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by Michel Leclercq
UNITED NATIONS, July 7 (AFP) - Rwanda should receive financial reparations from the international community for the community's failure to prevent the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in 1994, an Organization of African Unity (OAU) panel said Friday. The OAU committee accused the United States, France, Belgium and the UN Security Council of failing to take steps to stop the genocide when they had the means to do so. Security Council "members could have prevented the genocide taking place. They failed to do so," said the committee in a 318-page report released here. Titled "The Preventable Genocide," it was drawn up by a seven-member panel headed by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire. The group was formed by the OAU in 1998 to investigate the causes of the genocide in Rwanda. "In the name of both justice and accountability, reparations are owed to Rwanda by actors in the international community for their roles before, during and since the genocide," the report said. Hutu extremists killed between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsis and opposition Hutus between April and July 1994, the committee said. The report singled out the United States and France, whose influence in the UN Security Council and in Rwanda made them all the more responsible for the international community's inaction in Rwanda, it said. "Once the genocide began, the US repeatedly and deliberately undermined all attempts to strengthen the UN military presence in Rwanda," the report said. French officials had unparalleled influence over the Hutus in power, according to the report. "They were in a position to insist that attacks on the Tutsi must cease, and they chose never to exert that influence," the document said. The panel's report was welcomed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as "another important contribution towards efforts to shed more light on the tragedy" in Rwanda. Annan hoped the report would contribute to "the international community's ongoing efforts as it continues to grapple with the complex challenges of preventing genocide," said a spokesman for Annan, Manoel de Almeida e Silva. At a press conference, one panel member, former Canadian ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis, said the US role was a "shame" and reflected badly on US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, US ambassador to the United Nations at the time. "The role of the US at the Security Council ... is an almost incomprehensible scar of shame on American foreign policy," he said. "I want to say, as a personal observation, I don't know how Madeleine Albright lives with it." He was scathing about the French, too, saying Paris "knew exactly what was happening." "There is almost no redemptive feature to the conduct of the government of France," he said. The report pointed out that at the time of the genocide, the United Nations had 2,500 troops in the area but two weeks after the massacre began, the Security Council decided to reduce that force to 270. Belgium was the chief instigator of that "shameful retreat", after 10 of its soldiers in the UN contingent were killed, the report said. The commission also faults the Roman Catholic Church for abdicating its responsibility during the crisis. The panel asked Annan to set up a committee to determine how financial reparations should be made and by which countries. In December, an independent UN committee led by former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson strongly criticized the United Nations and the world's powers for letting Rwanda down. |
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