ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the Canadian role in a traditional chronological fashion and attempts to describe various perspectives on Rwanda by Canadian officials in order to understand and explain Canadian actions in the context of policies and practices that emerged in a global context. It attempts to make clear what was known, what the basis of that knowledge was, to whom that knowledge was transmitted, and how that knowledge or lack of knowledge translated into Canadian policy. The chapter discusses the Canadian attitude to Rwanda by the Canadian International Development Agency at the time of invasion of Rwanda by the Rwanda Patriotic Front on 1 October 1990. Canadian involvement in Rwanda became a matter of diplomatic concern in 1990 even before the invasion of the rebels from Uganda. Canadian government officials were divided on their interpretation of the Ugandan role. As Lucie Edwards wrote, Canadian diplomats were taken totally off-guard by the genocide itself as well as its scope and size.