Col. Didier Thibaut, the steel-haired commander of the French special forces who raced into Rwanda last week in an effort to stem the killing, wanted a little more blood spilled in the woods around the Nyarushishi refugee camp in the west. Told that a man from the camp had been hacked to pieces by the murderous government militia when he ventured out in search of firewood, Thibaut dispatched a French patrol into the brush. "If they shoot one or two of these killers, I will be happy," said the colonel. "It will be a good example."
It wasn't the sort of example the French had in mind when they dispatched advance parties of some 500 troops, the first of an expected 2,500, into western Rwanda to set up a field hospital and began to rescue some 8,000 refugees in the region. But the fact remained that as the rest of the world continues to stand by, horrified by the carnage that has claimed as many as 500,000 lives but unwilling to act decisively to stop it, the French at least were willing to try.
Still, few applauded. The United Nations Security Council gave lukewarm approval to the action. The United States and other European countries supplied logistical help only. In Africa, only Senegal sent troops.
One reason is that many think that France is part of the problem, not the solution. The French armed the Hutu government that is largely responsible for the genocide. And it was a French-made missile, likely fired by President Juvenal Habyarimana's own guards, that brought down his plane in April, killing him and sparking the fighting.
Act of war? The Tutsi-dominated, rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, which has taken control of much of the country, denounced the French intervention as an act of war aimed at saving the Hutu government. In response, French troops said they would "avoid all contact" with Tutsi rebels by not moving on the capital Kigali or other Tutsi-held regions. The French also promised to withdraw in two months, when a U.N. peacekeeping force of African troops is supposed to arrive.
Few suggest that French motives are entirely altruistic. Paris has close trade and political ties in a region of Africa with four times as many French speakers as France itself. And aides to French President Francois Mitterrand, in the last year of his 14-year presidency, say he is thinking of his place in history. "He wants to leave office on a high," said one, "and not be accused of doing nothing in the face of genocide."
But for many, like an old man outside the barbed wire of the Kabgayi refugee camp in central Rwanda, the rescue comes too late. He sat silently as he was kicked in the groin by soldiers while members of a Hutu militia looked on impatiently. Four militiamen carrying machetes and clubs eventually led him away, as a younger man danced along behind, making rhythmic plunging gestures with a 2-foot-long wooden spike. In a scene repeated at least several times a day in government-held regions, the militiamen then drove the spike through the man's back.
In the end, "there might be 10 good reasons for not intervening" in Rwanda, says Alain Lamassoure, France's minister for European affairs. "The one essential reason for doing so is that a whole people is in the course of dying." Given the scope of the horror, it is hard to argue with that.
