwe, we had a varying results. Sometimes messages were passed; sometimes information did work out; other times it didn't. We had even an incident on our first transfer of people where a barrier ultimately was held up by a soldier with some Interahamwe, and the presence of General Bizimungu at that occasion, even him, did not solve the problem and nor did it stop the Interahamwe from conducting exactations on the people from Milles Collines.
Q. You know very well, General Dallaire, and I will give you clear examples on that, and you know why it was done and why it was not done, the Interahamwe were controlling and decided what they wanted to do at certain points, be it in Kigali or elsewhere. And you yourself on several occasions had written SITREPs stating that the situation was not clear, and that the Interahamwe were controlled in a certain way and by somebody. Do you recall that?
A. Oh, I recall attempting to find the processes. The Interahamwe were the youth wing of the MRND party and that was the leadership of the interim government that was there, and we had already had problems with the Interahamwe before the war started in gaining control on them or at least them demonstrating a willingness to keep the peace and security. So whether it was the political dimension that was controlling them, the military dimension controlling them, or that -- in fact, I remember one SITREP where I got the impression that there were some of them being controlled and others were not being controlled; that there had been splits amongst them. That was a continuously changing scenario.
Q. General, please refer to document 234, which is an outgoing cable dated 5th May 1994 to General Baril. I don't know if you have it in front of you. You do not have it, General, unfortunately. It's a document that was brought in at the very end of our preparation. And let me read to you paragraph 4 where you said the following: "Each individual cell seems to have a self-appointed leader who does not necessarily obey or take orders from anyone in the normal chain of authority. They are mostly armed with traditional weapons, but several carry arms and grenades. They seem to have enough money," brackets, "mostly looted," end brackets, "to sustain their actions from some time -- for some time." I'm sorry. And I draw your attention to this particular part here where you say, “Even if a ceasefire were brought into effect, it may be difficult to control these groups as they tend to either incite and/or coerce the locals to join them.” Are you making reference to that document, General?
A. That seems to be a document or assessment I produced. I've got no problem with that. In fact, my concept of operations in regards to UNAMIR 2 was a concept in which we anticipated having to confront all these various cells, some of them ad hoc, on all these barriers in order to stop the killing.
Q. So that was your position on May 5, 1994?
MR. BÂ:
Was it in April or May? Which one? The last one? You said that was your position in April. But the document you are reading, is it dated April or May?
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
In the interpretation I had, I heard April.
MR. MACDONALD:
I'm going to introduce this one later on if I do.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. In regard to that meeting of 1st May, General, I understand that you are not in a position to give the identity of the Interahamwe you met on that day, is that correct, or their positions, their functions?
A. I mean, I can't recall the names or put the names to the positions. I know they were the three senior Interahamwe leaders, and whenever I had to contact them or needed to contact them, it was, as I indicated previously, through Colonel Bagosora or Bizimungu, and they were there.
Q. But you are still referring to the identity of those who facilitated the meeting, and you mentioned General Bizimungu. And I understand that you had at least two meetings, but you are not in a position to say whether there were more than two, possibly three, but you are not able to say, so the third one is not sure, and then you are not able to say how the arrangements were made for you to meet the Interahamwe. You gave an answer. And there is another one, the second one: Are you able to assert categorically that General Bizimungu participated, directly or indirectly, in facilitating that meeting between you and the Interahamwe?
A. I recall two specific meetings and a series of other meetings that my staff had during the month of May -- I'm trying to remember -- June, but I know in May with the Interahamwe. I specifically remember Colonel Bagosora setting up a number of them and speaking with me; those I remember. I do not specifically remember an exchange with General Bizimungu and the Interahamwe, apart from the fact that we discussed the Interahamwe on a number of occasions when we met in regards to the operations and the security situation. So, you are quite correct, I cannot specifically pinpoint an occasion where I specifically asked General Bizimungu, but I do recall that information that we wanted to get through or coordinating with the Interahamwe was done both by General Bizimungu or by Colonel Bagosora.
Q. And, once again, I understand that it was upon your request or request of UNAMIR that those measures, if ever there were any measures were made, it was upon your initiative, upon your request; is that correct?
A. The reason for that is that it seemed to me that this Interahamwe capability had become a force in itself and, as, such my security or the security of my operations was dependent on communicating with all possible forces and leaders of forces, and so it made sense for me to touch base with them and to find them out and to pass on information directly.
Q. In the course of the meeting of 1st May, certain persons have testified in various cases, General, particularly in this case and also in Government I recently -- I believe it was last week or two weeks ago -- and they referred to that meeting in our case, it was Witness OAG who testified to that. His testimony was to the effect that you were present at that meeting, at least one of the meetings with the Interahamwe, and that other persons present included one Robert Kajuga, who was the chairman of the Interahamwe. Do you have any recollection of that name, Robert Kajuga?
A. Yes, I believe the name Robert Kajuga; it's familiar. But I indicated previously that I'm often on the second names less than effective in my memory banks here.
Q. Did you know that that person was a Tutsi?
A. I remember one of them mentioning that he had a Tutsi, I'm not sure if it was, mother or father, but there was a Tutsi link with one of those leaders, yes.
Q. Well, I will put it to you that Robert Kajuga, who indeed was present during one of the meetings -- we might not agree on the date, but on and around those dates, that he was of the Tutsi ethnic group, because his father was a Tutsi and I believe the mother was also a Tutsi. And this fact was certainly brought to your notice. But I find it difficult to understand why in your book you have difficulty even accepting or mentioning that fact; you omitted to say that Kajuga's mother was a Tutsi, and I was wondering why you did not want to mention Kajuga's ethnic group. Instead of just saying that the mother was a Tutsi, why don't you just simply say that he was a Tutsi?
A. Well, I wrote down what I remembered and I remembered what I wrote down, and I do not recall the individual saying that "I am a Tutsi" and blurting that out. I remember him indicating, as best of my recollection, that I believe his mother or one of the two was Tutsi. And that was not an unusual circumstance: There were a lot intermarriages between the two ethnic groups.
Q. Okay. And, General, when did the second meeting take place?
A. It seems to me it's around the 13th of May is the date around which -- that second meeting. There is in the book, because of some editing, a confusion of whether it was the 16th or the 13th, but I believe it was the 13th. But I can't -- I mean, I don't have a calendar in front of me or anything of that nature.
Q. Now, General, didn't you say -- when I questioned you on your personal note, didn't you say that you had a calendar or a diary to log in your various activities? Do you recall saying that?
A. Yes, I had a Day-Timer, yes.
Q. I understand you have it before you. And was that meeting recorded in your Day-Timer?
A. No, I don't have my Day-Timers; I'm not using my Day-Timers. And during the wartime frame, some of the dates or the information that was written in the Day-Timer went beyond the actual date, so, I mean, as an example, I had so much information or discussions or things or whatever, that might have been, say, on 8th or 9th, well, I would spill over on the 10th and 12th and so on. So the dates were not as clearly defined as, you know, if I had rigorously maintained a day-to-day diary. I never maintained a diary.
Q. But is it not a standard practice that you have a campaign diary for senior military officers? And if that be the case, can you explain why in your case you did not maintain such a campaign diary?
A. A campaign diary is maintained for archival and also historic purposes for the mission, and so the mission is to maintain a diary and it does that through daily SITREPs through communications, through orders groups, through directions, through operation orders, all sorts of materials like that. The commander uses whatever he feels is his own personal reference, be they maps. Some simply scribble on maps; others would scribble on the back of cigarette packs, others on -- what do you call those? -- sheets or pads, which I did because we ran out of paper. And also in a fully functional NATO mission or a one of classic use, the commander has a number of staffs that, in fact, conduct such day-to-day activities. But I had been so depleted with -- of my capabilities that I was exceptionally limited both in time and ability to sustain or maintain such detailed notes as you -- I suppose you are leading to.
MR. MACDONALD:
Your Honour, I was just enquiring as to whether or not document 234 was -- I would like to introduce that document, eventually, a document of May the 5th, and again perhaps to give you the number now, and we could --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, it is D. 105 (Bizimungu), dated --
MR. MACDONALD:
May 5th, 1994. They tell me it is already in evidence Your Honour, D. 114. Is that ours or -- that's Bagosora. It seems it is not in evidence, so I would like -- again, perhaps just give it a number, and we will introduce it later.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald, is the number L0001724?
MR. MACDONALD:
No. That document of May the 5th is L0024443.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay.
MR. MACDONALD:
No, you don't have it, I don't think.
MR. PRESIDENT:
D. 155 (Bizimungu). Okay.
(Exhibit No. D. 155 (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, I would like to appeal to your sense of fair play. You know we have time constraints, and I understand that in certain circumstances you feel the need to elaborate on your answers, but, once again, I would like to request you and appeal to your sense of fair play to try as much as possible to give as concise answers, that is, whenever you can.
You held meetings, at least two meetings, with the Interahamwe. Am I to understand, in a general manner, that those people, the Interahamwe, decided to accede to some of your requests; did they participate jointly with UNAMIR? And, once again, without going into the details, I would like to know if they collaborated with you or if they did not, without necessarily going into the details of what they did or did not do.
A. They verbally said that they would collaborate. We saw that collaboration on some occasions, but we saw a number of circumstances where either the information didn't make it to the outpost or people were simply not collaborating with their leaders or their leaders were not passing on the information.
Q. Okay. Thank you. General, according to you, the fact of the UNAMIR negotiating with the Interahamwe or in co-deploying with them in certain operations, would that not mean that UNAMIR encouraged their activities? And here as well, I want a concise answer, if you can.
A. My decision to touch base with them was a decision because they were a force on the ground, putting my troops at risk and the missions we were attempting to do. Secondly, the head of the International Red Cross had already conducted negotiations directly with them, which they referred me to in regards of attempting to stop the slaughter of casualties who were on Red Cross vehicles and, in fact, stopping the slaughter of Red Cross Rwandan personnel who were attempting to save people. And, in fact, the discussions with them was not of assisting them; it was one of attempting to grasp exactly what they were doing and what their intentions were certainly from the highest authority.
Q. I have another letter which is marked C25, 16th May 1994. You have a copy in Ottawa. It is from the CHO; I don't have his rank. And I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 19 of that letter. And I would like you to tell the Court if you are of the same opinion as Major MacNeil in paragraph 19. I don't want to read the full content of the letter.
"It was evident from the proceedings of the meeting that the" --
MR. KOUAMBO:
The document we received from your assistant does not appear to contain paragraph 19 which you are referring to, Counsel. Would that effectively be the letter of the 16th of May 1994?
MR. MACDONALD:
No.
MR. KOUAMBO:
Document IC27. I believe we have it now.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Paragraph 19, General. And this is what Major MacNeil says:
"It was evident from the proceedings of the meeting that the RGF lacks control of the militia groups and the will to marshal these groups in any positive way."
On the control over militia, would you agree with Major MacNeil's opinion, General? And I'm referring to that letter of 16th of May 1994.
(1430H )
THE WITNESS:
I agree with both the lack of control and the will to marshal these groups, yes.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. And the power. So I would like -- this is another document, Your Honours. I would seek to introduce, eventually.
MR. PRESIDENT:
D. 156.
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you. D. 1 hundred and -- 156, thank you.
MR. PRESIDENT:
D. 156, within brackets, (Bizimungu).
(Exhibit No. D. 156 (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, do you remember having testified before the Rogatory commission and having been questioned by the examining Judge Verstreken, as spelt, on the 12th of September 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. Very well. In the document we received from the Prosecutor, it is your testimony before Judge Verstreken that you had no recollection of discussions with the Interahamwe before the 1st of May; is that correct? Do you recall that, General?
A. I don't specifically recall it, but it makes sense from my recollections, yeah.
Q. Okay. As one reads this document, it would appear that Judge Verstreken was attempting to contradict your version with one of Ephrem Nkazabera, who, on his part, claims to have been present at a meeting with you and other Interahamwe. He, however, says that the meeting took place on the 24th of April.
Without delving into all the aspects of that report, let me say that you insisted on your position, namely that the first meeting took place on the 1st of June -- or, rather, the 1st of May, and you say that there was no other meeting before the 1st of May, and you say that in very clear terms. But I don't know whether you have that document with you, if you turn to page 2 and elsewhere in that document, you would see reference made by the Judge to your notes.
MR. MACDONALD:
Counsel Bâ, if you look at page 2, the penultimate paragraph, you would see same, as well as on page 5 which doesn't bear any number, may I say.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. The statement that in your notes of June 2006 you did not participate so clearly --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald, Mr. MacDonald, it went off.
MR. MACDONALD:
Oh, we lost it.
MR. PRESIDENT:
(Unintelligible)
Yes. Yes, Mr. MacDonald.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, I don't know if you understood the last question, but what I'm saying is that Judge Verstreken refers to some notes -- or, to a copy of your notes of June 2006, and I'm relying on page 5 of the document when she says:
"However, in your notes of June 2006 you say that you did not attend that meeting."
So she is challenging you on a matter of dates, because in reference to the second meeting there is mention of the 16th in the book, and elsewhere mention of the 13th. So what is your position? You have indicated that it was the 13th. But my question is: Which notes is the judge referring to? And could you please shed light on that, because it's an interesting point.
A. Well, first of all, the judge mentioned that there was a meeting -- or, this gentleman said there was a meeting on the 24th of April. There was no meeting on the 24th of April. At that time we were still looking at our own processes and looking at the UN commitment to the mission. The 1st of May was a meeting and the next one, in my best recollection, was the 13th. And if one reads the way the book was editorialised, you're left with the impression that the meeting was the 16th. But with my recollection, I believe it was the 13th, and then there seems to be sort of a gap in how the following three days sort of link in there. My -- my book was -- was me writing it, but also an editor with it, and so it gives the impression, if I recall well, that the meeting was on the 16th, but I believe it was on the 13th. That's the best of my recollection.
Q. I'm going to try to do part of this in English, because I do not seem to be coming through to you, General, because you're not answering the questions. I'm running out of time; I would appreciate if you could concentrate and focus on the questions, sir.
I'm not enquiring as to whether it was the 16th or 13th. What I'm saying is, I'm referring to that document of Judge Verstreken, and she says in that document that you -- she's reading from your notes dated June 2006. My question to you is, where are these notes? Do you have these notes? We don't have them.
A. Well, the -- what I gather is the notes were part of the documents. They were minutes of the meeting that were taken by my executive assistant when he attended with me, and they were attached to that said document and made public.
Q. Well, she seems to refer directly to your personal notes, and that's the reason why she's confronting you. Because she's saying in your notes you mention the 13th, and in your book you mention the 16th. So I'm a bit puzzled by the fact that she would confront you on someone else's notes. And it seems clear from this document, anyway, that on the 5th -- during these questions that were put to you, she had a set of notes that belonged to you. So are you absolutely positive, General, that these were not your notes, your personal notes in any way, shape, or form?
A. Yes, I'm fair -- I'm quite certain that the annex that had the notes were the minutes of the meeting that my executive assistant was taking down by longhand during those sessions.
Q. Okay. And in the exercise of confronting you with Mr. Nkazabera, Ephrem, again who says he was there, but not on May the 1st but on April 24th, to try to situate you, to give you some kind of a reference point, she says to you, "Well, according to Ephrem" -- the judge says to you, "According to Ephrem, you would have -- you would have joked about having one of your brothers named Dieudonné." And it says Ephrem says that because you wanted to -- it's in French, (French spoken), and you would have mentioned that, and the judge puts that to you again to try and give you some kind of point of reference for you to acknowledge that this is what happened during that reunion (French for 'meeting'--cm/p). And you mentioned to the judge -- and that's at page 4 of that document -- you say -- and I will have to read it in French because it's in French. You say: "There was no room for any jokes. We were talking life and death issues."
(Microphones overlapping)... Rogatory commission judge, you say, "No, Ephrem is -- he's dead wrong because -- I mean, if he says we -- that I, General Dallaire, joked or delivered any type of (French spoken) pleasantries (French for 'jokes'--cm/p), I never did this because we were talking about life and death situations; there was no place for that." Do you recall that?
A. Well, what are you asking me to recall? Are you asking me to recall about the name?
Q. Well, I'm not going to ask you to recall. I'm just going to put this to you. I'm assuming that what's in there, General, is true. It's a transcript that was delivered by the Prosecutor.
A. Well, let me see.
Q. I'm not sure if you have it. But it's dated November the 16th, 2006.
A. No, I got a document here that's dated the 12th of September.
Q. Okay, well that's not -- that wouldn't be the one. I don't think so.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
November 16th.
THE WITNESS:
But maybe -- if I may ask this, first of all. First, this Dieudonné thing, what is the question around that?
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Okay, well I don't really care about the date, General, so let's get that cleared up now.
A. Okay.
Q. Judge -- I have problems with her name -- Verstreken. Okay. Now, she's -- she's interrogating you. I think you're testifying from Ottawa, if I'm not mistaken. Now, she says to you -- now, she's presiding at a Rogatory commission. And with respect to this Nkazabera character, Ephrem, who says -- and you mention that in your book, by the way, that he was there. You give that name in your book. I think it's page 437.
A. Right.
Q. Okay. So -- now, she's trying to -- she's trying to get the -- the correct state of facts here. And she's confronting you, if I can use that word, she's confronting you with this character, Nkazabera's testimony, or version of events. And he says,
"No, no, it's not May the 1st, it's April 24th, 1994."
And she says to you, she says,
"Well, General Dallaire, do you recall an incident during that reunion where -- well, to (French spoken)?" -- I'm sorry, I don't know what the English term is. "You would have said that you had a brother named Dieudonné"
--which is obviously not the case, and you mentioned that during that Rogatory commission. And furthermore, you say,
"Not only I don't have a brother Dieudonné, but there wasn't any pleasantries during that reunion."
And you say -- page 4, you say:
"However, during that meeting there was no room for jokes because we were dealing with life and death issues."
--(Microphones overlapping)... you say, you answer this in order to make your point to the effect that Ephrem says that there were pleasantries during that reunion (jokes during the meeting--cm/p), there were no pleasantries, therefore he's got to be wrong. It's not April the 24th, it's May the 1st. I'm not sure if you understand my point.
A. No, quite clearly, and two -- two things. One, on the April 24th there was no such meeting, and nothing that I could refer to to have a meeting. And secondly, this whole stuff about Dieudonné is pure fabrication.
Q. Okay. And you say -- you say during that Rogatory commission, again -- I feel that's important, because you say,
"He can't be right, Ephrem, because there were no pleasantries."
But I draw your attention on your book, General, page 438, and you say the exact contrary. You say -- and I will read it. I have the French version, paragraph 2. And you're referring to when you went out of that meeting. And you said:
"As I went back to the general headquarters, I had the feeling I had shaken the devil's hand. We even exchanged jokes."
So, either Ephrem is right and he's -- what he describes were that, well, at a certain point you would have -- you would have exchanged pleasantries with people there to (French spoken). But you say during that Rogatory commission that no, no way, there was no -- no pleasantries. But again, this is in contradiction -- direct contradiction with your book. So what -- what exactly is the situation with that?
A. Well, I think that we've got to come to a definition by what we mean by the pleasantries. And the pleasantries was the fact that we did exchange our names, the information regarding the individuals in recognition. I mean, we shook hands, we said good day, good morning, I forget exactly what that is. But -- but it was -- it was me actually touching these guys and actually being with them and exchanging civil recognition of -- of their presence. It wasn't an exercise in trying to be funny or making jokes or trying to talk about the weather or things of that nature.
Q. In order to adhere to your explanation, we would have to conclude that you had, at two different times, two different interpretations of pleasantries. One on June 2006 -- or, I'm sorry, one on September 2006 where you were interrogated by this Rogatory commission judge, and one interpretation when you wrote your book. Because in your book, again, General -- and I don't want to unduly emphasise this, but in your book you had even said,
"We had even exchanged pleasantries."
And during that commission you say,
"No, Ephrem was wrong, because there were no pleasantries. There were no exchanges of pleasantries, we were talking about life and death."
So, I find that a bit difficult to understand.
A. May I -- well, remembering, sir, if I may, that I'm using the Belgian judge's term, that she is calling "you joked", responding to her terms at that time, and the description of what she has as a pleasantry. To me, the pleasantry that I referred to is simply the civil exchanges of recognition, of politeness in regard to others, and that in itself at the meeting that I had in my interpretation of my book was repugnant.
Q. Well how could that -- how could you interpret that as (French spoken)? You're having social contact, you're being polite even though you don't feel like being polite, but you shake their hands and you discuss what we may call in French the (French spoken). But (French spoken) is not pleasantries. Pleasantries has a humour connotation to it. And you describe that very well before Judge Verstreken, and you said,
"No, no, there wasn't any humour there because we were discussing life and death."
So -- I was -- I'm -- I'm ready to pass on to that.
Okay, I would just like to rewind a bit on that second reunion (meeting-cm/p) so the -- the Honourable Judges have -- get the situation with that. You say in your book -- and -- that's the essence of the contradiction. In your book you say at page 465-468, you mention the date of that reunion being May the 16th, and in your notes -- again, your notes that you refer to as not being your personal notes, the date appearing there is May the 13th. And when asked to provide the judge with a one or the other, you've chosen May the 13th, right?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay, all right. And just one thing with respect to that second reunion: Were -- did you meet all these same three characters from the Interahamwe?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. And could you tell us --
A. Looking at the -- at this -- I'm looking at this Rogatory report and it mentions here the 14th. And so now I'm the one who's getting to be confused with the dates here.
Q. 14th of what, General? Sorry.
A. Of May.
Q. No, the date we have -- the date I have, anyways, the right -- the number on the right-hand side is 9166BIS -- bis. I'm not sure if you're referring to that.
A. Yeah, okay, all right, the 14th was -- yeah, okay, sorry.
Q. Okay, so that's September the 14th.
A. Yep, okay.
Q. Okay. Now, General, the -- I'll draw your attention on a -- well, first of all, let me put to you the fact that when Ephrem testified -- or, I shouldn't say when he testified, but his position, of Ephrem Nkazabera, who was there -- he says he was there on the 24th, not on the 1st, because he says,
"I left for a mission -- I believe it's on the 25th."
So he says,
"I couldn't have been there on the 1st of May."
But in any event, he says that General Bizimungu was not present at that meeting. And another chap who testified under the pseudonym of AOG also says that General Bizimungu was not present at that meeting. Do you agree with that?
A. Well -- again, we're talking about meetings that happened or not happened on the -- the 24th or the 1st of May. But my recollection of the 1st of May was General Bizimungu, as I was facing these guys, he was sitting off to the left. And that's all I remember. I don't remember him participating in the exercise in any sort of fashion.
Q. Okay. Now, I understand it's a long time ago. I'm assuming that you haven't got that information in your notes, you have no personal notes, and you're probably testifying --
A. No.
Q. -- you're probably testifying, General, from your memory. And the question I put to you: Is that a possibility -- is there a remote possibility that you may -- sorry. Is there a remote possibility that you may be incorrect on that particular issue? You may have seen -- we know you -- you spoke to General Bizimungu on May the 1st, according to you, before -- prior to that meeting. Could there or could there not be confusion on that particular issue?
A. I will respond by saying that I've gone through this exercise so many times, and in my recollection of the event and what was going on and so on, and what I can remember is that person sitting there on the left. And now, as we continue to go down the road, and as you were saying, would I put my hand in the fire and say it was absolutely him? My recollection is yes. Am I confusing with another meeting and so on? I do not believe so. But, I mean, I am giving you the best of my recollection and that's all I can give you right now.
Q. Okay, that's good enough. What about that second meeting, that you recall? Was General Bizimungu, to your knowledge -- to your recollection, I should say, was he present? Do you recall that?
A. I don't.
Q. Okay.
A. I don't -- I don't.
Q. Okay. I have --
A. That one was just before the big meeting on the -- on the -- the meetings on those orphans with Kouchner and all that. There were meetings with him and Bagosora. But I cannot put my hand in the fire at this time. I'm sorry.
Q. Okay. I -- and -- I'm going to have to ask you again, because I'm not sure, I'm not clear on this. When did you establish that meeting? I know you're not -- you can't pinpoint a date, but I believe you mentioned 13th --
A. No.
Q. -- the 13th, General?
A. Yeah, I know the meeting was held, and the SITREPs of the 14th spoke of it, as well as the meeting of the 14th to work out some of the details in order to do that Kouchner orphan transfer, which particularly Colonel Bagosora was absolutely keen on it happening, and him doing a lot of the foot work and leg work regarding the militias and getting the meeting set up. And so that -- that is all quite clear. But I'm -- cannot right now recollect General Bizimungu's part in that exercise.
Q. Okay. Because I have a SITREP here which is document 239. It's dated May the 21st, 1994, and it's -- it's a -- it's an outgoing fax from Booh-Booh to Annan. And I will draw your attention to paragraph 4. Just a second.
MR. BÂ:
What is the date of the document you are referring to? And what did you say that number was?
MR. MACDONALD:
39.
MR. BÂ:
39?
MR. MACDONALD:
It's one of the new ones, Counsel Bâ.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Now, paragraph 4 of page 2. Now, this does not emanate from you, General, so I am not going to tie you down to this document. But it reads as follows:
"Normal routine works were conducted, carried out, patrolling in city area. FC force commander held normal briefing with commanders and staffs at 21:07:00. Force commander met with the former chief of staff of RGF, chief of the Interahamwe, and COS gendarmerie."
Now, could that -- is that the meeting you're alluding to?
A. No, I've -- I must say, I'd love to read this document, but I don't remember it, I'm afraid. I'd have to look at it and maybe it might twig me.
Q. Because former chief of staff of the RGF would have been, obviously, Gatsinzi.
A. Right.
Q. Okay. So, do you recall having a meeting with the Interahamwe in the presence of Gatsinzi? Because according -- again, I can't tie you down because it doesn't emanate from you, but --
A. Yeah.
Q. -- I'm under the impression that it's a SITREP, and according to your explanation you would have seen that document before it went out. So...
A. Yeah, no, I've seen the -- I read the SITREPs. I'd -- I'd love to be able to read it to give you more definitive information, because I -- I just don't recall that exercise. So if I could have it, that would be helpful.
Q. I'm sorry, this is one of the last -- of the later documents.
MR. BÂ:
Counsel, but your representative in Ottawa, can he give him one -- this document? He does not have it.
MR. MACDONALD:
It's in the UNAMIR CD. It's a document that we photocopied today, Counsel. Around midday.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. We could fax it to you, General.
MR. BÂ:
I believe Roger has a fax.
MR. KOUAMBO:
Counsel Bâ, if it's among the documents that you gave me, I have not been able to go through them before Counsel MacDonald's cross-examination.
MR. MACDONALD:
(Microphones overlapping)
MR. BÂ:
Roger, they are not my documents, they are Defence documents.
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
Says Counsel Bâ.
MR. MACDONALD:
The L number is L0005713. L0005713.
So perhaps we should wait, Your Honour. We will keep that in...
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Okay. We will come back to that, General, when you do have the document.
But from the top of your head, you do not recall having a meeting with Gatsinzi in the presence of the Interahamwe, if I understand correctly?
A. No, I'm afraid not. Unless I could -- I could sort of get the circumstances why the meeting might have happened and that might help me, but I just don't pick it up.
Q. Okay. I'm not sure whether you can answer that question or not, but I will put it to you anyways: Do you agree with me, General, that -- that protocol would not allow the chief of staff of the Rwandan army -- or -- to organise a reunion and invite the director of the MINADEF -- of the cabinet de MINADEF? Again, I'm not sure if you can answer that or not, but it wouldn't be -- it wouldn't be in accordance with protocol if that was done, and that could not be done because protocol was not authorised. Do you agree with that, or disagree, or just don't know?
A. Do you want to hit me again with the actual question? The chief of staff and the --
Q. Yep.
A. -- and the --
Q. Okay. The question is the following: Would you agree with the fact that it would be against protocol for the chief of staff of the Rwandan army to organise a reunion and invite to that reunion the directeur de cabinet de MINADEF, which is Colonel Bagosora? So, again it's --
A. Yeah. I mean, I have been to meetings where -- I mean, in my country where the chief of defence staff has asked the minister's executive assistant to attend because we wanted the minister to be informed or his staff to be informed of a particular point. Or maybe the minister was not available at the time and the -- the chief of staff was -- his executive assistant was replacing him. And that is quite possible that that happens, yes.
Q. But again, it's not the MINADEF who would invite the chief of staff. It's the contrary. What I'm submitting to you is it would be against protocol for the chief of staff to invite the directeur de cabinet of the MINADEF.
A. No, it's not against protocol.
Q. You don't think so, okay.
A. No, it's not -- I mean, no --
Q. Not in Canada anyways.
A. (Microphones overlapping)... it would have political ramifications, so -- yeah. No, that's happened here, too.
Q. Okay, okay. Just a second. Now, I'll continue in English, but I'm going to have to translate this as I go along.
Now, according to Colonel Marchal -- well, first of all, Colonel Marchal was your ally in Rwanda back in 1994. He was the chief of contingent of the Belgian battalion, right? Belgian contingent -- contingent?
A. In UN missions, a country lends troops to the UN and each contingent comes with a contingent commander, which Colonel Marchal was. His duties, however, for the mission was the commander of the weapons secure area of Kigali.
Q. Okay. I'm just trying to -- because I'm ahead of my outline here. Okay, I will get back to that line of questioning.
Colonel Marchal testified in the Military I trial -- actually, he's still testifying. He testified today. He's in cross-examination. But he testified on November the 30th --
MR. PRESIDENT:
We lost it again.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Are you there, General?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, Mr. MacDonald, you can go.
MR. MACDONALD:
Okay.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire -- okay, so Colonel Marchal was in charge of the -- the (French spoken) of the KWSA. Now, I'd like you to describe to us a bit who this Colonel Marchal is and I would like to put the question to you whether or not, in your experience you had with Colonel Marchal on the -- in the field, have you ever -- I should say, did you maintain at the time, and do you maintain today, any doubts whatsoever with respect to Colonel Marchal's impartiality?
A. Colonel Marchal came to me from the minister of defence's office of Belgium, highly recommended, an officer with experience in Africa, a very professional soldier, and I considered him to be quite an ethical officer. He supported my mission and accomplished it to the best of his abilities -- often even at odds with his own authorities from Belgium on a variety of factors. We had areas where we had frictions in decisions and worked those out as best we could, and over the years we maintained communication -- well, sort of much less, you know, once in a blue moon sort of thing. But over the last couple of years, I had been informed that he was very much of the opinion that the conflict was one generated by the RPF for Tutsi -- if I could even use maybe the term "hegemony" goals in Rwanda.
Q. Okay. But again the question is specifically points whether you think Colonel Marchal, say at the time, back in '94, did you have any doubts with respect to his impartiality?
A. No, I considered him to be a very objective and responsible officer.
Q. Okay. And in describing Marchal in your book -- and I'm referring to page 13 of the French version -- you say that he was one of your -- one of your closest colleagues in Rwanda. You say (French spoken). What do you mean by that, General?
A. What I mean is that he was there nearly from the start, he had what I considered the most demanding region, or sector to command. We had exchanged professional experiences, we were both NATO background officers, and I considered the exchanges we had between us to be quite candid.
Q. All right. Would it be a fair statement to say that -- at the time, anyways, when you were close to him, working with him, would it be a fair statement to say that you had absolute confidence in this man's talent, as well as his judgment?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Colonel Marchal testified in Military I, and he says that in Ruhengeri operational sector there were military observers. And I believe that you also mentioned that. But I'm not sure if it's in our trial or Military I. Do you agree with that, General?
A. Yes, I had observers in that area. I think, in fact, we were -- we had a subregion in Ruhengeri -- or a subsector in Ruhengeri. Yes.
Q. Okay. Is it correct to say that the MINUAR had the -- their quarters -- again, back in 1994, April 1994 -- or even as far back as October, I should say, 1993 -- that the MINUAR had their headquarters at the place called Nkumba, N-K-U-M-B-A, which I believe was in the DMZ.
A. I don't recall the name particularly, but we did have positions, fixed positions inside the DMZ. That came, however, later on in -- when we were able to move both observers and Ghanaians. The headquarters was in Byumba, however.
Q. Okay. So, can you try to pinpoint for us a period of time where there were observers in Ruhengeri?
A. I'm -- I'm -- I'm guessing, but it seems to me I had a number of -- I would say in January sometime would be a responsible -- I don't think I had them in Ruhengeri as such in December. We were moving people into the south because of Butare and the situation with the Burundians. So, I would -- you know, it's in that ballpark time frame.
Q. Okay. Can you tell us what these -- first of all, how many observers were there in that region of Ruhengeri, if you know?
A. I -- I don't have the details for that. The chief military observer had those details. We normally tried to move between 6 and 12 into a particular subregion, but that depended on their availability when -- both coming in and actually deployable.
Q. Okay. So to give us again a ballpark figure, would a number of anywhere of 20 to 25, would that be relatively accurate, according to you?
A. It's a subregion, so that -- that's getting pretty heavy on the numbers. They did have responsibilities all the way to Gisenyi, and I know some sectors had up to 25. In fact -- in Kigali we had over 100. So there were some in Mulindi. I can't negate 20 as a figure; that's quite possible.
Q. And their missions -- sorry. And could you give us a brief description, General, of their task -- task's definition? What were they there for? What were they supposed to do? Obviously monitoring, but monitoring what?
A. Well, they -- the observers, unarmed observers. When vehicles and radios were made available, which was a constant problem, they were to conduct patrols, to communicate with the locals, be they the military, the police, the gendarmerie, politicians, local population. Show the flag, observe what is ongoing, reporting if there are signs of the situation not necessarily responding to the peace agreement, and providing those reports through the chief military observers to the sector to my headquarters.
Q. Okay. Is it correct, General, that you have never encountered or received any report from these observers from the Ruhengeri sector indicating that civilians were -- were being trained by militaries, either in military camps or at communal bureaux -- (French spoken)? Is it correct that you've never received or encountered -- heard anything of that nature, that civilians were being trained by the army either in army camps or in -- elsewhere? Isn't that correct?
A. No, we received -- we received information that militias were being trained by the army, armed by the army, transported by the army. I myself even saw some of them who had been moved from some of the displaced (persons) camps in the south, some of the Mulindi displaced camps --
Q. No, Ruhengeri, General, Ruhengeri. Ruhengeri. My question is specifically with respect to Ruhengeri. And I would like to see these reports, because we don't have them.
A. Well --
Q. If there are them.
A. Well, I cannot give you a specific response to the places where they were being trained. And -- I do remember that we spoke about the forest in the south-west and -- oh, jeez, I forget what units were involved, but I cannot give you a specific answer that the Ruhengeri garrison specifically was training militiamen when and where and how. No, I can't give you that.
Q. Okay. So your position is -- today is to the effect that, to your recollection, you've not seen, received, or heard any information from these observers to the effect that civilians were being trained in Ruhengeri sector. And I'm limiting that to the ops sector in Ruhengeri. I don't -- with respect to the south, I know you've testified to that, you gave us your opinion on that. But Ruhengeri is a resounding no. Correct?
A. I do -- I do not recall.
Q. Thank you, okay. Because we have witnesses -- well, one witness, anyways, who testified here -- two witnesses who testified that there were military -- or, civilians trained by military in certain communal offices, with one being right on the outskirts of Ruhengeri. I forget the name of the place -- I've always had it in my head, it just slips my mind. But that -- had there been open training on a consistent basis during daytime, you agree with me, General, that that could not evade or escape the attention of these observers? They would have seen that. That's just common knowledge.
A. Come on, let's not extrapolate beyond what is actually reasonable. Look at the territory involved, look at the number of bases involved, look at the routes to be able to get to them, take into consideration the very limited number of vehicles and patrols I could do, the fact that they could train these guys at night and not necessarily during the day, and that many of these bases were fairly sprawling and particularly in the north with forested areas, and they could train battalions incognito and it would have been difficult for us to know. However, it is of note, however, that the French and the Belgians had advisers up in that area, and if that was going on I would have suspected they would have reported it.
Q. The place I was referring to where witnesses testified to civilian being trained by the army was a place in Mukingo. The Mukingo communal office. And I was there and you probably -- I know you were in Ruhengeri, I'm not sure if you were in Mukingo, but it's right outside of Ruhengeri. And the communal office is right on the main road. It's situated -- you can see it, it's maybe 25 feet from the road. They have a -- they have a field, looks like a football field, or a soccer field there, and it's -- it's an open area. And I'm referring to that. I'm not referring to forests, training that could have occurred in forests and stuff like that, but out in the open, near the main road, right outside Ruhengeri.
That's my -- my suggestion to you, General, would be that in these circumstances, in that particular circumstance of Mukingo commune, I suggest that had there been consistent and sustained training there, you would have heard about it.
A. Well, again, you are qualifying it by saying "consistent, sustained training". That means a syllabus. That means these people six, seven hours a day. God knows how many, they could be training only ten guys and they could do that inside the building. What was their training? Was it weapons training? They didn't have enough to do that, they were using often I think wooden things. Was it tactical deployments? Was it simply indoctrination training, first-aid training? I mean, there's a whole variety of things that they could be doing in those offices at that time. And yes, it would be quite easy, if I had a patrol coming down the road, white vehicles with blue flags, that somebody could be left out there as a watch. And if they saw the vehicles coming and tell the others not to train anymore, just to sit around and pick their noses. And there's always a whole bunch of people sitting around those offices.
Q. Now, the suggestion I'm putting to you, General, and I'm referring to you the contents as well as I can of that testimony where a witness came and testified and said there were anywhere from 50 to 150 civilians being trained outside in that field, approximately 25 feet from the main road. And if I recall correctly, you're right on a curve coming from Ruhengeri. So you can't possibly have time to -- it was done -- according to this witness it was done in the open and they just obviously didn't care who saw what. So that's the -- the -- that's the situation I'm putting to you. And I'm suggesting that had that been the case, you would have heard about it from these observers.
But I have your answer, I just wanted to -- I just wanted to be precise.
A. You're pulling on strings, sir.
Q. No, but I wanted to be precise on the fact that this was outside, not inside.
A. Mmm. Mmm.
Q. And it's impossible for you not to know about that. That's my suggestion, anyway.
A. Well, no, it's not impossible. It is probable and if we were lucky enough to have a patrol coming by there on a regular basis, they would have picked it up. But that is absolutely no guarantee of us knowing about that happening at that -- at that point.
Q. But anyways, your answer is you never heard about any such trainings at Ruhengeri, that you can recall?
A. No, not that -- that I can recall specifically, no.
Q. Okay.
MR. BÂ:
How many breaks are we having today? Is it just one, or two?
MR. PRESIDENT:
We will have two breaks.
MR. BÂ:
Two breaks.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Half an hour, half an hour.
MR. BÂ:
Would it not be the time to take the first one?
MR. MACDONALD:
(Microphones overlapping)... until 8, so is that one at 3:30 and one at 5:30, Your Honour?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay. Yes, General, you may take a cup of tea and come back. We will start at 4.
(Court recessed from 1530 to 1605H)
MR. KOUAMBO:
Mr. President, Roger Kouambo from Ottawa. I would like to inform you that the general is not yet here, but he should be arriving in a minute or two.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay. Until he comes, Mr. Bâ --
MR. KOUAMBO:
(No interpretation)
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. Bâ --
MR. KOUAMBO:
Mr. President, I would like to avail myself of this opportunity --
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
-- says Mr. Kouambo of Ottawa. We didn't get the rest of his sentence, Mr. President.
MR. KOUAMBO:
I would like to inform Counsel MacDonald that we have printed the document and that we would be able to make it available to General Dallaire. Who, Mr. President, as you can see, is present.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, Mr. Bâ and Mr. MacDonald, I think we have to -- you have to tender the documents -- documents marked through Dr. Alison Des Forges. You said that you will agree with Mr. Jegede and the registry. So tomorrow, either during the interval or a little before we commence the testimony, we might be able to attend to that. Tell Mr. Jegede to be there.
MR. MACDONALD:
I'm not sure -- because the -- the understanding was that, given the fact that Mr. St-Laurent had cross-examined, I'm not familiar with these documents. So I would suggest that Mr. Jegede meet with my legal intern to see if we could agree.
MR. PRESIDENT:
I thought that that had been done.
MR. MACDONALD:
I'm not sure.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Not yet?
MR. MACDONALD:
My legal intern tells me that Mr. Jegede was supposed to meet Mrs. (unintelligible), who's in Ottawa now, and apparently for some reason Mr. Jegede didn't show up.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, anyway, tell Mr. Jegede if he has not done so, ask him to meet these -- anybody tomorrow, and to make arrangements so that on Thursday, during the break, we can --
MR. MACDONALD:
Because the problem, Your Honour -- and I don't want to make a fuss over this. But the person that would be most familiar with these documents is (unintelligible), and she's -- she's in Ottawa right now. So we could attempt to see if we can reach an understanding tomorrow morning and we'll let you know what is the situation. And if we can do it, we'll introduce the documents.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, okay, okay. Right.
You can continue, Mr. MacDonald.
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you, Your Honour.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, we had discussed last week a very important report that had just been published, which is the -- I'll refer to it as the Bruguière report, which is dated November the 17th, 2006, which is a 50 -- actually, 64-page report outlining with a great deal of precision the evidence gathered by Judge Bruguière to allow him to conclude to the responsibility of the RPF and Kagame with respect to the shooting down of the president's plane.
Now, have you had the opportunity to consult that report, General Dallaire, since we last spoke?
A. No.
Q. You have not. I would like to draw your attention to certain elements of that report, and started with page 58 --
MR. MACDONALD:
Now, Your Honours, this is a French report. I will want to eventually introduce it, at least as an ID evidence. But we'd have to have it translated, so I'm going to ask the Court -- because it's very important.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, you may tender it to the registry for translation.
Registrar, make note of that document and get the translation done as soon as possible.
MR. BÂ:
Mr. President, I have no difficulty with what he refers to as Judge Bruguière's report. Defence should be able to produce that report through any of its witnesses. But as far as I know, this is not a closing argument -- it's not a final order, but it is simply a communication requesting further information. So I believe that when you say that there is a conclusion in this matter, that is not the case because the conclusion only comes at the end of the case. And we are not there yet.
However, this report does not bother me in any way, but I do not see how the general, who has not testified on the aircraft accident, who was not heard by that judge, and who did not meet those -- the witnesses of those -- of the judge -- of -- I do not see how this document can therefore be produced through the general, who was not in any way related to Judge Bruguière's investigation.
That having been said, I believe that the Defence is at liberty to introduce that document through any of his witnesses. But let it be clear that this is an (French spoken), which is not a final order of the court.
MR. MACDONALD:
I don't know what they call it in your backyard, but in my backyard these are factual conclusions from the judge.
And you will have the opportunity to read this report, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, with the translation at -- for the moment.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes. But with respect to -- I think Mr. Bâ's mistaken when he says that General Dallaire did not participate directly or indirectly. Perhaps he didn't testify or refuse to testify before Judge Bruguière, but he is mentioned in that report. I'm not sure if Mr. Bâ read it or not. And I would like to put a few questions to General Dallaire. Not with -- specifically with respect to the plane crash, because it's much more than that. I mean, Judge Bruguière develops on the whole theory as to why Kagame committed that particular incident. So the plane crash is just one element that (French spoken) -- of many elements.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire --
MR. MACDONALD:
And I understand the interpreters have this document, correct? Page 58.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. I'm going to put to you, General, certain allegations, or fact-finding elements from the judge, and I would like you to comment on this. So the first one is page 58. First of all, General, were you ever approached, directly or indirectly, to participate in this inquiry from Judge Bruguière? Were you called upon to testify or provide any information to the judge?
A. Yeah, there is a request that is -- but this report has come out before that has been actioned.
Q. I don't understand. Could you be more specific, please?
MR. YAROSKY:
Mr. President, Harvey Yarosky, General Dallaire's counsel. Just for the information of the Court, Judge Bruguière had taken steps to request General Dallaire's testimony. But that request has not been fully dealt with and the conclusions of Judge Bruguière's inquiry seem to have been reached without awaiting the reply or completion of that request by the Canadian government and General Dallaire.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, I understood --
MR. YAROSKY:
That's what General Dallaire is telling the Court, and I am confirming that.
Mr. President, I also -- Mr. President, I also would respectfully say to you that, while obviously questions can be put about the facts that you are inquiring -- that your trial is about General Dallaire, I certainly hope there are not going to be questions --
MR. MACDONALD:
No, I object to that, I object to that, I object to that.
MR. YAROSKY:
I haven't finished. How can you object to something when you haven't heard what I'm going to say?
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, on what grounds are you making these representations, sir? On what grounds?
MR. YAROSKY:
I'm making the representations on -- number one, I wanted to point out to the Court since the question has been raised as to the status of the Bruguière inquiry vis-à-vis General Dallaire, and I thought to help the Court I would clarify that. And secondly, what I'm saying, as General Dallaire's counsel, is I hope -- and this is a question, a basic question, that he's not going to be asked to comment on another judge's or inquiry's work or conclusions. He is here before you, Mr. President and Your Honours, to answer all questions relating to the issues and facts before you.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah. Yes, please, I -- we understood when General Dallaire said that he has been summoned, but before he finalised that aspect, that report has been published. So I understood that. So --
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, I don't adhere to that. I would like to perhaps put one or two questions to General Dallaire.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. When was that request put to you, General Dallaire, by Judge Bruguière?
A. I don't remember.
Q. Well, give us a ballpark figure.
A. I have no idea.
Q. Was it in 2005?
A. I haven't got a clue.
Q. 2004?
MR. YAROSKY:
No, we don't have anything pending that long.
MR. MACDONALD:
He's been inquiring since 1998.
THE WITNESS:
I know nothing about that.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Well, you have -- you must know, sir, because it's a very important inquiry. Actually, it's the only inquiry because nobody else wanted to inquire on the plane -- the president's plane crash, until one of the members of the families of one of the pilots decided to do something about it. Because TPI -- this Tribunal would not inquire, Kagame obviously would not want to have this out in the open, so the French had to -- had to pursue this matter. And your name appears in that report, and obviously, sir, Judge Bruguière must have tried to communicate with you and have you testify in that particular commission. So, is it your position that you know nothing about that?
A. I don't recall -- I don't recall this -- the judge coming to me. I recall that some time ago that there was a French exercise going on in regards to the shooting down of the plane. I also recall that the UN did an investigation on the black box that they finally discovered, and responded to that. But apart from that, I don't have any sort of contact or specifics in regards to Judge Bruguière, and certainly not in regards to a report that's already come out.
Q. But according to your counsel, sir, you were requested at a certain point in time. I just want to know when were you approached by this -- this (French spoken)?
MR. YAROSKY:
I must clarify that. Mr. President, I want to clarify that. General Dallaire has not been personally approached. A request came through Interpol to the Canadian government to be directed to General Dallaire. That request has not been fully processed yet, and the conclusions of the inquiries, we just learned about them recently. So General Dallaire has not been personally summoned himself.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Well, is there a possibility of knowing when that request was filed with Canadian authorities, or Canadian government, or --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Well, Counsel, I think you are going too far. You are getting another witness to answer now.
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, there's -- there seems to be contradictions there.
MR. PRESIDENT:
It is clear that General Dallaire had not been summoned by this one. The request has been made to the government. So we are left with this.
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, if the request was made four years ago, I have difficulties understanding how the -- the -- the principal party would not be informed of that. But if that's their position, I mean, I will live with it.
MR. BÂ:
Mr. President, this report does not cause me to lose any sleep at all, and I have said that Defence is at liberty to introduce or to produce this report through any of its witnesses. Defence should feel free to put any questions to General Dallaire about the plane crash and see what comes from it. But I do not think that it is proper for the report to be dropped on the general in this manner. I don't think that this is the proper way. The (French spoken) is available and it can be produced through another witness.
MR. MACDONALD:
(Microphones overlapping)... still stands, Your Honour. I understand General Dallaire's position as he was never informed of that. But -- and you're right, I can't put the question to Mr. Yarosky. So we're in a position where counsel says, "We've been approached", and the principal party says, "I was not informed."
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, you can take it, it has been given to the government and it has not gone beyond that. That's all.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yeah, innuendos.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, page 58, second paragraph, states the following -- and it's in French:
"That General Roméo Dallaire, then commander of the UNAMIR forces, during a hearing on 21 January 2004, that is, 21 January 2004, confirmed the hegemonic strategy of Paul Kagame and his determination to implement his plan."
Quote -- And that would be a quote from you, General.
"The rebels at the time, he said, who were in power today had planned for a country dominated by Tutsis during their armed struggle against the government which was under the control of the Hutu ethnic group."
He went on to say that
"The RPF did not necessarily have the well-being of the population as its priority, that is, the population within the country. But it had a plan that had been laid out well in advance which would culminate in a Tutsi domination of the country."
MR. BÂ:
Counsel MacDonald, are you saying that the general made that statement in Military I?
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, that was at a hearing of 21 January 2004.
MR. BÂ:
He was here in January 21 to be heard in Military I. You have read the transcripts of Military I. Have you found this material in those transcripts? This can only tell you how not serious this document is.
MR. MACDONALD:
(Microphones overlapping)... the question was put to General Dallaire, my first question was he -- was he still maintaining that position or was that his position at the time. So perhaps --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, is it the testimony given in Bagosora, or --
MR. BÂ:
But he must have made those statements. You have the transcripts of Military I. Can you show us this excerpt from the transcripts?
MR. MACDONALD:
I think I have the passage, Mr. Bâ.
MR. BÂ:
(Microphone not activated)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, did you -- have you ever held that position that I've just read to you, sir?
A. Never.
Q. Never. Okay. I have the transcript here. Right, what I have here in the transcript -- I will read it to you.
MR. BÂ:
What page?
MR. MACDONALD:
Page 4.
MR. BÂ:
Page 4.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. And I believe you would have said the following, General:
"I then understood that the RPF didn't have as one of its priorities the well-being of the population within, but rather it had a plan that had been laid out a long time ago, leading to a Tutsi-dominated country."
Did you or did you not say that, sir, on January the 20th --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Well, Counsel, to be fair by the witness, you can put the question also to what -- the answer he had given. Question then answer so he will know in what context he gave that answer.
MR. MACDONALD:
The question, Your Honour, was -- I'm not sure if he's in examination-in-chief or cross-examination. But in any event, the question was: "General, I would like to know" --
MR. BÂ:
Counsel MacDonald, can you read the five lines that come before what you have just read so that we can get the full context of what we are dealing with? That is the five lines, begins with "Towards the end of June, July, and in August".
MR. MACDONALD:
Oh, yes.
Well, let me do it my way first, and then you can take it up in re-examination, if you want to.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Now, General, did you mention that or not, these words? Because I read from --
A. I am not going to respond to -- to that question in that fashion, sir. I have, in my book, indicated that I had doubts on the ultimate aims that were being played out and that there were a number of scenarios that seemed to be at play. And one of them, to me, came from the fact that, why did it take 100 days and 800,000 people killed for the RPF ultimately to win this conflict? And so, was it? And it was hypothetical. Was there a plan within the RPF by extremists, or (French spoken) or whatever, to ultimately, yes, achieve the hegemony in Rwanda through this conflict? That was raised by the RGF, and the slowness of the operations, the preparations that we had seen, the frictions that had gone on, was that an option that the RPF had? That's what I said.
Q. Well, I put to you, sir, a -- an extract from paragraph 2, page 58, and you said you never said that. And I read these same words to you from the transcript. And my question to you was, did you mention that in the Bagosora trial, these words I read to you?
A. Listen, I am going to give you an answer in the complete sense, if you give me the complete question. And if the question is an extract that sets up an answer that is not in context, then you're not going to get the answer. And so let's make it quite clear. Either you give me the whole transcript and I go through it, and then we get an answer, or you give me the whole scenario. And the scenario that I recall, quite clearly, is one of a hypothetical situation, or what were my opinions of the ongoing conflict. And in one instance, I remember responding that would it not be possible, was it not also a possibility, due to the nature of the conflict and what was going on, that in fact they might have been implementing a Rwandan hegemony option. That is what I also wrote in my book. It is a hypothetical scenario, it is not a fact.
Q. Well, what's your position today with respect to that hypothetical scenario, after everything that's been published, the Bruguière report, witnesses coming forward, ex-network commando witnesses who are now willing to set the record straight and say exactly what happened, the fact that the Tutsis, the RPF killed most of these 800,000 people. I mean, what's -- what's your position today? Not back in 1994 or 2002 when you published that book. Today, sir, what's your position?
A. Well my -- my -- my oh, jeez, I wish I knew when your questions were ending. My position is the following: Maybe in the next ten years, after we get all these interesting stories and revisionism scenarios from all sides in, I might write a book about it. In the interim, my position remains of what I've seen and the facts that I'm relaying.
(1630H)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. So, basically, your position will never change, sir, because what you saw is what you saw, sir. You have never seen anything, as I mentioned setting the record straight, and you never took the time to read the report. I cannot understand why you would be disinterested in reading that report, sir, but that is up to you. If you would read the evidence that is coming in now, Ruzibiza's testimony --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Well, Counsel, don't argue with the witness.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. I will put to you, General, the question, if you wish. The question was – the question was, General, I would like to know if you have an opinion on this view by Colonel Marchal that in a paragraph the Colonel touches on another subject. To be more specific on his opinion of the RPF:
"I have dealt with it in my book. When I had gotten engaged in the process of peace towards the end of the war, in June, July and August and on account of the conduct of RPF since the month of January, more specifically on the field and on account of the pressures which were brought to bear on them using various means, for example, refugees. There is also the political intransigence of the RPF when it comes to cooperation or dialogue in relation to or in opposition to confrontation -- as against confrontation.
"Towards the end of June, July and August at the time that the war was raging. I was able to observe that more and more, the RPF wanted to control the totality of the country and was not necessarily moving towards a balanced government from the ethnic standpoint but towards a massive return of the diaspora as against the Tutsis -- the Tutsis within who survived.
"I therefore understood that the RPF did not necessarily have among its priorities the welfare of the people within the country but, rather, a plan which was elaborated over a long period, leading towards a country to be dominated by the Tutsi."
Now, my question is: Do you still believe, General, that the RPF had an elaborated, thought-out plan to take over the country by force as opposed to negotiations through the Arusha Accords? What is your position on that?
A. My position is, as I explained, that it is quite probably that they had a contingency plan in regard to the peace not functioning and what would they do in that light and with all the caveats that I presented or the reasons I presented and the fact that we were already well through the war that we had not succeeded in getting the ceasefire, that they were actually winning the war. They were actually running roughshod on the government forces and that the country was nearly laid open to them, that they were taking full advantage of that and was that ultimately one of the aims or one of the ambitions of the RPF? It could have been when I put some of those permutations together, but in the -- in -- as you described and I described to you, I do not have that definitive response. I am just saying, as I declared in the book, that there could have been a contingency plan that was being implemented and that the scenario played itself out, that they were actually doing it. And so that is a scenario that I simply presented as a possibility of what happened during that time frame. It is not in any way, shape or form my conviction that whole exercise deliberately started by the RPF and launched the genocide in which they wanted to see massive numbers of Tutsis killed in order to recover the country. I never said that.
Q. Let me read, sir, other passages from this report concerning strictly Colonel Marchal, whose judgment you trusted then and you trust now, I assume. He says at page --
A. No, wait a minute. Wait a second, if you don't mind, sir.
Q. Yes, go ahead, General.
A. I trusted his judgment then and I didn't give it to you that over the last years General Marchal is taking the position and that position is not necessarily the one that I reflect and we have not had much communications in the interim.
Q. Well, from my understanding, you don't have a position, sir. At least he stands up for what he thinks. He has seen the evidence, you have not. So how could you -- are you saying now that because Marchal is entertaining a certain position, which position by the way, is entertained by most authors and even historians dealing with the Rwandan question, are you saying that because he is entertaining that position that you do not any longer respect his judgment? Is that what you are saying?
A. I am saying that one -- first of all, not all historians -- the majority of historians go down that route; that is not a fact. Secondly, that gaining through enquiries information and they have not been concluded or conclusive, in my opinion. And, thirdly, that Luc Marchal has gone down the road, where he believes the RPF actually started it. Well, that is the position that we did not have at the time, and I don't share that position and so I question what references and what's his background on that. So that is what I am saying.
Q. All right. I disagree with you because Marchal's opinion is based on certain facts that you, sir, you were aware of back in 1994, and I will give you a few illustrations, sir, starting with page 26, where he says -- and it is paragraph 5. And as mentioned earlier, the Bruguiére report is partly based on the Belgian commission, parliamentary commission and the French commission also, and on that particular point Judge Bruguiére was referring to Luc Marchal's testimony before the Belgian commission and he says this, and this is one of the conclusions why -- on which Judge Bruguiére bases his conclusions.
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
Slowly, please. If counsel can read slowly.
Mr. President, we requested counsel to read slowly and from the beginning.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald?
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes, sir.
MR. PRESIDENT:
The interpreters have not got you. Please read slowly and start again.
MR. MACDONALD:
I am sorry.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Basically, General, if you want me to read it back to you, I will read it back to you, but basically, and you have heard this in Military I, these allegations from Colonel Marchal where he says that he has always known, he was always persuaded that when the RPF left to get some firewood in Mulindi, Marchal was convinced that they were not only travelling with -- or bringing in wood but also weapons and ammunitions. And so when Marchal says he has always been persuaded of that, I am assuming, sir, that he certainly relayed these persuasions to you, he has conveyed these persuasions to you. And I would like to know, General Dallaire, what you did with respect to these persuasions at that particular point?
A. The clarity of him saying that he was convinced they were bringing weapons in through hiding it under the wood is not, in my recollection, specifically a point that he raised with me as such. We had concerns about how well the supervision of the loading of the material in those trucks was going on, and it was under his responsibility, directly with the troops who were up there, to ensure that they supervised the actual loading of the vehicles to ensure that no such thing happened. And so if he was so convinced of that then that point would have been sorted out and we would have moved the assets to ensure that that did not happen, and I do not remember at any point that that became a factor in such a fashion that we had to change the modus operandi of the supervision of the loading of the vehicles.
Q. All right. So you don't recall Colonel Marchal speaking of his interrogations with respect to these -- this practice from the RPF of bringing in wood. So you are not sure if he did, maybe he didn't, maybe he did. But with respect to your answer, General, the following paragraph says, and again referring to Marchal:
"That he further stated during his testimony taken on 19th July 2002 at Brussels that he had been informed that elements of the RPF clandestinely left at night, left their CND cantonment area" -- and this is the interesting part -- "and that the RPF refused for members of the UNAMIR and UN observers to witness the loading of the vehicles which enabled them to clandestinely convey weapons to Kigali."
So, do you recall, General, being informed of that refusal by the RPF to have members of the UNAMIR or United Nations observers assist the loading of these vehicles, but surely that must have been conveyed to you, sir? Unless Marchal is --
A. I am just -- I am going back on one of the -- first of all, the point of people sneaking out at night, those were reports that we were getting and the security was enhanced, whether they were able to escape at night or not, they dug tunnels out; those could be in the realm of the possibility, of course, but we were working under the principle that people wanted peace and they weren't looking for clandestine operations.
And, secondly, in regards to the loading of the vehicle, and I do remember that there were frictions going on up there, but I cannot remember what ultimately the decisions were taken in regards to the loading of the vehicles, or the wood, the heavy logs and so on. And when you looked at the quantity, the convoys coming in and the quantity of the wood, the amount of ammunition or weapons that would be brought in, I really can't see them to be of a massive significance at that point. There were convoys everyday and the trucks were pretty loaded with wood, so if stuff was hidden underneath it, well, that is certainly the possibility and that was the concern that we had, yes.
Q. My position and others, General, is that this practice from the MINUAR was downright willful blindness. I mean, you just didn't care, knowing what -- getting this information from your observers, from Marchal, from your close collaborators that this practice was going on. And when you say, sir, that you acted on the premises that parties, the belligerents wanted peace and, therefore, had that been the case, they would not have participated in these practices, sir, but I remind you that whenever you had any information with respect to the FARs, the Rwandan army, you didn't hold that position; you inquired. And the best illustration would be from that character, Jean Pierre, that informant, who provided you with information and you were at that time ready to jump the gun and try to find these weapons that he was alleging the Interahamwe had.
A. I think you were -- I may return to a comment you raised previously about apples and oranges. In one case I have got hard data and that we are actually going to implement something that is a dead -- against the KWSA and that is clear and we are getting on with it. In the other circumstance in regard to one of the belligerents not wanting to cooperate with the peace process or permitting us to do our job properly, those are points that were raised, and I have to go back to my notes and see at what point that was raised, because I remember Luc and I discussing the concern about that. And if the belligerents remained uncooperative, as on the other side the ministry of defence was not cooperative in giving me the list of names of people allowed weapons and the like, this uncooperation that was going on on both sides made it most difficult for us to be able to say that these two ex-belligerents actually wanted peace. They seemed to continuously bring all sorts of scenarios that you would think that they are going -- are trying to undermine the peace process. And so, yes, there were incidents on both sides, but a chapter 6 mission can only report to both sides' attempts to have the solutions brought forward, and if they refuse to cooperate, then that is raised and we go from there, and that is essentially what we were doing. And if you remember the SITREPS I had been sending, I needed more troops, more capability, more authority from the UN to be able to conduct far more intense responsible checks and inspections and reporting and all the rest of it.
Q. I will just draw your attention on that last particular point where you say -- where Marchal -- I am sorry, says that he had the information that RPF were refusing members of MINUAR and observers of the United Nations to assist in the loading of vehicles. And at the time, as Marchal points out, he always believed that they were infiltrating weapons.
Now, my question to you, sir, what did you do? This is a clear question where something -- something fishy is happening because they are not allowing you to do your job.
A. Yes, you are right.
Q. What did you do about that?
A. (Inaudible) ... I will have to get back to my notes and find out what protests we raised, what arguments we raised with them, what capabilities that I have to actually do the supervision and was the supervision being done by my guys out there or not, and the result of that, my own recollection is that that was never resolved.
Q. And could you eliminate the possibility, General Dallaire, that nothing was done following that information? No inquiries were done.
A. Say that again.
Q. Could you eliminate the possibility that nothing was done following that information that the RPF would not let you do your jobs to observe, to assist?
A. I am convinced that I raised a point of this nature with General Kagame, and even I am convinced that Colonel Marchal raised it with the senior leadership at the CND of the RPF, for which he was in constant communication. The fact that it was resolved, as so many other infractions to the peace agreement were not resolved, is the nature of the business in which we found ourselves. We found ourselves in a scenario where both sides did not want peace and that is exactly what we were reporting.
MR. PRESIDENT:
General, speak slowly. We have to record all what you have to say. Speak slowly.
THE WITNESS:
Very good.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Just one last question on this particular point, General. Do you recall when you raised this matter with Kagame and where?
A. No. No.
Q. I have a few other -- a couple of other elements with respect to Marchal, page 57 and it is a short paragraph. Actually, there are two paragraphs, the first one and it is the third last paragraph at page 57.
It says: "That as far as he is concerned, the Belgian colonel, Luc Marchal, second in command in the UNAMIR, was heard in Belgium on the 9th July 2002, states that the only motivation of the RPF is to take over power."
Now, again, General, I accept your position and I just want to make sure I fully understand it, and your position is to the effect that you cannot eliminate that possibility entirely, but you don't necessarily subscribe to it; is that correct?
A. I think a fair assessment is that I don't subscribe to that because I don't have the factual proof of that, but the way it played out, the options were there and, you know, there could have been a possibility but it is not what I conclude in my work nor do I have the facts to pursue that sort of line of thinking.
Q. Okay. And the following paragraph -- and with respect to the date, there is an important element where it says that in his logbook, he recorded on 4th April 1994:
"That, in fact, the position defended is that the sole motivation of the RPF in taking up arms against the then government was not the victory of democracy but a conquest of power through violence. This position seems to tally with my observations and deductions."
What's surprising about that passage, General Dallaire, is that it seems that at that time on April 4th, 1994, Colonel Marchal would have described that in his agenda or logbook, whatever you call it. Now I am assuming again and you mention that in your book, you were very close to Marchal. I am assuming that he must have relayed his fears or questions on the motivations of the RPF to you on that particular day, April the 4th, that is when you asked, by the way, Bagosora who was Habyarimana's (inaudible), if I recall correctly?
A. I don't see the link or how one or the other -- I don't know, he might have decided that mid-night, that night after the discussions, and he certainly didn't relay it to me in those words at any point, but we had had discussions about why the RPF were being always so intransigent in the negotiations, why were they not demonstrating any flexibilities? Why did they seem to be running away with all the marbles of the peace agreements? I mean the peace agreement was giving them everything they sort of were looking for in a democracy, established with the significant capabilities of them achieving a return to a multi-ethnic nation with the divisions of responsibilities well laid out and it seemed to be fairly established by the international community observation. So, I mean, what is the motivation if you are sitting there with nearly -- you know, the cards that are giving you what you want? Why do you want to blow the whole thing apart and create the loss of 800,000 or whatever number, depends on who you talk to, of your own people? I mean, there is an absolutely illogic position there that I just cannot leap into. And if you are leaping into that on some sort of series of the deductions, well, that is fine, that I will let you do and I will not do that, but I just can't do that. I was not pleased on many occasions with how the RPF were responding and not, in fact, I think assisting as much as they could to help the process, but at the same time I never perceived them to ultimately want to see the whole thing crash and when in fact they were getting essentially what they were looking for, or at least it is allegedly said they were for Arusha, which is more than I can say about the other side.
Q. Well, the other side was fully cooperating with you. The other side wanted ceasefires and they were demanding you to set up meetings with Kagame, to sit down and try to negotiate a definite ceasefire, and you knew that and you know today, and I am assuming that you are admitting to the fact that the Rwandan armed forced and the Rwandan government always pursued the ceasefire from day one, April the 6th, and they have always asked for a ceasefires. And the --
A. You are absolutely right. They always asked for a ceasefire, but there is absolutely nothing to curtail what was going on in their midst. I mean, the slaughtering that was going on in their midst was not by the RPF sitting north of the DMZ. And the actions that were being taken by their elite units, not just one, but elite units, the inability to want to grasp the security situation and use all their assets to curtail in the bud what was going on was maybe a great statement by others who probably didn't even have full control of the forces as we have indicated earlier on, Gatsinzi and so on. And so they wanted that ceasefire, but, in fact, was that actually what was going on in the field and was that actually what was happening? There was no demonstration by that side that they actually were doing things to stop the exercise, to stop this catastrophic failure. And, in fact, we had more data on them of training and participating -- I mean, the president's own party was training militia and arming them and distributing weapons in order to kill Tutsis. So, I mean, tell me how again, how could one leap into a logic that says that automatically the RPF wanted to start this exercise and destroy their own people, when, in fact, the other side was the one who was creating enormous amount of frictions and scenarios also was not particularly cooperative also, but when given the opportunity to curtail this thing and nip it in the bud, demonstrated absolutely no capabilities or did not want to demonstrate capabilities of stopping it. So we ended up in a civil war.
Q. I have quite an extensive line of questions on that, General, because I knew that you would hold that position as the position you had in Military I. And to me that is wrong, it is unfair, it is not true and you know about it. And you know that -- just to make one point --
A. Don't you say what I know about it. I will tell you what I know when you ask me the question.
Q. Well, you tell us what you know --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Well, Counsel, I think you must only put questions to the witness. You must not argue with the witness.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. You know, General Dallaire, that from day one the Rwandan armed forces told you, sir, that their troops were at the front. The gendarmerie was busy fighting RPF from day one. Again, from April the 7th on, the gendarmerie was busy fighting with the army. The army was at the front. They were fighting the RPF. And you know, sir, the RPF clearly had advantages over the Rwandan army, and we have seen the result of that. And what the Rwandan armed forces and the government suggested to you, sir, they said that,
"We have to stop. We have to -- in order for us to demobilise our troops, either the army or the gendarmerie, we have to obtain a ceasefire and by obtaining a ceasefire then we can pacify the country, but -- or else we are mobilised. We have to fight the RPF. They are destroying us everywhere,"
And that is what the position of the Rwandan armed forces and the Rwandan government was at the time. That is what they told you.
A. First of all, in the first days, the RPF were not all over the place. The concentration of forces was in the east and with the RPF battalion in Kigali. There were battalions in other places in the country that could have been brought in. There could have been a demonstration by those leaders to specifically go to those units that were still apparently loyal, because we are saying that not all the units were rogue units. We even had information that was saying that not all the Presidential Guards were rogue, and yet there was no particular demonstration in Kigali, nor in the periphery of the combat, of them trying to curtail that. And, in fact, they continued to sustain the argument of using the militias and using the extremists even though with the slaughtering and killing of using (inaudible) as a defensive posture, which was not necessary in the opening days, in fact, the opening weeks, remembering that the combat really moved east and then south and then started moving westerly with a number of government forces in tact.
Q. As I mentioned, General, I will have an extensive line of questions for you on that point. For now, let me just finish with this Marchal testimony before the Belgian commission. Page 59, sir, and it is paragraph 4, and it says:
"For Colonel Marchal, who was heard in Belgium, the manner in which military operations were launched in the north of Rwanda as of the 7th of April 1994 points to the fact that they had been planned long ahead of time and that the hostilities which had lasted three months could have lasted a shorter period."
It says that, according to him, Marchal, the preparation showed by the RPF, especially in the north, indicated that they were ready for the war on April the 7th. So what is your comment on that, sir?
A. Well, if you recall, I have stated similar responses on many occasions, that it would have surprised me immensely that the military component of the RPF, in looking at all possible contingencies, including the contingency of the Arusha Accords crashing and particularly after months of deliberations which was going nowhere, that, in fact, they did have plans to actually take action if that situation fell short. I mean, they did it twice before and were stopped because of outside force that reinforced the RGF. I also indicated that, in my opinion, that operation could have been done faster than what it took, than 100 days and that the situation could have been secured before that. I have never negated those opinions. In fact, I hold the truth of them.
Q. And finally, one last point on the Bruguiére report, page 44, second paragraph, and it reads as follows:
"That the infiltrations to reinforce the RPF military potential through various missiles were particularly confirmed in General Ntashamaje's testimony" -- Ntashamaje is spelt N-T-A-S-H-A-M-A-J-E, "who is a retired major of the armed forces and who was heard on the 4th of April 2001."
Considering that UNAMIR had also witnessed that situation as well, we are dealing specifically with the surface-to-air missiles and it seems that the UNAMIR was informed of that. What is your position on that, General?
A. It is because I didn't understand the translation. There has been no proof to that effect. We knew they had missiles up in the north, but I had no factual proof that they were at the CND and that was not part of the establishment of the (inaudible).
Q. Well, it seems, General, do you know the colonel, Cussac, who is a military attaché at the French embassy in Rwanda, in Kigali?
A. Yes.
Q. It seems that he informed Colonel Marchal that the RPF had introduced ground-to-air missiles and Marchal even mentioned that in his recent deposition on November the 30th of this year, page 24, and I understand, General Dallaire, that Colonel Marchal informed you of that, that discussion he had with Colonel Cussac; is that correct?
A. I don't recall him raising it with me. I had a meeting with Colonel Cussac and also with the senior Belgian officer who was working with the government forces, and at that meeting where we were discussing if information that they might have could be provided in order to assist us in getting clear what was going on, I was informed offhand by Cussac that he thought that the RPF had brought in missiles and he had no specific proof of what he was saying and he knew they had them up north and I had absolutely no proof of them. I queried the RPF on that and there was no response in that regard.
Q. And you say he provided no proof. Well, Colonel Marchal, doesn't seem to think so, because he says in his testimony of November 30th, page 25 -- I can't get hold of it. And he says the following on page -- I have the English transcript, actually it is a draft and he says:
Question -- okay. "Did you ask Colonel Cussac on what he was basing himself on to ask you that question?"
The question was -- he is concerned about the missiles.
Answer from Colonel Marchal: "Colonel Cussac gave me various pieces of information in answer to practically all the questions that I could have raised. So I did not put any additional questions to him because what he told me was enough for me to understand the problem."
So, Colonel Marchal meets with Cussac before you do and then you meet with Colonel Cussac and it seems from -- this is the interpretation I draw from Colonel Marchal's answer as given on November the 30th, that he had obtained sufficient evidence from Cussac to have the whole picture. And must we understand that Cussac revealed less to you than he would have revealed to Marchal? Of course, you can't answer that because according to you, you don't recall Marchal telling you about Cussac. So what exactly did he tell you of Cussac?
A. And I -- I don't remember the details of that meeting, apart from the fact that he had raised it and he had absolutely no proof whatsoever of what he was stating and I had responded to him that we were aware that the RPF did have surface-to-air -- to launch missiles. It was in the opening information provided to us when we came over in August. And that's all that was -- and a concern of that nature was raised. I would have to go back into the SITREPS to see what was brought forward to New York on that regard, but I never -- you know, I never materialised any data in that regard, and I don't -- I honestly don't remember Luc and I having a fundamental discussion on that and how to go about restraining that distribution or confirming that point. Luc, with the observers, had checks that they were doing and I cannot confirm the details of what those checks might have involved, including looking specifically for those missiles.
Q. All right. So what is undeniable, General, is that -- let me put the question. It is a very long question, but I will give you the opportunity to answer.
First of all, President Habyarimana was assassinated, according to substantial evidence, by the RPF who were part of the network commando under the orders of Kagame on April 6th, 1994, and following that assassination hundreds of thousands of Rwandans died. What we know is that the plane was shot down by the network commando with an SAM 16 ground-to-air missile shot from the Masaka hills, which is close by the airport, as you know, situated in the KWSA.
Now, you have received confidences or information from Cussac, Colonel Cussac, on the fact that the RPF have in their possession, in their arsenal, such missiles, ground-to-air missiles, in direct contravention with the KWSA. In 2003, you have published a book, the French version has 684 pages, and in that book you speak of a multitude of subjects, anywhere from Canadian maple syrup to landmines, and you speak of different people from Marcel Sarvard to Major Saxonov. Surely, General Dallaire, you must have spoken of that astonishing revelation from Colonel Cussac in your book. This revelation had been made to you in the few days prior to the assassination of the president.
Now, did you speak of that -- these astonishing revelations from Colonel Cussac in your book?
A. Unless I am mistaken, I remember writing that into a -- the draft of the book. I would have to re-read the book and see if I actually wrote it or got it into the final version and I am just querying the missiles, I thought they were SA7s, but I would have to recheck that also, what type of missiles were actually being used.
Q. Well, actually, if you read the Bruguiére report, it seems that these missiles were provided to the RPF by the Ugandan government and they had purchased these missiles in a lot, I believe, of 40 different ground-to-air missiles from the US -- I believe in 1980, I am not sure, '87 or '89 -- and there may have been these SA7 missiles in that lot.
Now, you agree -- General, since we are speaking of your book, do you agree that there are certain mistakes in that book?
A. Yes, I wrote right at the start that this was not an academic, peer review history of the Rwandan catastrophe. You are quite right.
Q. And do you also then agree, General, that there are a few -- what we call in French, I am not sure if I could transpose it in English, but a few manipulations in that book where you tend to -- whenever certain events happened, you tend to blame the Rwandan government or the FAR. For instance, the Karambo massacres, you clearly shift the blame on the Rwandan authorities or the FARs. Another example is the assassination of Gatabazi. It has been clearly established today that Gatabazi was assassinated by the RPF. I think you probably acknowledged today that the letter dated December the 3rd was a clear manipulation from the other side. And I understand, General, that you have acknowledged in your testimony in Military I that you had a second edition of that book coming out. It was in the process of revision, if I understand correctly. Do you recall that, General?
A. Am I answering all those questions?
Q. If you want, yes.
A. I wouldn't mean -- but I want -- I mean, you are saying that, first of all, that the Karambo massacres I specifically said it was the RGF. The investigations were never fully conclusive. I did indicate that the signs that were left and my analysis of the reasons for it reflected far more an RGF or a hardline or extremist organisation that wanted to create significant problems conducted that but it was never definitively finalised and, in fact, it was held against us for not doing that. Gatabazi, if you have got hard information, it says the RPF did it, fine. I didn't have that. It was in an RGF territory. I had received information that there were even death squads coming in from Togo that was supporting the extremist point of view. And so I left a bunch of those options open.
The letter of manipulation, the letter was an incredible document sent to every Tom, Dick and Harry about that information and unsigned. It was made of absolute nonsense and it was in a process of whoever was trying to provide either disinformation or information. And there is no second edition. There are a few corrections in names that were done after the first publication, but there is no review being done of the book.
(1725H)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. You mentioned, General Dallaire, in your testimony of January 27th, 2004, that there was a second edition. I will read to you the transcript, sir. Actually, on page 105, line 13, question -- it is in French:
"Since last Tuesday, several questions have been put to you. I would like to revisit some of them, some of the questions which were put to you without establishing a direct link with those questions. But several questions were put to you on several occasions about the contents of your book, and the first one was in relation to the first edition, I Have Shaken The Hand Of The Devil, and the question is, is there a second edition on the way?"
Answer: "Yes."
Question: "(Not translated)."
Answer: "The second edition is being reviewed right now," and then you go on further to say that the second edition of the book.
Question: "In that second edition, do you intend to make any corrections to facts?"
Answer: "There will be no substantive changes, but there are a few minor corrections here and there."
A. The book has been reprinted several times, and when it came out with the -- particularly with names that had been interposed, and even corrections in the names of the soldiers who were killed, corrections of that nature which are editorial or of spelling and stuff like that, because there were some spelling mistakes, those were done. But there was no content change in regards to the information provided.
Q. So changes were made, but basically to correct names and other details of such nature?
A. Yes. Exactly.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald, if you need a break, we can take a break now.
MR. MACDONALD:
I'm trying to screen my -- but if perhaps we could, Your Honour, until six o'clock.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, we will take from six -- up to six, we can take a break.
Yes, General, you may refresh yourself and come back in half an hour.
(Court recessed from 1730H to 1803H)
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, Counsel, Mr. MacDonald.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire?
A. Right.
Q. Okay. General, you say that in its role as an arbiter, the UNAMIR had the duty to execute its duties with impartiality and neutrality vis-à-vis the belligerent forces. Nonetheless, UNAMIR has been criticised on several occasions in that regard and more specifically by the Rwandan government, the Rwandan government which criticised your lack of -- your partiality (sic) towards it. Do you think that some of these criticisms are well-founded and, if yes, which ones of those?
A. I don't consider them to be well-founded. I considered them to be part of an exercise in fiddling with the information and not making UNAMIR more attractive to the general population, using our inability to find the solution for the massacres on the 17th of November in the five different spots. At no time did we ever publicly accuse anybody, but because we didn't -- weren't able to do that, we were accused by media and members of the government and population that we were pro-RPF. And there were a series of these events in which we simply were accused of being pro the other side if we didn't agree with the analysis that media or people were providing to us and when that analysis was simply not plausibly corroborated by fact.
Q. But, General, at that time -- at that time how were you able to justify that your boss, Mr. Booh-Booh, the special representative of the secretary general himself, should deplore your lack of impartiality and the lack of impartiality of UNAMIR? And some examples were pointed out to you, particularly on page 124 when Booh-Booh said that you were particularly in favour of the RPF. How do you reconcile the explanation that you are given in relation to the Rwandan government in relation to Mr. Booh-Booh?
A. I have no reconciling to be done. If Mr. Booh-Booh felt that the force commander was not impartial and was putting the mission at risk, then Mr. Booh-Booh simply had to bring me into his office and lecture me on that, provide me with guidance in regards to what he perceived me doing the right thing in his eyes, and then we get on it and if that is not sufficient enough then he recommends to the secretary general, as he did with the CAO, to have me fired out of the mission. Never was any such conversation or discussion ever held.
Q. On page 70 of his book, Mr. Booh-Booh says the following, and it's under tab 2, document 1 of the first bundle of documents.
MR. BÂ:
Counsel, I would like to point out that when you were talking about -- when you were putting your question, you talk about his lack of partiality which means he was impartial. Is that what you intended to say? What do you think?
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you, Counsel Bâ.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. In his book, Mr. Booh-Booh says the following:
"Rumours on the war preparations by the RPF were also recorded or noted at the UNAMIR. It was more specifically the issue of young persons joining the training -- the military training camps of the RPF to the north of the demilitarised zone. Reference was also made to the fact that General Dallaire, in charge of military affairs, was never curious about the military or paramilitary activities of the RPF."
General, are you saying that the special representative of the secretary general never made any such comments to you or never sent you any queries on such issues?
A. Well, we had exchanges of information in regards to information that we were getting of ammunition -- questions of weapons caches and things of that nature; we had an extensive meeting, in fact, with UNHCR in January-ish, going into February, with a number of representatives from all sides because of the spontaneous return of refugees that we were reporting both to Uganda and, excuse me, to New York and to the ex-belligerents to the extent where over a time frame, a number of younger men, and some older, but younger men with thousands of heads of cattle were pouring across the border, entering the RPF zone, and the discussion that was going on was how to stop this spontaneous return of refugees: People coming in from Uganda, ex-Rwandans coming back or children thereof. And the RPF responded by saying that Uganda was putting pressure on them to get out because, as of 1 January, the peace agreement and the new government was supposed to be in place and they had a peacekeeping force there, so people should be going home, and at the same time the RPF started to invite the displaced people who were south of the DMZ to also come back home in order for them to regain their territory, and to do that within a certain control because of mine fields and the like which we were still working on identifying. So this exercise of spontaneous refugees, the monitoring of these youths and adults, male mostly, coming in with all the cattle, where they were, were monitored by the observers to the extent where they were able to move and see.
Q. General, my comment was more focused on the last portion of the paragraph, the last part of the paragraph where Mr. Booh-Booh said that you were in charge of military affairs and yet you were not -- you were never curious about the military -- paramilitary activities of the RPF activities. And, once again, you are saying, if I understood you clearly, that Mr. Booh-Booh never engaged with you on that issue, if I understood your testimony. And the question I'm putting to you is, how are you able to explain, if you can, Booh-Booh's position 10 years after the event, some 10 years after the event?
A. Well, first of all, I don't have to explain anything about Booh-Booh and what he writes 10 years after. I've written what I have written and he's written what he has written. We did extensive over flights by helicopter and also on ground of RPF actions in the northern part of the DMZ and the digging of trenches and moving of troops; we had them return. We did not see any of the youth that were coming through specifically being mobilised into new units and so on; that was never reported; we never saw that; nor redistribution of weapons to those youth. They essentially moved into the eastern part with the cattle and continued to do pastural work as best as we could determine. And so we were monitoring and bringing and conducting and -- how do I say --these objections in the formal fashion to General Kagame on all occasions that we met, be it of what was going on in the CND, what was going on in the north in regards to military matters, and, in fact, the joint military committee which I created was the only committee that continuously met up to near the end, contrary to the political one where, in fact, the chiefs of staff and Kagame or at times their representatives, we were able to meet and discuss and go over a number of these frictions.
Q. General Dallaire, do you recall the question I put to you?
A. Are we being a bit smart here, or what are you trying to get?
Q. No, I'm just asking you a question. Do you remember the question I put to you?
A. Yes.
MR. BÂ:
That was not interpreted.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, whether these allegations of partiality (sic[or not]) were well-founded or not, one thing is certain that when you arrived in Rwanda in the days and months that followed, there were these massacres, and we know that your personal credibility was at stake, General Dallaire, have you at any time whatsoever thought that it might be -- it might be necessary in the ultimate resolution of the conflict to resign, as in the case of Booh-Booh because his impartiality was questioned?
A. I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. Who is resigning because of what? Booh-Booh resigning of his impartiality or me resigning because of mine or lack thereof?
Q. The question is as follows -- let me repeat it: Did you at any point whatsoever, you, General Dallaire, think that it might be proper, in order to ensure the ultimate resolution of the conflict, to tender your resignation as did Booh-Booh when his impartiality was put into question by the RPF? So did you think about it? Did you discuss it with anyone?
A. I did not consider my position to have been compromised to the extent where I had to resign. I am aware that a foreign government was manoeuvering behind the scenes in New York to get me fired, but I considered that my work was still worthy. I was succeeding in making both the RGF and the RPF mad at me on numbers of occasions, and that is, to me, the sign that I'm actually responding to my impartiality.
Q. General, when was it that the RPF got mad at you? Can you give us an example?
A. Oh, on a number of occasions in discussing their activities in the north, altercations between their forces and my troops in UNOMOR; the lack of cooperation that was going on in monitoring; the CND operations where we were continuously improving the security to prevent people from potentially going under the wire of that fence; of complaining that the population or people were spying on them and those who might be visiting them; complaining that we were not providing enough security and coordination to bring about the smooth, secure transition of the swearing-in on a number of times; impatience with the political process, be it with Mr. Booh-Booh or myself trying to influence it; and on and on.
Q. Once again, I would like to draw your attention to Mr. Booh-Booh's book on your refusal to consider, to envisage resigning from your position, and he says this on a page which counsel referred to, page 38:
"His attitude is incomprehensible and involved hanging on to his position whatever the situation and being in a situation where he could not be useful in the conflict."
Did you, General Dallaire, not get that impression in the course of your stay in Rwanda?
A. First of all, I never refused to consider my resigning because I never considered that to be a question, so I didn't have to refuse it. It never came up. It didn't come up to the extent where I felt that my work was in jeopardy because of impartiality. And the foundations of the arguments were discussed on a number of occasions with the RGF, with the chief of staff -- correction, the chiefs of staff, Ndindiliyimana, the chief of staff of the army, the minister of defence, the prime minister, other ministers, so, I mean, I didn't see me refusing to consider it. I never saw it even raising itself to a decision. And what is written in this paragraph, I -- I don't understand what he is trying to say of me, trying to hold on to my position. I was simply doing my duty, and if people felt that I was doing it improperly, then I expected people to take appropriate action.
Q. Booh-Booh continues by saying that this --
"The situation constituted a handicap for UNAMIR up to the point that the secretary general decided not to renew its contract at the end of August 1994."
And this issue was broached last week, but we see that Booh-Booh did not see things the way you saw them, and particularly -- specifically because of this, your lack of impartiality.
A. Well, I suppose there is a question there, but let me respond, if I may, by, first of all, making it quite clear that there is documented proof somewhere in the bowels of that UN that the secretary general did not want me to resign, as I requested to do in the latter part of July; he wanted me to finish a complete year under the new contract of UNAMIR, which meant that would end in early October because I started on the 5th of October with UNAMIR, and so he expected a whole year. And it was recommended to him strongly by our chief of defence staff and by General Baril and so on that that would not be appropriate on my health, as I had become -- and I had recommended that I be relieved, because I felt I was becoming a risk and ineffective to the mission. So I was not refused a renewal. I, in fact, was led to feel that I was leaving early from the contract. However, that was absolutely not the case of Mr. Booh-Booh, who in mid-June did not find his contract renewed, and we didn't see him thereafter.
Q. Indeed, Mr. Booh-Booh thought that he needed to resign because of the accusation of impartiality of the RPF. That is what he says on page 37 of his book.
A. I had never at any time heard of him ever mentioning to anyone that he was resigning and nor was that the information that I was receiving informally from the UN either.
Q. The Rwandan government and the Rwandan armed forces claim that you had taken sides; your boss, Mr. Booh-Booh, spoke also unequivocally on that issue:
“Then there are soldiers, particularly Mr. Putvai (phonetic), who stated on page 258 before the Belgian commission that UNAMIR was pro-RPF.”
Were you aware of that, General? This is a document of the 15th or 25th.
A. I don't remember who Putvai is and I don't particularly remember the RGF -- and, in fact, they have never, ever raised to me my lack of impartiality; it was raised by the president of the interim government when I met with him on the 9th of April, and it was raised in the media. Not one minister raised it with me. And, in fact, if President Habyarimana felt that I was not being impartial, I'm sure he would have taken the occasion on the calls that he was receiving from Mr. Boutros-Ghali in order to try to help the peace process, he would have quite clearly, I'm sure, said that, "I don't want Dallaire around and get him out of here." And there has been absolutely no documentation that I am aware of any such demands, nor discussions.
Q. Let me draw your attention to the letter from the minister of foreign affairs and cooperation on the 31st of May 1994. That is document 1C 40, the letter to the secretary general of the United Nations. I would like that letter to be shown to you. It was sent by fax, I believe. On the first page of that document --
A. We got some different documents here -- I'm not sure if I've got the right one. It has nine pages. Is that the one?
Q. That's right. That's right.
A. Okay.
Q. I believe, General, that you were aware or this letter was brought to your attention. On the first page, one can read the following:
"The government of Rwanda particularly expresses concerns regarding General Dallaire, UNAMIR's commander, and requests that his mandate not be renewed within the context of the UNAMIR,"
-- and I think the date is the 15th of June 1994. Were you aware of that letter, General?
A. In fact, I thank you for bringing it back to my memory. My responses to you previously were while we were talking about the pre-war time frame with the Rwandan government, and during this -- the actual war time frame, I remember, and I can't remember exactly when or where, but I remember reading this document in my headquarters, sent to me by New York. I don't remember the full content of it.
Q. Let me take you to page 2, paragraph B, and in order to substantiate that request, the government of the Republic of Rwanda simply says that it
"feels that the current mandate of the UNAMIR commander, General Roméo Dallaire, has not been properly fulfilled in view of his deficiencies in impartiality which have significantly contributed to the failure of UNAMIR. His mandate therefore should not be renewed if the strengthened UNAMIR were to succeed in accomplishing its mission."
Then -- and I will be done very shortly, General. The grievances levelled against you can be found on pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and there is a series of 10 or so points in support of the request. That is the request from the Rwandan government. I'm not going to read to -- to read through all those 10 grievances, but this paragraph 10 refers to the introduction of weapons by the RPF into Kigali and particularly to the CND. And it is said there that the introduction of those weapons was carried out with the complicity of the UNAMIR. There is also reference to firewood and also -- and that would be paragraph 4 -- which indicates that these convoys were not subject to any control by the Rwandan government as they went into Kigali.
Let me return to paragraph 5, but before I do, this is the content which I would like to talk about.
"It was further noted that most of the positions occupied by UNAMIR prior to the resumption of hostilities by the RPF, particularly Muhabura, the Amahoro stadium, and the CND palace, subsequently appeared to have been RPF retrenchment strongholds."
Paragraph 6 also refers to killings by the RPF of Hutus at the Amahoro stadium, and it is also said that UNAMIR was complacent in an inadmissible manner when the civilians around the CND building were affected, and that was prior to the resumption of hostilities on the 7th of April 1994. It is also stated that these facts were confirmed by some UNAMIR officials but had always been denied by General Dallaire who claimed to have a mastery of the situation, and then so on and so forth.
Reference is also made in paragraph 7 to General Dallaire's pro-RPF stances which were regularly broadcast over Radio Muhabura. And finally, paragraph 8,
"We are told that UNAMIR elements were directly involved in RPF offensives against the Rwandan government forces and an illustration is provided in respect of the Remera centre in Kigali where RPF elements and UNAMIR soldiers lived together."
Then, paragraph 9 refers to the Kirambo killings, the Mutura and Kinyara killings and the Taba killings, and it is also said that
“the results which General Dallaire had promised were not published and this was a great point of disappointment to the Rwandan government -- to the Rwandan population."
MR. PRESIDENT:
What is the question, Counsel, now we've been reading this for some time?
MR. MACDONALD:
The reason I'm reading it, Your Honour, is because we have no translation of this document, and I want to make sure that you understand the content. I know General Dallaire read it, but basically it's to relay to you the contents of that letter.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. So, once again, General, this is a letter that was addressed – or, a letter from the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation to the secretary general of the United Nations directly on the 15th of June. And you say your contract was not renewed. What date would that be referring to? In fact, what I'm saying is, you decided to resign, General, as you say; on what date did you decide to resign?
A. I don't remember the exact date. It was in the second part or latter part of July that I was discussing it, and I believe my contract with the UN ended on the 4th of September -- or the 4th or 6th of September -- where I was picked by the UN as a D1 force commander.
Q. Following that letter, General, how did you handle the situation concerning the various belligerents in the field?
A. I continued to conduct my duties as the force commander of UNAMIR 2, which was the new mission mandated on the 17th of May by the Security Council to reinforce the mission and conduct the security operations behind the lines and assist in humanitarian situations. The information was relayed to me. No action that I know of was taken by the secretary general, nor by DPKO, nor was I told or ordered to respond to this in any specific fashion. And much of the information that is here are information that I had reported personally to New York previously, things like the killings, the investigations that were never ending. One of the primary reasons is I had nobody to investigate, I had no professional investigators, no legal, nor any human rights staff to actually do that task, and certainly the (inaudible) in trying to investigate a crime of that scale did not have the skills to accomplish it. And so I continued to serve, I continued to have contact with the Rwandan interim government, but mostly in June-ish and moving into July, it was with either Colonel Bagosora or General Bizimungu and on occasion with General Ndindiliyimana, I -- you know, I did not -- if my leaders felt that I was still doing the proper job and the SRSG who probably received this even before I did didn't turn around and ask me to be fired, then I'm not too sure exactly what we are supposed to do in weighting the content of this. And I must say that a lot of this has so much innuendo and so much inventiveness that we could spend a couple of years just going through it and debating it.
(1845H)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Am I to understand that in your relations with the interim government, everything went on smoothly as if there were no problems, even following that letter?
A. The relationships with the interim government were never particularly smooth. And in fact during that wartime period, they were not smooth on the other side either, as it was often very difficult to be able to find out who's running the show and to be able to bring observations and complaints and the like. On the government side, they were in Gitarama. It was quite difficult to get out there. They often complained that they didn't have communications, and I was working to get them some satellite phones so that it would be easier to talk to us; as you know the phone system wasn't functioning. I offered to keep liaison officers at their government offices so that they could relay rapidly information, because General Bizimungu and Bagosora, and even Ndindiliyimana on several occasions would tell me that they couldn't give me timely answers because they had to get it all the way out there and then get the answer and then bring it all the way back. And so those delays caused significant problems in decision making.
I maintained communications with the minister of defence, met with the prime minister on a couple of occasions, met with -- I think it was the minister of interior or health in one particular disastrous bombardment of the Kigali hospital, and continued to try to maintain contact with that government as it continued to withdraw north west.
Q. Let me put the question to you again, General Dallaire: In spite of the allegations contained in this letter, whether they are baseless or not, did you -- once again, in the interests of the mission, did you ever consider stepping down from your position? I know that you didn't do it, as you have said, but the question is: Did you ever think about it?
A. I think I probably discussed it with General Thadee, and Mr. Kofi Annan, because it's not an insignificant letter. I mean, it's from the -- their minister. But the discussions and conversations ended there. The secretary general felt that I was still doing the job, so why should I all of a sudden invent reasons, or give reasons for leaving? And so the question was responded to, as best as I can remember, verbally, and we kept on with the job.
Q. Am I to understand from your answer then, General, that you actually talked about this, about this letter with the secretary general and also about the timeliness or the untimeliness of a resignation? Because you said that it was certainly discussed. So the question is: Did you talk about it, that is, that possibility of resignation with the secretary general?
MR. BÂ:
Mr. MacDonald, I would like to specify that Kofi Annan was not the secretary general at the time.
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
Says Counsel Bâ.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Please, General, proceed.
A. I never had a conversation with the secretary general in regards to this, and I'm only trying to -- to grasp the conversations that could have happened around this document, because I really don't have any papers to remind me if there was an exchange of documents with DPKO. And one must remember that both the SRSG and the force commander of missions, although are recommended to the secretary general, he brings them up to the Security Council, and ultimately the Security Council does take the final decision. And I had received absolutely no information whatsoever from that level, let alone the secretary general, that I was in a position to have to review my performance on the ground.
I found that most of the contents of this was nuanced, baseless, and was very much part of the propaganda machine that the extreme elements of the -- certainly the interim government and previously were continuously raising, as they were also preventing us from presenting our side of the story to the media that they controlled.
Q. I do not want to belabour that point, General, but my question, simply -- and it is quite -- a relatively serious question. I simply want to find out whether you and -- or, the secretary general did consider your resignation from your position as commander? So, specifically, was there any discussion between yourself and the secretary general about the timeliness or possibility of your resignation? In other words, did the secretary general seek to know what your version of the facts would be in relation to these allegations?
A. I received no such correspondence, nor was there any such communications that I can remember at all.
Q. But a short while ago, you seemed to be saying that if there had been any communication, or if there had been any discussions, then you would have been speaking in the hypothetical. So you're saying that if you had done this, then you may have addressed one issue or the other. But now you are saying that the secretary general never sought your opinion on the allegations -- the rather serious allegations in this letter, whether they are baseless or not. So is it true that the secretary general never sought to find out what your opinion was in respect of these allegation? That is what I would like to know.
A. Yeah, well, let's make sure we're listening to the answers, sir. I never raised the fact that the secretary general queried me directly in any way, shape, or form. I simply said to -- the secretary general, to my knowledge, first of all never came to me, and secondly I have no information whether he queried DPKO. In the normal course of events we were talking at least twice, three times, sometimes more often than that during the day between DPKO and myself in regards to the operations.
I was nominated to command this new, improved, and increased mission, and I cannot specifically remember raising this point. And nor can I specifically remember them raising it. However, I am sure that it probably was mentioned in a conversation, but no -- there were no follow-through results thereof.
MR. MACDONALD:
I would like to introduce this, Your Honour -- this document, C40.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, this document is marked D. 157.
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Dated -- document dated?
MR. MACDONALD:
Dated -- well, the introductory letter is dated June the 15th, 1994; that is the first document. But the letter itself is dated May 31st, 1994.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay.
(Exhibit No. D. 157 (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, in spite of these allegations of partiality, am I to understand that before you became aware of that letter, could it be said that you had always had good relations with General Bizimungu -- at least up to the time of the dispatch of that letter?
A. General Bizimungu and I met on a number of occasions and we had frank discussions, sometimes informal on subjects, and in my opinion he was giving me the information that he had and I was providing him with my queries. And whether the responses were satisfactory or not, that depended on the subject.
Q. Do you recall sending a letter to General Bizimungu in which you somewhat explained your bitterness in regard to the letter from the ministry of foreign affairs? General, do you recall?
A. No.
Q. Okay. We have a document marked ID (sic) 39 -- 38 -- 1D38.
MR. MACDONALD:
Could the general be shown that document, please.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Do you have that document before you, General?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald?
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes -- oh.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Two minutes. Wait for two minutes.
Yes, Mr. MacDonald.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, this document dated -- I'm not sure if it is 1 or 7 -- I think it's 20 -- it's 1. So it should be 21 June 1994. Do you recognise your signature on that letter?
A. Yeah, this would be 27 June, I think.
Q. Mmm-hmm, okay. And this is a letter addressed to General Augustin Bizimungu. And I would like to draw your attention to the third paragraph. It is still in relation to that letter from the ministry of foreign affairs where you said that:
"I also believe that this cooperation which we have established together will not be tarnished by correspondence such as the one from the ministry of foreign affairs and cooperation."
Am I to understand, General, that up until that time you had established good, solid relations and cooperation between the UN and Augustin Bizimungu? And if we are to look at the content of this letter, you expressed the wish that that cooperation and that relationship be sustained. Is that correct?
A. He and I maintained communications and exchanged information. We were not always on the same wavelength and agreed with things, but we had, I felt, an ability to pass information and comments; him about his government, his problems he was having with it, me with the mission and getting the forces on the ground to actually implement phase 2. And so we did communicate regularly and we were each hoping to do our duty, I suspect. I can't negate that. I don't negate (sic) him ill will. The fact that he was not necessarily able to provide all the time what we wanted in regards to security and so on, well, I mean, that was the fact that we were going through at the time.
MR. MACDONALD:
I would like to introduce it, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, this could be converted to a D document now. You said ID, so --
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, no, if I said it, I'm just tired. Under D, please.
MR. PRESIDENT:
No, you had already marked --
MR. MACDONALD:
No, it's D. 38. I'm not sure what that is. Okay, it's just our binders.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Okay, this will be D. 158, letter written by Dallaire to Bizimungu --
MR. MACDONALD:
Dated --
MR. PRESIDENT:
-- 27th of June.
MR. MACDONALD:
-- according to Dallaire, 27th of June.
(Exhibit No. D. 158 (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, the next document, 1B10. It's a coded cable dated 15th April 1994 from General Asra, A-S-R-A, addressed to you. And Asra is from the Rwanda/Uganda observation mission in Kabale. Do you have that letter before you, General?
A. Yeah, I got the code cable, yeah.
Q. Okay. Do you remember that cable, General?
A. Well, let me read it, if I may, and I will give you the...
Q. Mmm-hmm.
A. Right --
Q. Okay.
A. I don't -- I mean, I've read it, but I don't remember the --
Q. Okay.
A. -- specificity of it.
Q. Well, that cable clearly reveals an observation made by the observers where it is suspected that military equipment -- that a delivery of military equipment may have been observed by the observers, delivered by the national resist -- national resistance army, and this in April 1994. 15th April 1994, in paragraph 2 on page 2. In summary of the situation, we read the following, in English:
"Local NRA authority has been informed about the -- about suspicious activity. This incident also reinforces our apprehension about the covert assistance extended to RPF by NRA."
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
Sorry, there was an overlap. We didn't hear counsel.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald.
MR. MACDONALD:
Oh, again.
MR. PRESIDENT:
No, no, the booth didn't get your question. No translation.
MR. MACDONALD:
Oh, okay. Sorry.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, considering paragraph 2 of this document, how was that information handled, if it was in any manner whatsoever?
A. Well, as indicated I passed (inaudible) deputy force commander as a significant piece of information, concerning some of the less clear concerns that we had, that in fact supplies were going into the RPF zone from Uganda and that the Ugandan army was supporting them. We never got any significant amounts in numbers or in quantities. We were never able to intercept them, and that is primarily because the mission had such limited assets. And I -- I don't know if this went directly to New York as a SITREP. And my first meeting with Kagame, if I'm not mistaken, after the start of the war came around the 22nd and so on. And so I certainly would have hoped to have raised it at that time. But I really can't remember all the information that was discussed at that point.
It was rather interesting at the 10th anniversary that President Museveni, in just so many words, indicated that they were supporting the RPF during the operations. So --
Q. That's right.
A. -- my mission on the border could have been considered nearly a sham by then.
MR. MACDONALD:
Could we again, Your Honour, introduce this document?
MR. PRESIDENT:
What is this document?
MR. MACDONALD:
This is a code cable dated April the 15th, 1994, from Colonel Asra to General Dallaire.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yep, it's D. 159.
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you.
(Exhibit No. D. 159 (Bizimungu) admitted)
THE WITNESS:
Mr. President, if I may intervene.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes. Yes, General?
THE WITNESS:
I got caught up in a snowstorm pretty late last night, and I wonder if I could have about a five minute -- to assist myself as a break, and we then continue.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes.
Yes, Court is adjourned for five minutes.
(Court recessed from 1912H to 1921H)
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, Counsel, you may continue.
MR. MACDONALD:
Thank you, Your Honour.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, the famous cable from Colonel Asra which we've just entered, did you mention that to Mr. Booh-Booh, and do you recall that information?
A. There were so many incidents going on that I don't specifically, I'm afraid, recall that one. I went on a regular basis to the (French spoken) to keep Mr. Booh-Booh up to speed with what was going on in the headquarters, and it surely would have made part of a briefing. I'm just leaving it to what I was doing then, and I'm afraid I don't remember, specifically, this one.
Q. (No interpretation)
A. But this (inaudible) new news, I mean, new news from out of nowhere. We were already with suspicions and the problems we were having with the -- with the RPF before the war started, as I indicated earlier on.
Q. Because Booh-Booh, in his book on page 125, said of Dallaire,
"UNOMUR personnel hid from me the truth on the RPF situation."
Is it possible that suspected infiltration of weapons were kept away from Mr. Booh-Booh, as he claims?
A. I don't -- I don't see the -- the source of that question. I mean, if he felt he wasn't getting enough information, but we were providing the information on a weekly basis before the war in the SITREPs that he ultimately signed off on. It is true that he did not hold regular meetings with his senior subordinates; he didn't like that and didn't do them. And so I was always attempting to have meetings with him. And we met regularly when I was there attending the political negotiations with him. And I had constant communication -- well, my staff and myself, together with Dr. Kabia, who was his chief of staff.
Q. Okay. And finally, a question on the same passage, page 125 of Mr. Booh-Booh's book. He says as follows:
"3rd March -- April 1994, Habyarimana told me that he requested the chief of staff of the Rwandan armed forces to make -- report on the massive infiltration of weapons through the border by the RPF, and that no satisfactory explanation was given to him. He stated that through reliable networks he's able to assert that what he was saying was true. It would appear to me that UNAMIR was not impartial on the RPF issue."
And he says the following:
"I am able to state here that, as leader of the UNAMIR, Dallaire never gave me any accurate report on the Ugandan military assistance to the RPF."
There as well, General, these are serious assertions made by Mr. Booh-Booh. Are they well-founded, according to you?
A. No, not only are they not well founded, but I'm sorry to say are quite inaccurate. On at least three occasions I remember either the chief of staff of the army or the ministry of defence telling me -- and on one of those occasions I met even with the president, where he called me to his suite to discuss information that they were getting that battalions of NRA, which is the Ugandan national revolutionary [sic] army, were crossing the lines into the RPF zone. We had monitored up to 20 kilometres in depth of the zone, so we had a good idea of the different camps and the number of troops, battalions, as best as we could discern, that were in those camps. And apart from one incident where a camp did empty out, but the troops were reported to have been -- gone through our Kabale line up to Mbarara for training, we found no substantive proof.
Now, when I asked the minister of defence and the chief of staff, and ultimately the president for sources of information, they were saying that it came from their ambassador in Uganda. That was followed up by my commander in the area in trying to gather that source, where, when, how, and so on, and it was to no avail. The -- we could never get a solid source of that information. It was always an innuendo, a commentary, a sort of a statement amongst the four-five other things. "And oh, by the by, we've been told that a couple of battalions have entered the RPF zone." Well, "Who told you, how do you know about it, where abouts? Can you give me more details? Can you tell me the source so I can do a validation and a follow-up on it? Can we actually go confront the NRA?" Which we did in the Mbarara area on a couple of occasions, asking them if they were moving troops and so on, and we only had that one incident that I remember. And so, I mean, he was getting the information that we had, and that information was relayed through the different SITREPs also to New York.
(1930H)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General, I did not see these SITREPs that you are referring to, but you made reference to two things. One, that the N -- that you contacted NRA. When was this, who was present, and where was it done? Where was it that the NRA was contacted?
A. That was done -- to be done by the CMO, or the secteur commander at that time, of the UNOMUR, first by Colonel Ben Matiwaza, and then by Colonel Asra. And these -- these sessions always ended up with a -- with a futility of response, meaning that there was no data. There was -- there was no firm information exactly on where, and so we couldn't even answer the questions that the NRA were asking us in regards to -- if somebody has reported that, exactly where -- what was that, so that we can do something about it.
We did try to increase, with the limited resources, our patrolling, but without those helicopters with the night vision systems that I -- and systems that could see through the fog, we were in very limited observation capabilities along that nearly 100-kilometre zone. Had five outposts.
Q. General, the question I put to you is the circumstances under which the NRA was confronted, and I will appeal to you to use your sense of fair play to answer the questions that are being put to you.
Now, you -- or, what I understood -- on the one hand, I understood that there was one session of confrontation with the NRA, and if that be the case, were you personally -- or did you personally confront the national resistance army? You, in particular, as force commander, did you personally confront the NRA?
A. Well, I had two meetings with the NRA in Mbarara, and I forget the other headquarters. And I don't remember the full content of the discussions. We were having a number of problems with the NRA, and everything I remember of those discussions ended up flat, I mean flat inasmuch as either my secteur commanders came up flat, and I don't remember specifically any positive or negative response coming from the NRA. We were having extensive problems with them in coordinating escorts in mine fields and zones of accessibility to conduct our -- our investigating or our patrolling. So I -- my answer is, is that I -- I do not remember any fruitful results of any of those discussions in any way.
Q. So I understand that you got information from observers who made certain observations. You process -- or you consider such information to be sufficiently important for you to confront the NRA. You confront the NRA, and you said that there is nothing substantial coming out of that, so I consider that the NRA simply denied the obvious. But my question is, did you --
A. I consider that an interesting deduction, because, in the information I was receiving was, at best, hearsay, with absolutely no specificity whatsoever. I mean, the president could have told me 15 battalions were coming in from the NRA, and unless he gave me at least a hint of where they were coming through, how they had been observed, and who on this side actually observed it or who on the Ugandan side was observing that for him, we might have been able to conduct an investigation that would go somewhere. So, there's only so many times that you can go and tell the guy that "Yeah, you're sending battalions to the line." And the first question he asks is, "Oh, yeah? Where and when?" And you don't have a damn answer.
Q. General, I put it to you that you did not only close your eyes on those various weapons infiltrations, but you also lied to the international community. And I'm referring to cable 1-A30 of the 2nd of March 1994 to Annan from Booh-Booh in which Annan --
MR. BÂ:
Are those from today's documents?
MR. MACDONALD:
No. A-30.
MR. BÂ:
Would you have a spare copy, please?
MR. MACDONALD:
No. We had 11 copies, and they've all been distributed.
MR. BÂ:
Well, I'll follow you as you read, then. Please proceed.
MR. MACDONALD:
Do you have a copy? A-30, A-30, Counsel Bâ.
THE WITNESS:
Yeah, I got that document.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. This refers to a meeting in which Mr. Annan talks of meetings with ambassadors to Rwanda from Belgium, France, Germany, and the United States. I would like to draw your attention to page 5 -- to paragraph 5, rather, paragraph 5 of page 2, which states the following:
"The last two questions by the ambassador of the United States: General Dallaire discounted suggestions that the recent killings in Kigali may have been ethnically motivated and directed against the Tutsi minority."
Do you recall making that statement?
"Knowing General Dallaire's response, the French ambassador said it was important for such information to be made available widely so as to prevent the FPR from using reports or claims of anti-Tutsi massacre as a pretext for resuming the war."
Paragraph 6, "General Dallaire expressed his concern over the proliferation of false and misleading information about the two sides' military intentions or activity. He stressed, for example, that recent government reports of the large-scale movements of FPR military equipment and personnel from Uganda into Rwanda were unfounded."
Do you remember having made that representation to the ambassadors, the ambassadors who were present?
A. We had several meetings. I mean, this is -- these are notes from a meeting, from what I can gather, or notes that were made from the meeting, and what that last sentence says confirms exactly what I told you previously. I had verbal, unqualified, unverifiable information regarding movements of RPF or NRA battalions into the -- into the zone, and that's exactly what I said.
Q. Once again, this is information dated 2nd March 1994. Yet, General, on the 1st of March, that is the day preceding, you received a cable, again from Asra to you personally with the following content:
"The MI branch of UNOMUR gathered some sensitive information that the NRA itself is effectively supporting the RPF with a large amount of ammunition and weaponry. The inventory of the weapons and initial includes (French spoken) and a series of very specific items is indicated -- " (microphones overlapping) "at ammunition depots. It seems that the next consignment is packed and ready to be delivered, but we are not sure of the exact date or period."
That is not verbal information. That is not hearsay. That is a cable which effectively confirms the types of weapons, the types of ammunition, and also informs you that there is sensitive information available. And then the day following, you tell the ambassadors that (microphones overlapping)..."large-scale movement of FPR military equipment and personnel from Uganda into Rwanda were unfounded."
How do you justify that, General Dallaire?
A. The way I respond to that is if you see my minute, my minute is dated the 2nd of the third, which is the 2nd of March. And so, when did I read that on the 2nd of March? I don't know. Was it read before that meeting or after that meeting? And I would be very keen on knowing what actions were taken in SITREPs and so on afterwards, because I truly don't remember. I'm looking through these other papers that you attached to it.
Q. Well, let me --
A. What actions were taken --
Q. Just let me draw your attention, General -- let me draw your attention to page 1. It's a cable of 2 March, (microphones overlapping)...”ambassadors to Rwanda, Belgium, France Germany.” So we must take it that the information you provide to the ambassadors is transmitted on the 2nd, and it is on the 2nd that you say (microphones overlapping)..."military equipment and personnel from Uganda into Rwanda were unfounded." (No interpretation)
THE ENGLISH INTERPRETER:
Mr. President, the way -- the way counsel is proceeding is very difficult for interpreters to work. If he would slow down when reading and deal with both languages separately, that will facilitate our work, Mr. President.
MR. PRESIDENT:
(Microphones overlapping)...there's been a complaint to go slow. Yes, you may proceed. The complaint came from the booth.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes, Your Honour.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Could you -- could you repeat your answer, please, General.
A. My answer is -- is the meeting with the ambassadors is on the 2nd of March.
Q. That's right.
A. I believe it's the 2nd of March. And the information in the code cable comes in -- or was sent on the -- where is the date on this? 1st of March.
Q. That's right.
A. But I read it and send it off to my deputy force commander, my military intelligence officer, and Dr. Kabia, who is in the SRSG's office, as his chief of staff, for passage to the SRSG on the 2nd of March. And so I -- I honestly don't know what timings we're talking of, whether I read this -- I surely didn't read it before that meeting. And that information was passed on to the SRSG on that same day and so could have been included in this report. So I'm -- I'm not sure whether the SRSG actually read it before he signed off on this report, and I don't have any correspondence or anything here that shows what I did as a follow-up on it myself.
And so we've -- we've got -- you're absolutely right. This is -- this is quite pertinent information, and I didn't remember this at all, but in -- in fact, I -- from what -- I can only say here is that the code cable went out without this information being included in it, and I don't know what the follow-up was on it the next day or the day after or whatever. I don't have any of that information.
Q. But you will agree -- but, General, you will agree with me that if the cable is dated 1 March, then one must presume that you read that cable on the 1st of March?
A. Listen, how many times do I have to tell you, sir, that if you look at (inaudible), that's a little 2 with a circle around it, and underneath it's written DFC --
Q. Yes.
A. -- and a line.
Q. Yes.
A. And then underneath the MIO --
Q. MIO.
A. -- and Dr. Kabia --
Q. Yes.
A. -- have seen this -- have seen this.
Q. Yes.
A. And underneath that is my signature, brigadier general, B Gen, FC for force commander, and the date is the 2nd of the third.
Q. Yes.
A. So Kabia sees it on the 2nd. Kabia is the chief of staff, through to the SRSG. All the papers go through Kabia in and out. The code cable goes out with the statement, as you've indicated quite clearly, that I stressed. And I can only surmise that both I have read this and Kabia read this and the SRSG was informed after this code cable went out, which then leads me logically to say, okay, what did we do the next day? What did we do with this information? And to be -- in all honesty, I can't remember. In fact, I didn't even remember this code cable, but you are certainly doing a good job of twigging my memory.
MR. MACDONALD:
May I introduce this, Your Honour, A30 --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, D. 160.
MR. MACDONALD:
Okay. That's the first one, March the 1st.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Is it 160? 160?
MR. MACDONALD:
160. And the outgoing cable of March the 2nd also, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald --
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
-- this document is -- bundle contains some other documents. 2nd March document is the one that you want?
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, the 2nd March and the 1st of March.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, on the top it says 2nd March.
MR. MACDONALD:
Mm-hmm, yes. Okay, I have one -- I don't know what that is, Your Honour, but --
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah, 1st March we have, 2nd March we have.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes.
MR. PRESIDENT:
And there is another document which is --
MR. MACDONALD:
No, this one, I'm not sure why that is there, Your Honour, document of March the 2nd. Perhaps I --
MR. PRESIDENT:
So you don't want the March 2nd one?
MR. MACDONALD:
Well, what I'm going to do is -- is re-read that document and see if there's a connection with the other two, but I'm not sure if there is. But for now, could we just leave it on ice, please?
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yeah. You are now tendering only 1st of March --
MR. MACDONALD:
That's right, 1st and 2nd.
MR. PRESIDENT:
1st and 2nd, okay.
MR. MACDONALD:
That's right.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes. So 2nd March is the -- marked as 160A.
MR. MACDONALD:
Mm-hmm, that's right.
(Exhibit No. D. 160 and D. 160A (Bizimungu) admitted)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. General Dallaire, did you also receive information to the effect that the RPF was distributing weapons in Kigali? And I do not want to take you by surprise, but I refer to the transcript of 22 January 2004, and that will be document number 30, in which you say that you did receive but you did not have specific details from the MRND, the presidential party, namely, that the RPF indeed distributed weapons in Kigali.
[In French transcript this is presented as a quote: « Ce que je recevais, mais que je n'avais de données spécifiques, mais qui était amené à mon attention pour la mouvance MRND du Président, c'est que le FPR, oui, distribuait des armes à Kigali principalement. » --cm/p]
First of all, do you recall having made any such statement or -- and do you still maintain that position? And if that were the case, how did you deal with that information, General?
A. I remember receiving, yes, information or the staffs were feeding information up that the RPF in the CND were being accused of distributing weapons to friendly people in -- in Kigali, that people were going to the CND, and people were saying they were leaving with weapons. None of those weapons were ever observed by my forces that I can recall coming in or going out of the CND anyways, and I -- I'm sort of sitting here at a loss of what actions that I did take with the minister of defence or the chef du cabinet or the chief of staff of the army or gendarmerie. I'm taking for granted that I took actions, but I would have to find out what I did specifically.
Q. Yeah. And I have -- I have another document, document 33. I'm not sure you have this one, General. No, you don't have this one. Sorry. That's one of the last filed. My friend Mr. Bâ has it, document 33. And it's a -- I'm not sure exactly what it is. It's a -- it's not a cable. It's perhaps a fax. It's written NEESMAR-12. It's from Mr. Nees, N-E-E-S. Do you know who that gentleman is, General?
A. If I'm venturing a guess, is that the intelligence officer in the Belgian battalion? I really don't know.
Q. Okay. It is dated 19th January '94, addressed to the commander -- who would be the commander of KIBAT? General, it is addressed to the KIBAT commander and -- okay. This is what Nees says, that is, in paragraph 1, a short paragraph. I'll read it out to you, dated 19 January '94.
"The RPF is increasing its number of troops at the CND, and this is how it is proceeding. It is allowing people dressed in civilian attire to enter the facility after searching them, but the civilians do not all leave the CND. And it would appear that they are armed."
So, once again, this is not information directed at you, but I would like to find out whether you were aware or whether you got wind of this kind of information, which, again, as I said, was available on the 19th of January 1994.
A. We received that information. I don't remember that specific event, and I submitted a protest to the RPF. They were saying that some people were coming to them seeking security because they were being specifically targeted -- and this was not just the men, this was family and so on -- and that they wanted to stay within the CND and that we felt that they could not stay there, because it was going against the -- excuse me, structure of the forces that were to be there. These civilians, none armed, if I recall well, we did assist in convoying some of them up north to Mulindi, for their own protection, as they requested it and the RPF requested it. But we objected -- objected sternly to people staying over inside the CND when they came to visit.
(2000H)
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. From the information, it would appear in the first sentence that the RPF was increasing its troops within the CND. So my understanding is that those people were clandestinely brought into the CND and ultimately became part of the troops, and that they were not just visitors. Wouldn't that be more like the real situation, General?
A. When the RPF political leadership came in to Kigali, they were allowed to consult, they were allowed to have meetings, just like the other political parties at the time, in order to discuss the future of the BBTG, the future of their party, and the like. And so after discussions with the SRSG, it was agreed that they could hold some specific meetings that were under our supervision and we -- and we did a couple of those.
And also that we could not prevent local Rwandans from Kigali from wanting to come and talk to the RPF leadership that was there in regards to the ongoing situation, (unintelligible) friends, discussing politics, mostly. And so they were let in and they were accounted for at the gate, and they were let out, and it's when we discovered that there were some -- and the figures to me are very small. I mean, we're talking, I'm not even sure if there was a dozen -- that requested to stay. That's when we went in to these discussions of getting them out and also protests of those people staying in there. This was not a military reinforcement exercise on any scale or any bit of imagination as was reported to me by my observers on the ground.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Mr. MacDonald.
MR. MACDONALD:
Yes, sir.
MR. PRESIDENT:
You can stop at any time.
BY MR. MACDONALD:
Q. Thank you, General.
MR. MACDONALD:
It's an appropriate time to break.
May I enquire, Your Honour, since we've been -- or, our days with General Dallaire have been dramatically reduced, as you know, may I enquire as to why we would not proceed on Friday? Or is it a personal matter, or...
MR. PRESIDENT:
And, on the other hand, we originally -- we had planned to have half days. So now, as it is, we are having full days with Dallaire. More than full days, if you (unintelligible). So I thought the time allocated is quite sufficient. And I have a personal matter also.
MR. MACDONALD:
Very well.
MR. PRESIDENT:
So you will get time -- three hours tomorrow. We will start --
MR. MACDONALD:
Is the -- as I mentioned earlier, my client -- an important part of his defence rests on what General Dallaire could say, and most of that material has not come out yet. And is the -- for the record, is the possibility of recalling General Dallaire -- is that out of the question, in January? I think Mr. Black would probably endorse me by saying that he could probably cross-examine for at least three, four, or five days. So for the record, I'm enquiring, Your Honour.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Well, that possibility is not there. I don't think that we can do it because the Prosecution have indicated that they're going to close the case with this witness. So -- yeah. We have to manage with the time that is available.
MR. BLACK:
Just for the record, yeah, I do endorse that, and just don't find that answer really satisfactory because we don't know why General Dallaire can't come back in January for a few more days.
But anyway, we've already said that in our various motions. But we maintain what we said in those motions. It's just not enough time.
MR. PRESIDENT:
Yes, for the record, we will also say that we have given more time than any other case, that has been given -- where Dallaire has testified. We have given more time than all the other cases. So I don't think that that request is reasonable.
Anyway, we will adjourn Court until 1 tomorrow.
(Court adjourned at 2005H)
C E R T I F I C A T E
We, Leslie Todd, Kirstin McLean, Sithembiso Moyo, and Sherri Knox, Official Court Reporters for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, do hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings in the above-entitled cause were taken at the time and place as stated; that it was taken in shorthand (stenotype) and thereafter transcribed by computer; that the foregoing pages contain a true and correct transcription of said proceedings to the best of our ability and understanding.
We further certify that we are not of counsel nor related to any of the parties to this cause and that
we are in nowise interested in the result of said cause.
___________________________ Leslie Todd
___________________________ Kirstin McLean
___________________________ Sithembiso Moyo
___________________________ Sherri Knox
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