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Memorial
Conference on United Nations
Press Release AFR/868
HQ/630 March 26, 2004 [Excerpts
only:
The silence that
had greeted genocides in the past must be replaced by a global
clamour, and a willingness to call what was happening by its
true name, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this morning at the
opening of a one-day conference in memory of the genocide in
Rwanda 10 years ago.
The Memorial
Conference on the Rwanda Genocide, which had started with a
minute of silence for the victims, was co-chaired by the Foreign
Ministers of Rwanda and Canada and moderated by Ruth Iyob,
Director of the Africa Programme, International Peace Academy,
and David M. Malone, President of the International Peace
Academy.
During two panels
that followed the opening of the Conference, participants in the
event remembered the 1994 tragedy and considered means to ensure
a more effective international response to genocide in the
future. The Conference attracted representatives of governments,
international organizations, non-governmental organizations,
academics and members of the Rwandan Diaspora.
The international
community had failed Rwanda, the Secretary-General stated. If it
had acted promptly, it could have stopped most of the killing.
But neither the political will nor the troops had been there. If
the United Nations, government officials and the international
media had paid more attention to the gathering signs of
disaster, it might have been averted.
The Rwandan
genocide raised questions that affected all humankind, including
fundamental questions about the authority of the Security
Council and the effectiveness of United Nations peacekeeping,
Mr. Annan continued. If confronted by a new Rwanda today, would
the international community respond effectively? He had
suggested a number of measures that would better equip the
United Nations and its Member States to meet genocide with
resolve, including a special rapporteur on the subject. More
must be done, and he was currently analysing what further steps
could be taken.
The Foreign
Minister of Rwanda, Charles Murigande, stressed the need to
learn from the tragic failures in Rwanda, saying that no other
nation or people should be allowed to suffer what the people of
Rwanda had suffered. . . .
The international
community, while it had learned what needed to be done, still
lacked political agreement to prevent a Rwanda from happening
again, said the Foreign Minister of Canada, Bill Graham. . . .
Harsh words were
said about the role of the international community in Rwanda
during the first panel - entitled "In Memoriam: Bearing
Witness", which was chaired by the Foreign Minister of
Rwanda.
While the head of
the Association of the Widows of the Genocide, Speciose
Kanyabogoyi, and genocide survivor, Eric Nzabihimana, recounted
the events of April-August 1994, when some 800,000 people were
murdered, former Commander of the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), Romeo Dallaire, said that the
Mission had been "a last priority" for the
international community. It had no budget and no structure at
the time the killing began. The Security Council had made it a
point not to consider the threats and warnings about Rwanda, and
as the months went by and the peace agreement was "falling
to pieces", there was political stagnation and no real
desire to put any resources into the Mission.
He also recalled
that some 2,000 personnel from several countries, including
France, United Kingdom, United States and Italy, "remained
firm in totally ignoring the catastrophe" as they fulfilled
their mission of evacuating their expatriates, "though they
were stumbling on corpses". On 22 April, when over 100,000
people had been killed, the bulk of the Force was ordered to
withdraw, but 450 African and 13 Canadian troops were told to
stay on the ground and observe. As millions were internally
displaced, killed and injured, the Mission was able to save some
30,000, and on top of that, he had been ordered to abandon them.
The order had come from the Security Council, and nobody
objected.
"Never
Again: Toward a More Effective International Response of
Genocide" was the title of the second panel, which was
chaired by Canada's Foreign Minister. Its keynote speakers
included Ibrahim Gambari, United Nations Special Adviser for
Africa, Ramesh Thakur, Vice-Rector of United Nations University
and Danilo Turk, Assistant Secretary-General for Political
Affairs. . . .
Mr. Gambari said
that the real key to preventing conflict and genocide was
political will to act promptly and decisively. Without a doubt,
it was the Council, especially its most powerful members that
had failed the people of Rwanda in their gravest hour of need.
The controversy
over the international community's culpability for its failure
to prevent the genocide in Rwanda would not easily go away. Source: For
full text of UN press release, including summaries of remarks of all
panelists, see http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/afr868.doc.htm * * *
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* * updated
4 November 2007 |
