WI: Rwandan Government hires Executive Outcomes during the Rwandan Civil War

Its an interesting theory to pose. Would Executive Outcomes have been able to turn around the end result of the Rwandan Civil War? If so, would the Rwandan Genocide have been completed to a much larger degree?

The Habyarimana government was on shaky ground and only repelled the two previous invasions of Rwanda by the RPF with some luck (the first one because the RPF lost its leader early on in combat and had command disarray, while the second one mostly just because the prospects for further RPF advance were limited even though they had won the border skirmishes decisively, and FAR could not assail the RPF's mountainous strongholds).

The expansion of the army in response to the war was somewhat disastrous, as their officer corps could not handle the large number of new recruits, and the aid that the French provided only went so far. In the runup to the final phase of the Rwandan Civil War, FAR was in a weak state, with the growing extremism of Hutu politics causing further issues in diverting attention away from the task at hand.

So my question is whether the Rwandan Government could have hired Executive Outcomes to put some specialized experience in their attempted defense, and whether that would have made a difference after the shootdown of the President's plane. Its not clear how much EO could do in terms of the ground combat issues that FAR faced, but having helicopter gunships could have squashed much of the RPF's initial advances, I think.

And if they were able to stop the RPF advance, what would happen once it was clear that EO would be on the same side as the Genocidaires? Would they terminate the contract, or would the UN try to work through them, as they did with the Belgian relief force that briefly came into the country?
 
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I’m unsure that EO would be able to defeat the RPF, given the Rwandan Army itself was basically collapsing and the country behind them was in a state of chaos. The RPF had significant Ugandan support and has proved itself one of the most effective fighting forces in modern Africa.

But I actually don’t think EO would have taken the job. They don’t think of themselves as evil, and they must have realised that defending a genocide in action would destroy them as a business.

Although maybe not, given the French didn’t seem to care.
 
I’m unsure that EO would be able to defeat the RPF, given the Rwandan Army itself was basically collapsing and the country behind them was in a state of chaos. The RPF had significant Ugandan support and has proved itself one of the most effective fighting forces in modern Africa.

But I actually don’t think EO would have taken the job. They don’t think of themselves as evil, and they must have realised that defending a genocide in action would destroy them as a business.

Although maybe not, given the French didn’t seem to care.
Well, the scenario is that they take the job in late 1993-early 1994 in terms of providing support to the Rwandan Army in the skirmishes ongoing parallel to the Arusha Accords. The Hutu Power Coup would not have happened yet (although EO would have known far better than the UN, due to their superior intelligence gathering capabilities, about the rise of radicalism in the Hutu Power Militias and how that was impacting FAR). Basically, EO would find itself fighting on the side of the genocidaires, even if they didn't necessarily engage in that kind of activity (like the French).

This wouldn't be a scenario in which they get a call in Mid April to support the government and have to bootleg it into Rwanda while literally everyone was bugging out under the protection of the Belgian forces.
 
Considering that Executive Outcomes is first and foremost there's simply no upside to participating, either directly or indirectly, in the genocide. Aside from moral reasons it would wreck their business by making them pariahs, open them up to potential legal liability, and see the owners and employees receiving offers of an all expenses paid holiday to The Hague that they simply couldn't refuse. At the very least once things start to kick off they're going to retreat to base, circle the wagons, and very publicly have no to part to play in it. More likely they're going to start looking at ways to exfiltrate the country as soon as possible.
 
Considering that Executive Outcomes is first and foremost there's simply no upside to participating, either directly or indirectly, in the genocide. Aside from moral reasons it would wreck their business by making them pariahs, open them up to potential legal liability, and see the owners and employees receiving offers of an all expenses paid holiday to The Hague that they simply couldn't refuse. At the very least once things start to kick off they're going to retreat to base, circle the wagons, and very publicly have no to part to play in it. More likely they're going to start looking at ways to exfiltrate the country as soon as possible.
The Rome Statute wasn't signed until 2002.
 
It should be noted that the optics of it wouldn't look good either, having a bunch of guys with names like Kruger, Du Plessis, Botha, and Joubert walking around a warzone with guns at the same time as South Africa has its first democratic elections. It would be inviting more scrutiny than EO prefers.

But assuming the Tutsi offensive is contained by EO's firepower, the question is, could the Hutu Power movement actually carry out the genocide to completion once it becomes clear that the RPF couldn't stop it? Or do the French tighten the leash?
 
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