6. Peace Keeping RWANDA – Cathy Molnar
Rwanda & Collie Girl Cathy Molnar
PEACEKEEPING - RWANDA
Remembering Operation Tamar ‘Collie Girl’-Cathi Molnar
Saluting their Service - Grahame Old
Operation Tamar
In 1994 Australian defence personnel were deployed to Rwanda as part of Operation Tamar, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda. During the two-year mission the Australians were subjected to scenes of violence and brutality the likes of which no other Australian peacekeeper had experienced. Many suffered PTSD upon their return.
Collie Girl – Cathi Molnar
A ‘Collie Girl’ was part of the Australian Medical support team sent to the strife torn country. Cathy Molnar was born in Collie and lived with her family in Archer St. She attended Fairview Primary and Collie Senior High School. In 1976 Cathi commenced her Nursing Profession with positions in the Southwest, Midwest and the Kimberley. In 1981 Cathi enlisted into the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps. Cathi enjoyed a number of postings before being sent to the medical company of the 3BASB support Battalion in Townsville. Then in August 1994, Sergeant Cathi Molnar found herself in blood torn Rwanda.
Today Rwanda is a picturesque country of rolling green mountains and lush agricultural land, made famous in the film ‘Gorillas in the Mist’, but in the 1990’s the landlocked nation was torn apart by political unrest.
For decades tensions simmered between Rwanda’s two tribes, the Hutu and the Tutsi. However, on April 6, 1994 everything changed when a plane carrying Rwanda’s Hutu President crashed. The Hutus claimed it was a Tutsi assassination and called for revenge. Over the next one hundred days, over 800,000 Tutsi people were systematically murdered.
Australia’s Peacekeeping Involvement
On July 25, 1994, Prime Minister Paul Keating pledged Australia would provide $6.5 million in financial aid to the United Nations mission to Rwanda and a further 300 medical, infantry and logistics personnel to help stabilise the country and get it back on its feet.
Their role was to set up an operational base for the Australians and restore the Central Hospital in the Rwandan capital Kigali so medical aid could be delivered to the country’s surviving civilians, many of whom were starving and homeless. The hospital had been at the centre of violence during Hutu attack and the signs of genocide offered a confronting welcome to the Australians.
Rwanda – On the Ground
Blood stained walls, scorched earth and the stench of death greeted ‘Collie Girl’ Sergeant Cathi Molnar, when she landed in Rwanda in August 1994. The 34-year-old nurse was one of the first Australians to arrive in the war-torn central African nation following the genocide of over 800,000 Tutsi people, one of the twentieth century greatest atrocities.
What Cathi saw, shocked her to the core. Bodies dumped on the sides of roads, mass graves, blood, bones and other human remains piled up. Towns and villages where families once lived, little more than mud encrusted ruins.
“We had no idea what we were walking into,” said the now retired Army nurse. “We had briefings before our deployment but nothing could’ve prepared us, it was terrible, just utter devastation. It will stay with me forever. The devastation was absolutely clear and we were really not prepared at all for what we found when we arrived at the hospital, it was just awful, I’d never seen anything like it”, Cathi recalled. “Blood everywhere, clear signs of murder, destruction, rooms trashed and full of human debris and rubbish. We had to clean it all out, then scrub every inch and establish a functioning, sterile hospital, it was no easy task.”
For the first few days the Australians had no running water and no electricity, but the Aussies rolled up their sleeves regardless and got to work literally scrubbing the floors, walls and ceilings by hand to decontaminate and disinfect the much-needed hospital. They did it with rifles slung over their backs to protect themselves from the constant threat of attack.
“When we did get to rest, we slept on stretchers, our rifle within arm’s reach. I don’t think I had my first shower for over a week,” Cathi said. “Very few of us had previous deployment experience and the limited training before we left, couldn’t possibly prepare us for what we saw, it was terribly challenging”.
Cathi spent six and a half months in Rwanda, while Australian peacekeepers were on the ground for almost two years delivering vital humanitarian aid. Every day they put their lives on the line providing medical services to civilians, not just in Kigali but right across the country in villages and refugee camps. They lived in war like conditions and faced diseases like malaria, HIV/AIDS and little-known elephantiasis. One of their toughest tasks was helping purify the waterways, a task made almost impossible by dozens of shallow mass graves which contaminated the rivers and streams during the heavy wet season rains.
“It was a Third World country and the conditions were terrible,” Cathi said “the Australians were helping rebuild the country from scratch and we had difficult times, but overall it was very rewarding.”
The Australians quickly earned a reputation for their bravery and professionalism and on her departure Cathi was awarded a United Nations Medal for her efforts and later an Anzac Peace Prize. In February 2020, Cathi and her fellow Australian Peace Keepers in Rwanda were officially recognised for their work at a national commemoration service in Canberra, receiving a Meritorious Unit Citation in recognition for outstanding and sustained service in war like conditions. The Citation read;
Rwanda Citation
‘The resilience and bravery displayed by Australian Service Contingents (ASC) 1 and 2 during one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the 20th century is exemplary. ASC 1 and 2 are being awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation for their service during Operation Tamar between the dates 25 July 1994 and 8 March 1996’.
Cathi Molnar is pleased the Australian peacekeepers have been officially recognised for their efforts, but says nothing can ever heal the scars of her Rwandan tour of duty.
Cathi Molnar returned to the Lavarack base at Townsville and went back to the 3BASB, then moved to 5th Aviation Regiment. Her last posting was to the Lavarack Barracks Medical Centre. In 2001, after twenty years of service to her country, Cathi retired from the Army. “I loved Army life, absolutely loved it. There were tough times like Rwanda, but Army is a family and I made friendships for life” Cathi said.
Well Done! - Cathi
Well Done Cathi, from the President and members of the Collie Cardiff RSL Sub Branch.
Rwanda – A Survivor Story - Frida Umuhoza
The very purpose of Operation Tamar was to help survivors like Frida Umuhoza. 14 years-old, Frida witnessed the genocide first hand. Her entire family was massacred by Hutu men and Frida was chosen to die too. She was lined up on the edge of a muddy ditch on the outskirts of her village Nyanza and clubbed until her lifeless body fell into a mass grave alongside the mutilated bodies of her mother and fifteen relatives. However, Frida didn’t die. She miraculously regained consciousness and after hours of laying silent and still, too scared to move a muscle in case her killers returned, she was eventually rescued.
“I remember it vividly, as if it was yesterday; the feeling of being buried alive, the smell of the blood of my brothers,” Frida said. “It’s hard to talk about it, but we must keep talking so we never forget.”
Now living in Melbourne, Frida has made it her life’s work to educate future generations about genocide, she regularly speaks to schools, universities and churches around the world and has addressed the United Nations in New York. She has shared her extraordinary story of survival in a memoir, ‘Frida – Chosen to Die, Destined to Live’ which was released in February 2020 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the genocide.
Frida is grateful of the role Australians played rebuilding her beloved country, particularly delivering essential medical treatment to the surviving civilians.
PTSD
Like Frida, Cathi Molnar and many of her colleagues still suffer the effects of their time in Rwanda. They battle PTSD every day. People carry mental wounds forever. Mental scars don’t leave the mind.
Cathi is proud of the work she did but of her citation, she humbly said “I was just doing the job I was asked to do. I served, I went to Rwanda and provided medical support that we were engaged to do. It’s lovely to have citations but it doesn’t give those who suffered any closure from what we saw and what we endured and the lifelong impact of it”.
“It’s nice that people are finally recognising our role in Rwanda, but it’s taken a lot of work by diligent veterans to reach this stage and sadly there’s a still a stigma about the work of peacekeepers. We need to acknowledge that just because you haven’t served in an active theatre of war, doesn’t mean you haven’t served in war-like conditions. I served. I suffered.”
Rwanda has emerged from its darkest hours thanks to efforts of people like Cathi and Frida who share a passion for peace and healing.
(Source: This article was compiled from extracts of papers written by Cathi Molnar and Frida Umuhoza in conjunction with journalist Sue Smethurst).
‘Lest we Forget’
The ADF & PEACEKEEPING ‘Operation Tamar’ Rwanda
Busoro, Rwanda. 1994-09-10. Lieutenant (Lt) Rodney Peadon of 3BASB (Brigade Administration Support Battalion) Townsville, QLD, a nursing officer with the Australian Medical Support Force serving in Rwanda, bandaging the ankle of a local. He is watched by another member of the Australian Medical Support Force, and a group of Busoro locals in the background. The Australian Medical Support Force is part of UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda) (peacekeeping). It provides medical treatment for UN troops deployed to repatriate refugees affected by the civil war as well as to provide humanitarian assistance to local people.
Captain Carol Vaughan Evans, a medical officer with the Australian contingent, treats one of the refugees leaving Kibeho displaced persons camp in Rwanda.