These consisted of documents anywhere between a few pages and an entire binder.8 The records that we were able to study primarily provide insights into the communication that took place between the German Embassy in Kigali and the Foreign Office headquarters in Bonn in 1993, as well as into the communication between the Foreign Office in Bonn and the German permanent representation at the United N. [...] The accords also covered reforms regarding the rule of law, the reintegration of displaced Rwandans, and the integration of the two armed forces.15 A UN peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), was tasked with monitoring the implementation of the peace agreement. [...] First, the Foreign Office records show that from the perspective of employees of the GTZ (Germany’s main development agency, today called GIZ) in Rwanda in 1993, the German Embassy downplayed the security situation for the approximately 350 Germans that were present in the country22 – and thereby indirectly also the security situation for the local population.23 Diplomats at headquarters in Bonn a. [...] Diplomatic cables from the embassy in Kigali and the German mission to the UN in New York demonstrate that German diplomats at both posts shared the assessment that a swift deployment of a UN mission to Rwanda was crucial to support the implementation of the peace agreement, the establishment of transitional government, and to ensure a peaceful development in Rwanda. [...] UN representatives emphasized that a German contingent would be perceived as “neutral and welcome” in Rwanda, which was deemed “important for the credibility of the force.”102 The German mission to the UN, the embassy in Kigali, and the East Africa division in the Foreign Office in Bonn thought that UNAMIR had a good chance to succeed, and they explicitly endorsed a German participation in the mis.
- Pages
- 36
- Published in
- Germany
