Gersony Report is the name given to the 1994 findings made by a team under Robert Gersony , which was under contract to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and identified a pattern of massacres by the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels during and after their military victory in the civil war in post- genocide Rwanda . The findings were suppressed by the United Nations and involved governments for political reasons, and its existence was denied. No final written report was ever completed, though purported early written documentation has been leaked. The validity of Gersony's purported findings continue to be disputed.
20-694: Robert Gersony , a freelance American consultant who had extensive experience in war zones in Africa, particularly Mozambique and Somalia , was hired by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to conduct a refugee survey in preparation for encouraging Rwandans who had fled the country in the wake of the Rwandan genocide and rebel victory in the Rwandan Civil War to return home. Gersony and his assistants began
40-604: A Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université de Sherbrooke in 1962. He was commissioned with the Canadian Officers' Training Corps in 1962. He was promoted to major in 1973, lieutenant-colonel in 1979, colonel in 1983, and brigadier-general in 1990. He was made an Officer of the Order of Military Merit in 1983. In 1990, he was appointed base commander of CFB Borden . After being promoted to major-general in 1993, he
60-606: A half-page memorandum was drafted for internal use, from which a two-and-a-half page memo was prepared for the special rapporteur on Rwanda of the UN Human Rights Commission . When the special rapporteur attempted in April 1996 to learn more about Gersony's findings, he received the reply, "We wish to inform you that the 'Gersony Report' does not exist. [emphasis in original] " Gersony himself has kept his word to never publicly discuss his findings, resulting in
80-601: Is an American consultant known for his reports on conflict-affected countries, in particular in Africa . His most famous work, the 1994 " Gersony Report ", was never actually finished. The "Gersony Report" was suppressed by the United Nations , who had originally commissioned it, because it had reached the politically embarrassing conclusion that the Rwandan Patriotic Front , which had taken control of
100-612: The 'Gersony Report' achieving "an almost mythical dimension." In 2006, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas P. Odom, a former US military attache in Rwanda, sharply disputed the 'Gersony Report', asserting that no report was ever produced, that no UN officers had ever corroborated Gersony's account and that subsequent investigative visits had not confirmed its findings. Odom stated of two prominent Rwanda experts, "Even authors I respect enormously such Alison des Forges and Gérard Prunier go too far in lending credence to these accusations," and characterized
120-625: The RPF, who expected the refugee study to help their efforts to repatriate refugees, and saw more of the country and talked to more people than any other foreigners in Rwanda at that time. Specifically, between 1 August and 5 September 1994 the Gersony team visited 91 sites in forty-one of the 145 communes of Rwanda, mostly in the areas of Kibungo , Gisenyi and Butare . They further gathered information on about ten other communes and carried out interviews in nine refugee camps in surrounding countries. Over
140-691: The UN but that he was willing to stake his 25 year reputation on its validity. The UN officials and Gersony then had a meeting with Minister of the Interior Seth Sendashonga , Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean Marie Vianney , and Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu , who stated that it would be impossible for the government to kill 30,000 people secretly, that it was unlikely that the RPA would travel with hoes, machetes and clubs as contended in
160-467: The UN promised the Rwandan government that they would embargo the document and instructed Gersony to never discuss their findings. Alison Des Forges , Rwanda expert for Human Rights Watch and publisher of some of the key materials on the 'Gersony report', goes further in writing that Gersony was told to not write a report and that his entire team was told to keep silent about their findings. A three and
180-498: The bodies had been in place since mid-April to early May 1994. Thus claims that stated the RPF was conducting mass murder in these locations in August could not be substantiated. In September 2010, a website released what is claimed to be an internal UN written summary of the oral presentation made by Gersony, as well as several field reports made by his team during the course of their research. Robert Gersony Robert Gersony
200-525: The book, said that Gersony's work improved the lives of millions, saving many". This biography of an American academic is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Guy Tousignant Major-General Guy Claude Tousignant , OMM , MSC , CD (born 1941) is a retired senior officer of the Canadian Army . Born in Sherbrooke , Quebec , Tousignant received
220-788: The country after the Rwandan genocide , was carrying out politically motivated mass killing. The Anguish of Northern Uganda , a report commissioned by the US Embassy in Kampala, is arguably the most cited source on the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency . Robert D. Kaplan , in his biography of Gersony, The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the US Government’s Greatest Humanitarian (2021), described Gersony as leading "a frugal monastic existence that has been both obscure and extraordinary". John S Gardner, reviewing
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#1732772462500240-515: The course of their work, the team conducted more than two hundred individual interviews and conducted another one hundred small group discussions. Purported findings of the team include the alleged 2 August massacre of about 150 civilians attempting to cross back into northwest Rwanda from Zaire by the RPF, as well as systematic arrest and apparent forced disappearance of a large number of men in Gisenyi. In Butare, part of Kigali , and Kibungo to
260-478: The killings are part of a 'pre-ordained, systematic massacre ordered from the top.'" Annan expressed his belief that killings were ongoing but that he hoped the killings were not deliberate and promised the officials that the UN would embargo Gersony's findings to give the new government a chance to gain control of the situation. General Guy Tousignant , head of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda ,
280-699: The massacres of Tutsi in April 1994." Gersony's personal conclusion was that between April and August 1994, the RPF had killed "between 25,000 and 45,000 persons, between 5,000 and 10,000 persons each month from April through July and 5,000 for the month of August." Gersony reported his findings to Madame Sadako Ogata , UNHCR High Commissioner, who in turn informed Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali . Boutros-Ghali sent then-Assistant Secretary General Kofi Annan and UNHCR Africa director Kamel Morjane to Kigali. Upon his arrival, Annan and several subordinates were briefed by Gersony, who stated that he recognized that his conclusions were opposite to that otherwise found by
300-465: The relevant work done by Des Forges as "largely hyperbolic guesswork built on doubtful sources." Former Canadian Intelligence Officer, Dr. Phillip Drew, who was also tasked to follow up on some of the contents of the Gersony report, agrees with Odom. Noting that his team included forensic entomologists, Drew reported that while bodies were found in some of the locations identified by Gersony, close inspection of several locations around Kibungo concluded that
320-715: The report, and that the President himself had gone to investigate reports of RPA atrocities along the Tanzanian border and had found no evidence and concluded that Hutu extremists in the Tanzanian camps were inciting fear in the refugee population. Shaharyar Khan , UN Special Representative to Rwanda, who was present at the meeting with the government officials, would express his belief that an elevated level of revenge killings had occurred in border regions but that, "I do not accept Gersoni's [ sic ] conclusion that
340-496: The south and southeast, the team reported indiscriminate massacres of civilians who had come to meetings convened by local government authorities, house-to-house killing of civilians, organized searches to kill civilians who were hiding in the brush, and ambushes of civilians attempted to flee across the border into Burundi . The report concluded that "the great majority of these killings had apparently not been motivated by any suspicion whatsoever of personal participation by victims in
360-463: The work broadly sympathetic to the new government of the mostly- Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), as was common among those who saw the effects of the genocide. In the course of their fieldwork, the three-person team became convinced that the RPF had carried out "clearly systematic murders and persecution of the Hutu population in certain parts of the country." The team were granted free travel by
380-628: Was appointed the Commandant of the National Defence College. Tousignant replaced Roméo Dallaire as Force Commander of United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) in August 1994 and also served as assistant Secretary-General of that mission. He departed Rwanda on December 8, 1995, leaving the mission in the charge of his second-in-command, Brigadier-General Shiva Kumar of India. UNAMIR ended in March 1996. Tousignant
400-404: Was more blunt to other ministers he later met, informing them that Gersony was probably correct and that the killings must stop. In the meantime, UNHCR, who had commissioned the report, stopped its repatriations of refugees back into Rwanda. The contents of Gersony's findings were leaked to the international press, infuriating the RPF government. Great Lakes historian Gérard Prunier writes that
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