by Corinne Dufka
Reuters
May 8, 1998
Survivors of Rwanda's genocide said Thursday that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan bore a heavy responsibility for the 1994 massacres of an estimated 800,000 people. In an open letter to Annan, the genocide survivors group Ibuka said the U.N. decision to pull out its forces at the advent of three months of killings had disastrous consequences.
Annan, who was due in Rwanda later Thursday as part of an eight-nation African tour, was head of U.N. peace-keeping operations in 1994. ``In taking that unfortunate decision to pull out its blue helmets the U.N. condemned almost 1.5 million people to certain death,'' said the letter signed by Ibuka president Jean Bosco Rutagengwa and dated Wednesday. ``This act is considered without doubt an offense of non-assistance to a people in danger and yourself and the organization you head up bear a heavy responsibility.''
The letter said Annan's office knew in advance a genocide was being planned but did little to prevent it. It was referring to reports that Annan's office effectively dismissed a warning from the commander of peacekeeping troops in Rwanda on January 11, 1994, three months before the killings of minority Tutsis and many Hutu moderates started. Annan said in the Kenyan capital Nairobi Monday the lack of strong will was the key ingredient for the failures of U.N. peacekeeping in Rwanda. Ibuka, a politically powerful group in Rwanda, suggested a series of ways in which the United Nations could help the country to recover from the genocide.
These included catching genocide suspects living abroad and returning them to Rwanda for trial, setting up an international fund for genocide survivors and instituting a national day in memory of genocide victims. Individual genocide survivors said Annan's visit would be difficult, given what happened. ``They (the U.N. peace-keepers) totally let us down,'' said one survivor, 32, who declined to be named. ``Those who stayed here stayed here without doing anything. The United Nations did not make Rwanda a priority. It wasn't very important to them,'' said the survivor, who lost his parents and four siblings in the genocide. ``I was hiding in a church with my three children. I remember hearing that the United Nations was leaving. We felt so disappointed.'' Another survivor, who works as a telephone technician and also declined to be identified, said he was saved only by hiding at the Mille Cillines hotel in Kigali. ``I was on my way to the Mille Collines on the 13th April and I saw U.N. trucks passing by people as they were being killed on the street,'' said the technician, who lost between 30 and 40 members of his extended family. ``I knew then they were not going to do anything to help us. One can't just blame (military peacekeeping chief Gen. Romeo) Dallaire and Kofi Annan. All of the nations are involved,'' he said. ``I don't think they (the United Nations) understood what these people were capable of doing...It just happened too fast.''
