WORLD MUST CONSIDER HOW TO RESPOND BETTER SHOULD GENOCIDE LOOM AGAIN, PANEL DISCUSSION TOLD ON TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF RWANDA TRAGEDY

Panel Discussion on                                        

 Rwanda Genocide                                           

World must consider how to respond better should genocide loom again,

panel discussion told on tenth anniversary of Rwanda tragedy

As the world looked back and acknowledged the collective failure to prevent the massacre of at least 800,000 defenceless victims, it must also look ahead, and consider how to respond better should genocide loom again, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette said this afternoon as she opened a panel discussion on the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide.

Noting that the Secretary-General had announced a United Nations system-wide Action Plan to Prevent Genocide while addressing the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva today, she said that over the last 10 years, progress in improving response included more robust and timely peacekeeping, improved early-warning and human rights mechanisms, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

She said one welcome conceptual leap had been taken in the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which had re-framed the debate away from the notion of a “right to intervene”, towards one of “responsibility to protect”.  Sovereignty entailed responsibility, as well as power -– responsibility to protect the people within one’s territory.  Of course, sovereignty was not the only barrier to the protection of human life; simple indifference, narrowly defined national interest and lack of political will too often combined to ensure that too little was done and too late.

Also addressing the notion of responsibility to protect, Lloyd Axworthy, a former Foreign Minister of Canada, stressed that the concept would never be realized without the necessary political will.  It was no longer possible to play according to the old rules.  Skilful coalition-building would be required to build partnerships between States, non-governmental organizations and other international actors in order to begin moving towards endorsing the kinds of resources needed to protect the world’s vulnerable, innocent people wherever they were being hurt.

Mohamed Sahnoun, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Horn of Africa and co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, said Security Council members must urgently agree on guidelines to govern situations where humanitarian intervention might be warranted, including a code of conduct on the use of the veto, so that a permanent member could not obstruct the passage of a majority decision.  Following the Rwanda genocide, the task was not to find alternatives to the Security Council, but to improve its capacity to act.

Henry Kwami Anyidoho, former Deputy Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), said it was well known that the United Nations was not the repository of world power, which still resided with individual Member States.  It was they that had failed humanity in Rwanda.  Many other factors had contributed to the tragedy, including a lack of in-depth study of the situation, leading to incorrect planning; an ambiguous mandate; poor logistics support owing to lack of financial support for the Mission; and, worst of all, lack of political will on the part of world leaders.

Samantha Power, a university lecturer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, said the United States had demanded the withdrawal of the peacekeepers in Rwanda because it had not been willing to make the sacrifices required and to endure the domestic political risks to prevent genocide.  State leaders must recognize that the traditional deference to narrow definitions of national interest must give way to seeing the long-term costs of allowing genocide.

Following their respective statements, the panellists responded to questions and comments from the floor.

Statements

LOUISE FRÉCHETTE, Deputy Secretary-General, welcomed those gathered to the panel discussion, saying, “Today is a solemn day on which we look back, remember the victims, and acknowledge our collective failure to prevent or stop the massacre of at least 800,000 defenceless men, women and children.”  But it must also be a day, she said, to look ahead, and think about how to prepare to respond better should genocide loom again.  As the Secretary-General said today in Geneva, that prospect remained frighteningly real.

“Wherever there is war, wherever there is intolerance, wherever there is impunity for unspeakable crimes, we must be on the lookout for the warning signs of approaching genocide”, she said.  That was why, in addressing the Commission on Human Rights, the Secretary-General announced a United Nations system-wide Action Plan to Prevent Genocide.

Progress in the last 10 years, she said, included more robust and timely peacekeeping, improved early warning and human rights mechanisms, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court.  Those and other steps gave some hope that there was now a stronger commitment by the international community to prevent and resist.  One welcome conceptual leap was taken with the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which reframed the debate away from the notion of a “right to intervene”, towards that of “responsibility to protect”.  Sovereignty entailed responsibility, as well as power -– responsibility to protect the people within one’s territory.  “The challenge for all of us, as an international community, is to determine what to do if that responsibility is left unfulfilled.” 

Of course, she continued, sovereignty was not the only barrier to the protection of human life.  Simple indifference, narrowly defined national interest and lack of political will too often combined to ensure that nothing was done, or too little and too late.  “We still have a long way to go.”

HENRY KWAMI ANYIDOHO, former Deputy Force Commander, United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), said the question of how the international community had failed to prevent the genocide had been asked repeatedly.  It was well known that the United Nations was not the repository of world power, which still resided with individual Member States.  It was those Powers that had failed humanity in Rwanda.

Highlighting some of the lessons learned from the genocide, he said many factors had contributed to the tragedy.  Among them were a lack of in-depth study of the situation, leading to incorrect planning; an ambiguous mandate; poor logistics support owing to lack of financial support for the Mission; and, worst of all, lack of political will on the part of world leaders.

Describing the start of the killings and the attitude of the international community, he said army troops and Interahamwe militia members had taken to the streets and started killing immediately following the crash of President Habyarimana’s plane.  The Governments of Belgium, France and Italy had then begun evacuating their own nationals while doing nothing to assist the Rwandans in their most critical hour of need.  The Security Council, failing to heed reports from those on the ground, had decided to cut the Mission by half instead of increasing its strength as requested.

Outlining the role of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), he said the African body had established an observer mission in Rwanda even before UNAMIR’s arrival.  It had called for reinforcements, but they had been slow in arriving because African countries lacked the means to act more rapidly.  It was important that Africa take responsibility for its own problems, even while awaiting help from outside.  The roles of African States in Burundi and Liberia were those of the United Kingdom in Sierra Leone and France in Côte d’Ivoire.

Turning to the smuggling of weapons through States neighbouring conflict zones, he stressed the need for stronger measures against States that produced those weapons and exported them to conflict zones.  After all, there were not too many arms-producing African countries.  He called for peacekeeping missions to be provided with clearly defined, unambiguous and practical mandates.  Strong logistics support was crucial as was the establishment of regional standby forces, which was the way to deploy troops rapidly.  Unless the international community remained committed to the non-recurrence of genocide, the world could witness it again.

LLOYD AXWORTHY, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada, said human security was about shifting the focus of risk and threat from States to individual people.  That shift should aim at building upon national security, not replacing it.  It was important that the General Assembly discuss the principle of humanitarian intervention.  In protecting people from predators, violators and abusers, the crucial element of the responsibility to protect was to see it from the viewpoint of the victim rather than that of the intervening party.

He stressed that concepts like the responsibility to protect and the establishment of standby forces would never happen without the political will, he said.  That political will must be exerted by partnerships between States, non-governmental organizations and other international actors.  It was no longer possible to play according to the old rules, and skilful coalition-building would be required to begin moving towards endorsing the kind of resources needed to protect the world’s vulnerable, innocent people wherever they were being hurt.

MOHAMED SAHNOUN, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Horn of Africa and Co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, said that the terrible tragedy of Rwanda made everyone awaken to the fact that the international community was not yet resolved to averting and halting large-scale massacres of innocent people.  Rwanda was the real tragic symbol of that lack of resolve.  “Why did we not react more swiftly, more decisively, to this tragedy?  How did we allow, at the end of the twentieth century, for another genocide to take place?  How did, two weeks after the tragedy began, the Security Council vote to reduce the troop strength of UNAMIR from 2,500 to 270?”

The need to reflect on the reasons and the implications of that lack of political will was at the centre of the debate during the Millennium Summit, he said.  As a follow-up to that debate came the remarkable and laudable initiative of the Canadian Government to establish and support the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.  The question posed to the Commission was how to legitimize the intervention of the international community, and improve its capacity to protect people under serious threat of genocide or ethnic cleansing or both, when their own State was unable or unwilling to assume that responsibility, or was itself the perpetrator.

To speak of legitimacy, he said, implied a full and serious consideration of the principle of sovereignty, and the relevant provisions of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter on non-intervention in matters which were essentially within domestic jurisdiction of a State.

The Commission found a clear consensus that in those circumstances when States were unable or unwilling to assume their responsibility to protect their own citizens, the international community was called on to fulfil what would obviously be at least a moral duty and, in the views of most legal experts consulted, an obligation under several international agreements.  He said it was an emerging principle which had been coined as “the responsibility to protect”.

The report of the Commission, he said, went on to strongly underline that that responsibility to protect would be even more justified if it were based on a credible process of prevention.

In extreme and exceptional cases, he noted, the responsibility to react might involve the need to resort to military action, he continued.  The challenge was to define, with as much adequacy as possible, what those exceptional circumstances were, so as to reach some consensus for military intervention for human protection purposes.

The Commission had looked extensively at various studies and past experiences on that sensitive and crucial step and had come up with a number of criteria, which might provide for an objective and responsible decision-making process, he said.  The criteria would include just cause, which implied the need for evidence; the right intention; proportionate means and reasonable prospect.  Military action was justified if it stood some chance of success and was undertaken with some degree of local support.

On the Security Council, he said the task was not to find alternatives to the Council.  How to improve the capacity of the Council to act was the crucial question following the tragedy of Rwanda.  There was an urgent necessity for Council members to reach agreement on a set of guidelines to govern consideration of situations where humanitarian intervention might be warranted, including a code of conduct on the use of the veto, so that a permanent member would not use its power to obstruct the passage of what would otherwise be a majority decision.

SAMANTHA POWER, Lecturer in Public Policy at HarvardUniversity’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Problem from Hell:  America and the Age of Genocide”, said that she had spent a decade trying to understand the “mechanics of bystanding”.  How could a decision be taken to withdraw peacekeepers and how could there be no one to question that decision?  “The moral story told in this building was that by pulling out the peacekeepers, we were saving peacekeeping.”  Another failure could not be afforded, so it was better to kill UNAMIR in order to save peacekeeping, more generally.  In the wake of that failure, there were no resignations; no one was fired.

She stressed that it was an all-system failure and offered some recommendations for States, international institutions and non-governmental organizations.  Regarding States, she said that the reason the United States had demanded the withdrawal of the peacekeepers in Rwanda was because it was not willing to put the resources on the line, make the sacrifices required and endure the domestic political risks to prevent genocide.  The system in America, responsive to top-down political leadership, worked.  There was no leadership and there was no pressure.  There must be recognition by State leaders that the traditional deference to narrow definitions of national interest must give way to seeing the long-term costs of allowing genocide.

Her recommendation to States was to not get bogged down on semantics.  Also, the response did not have to be “all or nothing”.  Available to States was a tool box of responses ranging from military intervention to radio-jamming technology, among other things. The United States did not use that particular technology because of freedom of speech concerns; the fact that it cost $8,500 an hour to use it; and because it was afraid that if it “dipped its toe in, the whole body would get submerged”.  The death of 800,000 Rwandans did not even warrant President Clinton calling a Cabinet meeting in Washington.

She noted that the plight of the Rwandans alone was not enough for the deployment of intelligence resources.  She recommended field trips to see first-hand the situation on the ground.  She also noted that there was suspicion in the developing world about humanitarian intervention.  A change of language had not convinced people in the developing world that such intervention was about human rights and protection.

Turning to international institutions, she noted that in the 1990s, the United Nations Secretariat had internalized the constraints placed on it by Member States.  The lesson of the 1990s was to externalize, to take the facts received and leak them or bring them to the Security Council.  Regarding the announcement by the Secretary-General to appoint a Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide, she warned against believing the problem was one of information or a lack of warning.  The problem was politics, not warning.  In addition, while non-governmental organizations had become sophisticated in reporting, there was still a mobilization gap.  Those on the outside had to generate noise so States felt that there was a political price to pay for inaction.

Discussion

When the discussion was opened to the floor, many participants raised questions as to what could be done to turn into reality the many expressions of regret and the numerous pledges that genocide would never be tolerated again.  How could the Secretary-General’s appointment of a Special Adviser on genocide and the countless reports generated by the genocide be translated into concrete action?

It was sad that 10 years after the Rwanda genocide it was still a mystery as to how to make the Security Council react to genocide, another participant said.  How could the United Nations be made to start respecting and listening to civil society and to truly embrace human security?

Another participant noted that the United Nations had evolved from a democratic institution at the service of all MemberStates into an Organization that served the will of just five countries, and increasingly one that bent to the will of a single nation.

Agreeing with the idea that new rules and instruments were needed, another participant asked how the United Nations could work with Member States to address the horrible situation in Darfur, western Sudan, particularly in achieving humanitarian access and a humanitarian ceasefire.

Panellists’ Responses

Mr. AXWORTHY said the solutions were there, and all that was needed was that States be prepared to drive a new framework to address those issues.  While there were no perfect solutions, very significant steps had been made, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), which could act as a major instrument of deterrence.  However, many countries were hanging back from joining it out of fear of offending one MemberState.  It was a matter of “putting one’s money where one’s mouth is”.

He pointed out that it was acceptable for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union each to have a rapid reaction force, but nobody seemed to want the same thing for the United Nations -- a notion that appeared to send some into near-cardiac arrest.  Many issues could illustrate the need for governments to apply the responsibility to protect –- as in the cases of the children of northern Uganda and Colombia, and the situation in Darfur -- on the basis of existing shared values, principles and frameworks.

Ms. POWER said the International Criminal Court had the opportunity to act on the Sudan.  The Security Council could refer the Darfur situation to the Court, as Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo had done in the case of human rights violations by rebel groups operating on their respective territories.

Mr. ANYIDOHO said he was not optimistic that genocide would not recur, emphasizing that such solutions to the problems of areas not considered of strategic interest to the major Powers would remain on the drawing table.

Mr. SAHNOUN underlined the need to examine the root causes of conflict, noting that 10 years after the collapse of Somalia, fighting continued there in a kind of slow genocide as the world watched.

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