Rwanda queries UN anti-genocide pledge

UNITED NATIONS – Rwanda, the site of a 1994 genocide, hailed on Sunday a UN declaration that the international community must intervene in cases of genocide or ethnic cleansing but questioned whether the statement was just so many words.

“There are probably no other member states in this august body, apart from Rwanda where the UN has consistently neglected to learn from its mistakes, resulting in massive loss of life and untold misery,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande told the 191-nation UN General Assembly. “Action not words would be the measure of our success or failure,” he said.”How will the United Nations respond the next time action to protect populations is required? Will there be lengthy academic or legal debates on what constitutes genocide or crimes against humanity while people die?” A UN summit of more than 150 world leaders adopted on Friday a blueprint for UN reform for the 21st century that included a new international responsibility to protect.The obligation was included in response to massacres in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo where there was no meaningful international response.Rwanda, where there has long been extreme tension between rival ethnic Hutus and Tutsis, has in fact seen a series of massacres in which the United Nations stayed on the sidelines, Murigande said.”It was in 1959, while still under UN trusteeship, that the first acts of genocide against Tutsis took place in Rwanda,” he said.”The UN watched unmoved and no action was ever taken.”The worst mass slaughter, of some 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by militant Hutus, took place 35 years later.”We all recall the shocking decision of the UN Security Council to withdraw peacekeepers at a time when hundreds of thousands of defenceless people needed them most,” he said.-Nampa-Reuters”Action not words would be the measure of our success or failure,” he said.”How will the United Nations respond the next time action to protect populations is required? Will there be lengthy academic or legal debates on what constitutes genocide or crimes against humanity while people die?” A UN summit of more than 150 world leaders adopted on Friday a blueprint for UN reform for the 21st century that included a new international responsibility to protect.The obligation was included in response to massacres in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo where there was no meaningful international response.Rwanda, where there has long been extreme tension between rival ethnic Hutus and Tutsis, has in fact seen a series of massacres in which the United Nations stayed on the sidelines, Murigande said.”It was in 1959, while still under UN trusteeship, that the first acts of genocide against Tutsis took place in Rwanda,” he said.”The UN watched unmoved and no action was ever taken.”The worst mass slaughter, of some 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by militant Hutus, took place 35 years later.”We all recall the shocking decision of the UN Security Council to withdraw peacekeepers at a time when hundreds of thousands of defenceless people needed them most,” he said.-Nampa-Reuters