Facilitating Genocide

Once again, we have stark evidence that the repairing the United Nations will require much more than bookkeeping reforms.

Joel Mowbray reviews a book that places the blame for the Rwanda genocide right on Kofi Annan's doorstep. Annan actually obstructed efforts to stop the genocide before it started.

"[A]larm bells didn’t necessarily have to go off, as Gen. Dallaire offered a silver lining: He knew the location of the Hutus’ weapons cache, and he was planning to seize it and stop the slaughter before it started. But his plan to save hundreds of thousands of lives was short-circuited by Kofi Annan, who didn’t want to upset the sitting Hutu government or in any way appear to be taking sides.

Not only did Kofi not do anything to prevent genocide, but his actions almost assured that the Security Council wouldn’t either. According to various accounts cited by Gold, including the UN’s own post-debacle report, Security Council members complained that Kofi’s department kept them in the dark, not revealing the true nature and full extent of the genocide.

Kofi’s caution could not be chalked up to doubts about the accuracy of the warning. The UN secretary general’s personal representative investigated the matter. Despite his well-documented pro-Hutu leanings, he wrote back to the UN that he had “total, repeat total confidence in the veracity and true ambitions of the informant.”

In other words, not only did Kofi and the UN have a Hutu informant who gave them advance notice of the genocide, but they were able to verify the veracity of that informant. Still Kofi insisted on doing nothing."