UN exploits Rwanda Genocide.

"The international community is guilty of sins of omission," insisted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on March 25 as he opened a UN "Memorial Conference on the Rwanda Genocide." Annan was head of UN peacekeeping operations in 1994, when the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government undertook the systematic slaughter of at least 800,000--and perhaps as many as 1.1 million--Rwandan Tutsis (as well as Hutus opposed to the regime).

"I believed at the time that I was doing my best," continued Annan. "But I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support." Indeed. One obvious thing he could have done would have been to refrain from sending a January 11, 1994 fax to Romeo Dallaire, commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, instructing him to take no action to prevent the genocide. Dallaire had been warned by a defector that the Rwandan regime had cached weapons and registered the Tutsis for extermination.

When Dallaire informed Annan and requested permission to raid the government arms caches, Annan forbade him to do so, instructing him instead to give his findings to the government--the same government that was plotting the massacres. The UN had actually helped lay the groundwork for genocide by disarming much of the targeted population. The butchery was stopped not by the "international community" but rather by Tutsi insurgents who had avoided being disarmed by the UN.

Upon his return to Canada, Dallaire--the man who had at least tried to stop the genocide--descended into suicidal depression. Annan, of course, was elevated to secretary-general and eventually received a Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the UN. Annan has since designated April 7 as the "International Day of Reflection on the Genocide of Rwanda." He also continues to insist that the key lesson of Rwanda is not the foolishness of confiding in the UN, but the need to give the world body more power.

"What does it tell us about the UN," asked British human rights activist Alex de Waal, "that not a single official thought fit to resign over the Rwandan genocide?" One thing it tells us is that the UN's prescription for "human security"--under which civilians are disarmed and national governments are placed under the scrutiny of the "international community"--is a recipe for genocide.