Rwanda

As the discussions surrounding a UN force for Lebanon take place, the notorious failings of another UN mission is worth recalling. Kofi Annan does not come out well, and neither do the US, UK or France.

Film reveals grim Rwanda images that haunt general
Telegraph
11/08/2006

If Gen Romeo Dallaire finds clothing dropped in the street, he fights the urge to check whether the rags conceal a corpse. His searing experience as the commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, which failed to halt the genocide in 1994 when 800,000 people were slaughtered, has left him tormented.

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Gen Dallaire, 60, suffered a breakdown at the end of his service in Rwanda, tormented by the "red, fearful, bewildered eyes" of the victims of massacres he witnessed day after day. He has made several suicide attempts, injuring himself with razor blades, and was discharged from the Canadian army six years ago on medical grounds.

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Gen Dallaire's UN superiors repeatedly ignored warnings of disaster. Three months before Rwanda's Hutu extremist regime started the genocide of the minority Tutsi tribe - and the murder of any Hutus who opposed the killing - an informant told him exactly what was going to happen. He disclosed the locations of four arms caches in Kigali, each stacked with weapons for use in the genocide. Gen Dallaire proposed to seize the caches but Kofi Annan, who was then the head of UN peacekeeping, vetoed the operation.

When the massacres began, Gen Dallaire was ordered not to use force to protect civilians. His soldiers were to "fire only if fired upon".

Only 2,500 troops were under his command. Of these, 1,100 were undisciplined Bangladeshis who often shirked patrols by sabotaging their own vehicles. Another 450 were Belgians but they withdrew when 10 of their number were murdered on the first day of the killing. Gen Dallaire told his superiors that a well-trained force of 4,000 could halt the genocide. Instead, the Security Council reduced his contingent still further, leaving him with only 450 soldiers at the height of the massacres.

America offered 50 armoured cars but demanded £6 million payment in advance. Britain offered 50 obsolete lorries and also wanted to be paid first. France supplied a plane-load of weapons to the genocidal regime shortly before the killing began.