Posted on 01/27/2004 4:58:33 AM PST by fdsa2
STOCKHOLM, Jan 26: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday that the slaughters in Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s could have been prevented if the world had taken action as he opened the first international genocide conference in over 50 years.
"There can be no more important issue, and no more binding obligation, than the prevention of genocide," Mr Annan told ten heads of state and officials from dozens of nations gathered for the three-day conference hosted by Sweden.
The UN chief singled out as "especially shameful" the failure by the international community to take action in the former Yugoslavia during the wars of secession in the early 1990s and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
"The events of the 1990s, in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, are especially shameful. The international community clearly had the capacity to prevent these events. But it lacked the will," Mr Annan said.
He said those memories were "especially painful" for the United Nations. "In Rwanda in 1994, and at Srebrenica in 1995, we had peacekeeping troops on the ground at the very place and time where genocidal acts were being committed," he said. "Instead of reinforcing our troops, we withdrew them."
More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed when Serb forces captured the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995 and the massacre is known as Europe's worst atrocity since World War II.
Mr Annan himself has been criticised for the failure of the United Nations to respond to warnings that Rwanda was descending into bloodshed that claimed the lives of up to one million Tutsis and Hutu moderate. Annan was head of UN peacekeeping operations during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Among the delegates at the "Preventing Genocide" conference were heads of state or government from Armenia and Latvia. Israel is taking part in the conference, although it sent a low-level representation after coming close to boycotting the conference during a diplomatic row with Sweden over an art exhibit a week ago.
Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, the only western European leader attending the conference, said that nations had no choice but to work together to "prevent future mass murders".
During mass killings in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, "the world stood paralysed", Mr Persson said. "And we can offer no guarantees, it can happen again," Mr Persson said. He added that lack of information was not the main problem, as eyewitness accounts of atrocities spread around the world quickly, thanks to modern technology.
"We do not lack the information, but we have to improve our ability to believe it, to believe the unbelievable," Persson said. The conference is the first major inter-governmental conference focussing on genocide since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948, conference spokesman Stig Berglind told AFP ahead of the meeting.
Some governments sent justice ministers, whose portfolio include international law, and others have dispatched specialised academics and researchers.
The European Union is represented by foreign policy chief Javier Solana.Security was tight in the centre of Stockholm as police cordoned off streets around the Norra Latin conference centre and put up barriers and tape to prevent cars from parking nearby.
Organizers stressed that the talks are to focus on the future, and will be based on "the principle of the international community's joint responsibility for preventing genocide". But Mr Persson also said that any credible preventive strategy must include provisions for the worst case, when atrocities do occur. "Potential perpetrators of genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing must know that their crimes will not go unpunished," he said. The conference closes Wednesday, and organisers said they hoped for a final declaration and follow-up conferences. -AFP
Not to defend the UN, but Clinton and the Cleaning Lady basically told the UN not to do anything. It was an election year don'cha know? Besides all Clinton had to do was go over and stop in Rwanda for all of 45 minutes, apologize, and all would be well.
And don't forget that pig Mitterand.
Why is it evil?
In some instances in Rwanda the UN troops were actually handing the victims over to the killers!
The UN is worthless and forces they field couldn't beat their way out of a wet paper bag. The UN spends to much of its time worrying about how they'll next run interference for some tin pot dictator against the US. Their organization is like having a mass of third graders run a school
Exactly. And Annon was complicit in the Rwanda genocide, he forbad the peacekeepers from destroying the Hutu govt armories when the genocide was building.
IMHO the U.N. should give up its pretensions of global governance, and focus on direct aid. The U.N. has proven both by its actions and in-actions that it is unworthy of any real power. It is an evil body because, knowing the world situation, it still seeks to enrich itself through the acquisition of power, rather than seeking to benefit mankind. Let them refocus completely on providing food, water, medicine, and education and the U.N will be on the path to becoming a fundamentally good agency.
The United Nations cannot exist without the United States. It is too heavily reliant on its money, its military and its knowledge. However the United Nations has become intensely hostile towards the United States and its interests, in spite of itself.
For example, the true basis for the Iraq war is to protect the strength of United Nations resolutions, but oddly enough the United Nations is against it - simply because the United States is trying to protect itself from further terrorist attacks.
Other actions that are hostile to the United States include Kyoto, World Court, promotion of abortion, exclusion from certain committees, attempts at "one-world" governance that cut into our sovereignty, etc.
I view the UN as a hostile, unappreciative recipient of welfare. It must therefore be disbanded.
I saw a show a while back about how budgeting decisions are made, and it's frightening. They take some socialist from some obscure country and give him control over millions of dollars with no oversight.
We do need to stay in the UN though, but only because we have veto power.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.